Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Cargo’s all loaded?” 

“Uh-huh. Sign here.”

“Alright.”

“Thanks. You all can ship out once your cargo transport manager gets in.” 

Grant Curly’s head snaps up from the clipboard in hand, eyebrows scrunching together. 

“What’s this, now?” He asks. The tired-looking cargo bay employee gives a halfhearted single-shoulder shrug. 

“Somethin’ about making sure the cargo gets where it’s goin’. I don’t know any more than that,”

The shorter, portly man gives another lazy shrug and snatches the clipboard from Curly’s loose fingers before shuffling off. Just what did this guy mean by cargo transport manager? Another last minute crew member? The ship was already overfilled, thanks to the addition of Daisuke, and there had been no extra resources allowed to the Tulpar to make up for it. No extra food, no extra emergency cryopods, nothing. 

At least they’d given him a warning when Daisuke was dropped on him, but now they were just forcing this person onto him without notice of any kind? 

Classic Pony Express.  

Curly presses a thumb against his forehead, just between his eyebrows, and closes his eyes with a heavy sigh. He’d figure this out, that was his responsibility. 

Heavy, thumping footsteps alerts Curly to his ever-constant companion joining him. 

“What’s he running off so fast for?” Jimmy asked, throwing an arm over Curly’s shoulders. 

“Avoiding having to answer about a hundred questions.” 

“Ah…So, we ready to-”

“Excuse me!” A new voice, light and airy and breathless. Curly finally opens his eyes, sucking in a breath and turning to greet the newest member to his crew…only for his lungs to force all that air right back out of his body. 

You’re shorter than him, but he wouldn’t call you small, with bright eyes and cheeks flushed. You were in the typical Pony Express uniform, the front open to show your white tank top, and were carrying what looked like a very heavy suitcase in front of you with both hands. Jimmy blows out a low whistle, eyes flicking up and down your body, curved in all the best places, as you scurry closer, the noise shaking Curly back to Earth. The captain clears his throat, standing straighter and gently nudging Jimmy’s arm from his shoulder, taking a few brisk steps towards you, hands already reaching for your case.

“Sorry I’m late, they didn’t tell me which bay you were in,” You say, letting out a soft oh, thanks, when Curly takes your suitcase. 

“It’s alright. They didn’t tell me you were coming at all until just now,” He says, unable to help the sourness in his tone, but both it and his words seem to go completely ignored as you instead stick out one of your now-free hands, and introduce yourself.

“Captain Grant Curly,” He responds, letting his fingers curl around your hand in a quick, firm shake. “Can just call me Curly.”

You repeat his first name back to him instead, smiling brightly at him, and for some reason, the sound of it feels jolting and a bit unnatural…but nice, all the same. He chalks it up to you being the first one to use it so casually in such a long time. Not even Jimmy calls him by his proper name, and hasn’t for years. It’s just Curly. 

It’s always been just Curly.

-

The Tulpar was technically big enough to house more than six people, but they’d been running with just four for so long that the ship felt overly claustrophobic. Bodies moved past each other, shoulders brushing in the narrow halls, feet stumbling over other feet. 

You chose to sleep in the room farthest from everyone else’s, stating only that it was best if you were closest to the door to the living quarters. That way, you’d explained, you could get to the cargo hold faster and get your days done quicker. The job you’d been given sounded grueling, hopelessly boring, and like something that would drive any person insane. 

You didn’t just have to check the cargo every now and then to make sure things didn’t get scrambled, but you had to count every unit of cargo to make sure no one was finding ways to sneak in, and steal the goods. Thankfully, Pony Express had given you an aid in the form of a little drone that you’d lovingly named Eyes, but you’d admitted that the robot could make mistakes, and needed constant reconfiguring in order for it to work properly. 

Meaning every time it mis-counted something, you would have to hunt down exactly which shelf, and exactly which box, and recount it yourself. 

“Talk about fucking miserable,” Jimmy had said, snorting in sordid amusement. But you hadn’t said much in response, barely even giving him a second glance. 

You’d done that ever since greeting him for the first time. You’d been polite, but it was almost like a switch had been flipped when his hand met yours, Curly could swear you’d nearly jumped out of your skin at Jimmy kissing the back of your hand in a poor attempt to look like an elegant gentleman. He’d done it to Anya too, and most other women he’d come across during college and beyond. Your eyes had narrowed, and your whole body had gone horribly stiff, discomfort covering your expression instantly. And since then, you’ve kept your distance, as if you could sense something in the air that no one else could. Though, then again, Anya was pretty nervous around Jimmy a lot, so maybe there really was something worth noting there. 

Curly would think about it later. Besides, Jimmy wasn’t the type to hurt anyone, not in his experience anyway.

Chapter Text

Everything on the ship echoes, that’s the first thing you learn. Voices, footsteps, sometimes even thoughts. You can hear everything, and you think it’s a miracle anyone can sleep with all the constant noise. Thankfully for you, sleep has been difficult to reach for years, even in the most peaceful of nights.

So instead of sleeping, you work. 

Eyes buzzes through the cargo hold, the distant sound reverberating through your ears despite how far away it actually was from you. You estimate it’s somewhere in the back left corner if the numbers it was sending to the electronic pad you held were any indication. 

The drone’s only job was to scan the boxes of cargo, count what was inside, and upload those numbers to the Cargo Information Pad, which you monitored religiously for mistakes and inaccuracies…of which there could be quite a few. You couldn’t count on both hands how many times you’d had to personally recount cargo due to Eyes’ mistakes in the past.

That was Pony Express for you, always cutting corners. It was wild to you that they were going to stop manned cargo hauls in the next year or so. Other companies had already made the leap, but you were positive they had put way more money into their respective programs than Pony Express had left in the bank. 

The company had been slowly failing for years now, due to its constant negligence, and who could ever argue otherwise? The whole reason you had a job was because Pony Express was constantly losing cargo, especially on hauls like this one. They lost everything 30% of the time on an average haul, but 40-50% and more on hauls over five months long, and that lost cargo meant lost reputation and money, which P.E could no longer afford, hence your position as professional cargo babysitter so that they can save face, and rake in the profits.

A bright red error message flashes across the handheld screen, and you groan, trudging towards the metal stairs that led to the rest of the cargo warehouse. 

-

“Tough day?” Curly’s voice is dripping with a mixture of pity and entertainment, no doubt staring at you as you slump over the small dining table, forehead pressed to the faux wood, both arms lying over the top. 

He has an accent, or at least, the touch of one. Like he’d sounded British when he was young, but it had faded over years of living in the United States. 

“My brain hurts,” You grumble. “I don’t think I could even count to ten right now.”

Curly blows out some air, his approaching footsteps ringing through the room. His hand, warm and large, rests on you, fingers spread over your upper back. It’s not there for long, he lets it sit there for barely two seconds before lifting it and giving a few gentle pats. 

“There must be a lot going on in there. I feel bad every time I get a glimpse when I let you through the doors,” He says, pulling a chair away from the table so that he can sit next to you. You slowly pull yourself back, sitting up in the chair and turning your head to look at him with tired eyes.

“It would be great if Pony Express would just shell out the cash for properly working equipment,” You say. Curly nods in solemn agreement, not even trying to argue with your statement. Your job wasn’t hard by any means, but it was tedious and exhausting, the type of thing you’d never wish upon even your worst of enemies.

“I get it. I wish they’d do a lot of things different, but I’m just a captain, my words don’t count for much,” He says. 

“They should count for a lot more, you’re the one who has to directly deal with everything going wrong,” You sigh. Curly makes a noise deep in his throat, a low hum of what could only be agreement vibrating through him. The two of you drift into silence, or the closest thing to silence you could get with the constant hum and rumble of the ship and the sound of someone’s music playlist singing over the ship-wide speakers.

He was nice, the captain. Tall and handsome with long, curled blonde hair and the kind of blue eyes that stare so deep into you it made you wonder if he saw your soul. You realize you’re staring, but Curly doesn’t seem to really mind it. He keeps his gaze away from yours, eyes flitting between the table and the room at large. He had a nice jawline, strong and sharp, and a perfectly straight nose, all with a perfect dusting of stubble. It was clear he maintained it, but didn’t ever fully shave, comfortable in how his face looked. 

Grant Curly was definitely easy on the eyes, but you were sure he wasn’t nearly as perfect as he looked, and you had no doubts that you’d be seeing some of those flaws before the end of the haul.

“Hungry?” His voice startles you a little, but you’re quick to try to disguise your jump as you trying to readjust in your seat. 

“Starved. What’s on the menu, captain?”

Chapter Text

You’re a month in when Anya hurts herself on the vent in the medbay. Her panicked and pained scream had echoed even into the cargo bay, and you and the rest of the crew were tripping over each other to get to her. Even Jimmy seemed genuinely concerned. 

Curly was the first one in the room, with you right behind him, then the others. The resident nurse was crumpled in a chair, blood pouring from her leg and staining the floor where she’d managed to drag herself away from the area of incident. 

“I’m ok-kay,” She said with shuddering breaths. “I just stepped wrong.” 

“Hold still, let me look,” Curly kneels in front of her, his touch gentle as he rolls her pant leg up to take a closer look. Daisuke makes a gagging noise, and is the first to be booted from the room to wait in the lounge. Swansea bee-lines to the vent to take a look at what could have happened, and you and Jimmy linger in the entryway.

“You’re gonna need stitched,” Curly says. “Shit, this is real deep, Anya.”

“I can do that,” You lurch forward. “I took the nursing courses Pony Express offers.”

Curly gives you an appreciative look, his smile warming his strained expression. 

“Th-the kit for that is ov-over there,” Anya points a shaky finger, and you’re quick to follow. 

She’s usually much more well spoken. Deeply kind and empathetic, not to mention smart. Smarter than anyone else seemed to really think she was. But a gash that size would shake anybody to their core, you could practically see bone.

You stumble over Jimmy, still hovering, unsure of what he’s supposed to be doing here. His presence irks you, alarm bells ringing in your head every time he comes near you. You’ve met me like him before, over confident, over assured, and typically more dangerous than they look. You didn’t trust him, but right now you needed more hands than you have.

“Jim, I need water, disinfectant, and some kind of clean cloth. A rag or a towel, it doesn’t matter. Can you do that for me?” You ask. His eyes fall on you, always looking for too long, then he gives a short nod and vanishes out the door. 

“I have some of that stuff in-”

“I know.” 

Curly and Anya both look at you, their expressions similar yet different. Curly is confused, thick eyebrows furrowed, a frown pulling his lips downward. Disapproving, perhaps. Anya, on the other hand, is confused, but it quickly melts into gratitude, as she seems to pick up exactly what you’re putting down almost immediately. 

“Idle hands in a time like this isn’t good, so I gave him a job,” It’s an easy enough excuse to come up with, and though you’re not totally sure he buys it, Curly doesn’t argue. 

Anya sways a little in her seat, eyes losing focus.

“Shit, okay, she’s lost quite a bit of blood, and if we don’t get this closed soon, she’ll keep losing it. Grant, put some pressure on it, use a sheet or something, anything, while I get everything she needs,” You say. You don’t notice how Curly jumps a little at the use of his first name, ears turning red along with his surprise. He recovers from it quickly, letting himself follow someone else’s orders for once. 

Jimmy reappears along with Daisuke, who seems to have finally pulled himself together and chose to help the other man in his fetch quest. You make sure to thank them both before waving them off, stating that the only thing left to do was stitch and bandage. Curly carries her to one of the cots, the one farthest from the offending vent where Swansea was still working, and you shoo him away from her as well, needing space to clean the wound and get her fixed.

Ten stitches and some oxycodone later, Anya is left to doze in peace.

-

“The vent is busted as shit, she shouldn’t have gone anywhere near it,” Swansea grumbles.

“I mean, it’s not like she knew what was gonna happen,” Daisuke says, earning him a glare.

“Regardless, we need to get that handled before anything else happens,” Curly is quick to intervene, the weight of having failed in his responsibility to take care of his crew cementing him to the floor.

“I’ll block it off. That vent leads to Utility, so I’ll see what I can do from the other side, so we stay out of her way for a while.”

“Alright, good,” Curly heaves a sigh. “No one else get hurt for a while, we’re out a nurse.”

“We got the cargo girl,” Jimmy says, leaning back in his chair. “She could do it.”

“She has another job to do, I can’t put more on her plate.” 

Jimmy gives a short tsk, and rolls his eyes. 

“Not like she’s actually doing much down there, the drone thing does most of it,” He says. 

“You do realize I’m literally right here,” You call from behind the counter, where you’d been scrubbing Anya’s blood off your hands.

“Look, it’s my responsibility to make sure everything runs smoothly on this ship,” Curly says, redirecting the conversation. “Anya is down for the count for at least a couple days, until she feels like she can safely stand and walk on her own. Until then, we don’t have a nurse, end of.” 

“What do we do if someone gets hurt?” Daisuke asks. “I mean, I’m sure we’ll all be totally fine, but…”

“I don’t mind helping, if it’s needed,” You say. “But the captain is right, I have to constantly monitor everything happening downstairs, so I can’t spend all day every day in medical. Not unless Eyes suddenly becomes super proficient at the job it was programmed to do, which it currently very much isn’t.”

“Alright, thank you,” Curly says, giving you an appreciative little nod. 

The discussion ends there, with Swansea trudging down to Utility, Daisuke on his heels, and Jimmy slumping back in his chair, pouting. Curly manages to peel the soles of his feet off the ground to walk to the table and join his friend and co-pilot, patting him on the shoulder in an attempt to reassure him, soothing his apparently hurt ego. 

Not that it’s hard to bruise an ego that big, you muse to yourself as you wave at them before deciding to head to the living quarters for a shower and some clean clothes. 

You didn’t hate Jimmy…you think. You just didn’t trust him, he reminded you too much of someone else. 

His constant hovering over Anya when they’re in a room together, how he stares at you for slightly too long, eyes glinting with a kind of interest you knew a little too well…he made you uncomfortable. You also didn’t like how he spoke to people, making everything everyone else’s problem, and taking no responsibility for anything. And what’s worse, you hated how Curly just ignored it all.  

You seriously wonder if he just didn’t see it, if he’d been so badly poisoned by Jimmy throughout the years that he was truly that blind to what was happening around him. You wondered if you pointed it out, if he’d even see what you saw. If he’d see the potential dangers, if he’d share in your concerns…or if he’d just shrug it off. Wave his hand and tell you that you were being oversensitive, that you were looking at things that just weren’t there. 

Friends protected friends, and Curly and Jimmy had been friends for a very long time.

-

“I hope she’s okay…” 

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

“She hasn’t come out of her room in, like, two days, though!”

“Anya’s just been pretty badly hurt, she needs rest. Don’t forget she’s a nurse, she knows what she’s doing.” 

“But…”

Daisuke looks down at his hands, fingers nervously fidgeting with each other. Curly was right, he had to be. Anya was just tired, and probably in too much pain to be wandering around. But the noises the other night…from her room…plus now she’s not accepting food…all of it makes the young man nervous.

“She’s just being lazy,” Jimmy scoffs, earning him a hard look from the captain. 

“She’s fine, Daisuke, don’t worry,” Curly offers him a smile and a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

He appreciated the kid’s concern, and that he brought it up, but Curly knew Anya. He’d worked with her before, she was more competent than she looked at first glance, if she needed help, he knew she’d ask.

Chapter Text

He wasn’t sure when it started, whether it was directly after Anya hurt herself, or some time later, but Curly started to notice that you’d started working outside of the cargo hold. You had the tablet that let you monitor your assistant drone with you at all times, and kept an eye on it, but you’d stopped coming to ask for him to let you into the massive, warehouse-esque area of the ship. It wasn’t long after that revelation hit him that he realized he knew exactly where you’d been spending your time. 

In the medbay. With Anya.

He’d find you in there, sitting on one of the small counters and chattering with her. You’d say hello when he walked in, promise you were doing your part, but otherwise wouldn’t leave. It was almost like you were hovering around Anya, like there was some secret only the two of you knew. He decided it was best to just chalk it up to the two of you being the only women on board, and that you’d made some kind of connection while you were helping Anya over the last few weeks with her recovery, as he doubted either of you were up to any kind of trouble. 

Today, though, you were in the lounge, lying stretched across the couch, legs curled and crossed as if you were sitting in a chair. You had to tilt your head backwards a bit to see him as he approached.

“Mind if I join you?” He asks. You hum once, then again, then you sigh. 

“I suppose,” You say. You make a point to make the biggest deal possible about getting up. You sigh again, grunting and groaning as you sit up, making sure to all but collapse onto the arm of the couch. The whole scene has him laughing, and the grin you try and fail to hide tells him that you’re just as amused by your own antics as he was. 

“Why, thank you,” He says, still chuckling a little as he sits on the opposite side of the couch from you. There’s just enough space for one more person to squeeze, if they’d really wanted to. 

“Taking a break?” You ask, leaning forward to let the handheld screen clatter onto the small table. 

“Yeah. Jimmy knows what he’s doing down there, so I left it to him for now,” He says. He notices how your lips turn downward at the mention of the co-pilot, but chooses not to mention it. “What about you? I’ve noticed you haven’t been dealing with the cargo recently.” 

“I realized, stupidly, that it was significantly easier to just have Eyes go over its own work when things get wonky. It’s not a perfect system, it slows everything way down, and wastes a shit ton of battery power, but so far it’s been doing okay.”

“Ah, so for now you’re just keeping an eye from up here?”

“Yeah, I figure if a consistent issue arises, then I’ll go down. It’s lonely in that big room all by myself.” 

“You’ve made pretty good friends with Anya, at least,” There it is. You’re frowning again. Clearly, he was missing something. “Right?”

“Yeah, yeah we’re friends.”

“You don’t sound super confident.”

“It’s…complicated.” 

“Tell me.”

You hesitate for a moment, considering if you should say anything. It wasn’t really your place to talk to him about it , especially if Anya was keeping her silence as well. 

“We…realized that we…had some similar experiences,” You say slowly. “Her…experience was more recent than mine though, so it’s surprisingly hard to relate. We can talk about other stuff though, did you know she loves trash TV?”

Curly frowns. You weren’t even trying to hide your attempt at switching topics, instead you dazzle him with a smile, and an innocent tilt of your head.

“I didn’t,” He says, deciding to play along for now.

“Mm. I’m talking full on Real Housewives, Kardashian type shit. Which, I mean, who can blame her? Trainwrecks are horrible, but terribly fascinating.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” He says. “Have you been spending time with anyone else?” 

“Mm. I poke my head into Utility here and there, but they’re so busy in there, I don’t want to bother them too much,” You say with a shrug. “And, I mean, you and Jimothy are so busy-”

“I’m sorry, what did you call him?” 

“Jim?”

“That’s not what you said.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” You say, a sneaky little grin creeping over your face.

He can’t help it, he starts laughing.

-

“Can…I sleep in here?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Anya breathes out a sigh of relief, scuttling further into the room and sliding the door shut. They had no locks, for reasons you couldn’t decipher, so it was no big surprise she wanted to stay close to you instead of sleeping alone. Especially considering that if she started sleeping in medical, someone would notice, and she just wasn’t ready for that yet.

Which was, in your opinion, completely understandable. Talking to you was way different than talking to Curly, though you think she’s starting to consider talking to Swansea about it. He was gruff, but he could be discreet, according to her. 

You let her curl up in your bed with you. It was small and seriously cramped, but she refused to let you sleep on the floor, insisting that it was bad for your health. So you squished, mildly uncomfortable, but safer than being alone. 

Neither of you speak. There isn’t much you think you can say that you haven’t already said to her, and she wasn’t asking to talk about it anymore. All she wanted was the comfort and safety of not being left by herself, that’s all she ever really wanted when she asked you to stay close, after you found out. After you caught him threatening her, cornered in her office with one hand bruising her wrist, the other lifted as if to touch her elsewhere, right as you’d wandered in to see how she was feeling. You’d startled him off, and she’d all but begged you not to leave.

It had taken some doing, getting her to admit what had happened, but you’d soothed her, assuring her that everything would be alright. You’d offered to tell Curly for her, but she’d shook her head, crying into your arms that she didn’t want that, she didn’t want any of them to know what had happened. All she wanted was to get this haul over with, and get home as quickly and safely as possible. 

“If he does it again, or even tries…” You’d said that day, “I’ll take care of it.”

Chapter Text

Jimmy picked up pretty quickly that you were guarding Anya from him. It wasn’t obvious, to those who weren’t looking, but he catches every cold look, every shifted movement, and he’s positive you’re up to something. You’re going to tell, to cry your little eyes out to Curly about shit you had no idea about. 

She came on to him, after all. Why should he be punished for taking what was offered? It wasn’t fair. He’d done nothing wrong. And yet, every time he catches you talking to Curly, anxiety hits him. 

It didn’t help that Jimmy wasn’t blind, even though you clearly were. He’d known Curly for years, he knew what it looked like when his friend was sweet on someone. It was all in the eyes, how he’d widen them just slightly, as if trying to take more of you in, trying to memorize your every expression. He also would lean in when you talked, hypnotized by your words even when you were spewing nothing but hot shit. If you told Curly what you knew, he’d listen, and that terrified Jimmy in a way he didn’t know he could be. 

Maybe he should just try to shut you up, too. Get ahead of everything, make it clear that you weren’t welcome, that you’d never be able to turn Curly against him, so you were better off not trying. 

“Good morning,” Anya’s voice filters into his ears as she and you come wandering into the lounge. He’d noticed that she hadn’t been sleeping in her room, after trying to check on her at night a few times over the past couple weeks. She was still hurt, it was only right that he, as co-pilot, keep an eye on her so that Curly didn’t feel the need to bother. 

“Hey, morning,” Curly smiles at her. He smiles at everyone. He’s just a nice fuckin’ guy, apaprently. The perfect captain, the best there is.

What horseshit. Curly was mediocre. He cared too much, took on way too much shit that was in no way part of his job. He’s a pilot, not a fucking saint. But everyone treats him that way, like a bunch of idiots. 

“Hey Grant, can you pop me into cargo?” Jimmy fucking hated that. Hated that you called Curly by his first name when you wanted to make sure you had his attention. It was just a fucking ploy, a shitty attempt to play innocent little lady. And Jimmy hated how Curly always sat straighter, eyes widening in that stupid way they do when he’s looking at you, stealing all the attention. 

“Of course. Everything alright?” Curly asks. Jimmy doesn’t hear what you say, the stupid ringing in his ears every time you open your mouth drowning you out. He sees Curly nod, though, and move to stand, abandoning his half-eaten breakfast in favor of getting closer to you.

You smile at him, sickly sweet and perfectly whorish, and of course, Curly fucking falls for it.

Chapter Text

“Hey Anya?”

“Yes?”

“...can we just say I’m good and move on?” 

“Well…technically…” 

Anya sighs, eyes flicking down to the form sitting on her desk, then back up to you, leaning back in the chair opposite her. It was a little awkward, having to be mentally evaluated by someone you’ve been looking after, well, mentally. But this was part of her job, she had to do it once a month, and it just happened to be your turn. 

“Do you feel you’ve been able to do your job to the best of your ability?” She asks, voice stiff and stilted. 

“Yes.” 

“Good, good…um…”

“I’m alright, Anya. Really, I am. I can do my job just fine, I’m not overly depressed or anxious, I don’t have any weird compulsions, I’m okay, ” You say, leaning forward a bit. “Honestly, we both know I’m the least of your concerns regarding all this.” 

“I know,” She says with another sigh. “I guess I’m just putting off doing anyone else’s right now.”

“I understand. Do you want me to hang out in here when you do his? ” You ask.

“No, legally I can’t let you do that. If he complained about it when we got back, we’d both get in serious trouble. I just wish I didn’t have to do it at all. I don’t want to be alone with him.” 

“I know.” She murmurs. Silence creeps between you, thick and uncomfortable. 

Her fears were warranted. Even though you were pretty sure he wasn’t nearly as ballsy as to attack her during ‘daytime’ hours again, that didn’t mean he couldn’t harass her in other ways. And though you’d like to be able to keep an eye on the situation, she was also right that you really weren’t allowed to, and you wouldn’t put it past him to make a big fuss about you lingering during what should be a confidential conversation, even if it was for Anya’s mental and physical safety. 

It’s why you wish she’d talk to Curly, or let you talk to Curly. He was the captain, he needed to know that she was in literal danger. Hell, even if she just told him that she was uncomfortable, that would be enough. Then, maybe, Curly would be able to do something. He can’t help her if he doesn’t know what’s going on. But Anya was tight lipped, wanting to believe that it was just a one time thing, that he’d gotten it out of his system that night, and that as long as she just kept out of sight, he’d leave her alone. 

You knew better. You knew what could happen if a wound like this was left to fester. After all, what if he’d… left something behind? It’s been almost six weeks, she’d be figuring that out pretty soon-

No, no, you couldn’t think like that. You couldn’t project something like that onto her. You had to have faith, and be prepared to be there for her if and when things take another downturn with him.

Anya clears her throat, sitting straighter in her chair, and putting on a professional expression. 

“Alright, let’s finish this. Do you have a family history of depression or anxiety?” She asks. 

“Nothing confirmed, though I’m pretty sure alcoholism runs in my family on both sides,” You say, smiling at her. She nods, scribbling on the form in front of her. 

“Do you feel stifled or lonely?” 

“A little, but we’re in a metal box with no windows flying through space. I think that’s normal.”

-

Swansea looks at you, you look at Swansea, and Daisuke fidgets nervously in the corner. In your hands, a dead Eyes.

You’d thought it was its battery, after all, you had it working far more than normal so that you could keep a closer eye on Anya and the crew. But it had stopped sending its counts of stock a day and a half ago, and no matter how long you let it charge, nothing happened. And of course you weren’t given any kind of spare power system for it. No fresh battery, no secondary drone. Just Eyes. And Eyes wasn’t waking up. 

So you wandered into Utility, where Swansea had been in the middle of showing Daisuke some things on what looked like an old circuit board, and asked for their help. 

“I’m not a robotic specialist,” Swansea says, frowning at you. 

“I know, but I don’t know what else to do here. Come on, will you please look at it, at the very least? I need it to do my job properly,” You give him your best puppy-eyed look, but it doesn’t phase him in the slightest, reminding you that at some point, Anya had mentioned him having kids.

“If I mess with that thing and make it worse, Pony Express will have both our asses. You’re just gonna have to leave it be,” He says, earning him a groan. 

“I could…look at it…” Daisuke says. “When I was in high school, I had to build a robot in science class, so maybe I could give it a shot?”

“A dinky little robot made with coke bottles and old wires isn’t the same as an industrial drone, kid,” Swansea says, and though his tone is harsh, his expression isn’t. But Daisuke shrinks a little anyway, looking down at his feet. 

“Look, okay, I get it, but this is actually serious. If he’s willing to try, you should let him. It’ll open you up to do other stuff much faster than if you were trying to do it while also teaching him,” You say. “Besides, Daisuke is actually pretty smart when he wants to be. It’ll be good experience.” 

Swansea groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Fine. But if he fucks it up, it’s not on me.”

“Deal.”

“Yes!”

Chapter Text

Since Eyes was out of commission, you had to check the cargo manually. All of which meant, that you had to walk through the ridiculously massive room, through the great big maze of boxes, and make sure everything was accounted for. You had to note any and all fallen boxes, check said spills for damaged product, and return them to the shelf. 

Now, sure, you’d have to do this anyway, even if you had Eyes, but with the drone all you needed to do was watch for errors in the count, then you’d know where exactly to go and what exactly to look for. This was just a long and boring game of trudging back and forth for hours, and getting very little out of it. 

The last haul you’d been on had been both much shorter, and had a much smaller payload. Back then, this wouldn’t have been nearly as tedious. But with things as they were right now, you were pretty sure you’d die of boredom before the thirteen months were up. 

Not to mention, now that you were basically tied to the cargo bay, you couldn’t help Anya easily if she needed it. You probably wouldn’t hear anything happening from deep into the cargo bay, no matter how loudly she screamed. You needed Eyes fixed, not just for the job, but for you. 

There’s a static noise at your hip. You glance down to find the old school walkie talkie Swansea had given you a few days ago, after you’d left Eyes in Daisuke’s care, lit up. 

“Uh-oh-hey! Can you hear me okay?” Daisuke’s voice is loud, but welcome. You unclip the old device and lift it to your face, holding down the button to respond.

“Loud and clear. What’s up?” You ask.

“So, I think I found your problem, and Swansea and I need you to get up here like, right now.”  

“That was fast.”

“You’ll…see why when you get here.”  

You frown. You didn’t like how that sounded, how Daisuke’s voice dropped to a much lower level, as if he’d been spotted doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. It sounded like trouble, and you weren’t sure you could handle much trouble with how fried you were. 

“I’m on my way.”

The trek back through the cargo bay and towards the doors, which were always locked so long as they were closed, takes about ten grueling minutes. Once in the hall, though, you don’t get any moment of reprieve, as Daisuke is already standing there, waiting to walk with you the few steps back to Utility. 

All he says is “Hi,” then scuttles off, pausing once to make sure you knew you were supposed to follow him. It’s cute, honestly. Daisuke’s a good guy, mostly sunshine, sometimes rainbows, but always bright. 

He leads you all the way into the Utility room, shutting the door behind both of you and locking it. Swansea sits at his desk, with Eyes, all taken apart, strewn all over the space. He looks up at you and waves you over quick. 

“You got two problems, and only one of them directly involves the robot,” Swansea says as you approach. “Take a look here.” 

You look at where he’s pointing, but you weren’t exactly a computer person, so you really had no idea what you were looking at, for at least a good minute. Then you spot it.

“It…looks like something is missing here,” You say, pointing at the odd gap in wires and robot insides.

“Looks like someone took it out,” Swansea says. 

“But…if a piece was missing, Eyes wouldn’t have been working this whole time, right?”

“Some parts you could probably get away with not having, but what’s missing here is a pretty major component. There’s no way someone got away with shipping this out without someone else noticing,” Swansea says. 

“So, what…someone stole a piece of Eyes’ insides?” You ask, eyebrows scrunching together as you slowly start to wrap your brain around what he was saying. “But that…no, even if I’m not in the room, I was always monitoring it, no one should have been able to…” 

It hits you like a train then, just when someone would have had the chance to sneak around and break your machine. You’d been wearing its battery down pretty bad, you had to leave it off to charge, and when you did that, you usually didn’t bother sticking around to wait, choosing instead to wander around and hang out with Anya or take a nap in your room. Anyone who had been keeping an eye on you would have picked up on that, anyone could have noticed. 

But there was only one person who knew the codes to get into the room, and you were positive he wouldn’t do something like this. He had enough on his plate as it was, what would be the purpose of essentially trapping you-

“Oh,” You wheeze. If you were trapped in cargo, you couldn’t be anywhere else. You couldn’t watch Jimmy, couldn’t make sure Anya wasn’t having any kind of breakdown, couldn’t hardly even talk to Curly. You weren’t just being caged, you were being isolated.  

And you had a sick feeling you knew just who gained the most from that.

“We…should tell the captain,” Your voice sounds far away. 

“There are only a few of us on board. Starting a witch hunt probably isn’t the best idea,” Swansea says. “Best to just replace the part, if we can, and move on.” 

“Move on? Swansea, someone literally broke into the cargo bay and took apart company property. I think that constitutes an investigation. At the very least, by the captain!” You argue.

“Here’s your second problem. Only the captain can get in that room. Not even you have full access to it without his permission. Now, he’s not the type to do something like that in my experience, but anything could have happened,” Swansea says, standing. 

“Yes, but, ” You take a calming breath, letting it out slowly before continuing. “I’m not going to throw accusations out there, because for all we know, there’s a stowaway on board slinking around in cargo. That room is the majority of this ship, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out someone figured out a way to hide in there completely unnoticed. Curly needs to know what happened, so at the very least, it can be properly reported.” 

“Whoa, someone could be hiding on the ship? Scary…” Daisuke murmur to himself. Swansea heaves a sigh and shakes his head, moving past you and towards the door.

“Do whatever you want, but don’t come crying when it bites you in the ass,” The older man unlocks the door and slides it open. 

Jimmy hovers on the other side, just as surprised by the sudden action as the rest of you were to see him. His hand was partially lifted, as if he’d been ready to knock. 

“Secret meeting?” He asks, smirking a bit. “The door was locked.” 

No one moves or says anything for a painfully long few seconds, then Swansea grunts and shifts to the side so that Jimmy could saunter in. 

“I should be getting back. Thanks for looking at Eyes for me, I’d appreciate if you could get him working,” Your words come out in a rush, sentences running together as you hurry towards the door. If he was here, then that meant Curly was likely alone in the cockpit. 

Jimmy steps in your way, blocking you from the exit. Trapping you inside for a moment longer. 

“Everything alright?” He asks, feigning interest.

“Oh, yeah,” You say, forcing a smile on your face. He seems to accept it, and lets you pass, but you can feel the burn of his eyes on your shoulders until the Utility door slides closed behind you.

-

The frown on his face tells you he’s listening, that he hears the words coming out of your mouth, but you’re not sure if he believes you. 

“No one can get into cargo,” He says carefully, not for the first time.

“I know,” You sigh, feeling more and more like you’re losing this fight. “I’m not accusing you of doing anything, I’m just saying that-”

“But you are accusing someone, ” He says.

“I… no , no, I’m not accusing anyone. What I’m saying is that there is a problem, and I need help solving it. Swansea and Diasuke are trying to get Eyes working again so that I can continue working, but right now I’m at a literal standstill. If something happens, and I don’t catch it, we could all be in trouble,” You’re trying to sound professional and firm, but you can hear the panic in your own voice, the way you fly through your words like you’ll die if you don’t finish the thought.

“Alright, hey, okay,” Curly is standing, hands raised in a surrendering motion before slowly letting them rest on your shoulders. “I’ll look into it, so don’t worry anymore, okay?”

He gives you a small smile, squeezing your shoulders a little. His voice and tone are soft, attempting to reassure you that things would be okay, and though you want to believe him, there’s still a heavy, nauseous feeling in the pit of your stomach. 

“I just…I want us all to get back and get paid what we’re owed,” You say, letting your own voice fall to a softer level. You had to keep this excuse rolling, lest you accidentally start the witch hunt Swansea warned you about. The crew was so small, it would be easy to point fingers and get everyone riled, and you knew that couldn’t happen. 

“I know, and I appreciate you coming and talking to me. Let me walk you back, I’ll take a look around cargo with you, make sure everything else is in order down there, sound good?” 

“Yeah, thank you.”

“Of course, this is what I’m here for,” His smile grows a bit, blue eyes crinkling in the corners. 

You liked his smile, how it always lit up not just his face, but the whole room. Swansea grumbled all the time about Diasuke being a ball of sunshine, yet Curly seemed to glow even brighter. It made it hard not to like him, at least a little bit. But you doubted he felt much for you other than some kind of camaraderie or acquaintanceship. After all, he smiled at everyone, and was generally just nice to everyone on the Tulpar. He was a fair man, and easy to like. 

Curly steps around you, taking the lead in the march back to cargo, and you mentally shake yourself out of your reverie. Even if Curly liked you in that way, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it without risking his job. It was written, plain as day, in corporate policy, that there was not to be any kind of inappropriate behavior between crewmates, most especially on hauls.

The door to the cockpit slides open, closing again as you step through. Curly places a warm, encouraging hand on your back, just between your shoulder blades, and keeps walking.

Chapter Text

Swansea and Daisuke both manage to go over your head with their chatter about Eyes. Whatever component was missing was going to have to be built by scratch, with whatever materials they had on hand, so it was probably going to take a while. They were having to do all that, while also maintaining the ship, after all. They try to explain it to you, but it doesn’t stick. All you really understand, exhaustedly, is that you’ll have to keep counting everything by hand for the foreseeable future. 

Anya gives you one of the spare roll-out mats from medical so that you can sleep in the cargo bay, or at the very least take naps, while assuring you she’ll be just fine. She’s positive, now, that her attacker from that night was over his impulses, and that she could handle it if trouble arises. You make her swear to tell you if something happens, and begrudgingly make camp behind those massive locked doors, openable with three different codes. 

You already know the one code to open them from the inside, but Curly straight up refuses to give you the code to allow you in for when you’ll have to leave. His expression, when he denies you, is unreadable. He’s not cold, or unnecessarily rude. But he is firm, saying no before you can even finish the question. 

“You’re just going to have to come get me,” He says when you try to question him, and refuses to say or hear any more about it. 

That was one thing you’d learned about him over these past few months. Curly could be remarkably stubborn when it came to the rules. He was even firm like this when playing any one of the board games stashed in the lounge. You could only assume that quality of his is what got him the captain’s chair, but it could be insanely frustrating in times like this. 

If only he’d bend just a little. Just enough so that you didn’t have to bother him every few hours, just because you had to pee. But no, he holds firm, and seems to get even more solid in his denial the more you try to argue, and eventually you just give up. 

You were going to need all your energy for the wild amount of literally back breaking work you were going to be doing for the next who-knows-how-long. The upside is that the cargo bay was temperature controlled, so while you would need a blanket, you wouldn’t get too hot or cold while you slept; plus the thin mattress you were given was more comfortable than it looked. So at the very least, you hopefully shouldn’t lose more sleep than you already did.

-

He watches as Curly opens the cargo doors for you, your arms overstuffed with things you probably didn’t even need. It was a bit of an overkill, sleeping in there, but whatever. If it meant you weren’t nosing around where you weren’t needed anymore, he’d take it. 

Finally he could get close to Anya again, just to talk, of course. He had a feeling that she’d run crying to you again if he got too close, like the fucking chickenshit woman she was.

How annoying. Both of you were annoying. He could hear you two giggling like schoolchildren constantly, the sound grating in his ears like nails on an old chalkboard. Maybe now he’d have some peace and quiet, time to think and get shit in order. Maybe now, Curly wouldn’t be so distracted by you, and could pay attention to people who were far more important than you. 

You curse, your outburst immediately followed by several items tumbling from your arms. Curly catches what he can, chuckling a bit, smiling at you when you didn’t deserve it. He helps you gather everything, and goes into cargo with you to drop it all off. 

The two of you being alone together was less than ideal. He’d go so far as to call it bad news. The last time he’d spotted the two of you, he found out that you told Curly that something had happened to your stupid drone, and now Curly was watching everyone closely. Too closely, suspecting everyone of altering the machine while also not calling anyone out for it. The only reason he knew was because Curly had told him about it. 

Curly said he believed him when he said he didn’t do it, but he was under just as much scrutiny as everyone else, he was sure of it. And if Curly chose to check his things…

Jimmy turns on his heels, the sound of your voice, soft and sweet and too pretty, fading as he rushes upstairs.

Chapter Text

The Tulpar felt…empty…now that you had hidden yourself away in the cargo bay. Even despite the fact that it was already overstuffed with the addition of Daisuke, it somehow felt as if there was a glaring hole, a you-sized gap. 

Simply put, he misses you a little. 

The only time you emerge from the cargo bay is to handle personal business, like using the bathroom or taking a shower, and even then it’s become rare. The joke has already been made that you must be pissing in bottles so that you don't have to worry about losing work time. Not that anyone actually thought that was true…at least, Curly hoped you weren’t going that far. Not only was that unsanitary, but it meant you were purposefully avoiding taking any kind of break.

He considers, more than once, checking in on you. He considers wandering into cargo and hunting you down through the shelves of boxes until he finds you. It would probably startle you, at best. Hell, considering you had been worried about there being a squatter, it might even straight up scare you if he did that. So for now, he just asks you if you’re alright on the rare occasion that you poke your head into the cockpit and request he allow you access yet again to your work and living space. 

You look more and more exhausted whenever he sees you, your movements slow and your eyes carrying dark and heavy bags beneath them. It made him worry, but you always waved it off. He could tell you were clearly overworking, trying to make up for all the time you’re losing simply by not having properly working machinery. 

He hadn’t noticed anyone acting strange whenever it’s brought up. Daisuke is excited, but only because he’s learning something completely new. Otherwise, no one had much reaction other than equal surprise. 

Probably just a fluke, an error in manufacturing or something like that. Or maybe you were trying to fix it yourself, and just forgot that you took it apart. It could happen, he’s seen Swansea do stuff like that plenty of times, mostly when he’s exhausted. And you were tired a lot, he’d noticed, clearly not sleeping well. Even more so now, he was sure. 

“Hey, captain? Are you listening to me?” Anya’s voice startles him more than he’d care to admit. Right, she’d come to talk to him about something. 

“I’m sorry,” He says. “You lost me, what were you saying?” 

Anya frowns, shifting her weight nervously. She glances over her shoulder before looking back at him, unhappy. 

“I would appreciate if you talked to Jimmy about his behavior,” She says. Curly’s eyebrows raise, surprised. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…I mean he’s been handsy, and has made multiple inappropriate remarks towards me. It’s making me extremely uncomfortable, and I’d like it to stop,” She says, voice firm and resolute. 

“Jimmy?” Curly tilts his head, eyebrows furrowed now. He’d never known the man to act that way, never seen or heard it before. “Are…you sure?” 

“Yes, I’m sure. Can you please just talk to him? He doesn’t listen when I ask him to stop, and I know that it’s worrying not just me, but the other woman on the ship,” Anya makes a vague gesture in the direction of the cargo bay. 

Were you worried about Jimmy? You didn’t seem to like him, sure, but you’d never told Curly about anything like this before. 

“I’ll talk to him,” Curly says. “It’s my responsibility to handle stuff like this, so don’t worry.”

Anya lets out a small, relieved sigh, and nods at him with a small smile. She murmurs out a quick thanks, then shuffles from the room and, assumedly, back to medical. 

Sitting back in his chair, he lets out a sigh of his own. He’d known Jimmy for years. The man was rough around the edges, sure, and sometimes said things he shouldn’t, but he never went too far. He wasn’t a bad person, but this was also one of the longest hauls he’d done, so maybe he was just feeling restless. That was no problem, all Curly would have to do is tell him to tone it down a little, and maybe give Anya a little space until she felt better. Easy peasy.

-

Jimmy’s face curls in an unattractive way. It was the face he always made when Curly told him something unsavory, and that put him even more at ease. He might be a little hurt, but he clearly didn’t realize what he was doing. 

“Damn, she really said that?” Jimmy asks. “I can’t believe it, I’ve been nothing but nice to her.” 

“I know. This isn’t the first haul you two have done together, either, so it’s a little surprising to me, too. I think maybe we’re all just a little more on edge than usual, since our trip is so long,” Curly says with a shrug.

“Still, I can’t believe she’d straight up lie to you.” 

Curly looks at his friend, surprised. Anya? A liar? Really?

“I mean, how long have we known each other? Why would I risk not only my job, but our friendship doing something like that? ” 

“I know, but she’s never lied to me before…”

“Surely you’re not dumb enough to fall for something like that. She’s probably just overreacting, you know, being all hormonal and shit. You know how she gets when it’s that time of the month for her,” Jimmy waves his hand in a dismissive gesture. Curly frowns, letting out a soft hum. He could have sworn that time had passed for her not too long ago, but then again, days ran together pretty often while in space, so maybe he was wrong. 

Anya could be a little extra sensitive when she was menstruating, but she’d never accused anyone of harassment or assault before. Though, to be fair, there’d never been this many people on the Tulpar like this before. So maybe she was just being a little…extra sensitive. 

“Either way,” He says, trying to remain professional. “If possible, maybe just give her a little space for now. Let her breathe, you know? I’m sure this’ll blow over in a few days.” 

“Sure,” Jimmy smiles, all teeth. “I can do that.”

“Great, now, can you check where we are for me? I want to make sure we’re still on track.”

“You got it, boss.”

They fall back into their regular routine, but the air between them is heavier than usual. Curly hopes he didn’t upset his friend too much, but it was his responsibility to look after the crew, so he had to have these types of conversations when issues arise. Everything would be fine, Jimmy probably just has some hurt feelings, but he knows his friend. He’ll bounce back, shrug it off like it’s nothing and move on. He might pout for a bit, but he’ll be fine.

-

It’s the first time he’s seen you look this happy in the past several days. You’d gotten a special delivery at some point, a repaired drone with a full battery and fresh insides. You’d been testing it, making sure it did its designated job properly so that you could finally sleep in your own bed, and no longer have to spend the rest of your time locked away. You could actually sit and eat with everyone, instead of slinking around and getting food way after the fact. 

Curly shares in your relief, and feels much lighter now that he’d be able to see you for more than a handful of minutes at a time. He could talk to you again, maybe even reach out and brush his fingertips across you, reminding himself of your warmth and solidity. 

“I’m going to let Eyes run on its own without me hovering the whole time, tonight,” You say excitedly.

“Sounds good to me,” He says. “You should get some sleep, you look like you need it.”

You snort at him, rolling your eyes. 

“Is that your way of telling me I look like shit?” You ask, grinning up at him. 

“Of course not, I just mean that you look tired. I’m sure it’s been extremely taxing in there by yourself,” He says, smiling right back at you. You make a noise, something soft in the back of your throat. A mix between a hum and a huffed laugh.

“Sure, sure,” Is all you’d said before having him open the cargo bay doors once again, and setting Eyes loose upon the warehouse-esque room. 

The two of you part ways then, he heads back to check on things in the cockpit, and you wander towards the stairs to head up to the living quarters, so that you can shower and finally, finally, get some real sleep. He thinks nothing of your separation, knowing he’d see you again sooner rather than later.

He wishes, later, that he’d walked with you. Maybe then…things wouldn’t have gone the way they did.

Chapter Text

It starts with a noise. Muted, hidden behind a door, but still audible enough. You could have kept walking, shit, you almost did keep walking. But something else creeps into your ears, something that makes you freeze mid step, just in front of the offending door. 

A sob.

The doors to the separate rooms don’t have little windows, for privacy’s sake, so you can’t peer in without opening the door. And lucky for you, whoever is behind it didn’t let it close all the way. It’s cracked just enough so that when you gently tug on the handle, the door doesn’t hiss. 

What you see inside blurs in your mind, and yet is so painfully crystal clear you can’t help but to want to laugh.

How disgusting, you should have known that the moment your back was turned, something like this would happen. You wonder if this is the first time, since you shut yourself away, or if this is a continuation of some kind. A second or third visit. Either way, it fills you with heated anger, blood boiling with a rage you hadn’t felt in years.

You don’t know how long you just stand there and watch, before her eyes open and she spots you, standing in the doorway like some kind of boogeyman. She doesn’t call out, doesn’t even tell her attacker that you’re there. She just looks back at you, with tears flooding her eyes and streaming down her face. 

That’s when you move. Lurching forward into the small room, it takes no time at all to reach them, your intrusion still unnoticed by him for what you’re sure he thinks as a blissful moment. You don’t need to see what you grab to know what it is when you stoop down and scoop it up. 

His belt, torn from his pants in some furious action, is nice and heavy in your hands, the metal buckle chilled by the cool metal floors of the room. You hold it just below the brass buckle, keeping enough length to do what you need without accidentally also hitting her in the process.

You know from experience what the cruel metal of a belt feels like on your skin, how the sharp tongue catches and tears flesh if used with enough force. You’re not sure your strong enough for that, but you’ll definitely leave some marks.

“Hey.” Your cold, emotionless voice is the only warning he gets, before judgement falls upon him.

You grab him by the back of the neck, and while you’re not the strongest person in the world, you have the element of surprise against him still. He tumbles, off of her and onto the floor, cursing as he does. 

“The fuck-”

“Whatcha doin’?” You ask, looming over him, his belt held between tight fingers. “I wonder what the captain is going to think of this.”

Jimmy’s face pales in the dim light, and suddenly, a new thought crosses your mind. You could, by all means, beat him with his own belt. You had the advantage of not only already being armed, but also holding the literal high ground. You could get at least a few good ones in before his brain rattled to life, and he tried to fight back. 

Or. You could get him out of the room, and literally expose him. 

It’s a mistake you’ll regret later, but your fingers loosen, and the belt clatters to the floor. Your gaze flips to Anya, shaking like a leaf and staring back at you. You tilt your head slightly back towards the doorway, and the way she catches her breath tells you she understands. 

You take a step back, and bolt, hesitating for the briefest moment in the hall as you consider which direction to go.

There were two ways to get downstairs to the cockpit. The easiest and fastest way would be to run straight out the door to the living quarters and book it down the hall past medical. However, you choose to make that hard turn into the lounge. It’s an equal distance, you think, but the lounge is large and easy to move around in. Which is extremely helpful when Jimmy catches up to you, fingers grabbing at any part of you he can to keep you from moving further. 

He’s faster than he looks. He managed to get his pants on and everything, though loose and unbuttoned still. He lacked a shirt, but that was fine, he wasn’t worth really looking at anyway.

“Speedy little bitch,” He pants, a little unstable on his feet. You can’t tell if he’d expected to catch you or not. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Says who?” You ask, jerking your elbow from his grasp.

“Says me,” He takes a step forward, attempting to threaten, to scare you into compliance. Sadly for him, you’d done this dance before, and no longer held the kind of fear he wanted to see. Instead, you snort out a laugh, grinning with bared teeth like an animal. 

“You can’t stop me from talking to the captain. I just caught you attacking someone, so I need to tell him about it.” 

“You have no idea what you saw! We were just having some fun, and you took it the wrong way.”

“Then why are you trying to stop me? Scared that someone might see through your bullshit?”

He lunges for you, narrowly missing as you stumble backwards to keep out of his hands. He curses at you, jerking forward again, this time causing you to run backwards into the small table you and the rest of the crew ate at often. Thinking fast, you hoist yourself up and roll to the other side, even closer to the door to the stairs now. 

You make the mistake of turning away, just for a second, but it's enough time. You hear the chair being scraped across the metal before you feel it fly past you and slam into the floor, missing you by barely a hair. The flimsy wood shatters, splintering into several smaller pieces. 

“If you didn’t do anything wrong,” You say, trying to keep your trembling voice steady. “You wouldn’t be trying to hurt me to keep me quiet.”

What happens next is a blur, but this time for a whole different reason. You remember more shouting. Rough, unwanted hands grabbing for you, tearing a sleeve. You remember hitting, kicking, biting, screaming. Then, a wicked pain in your face. It happens again, something hits you, or maybe you hit it, but either way, everything goes blank. Your mind, your sight, everything. Dark and silent and pained. Then, a new voice, one that booms so loudly it rattles your core. 

“That’s enough!”  

Your body is too heavy for you to hold up on your own, and as soon as whatever was keeping you stable lets go, you crumple. You hear someone wail, and feel more hands on you. Two sets, both much softer and more welcome than the first. One pair of hands pulls you into a better position, sitting you up and leaning you into a warm body, while the other pair fusses around you. Fingers brush over your face, your head, making you wince and groan. You hear muddled apologies from a familiar and gentle voice every time something hurts. Your eyes sting when you open them, having not even realized that they were closed. Your vision is blurry, something hot and sticky weighing down your eyelashes. 

You hear more voices, but nothing anyone says is totally clear. You catch a few words here and there, but for the most part, everything sounds like it’s underwater. The body you’re held against shifts, and those two pairs of hands are moving you, hoisting you to your feet. Your arms are looped over shoulders, one side taller than the other ever so slightly, two arms holding your middle. You try to walk when they do, but your feet fumble and drag and God your head hurts. 

“I need to throw up,” You say, but get no response. “I’m gonna be sick.”  

Stars glitter behind your eyes when you heave, body lurching forward. You’re not sure if you actually get sick, or if your stomach is too empty to eject anything, but the hands carrying you pull faster, fully ignoring your attempts to walk on your own, choosing instead to just drag you along as quickly as possible. 

From behind, you hear yelling.

Chapter Text

For him, it starts quietly. 

The cockpit was empty other than him, Jimmy having gone to bed early, and he was enjoying the time to himself. The humming of the ship was calming, the rumbling vibrations soothing his nerves. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something felt off. He’d felt that way for a while now, ever since leaving you to head upstairs alone. Something in him was screaming to get up, to walk upstairs, and to check that everything and everyone was where they were supposed to be. 

Captain’s instincts.  

It’s that strange hypervigilance he feels that has him hearing the first set of doors open as if he were standing right next to him, and makes him start to turn before the cockpit door proper flies open. 

“Help!” Anya looks beyond frazzled. Her eyes are wide, filled with new and drying tears, her hair was sticking up every which way, and she looked like she’d been tossed around some. Like someone had grabbed her, and shook her like a doll. 

“What’s happening?” Curly is already on his feet, already moving, already on alert.

“Jimmy! He’s-oh god-he’s gonna kill her!” Anya is sobbing, reaching for then clinging to him. She holds the front of his uniform so tightly, he’s sure there will be holes from her nails later. 

“Slow down,” He tries to stay calm, tries not to show how hard his own heart was beating. "What do you mean? What’s going on?” 

“You have to hurry!” She says, pulling on him. “Curly, please!”

She’s in no state to explain anything, that much was clear. There was too much panic, too much fear. So instead of questioning more, he just nods and tells her to lead the way. If she were any stronger, she would have been able to drag him with how hard she pulled. Not that she needed to, he was more than happy to follow her, no matter how fast she ran back. 

Passing the utility room, he notes that the door was wide open, lights left shining as if the room had been abandoned in a hurry. Neither Swansea or Daisuke were anywhere to be seen. He hears voices once they reach the stairwell. He takes the stairs two at a time, damning them for how steep they were, and overtaking Anya finally. He’s the first into the hall, and the first through the door to the lounge.

The view burns itself into his brain before he has the time to fully comprehend what he’s looking at. 

Jimmy looms over you, pressing you firmly into the small counter, one hand in your hair, the other bruising one of your wrists. You kick at him, slamming your heel into him over and over again. Your free hand claws at his face, nails shredding skin and drawing blood. Swansea was the one yelling, while Daisuke seemed to be looking for a way to get between you and Jimmy so that the two of you could be separated. 

Curly watches in horror as Jimmy pulls you back just far enough to force you around and slam you face first into the hard and unyielding countertop. The sound of it makes him sick. 

Your scream when your nose (at least, he prays it’s just your nose) breaks against the counter when Jimmy smashes you down a second time has him jerking forward. He yells, but he’s not sure the other man hears. 

Finally, though, Curly is close enough to grab onto Jimmy’s shoulder and jerk him backwards. 

“That’s enough!” His voice takes on a tone he’d never used before. Loud and harsh and commanding. His father’s voice. It would scare him a little, if it wasn’t exactly what Jimmy had needed to shake loose of whatever the hell had him acting this way. Jimmy lets you go, lets himself get pulled away from you, and Curly tries not to notice how you drop like a corpse. 

Anya cries, brave enough now to run into the room, herself, and pins herself to your side. She and Daisuke pull you up, leaning you against the young man so that Anya can try to look you over through her tears. You hiss and groan, and your eyes seem glued shut. 

There’s so much blood. 

It covers both of you, but you seem to have it the worse. Head injuries bleed like nothing else, and you had to have at least two gashes on your forehead, not to mention your nose was definitely broken. You had blood all over your hands, staining your clothes as much as it was the floor, and he’s not sure where your blood stops, and Jimmy’s starts. He’s covered in scratches, every one of them seeping blood. Not to mention the bruises that were already forming on the both of you. 

It was an equal fight, it seemed. At least until the end. 

“We have to get her to medical, so that I can take care of her,” Anya says. Her voice had steadied, seeming to go into full nurse-mode. 

“Take her. Daisuke, help Anya and once they’re settled, bring a first aid kit in here so that we can take care of Jim,” Curly says, still with his father’s hard tone. It seemed to be the only thing getting anyone moving, even if he hated how it sounded coming from his lips. 

He leaves you in Anya and Daisuke's hands, and turns to Jimmy, demanding the man to sit, and stay until Daisuke returned with supplies to handle his injuries. His friend stares at him, eyes wide and lips parted, as if he couldn’t believe Curly was acting like this, but does what he’s told. Jimmy drops into one of the small dining chairs, eyes narrowed in your direction. 

“I ne’ ta fow up…” Your voice is garbled, your words unclear. “I’m gon’ be sic…” 

He hears you gag, then groan, as you heave swallowed blood back onto the metal floor. He doesn’t have to tell Anya to hurry, by the time he’s turned to do so, her and Daisuke are nearly out the door with your halfway unconscious body. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Curly hisses, settling his gaze on Jimmy, who refuses to look back at him. 

“Nothin’,” The man grumbles. 

“Nothing? Nothing?! Do you even realize what the hell you’ve done?!” Curly can’t stop himself from yelling, his voice so loud it echoes off the walls, making both Jimmy and Swansea flinch. 

“She came at me! I was minding my own damn business!” Jimmy yells back, though not nearly as loudly. 

Oh, how he wished he could believe him. In any other circumstance, had it maybe been Swansea or Daisuke he’d been fighting, maybe Curly would have considered Jimmy’s words as possible truth. But you? You, who had been so tired that you practically threw yourself at the chance to go to bed? You? Clearly, people weren’t what they seemed, but everything in him was screaming that something wasn’t quite adding up. Jim was lying, and Curly could finally see it. 

In the corner of his eye, he spots Daisuke scurrying back, blood-stained hands carrying the requested supplies.

“Swansea, you and Daisuke take care of him,” Curly says, turning sharply on his heel and walking off, ignoring every demanded plea for his return from Jim. 

He crosses the lounge, following the red trail that you had left behind, and heads straight to medical, straight to you. 

You were sitting up, eyes open and more clear than before. Anya was fussing, insisting you laid down, but you seemed to be forcing yourself to stay up and at least somewhat alert. Your hazy gaze finds him as soon as he enters the room, but you don’t say anything. He doesn’t ask Anya what to do, or if she even needs him here, even though he probably should. Instead, he finds some gloves and joins her next to you, cementing himself here until he knew you would be okay. 

He’s handed a warm, damp towel, and he takes over trying to clean your hopefully uninjured parts. He wipes blood from your hands, arms, neck, and parts of your face, though that doesn’t fix much. Your nose is still bleeding even though the gashes in your head seem to have slowed some. 

You watch him the whole time, eyes never lifting from his hands, save to occasionally glance at his face. He can see the wheels turning, can see thoughts that you were trying to make into words, and he thinks this may be his best chance to speak and know you heard him. 

“I’m sorry,” He says. Anya murmurs from the other side of you, telling him it’s not his fault, but he shakes his head. “The crew is my responsibility, I shouldn’t have let something like this happen.” 

Your face twitches, eyes narrowing at him somewhat. The gears in your brain work even harder, as your addled brain desperately tries to make your mouth work properly. 

“I’m the captain, for God’s sake. It’s my job ,” He can’t shake the frustration he feels with himself. 

“Mm…no,” You mumble, finally. “That’s not…quite right.”

Anya shushes you, telling you not to strain yourself too much right now. But you make a noise in the back of your throat and lean closer to Curly, ever so slightly. 

“You can’t…hold control…over everything…people don’t…don’t work like that. You’re not responsible... for what anyone does…you’re just obligated to handle...when things go wrong.”

“Responsibility and obligation are the same thing,” He says. You make that noise again, and he decides it must be a frustrated sound. 

“It’s subtle but…there’s a difference,” You mumble, voice garbled by your broken nose and the blood still pouring from it. 

Curly’s jaw clenches, unable to respond. He’d always thought of them as the same. Hell, even their definitions are practically the same. But if you were really right, at what point do obligations end, and responsibilities begin? 

When Pony Express hired him as a captain, he took on the responsibilities of the ship. It’s his responsibility to get the cargo to its destination, and the ship back home. It’s his responsibility to handle issues with the crew as they arise. It’s his responsibility to make sure everyone was safe. 

But it was also his obligation to keep Jim in check, after being warned. Anya had personally come to him a few days ago about Jimmy acting out. She had told him, asked him to keep a closer eye, and he’d failed so miserably. All because Jimmy had told him it was nothing, and that he didn’t need to worry. All because Curly had just believed him.

Curly had been the one to refer Jim to the job, to get him interviewed and hired as co-captain. His friend had been struggling, unable to hold jobs for very long ever since college. He’d been desperate for money, and Curly had thought that this would be a great way for him to make what he needed, but also a way for them to get to spend time together like they had back then. Housemates, coworkers, friends. That’s what they’d always been, in one way or another. 

That was where he failed. By not realizing sooner that the person he’d attached himself to was rotting him from the inside out. He failed by closing his eyes and covering his ears and telling himself that everything was fine. He failed by holding onto his obligations to someone he thought was a friend, instead of putting more weight on his obligations to everyone else around him.

How, exactly, was he supposed to fix this?

Chapter Text

Fifteen stitches, broken nose, concussion, heavy bruising, and three broken nails. Considering how the scene had looked, you somehow came out in better straits than expected. You had been moved from medical to your room, where Anya had set up a little miniature camp so that she could remain by your side should something happen. You were also kept awake for several hours before you were allowed to sleep properly. 

When you wake, after a frightening sixteen hours, Curly is by your side. 

Technically, he’s sitting at the tiny desk that all the tiny rooms have, idly writing something. One elbow is propped on the top of the desk, his chin resting in said hand. 

He doesn’t notice you’re awake, for several long minutes, focused entirely on what he was working on, giving you time to just look at him. Your first thought is that he looks tired, with bags under his eyes and exhaustion lines pressed into his handsome face. His hair was tousled and a bit unruly, as if he’d been consistently messing with it, and the knuckles on the hand he was writing with were wrapped in thin gauze. 

There was something in the seriousness in his face, how he was determined to finish what he was doing without making a mistake. His eyebrows were furrowed slightly, his lips drawn into a slight frown. His eyes flickered across the page, reading and rereading everything as he wrote, as if assuring himself that it was still alright, that whatever he was doing still made sense, still worked in his favor.

It’s a strange sort of spell, one you don’t mind sitting in for a while longer. 

Your eyes close again, but you don’t sleep. You sit, hidden in the dark behind your lashes, and listen to the soft scratching of a pen against paper. You hear every soft sigh, every low hum, every shift of cloth as Curly works diligently at your desk. You idly wonder if he has the time to sit here like this, but figure in the end that he knows what he’s doing. This isn’t his first haul as captain, nor his first haul with the Tulpar. He knew how the ship ran, he knew when he needed to be at his post, and when he could rest. 

Curly takes a deep breath, then sighs it back out. You hear more shuffling, papers sliding together, then the soft tap of the edges being bumped against the desk, evening them out. The chair is slid back, and your eyes snap open. He’s still not looking at you, glancing over the papers still as he turns towards your door. 

“Wait-!” Your own voice startles you just as much as it startles him, making him jump. 

He whirls around, looking at you with wide eyes as you struggle to sit up, your whole body beyond sore. He moves faster than you, all but throwing the papers in his hands back onto your desk and launching himself towards you, scooping his arms around you to help you. He props you up against the middling headboard, making sure to retuck your blankets around your legs and waist. Once he’s sure you’re comfortable enough, he grabs your desk chair and pulls it to your bedside before sinking heavily into it. Leaning forward, his elbows press into his knees, head dropping into his hands. 

“Thank God you’re okay,” He mumbles. He sits up slightly, letting his face drag through his hands before sitting back fully and letting them rest in his lap. The silence that stretches between you two is heavy and awkward, neither of you seeming to know what to do or say. 

He looks back down at his lap, eyes staring holes into his hands. His fingers twitch and fidget, the wrapped hand occasionally clenching into a fist for a few seconds before relaxing. 

“What happened?” Your question is whispered, yet seems to echo around the room. 

“I guess…I was hoping you could tell me. I know what Jim’s claiming, and what Anya has told me, but…I guess I’ve been struggling to understand all of it,” He says, just as softly, finally raising his gaze to meet yours. 

“What did An say?” 

“That she was attacked. You apparently saw it happening, and tried to come get me but got caught.” 

“Mm. That sounds right,” You say. 

Your affirmation seems to drain him even more, his shoulders slumping, chin dropping, his eyes falling away from you in what looks like guilt. That thick, heavy silence falls again, suffocating any more attempts at conversation.

“Hey-” Your door slides open, Anya’s entrance interrupting you before you can even truly speak. 

-

You’re relegated to what could almost be called bedrest. Your work was being watched over by Daisuke, so all you had to do was lay around and let your body and mind heal. Anya tried to get you to stay in bed, but your tiny room quickly became claustrophobic, and you’d all but begged her to at least let you mope in the lounge for most of the day. Not that there was much to do there either, other than watch the screen slowly change from morning to night. 

You’d never wished so much for busywork in your whole life. All you were allowed to do was limp around (never any farther than medical), eat, and sleep. You couldn’t go downstairs to check in about anything, and you rarely saw anyone other than Anya. Even Curly has been rare since you woke up. Sometimes Daisuke would sneak upstairs to linger in the lounge with you, but it wouldn’t be long until you could hear Swansea yelling for him to leave you alone and get back to work. 

Jim had completely vanished. 

According to Anya, he was still on the ship, as he was sadly still needed, but Curly had moved him somewhere else, and kept him under tight surveillance. He wasn’t permitted to go anywhere near you or Anya, to the point that even his bed had been moved out of the living quarters. No one is quite sure where Curly has him locked away, but no one also seems to care to know. All that mattered was that he didn’t do anything stupid during the rest of the trip.

This also meant that Curly was busier than ever, having to do even more than before. Every time you see him, no matter how far between, he looks more and more tired, more and more stiff. He never meets your gaze when you try to talk to him, keeping conversations short and to the absolute point, and he doesn’t linger any longer than necessary. 

It was annoying, and it made you feel even lonelier. 

Before all this, you didn’t see Curly much, but at least when you did, he took time to talk to you. He’d laugh, make jokes, spend time. Now he was little more than a silhouette in the corner of your eye, always walking away, never coming closer. At one time, you would have dared to say that you were friends, but these days you were less than strangers. 

You express your concerns to Anya, who only tilts her head and gives you a little frown, before telling you that there was nothing for you to worry about. She insists that everything is, or at least will be, fine. 

“Curly just needs to process,” She says. “He just needs some more time.”

You aren’t sure. While you didn’t remember a lot of what happened after Jim threw the chair at you, you did remember the sound of Curly’s voice that day, and how he looked at you. You remember his hands, warm and safe, each holding one of yours while Anya stitched your forehead in three different spots without any kind of preemptive painkillers due to lack of time. 

His expression, the day you woke up from your extremely long nap, riddled with guilt and exhaustion, had been burned into you.

Maybe he wasn’t mad at you, like Anya seemed to think you worried. But he was still avoiding you. Still refusing to look at you, to touch you, to even say your name unless he absolutely had to. This was how he carried guilt, apparently. Like he’d already punished himself, without ever even consulting the other person involved. Acting before being informed. 

You just wish he’d talk to you, so that you could tell him that things were okay. That you were okay, and he was okay, and that you didn’t blame him. Or, well, didn’t blame him as much as others on the ship. You wanted to tell him that it was okay if he wanted to be mad at you for fighting, for not just getting hurt but for hurting someone else, even if they deserved it. You wish he’d let you or someone else be his metaphorical jailor, so that someone could finally shove it into his brain that he was only going to make things worse acting this way. 

Curly held blame for allowing all this to be something that could happen, but he wasn’t the direct aggressor. The fight hadn’t been his fault, he hadn’t been the one to put hands on Anya, nor on you. He hadn’t been the one who was so scared of getting caught doing something bad, that he’d beaten you half to death to keep you silent. 

His crime was looking the other way when he should have been paying attention, avoiding responsibility while claiming otherwise. Which was also, in your humble opinion, what he was doing right now . Avoiding confrontation, avoiding having to look at the ugly so that he can just pretend everything's still fine, even when it wasn’t. 

Didn’t he realize that he could be missing things by avoiding you? Signs of unhappiness or unease, signs that he’d lost trust and needed to do whatever it took to recover it? 

Next time, you tell yourself. I’m not going to let him run away.

Chapter Text

When he took on the role of captain, there was nothing written in the rulebook for what to do if something like this occurred. Sure, he’d been given official de-escalation training, but he was never taught what to do if things got this far. Though, to Pony Express’s credit, he’s not sure they considered what to do if things got this far. 

How was he supposed to handle a co-pilot and friend-

(were they even still friends? Jim won't look at him anymore…)

-who had harassed and assaulted a member of his crew, more than once? The Tulpar wasn’t new enough to handle being on auto pilot for the entirety of the haul, and there was too much going on for him to handle it all himself. He needed a co-pilot, so he couldn’t just throw the man out the airlock or into a cryopod and call it a day. Besides, what would he do if something happened to the ship and they ended up needing that cryopod? Plus, it could be considered a waste of resources by the company, and the crew could lose money. 

He’d moved Jim out of the living quarters and into a storage room that was just big enough for a medical mat and some blankets, so at least there was more space between him and his victim, but that also meant that Curly needed to be even more hypervigilant than he ever was before. Sleep already came hard to him while flying, now it was borderline nonexistent. He was too worried about what could happen if he had his back turned. 

And on top of all of that, he had no idea what to do about you. You weren’t in trouble. At least, not with him. No, if anyone was in trouble, it was himself. He had been the one to fail, to let you and Anya, and who knows how many others, get hurt. He felt like the bad guy…shit, he was the bad guy. 

If it wasn’t for him, Anya wouldn’t have been raped, and you wouldn’t have gotten hurt so badly. He should have been there, should have been better. He should have protected his crew-no, his family. He should have taken the things he was told more seriously, he should have kept a closer eye on Jim. He should have listened. Paid attention. 

But he didn’t and now he didn’t know how to even look at you anymore. He was ashamed of his shortcomings, and the more he looked at you, the more obvious they were. His father would hit him over the head for thinking like this. He’d call him a fool and a coward, and for once, he’d be right. 

Grant Curly was a fool and a coward, and you had the scarring to show for it. 

But even still, you would seek him out. He’d hear you call his name from behind him whenever you spotted even the barest glimpse. He would at least acknowledge you, after all you deserved that much. But the longer you stood there, trying to talk to him, the more the guilt of everything would start to eat at his heart and bones, and he’d come up with a reason to run off, sometimes even putting it on you by telling you that you should be resting instead of wandering around. 

It hurt, he could tell. It was all over your face. Your expression would drop, your words would fizzle out, and you’d frown at him, looking up at him with the biggest, saddest eyes he’d ever seen. Then, he’d get a soft okay, and he’d wonder if he was strong enough to make it through the rest of the haul without throwing himself out the airlock.

It was for the best, it had to be. You needed to heal, and wasting all your energy on him would only slow that process. Jim used to yell at him all the time in college for getting in the way, and that’s what he was doing. Getting in your way. For now, he just needed to keep his distance, give you space and maybe after the cargo is dropped off and the Tulpar is headed for home, then maybe-

“Grant Curly!” Your voice echos through the halls, and he swears he hears Daisuke let out a long oooooooh noise from somewhere, before getting whacked over the head by Swansea. 

He turns, momentarily shaken from his misery, to find you standing behind him, panting a little. He says your name back to you, worried and confused. 

“I have spent all fucking day looking for you,” You point an accusatory finger at him. “You and me need to have a serious talk, mister!” 

“I can’t right now,” He says, already forming another of many excuses. But you don’t give him the chance to even try. 

“Oh no, nuh uh. You’re not getting out of this!” You storm closer, still with a slight limp, one hand pressed to your side, over where one of your bruised ribs likely still hurt like hell. 

He says your name again, exasperated, trying to back away. But you continue to advance, the storm in your eyes drowning him in your anger and frustration. You manage to back  him into a wall, slamming your other hand against it as if to block him off. It would be cute, if he wasn’t horrendously terrified that all this extraneous activity would make you pass out. You were still concussed pretty badly, you really shouldn’t be doing anything other than sleeping.

“You’ve been avoiding me for weeks, Grant,” You hiss, the sound of his name on your tongue making him shiver a little.

“I haven’t been-” He clears his throat and turns away. He’d always been a shit liar, and he knew you saw right through him.

“You have, and I’m tired of it. I want to talk to you! And you need to listen!” You say. Somewhere to the side, he can hear what he hopes is Anya running down the stairs, looking for you. 

“Alright, alright. You win. But later, alright?” He puts his hands on your shoulders, nudging you back with ease. You glare up at him, lower lip puffed out in a pout. 

“No,” You insist. “It has to be right now! Otherwise, you’ll just keep hiding!” 

He flinches a bit. So you knew what he was doing all along, huh?

“I won’t, I promise. Now please go back upstairs, you don’t look good and I don’t want you to get hurt again,” He gives you another gentle nudge. You make a noise, low and frustrated, and open your mouth to argue, only to be cut off by Anya yelling your name in panic. 

He lets the resident nurse take it from here, stepping back so that Anya can grab hold of you and all but drag you back upstairs. He repeats his promise to find you later, and the silence that falls once you’re in the stairwell is both peaceful, and unnerving.

Chapter Text

Does he, admittedly, take longer than he should to find you? Yes. Does he regret it the moment he sees you, sat on the sofa in the lounge with a distinctly unhappy expression? Immediately.  

You’re sitting, legs crossed, wrapped in a blanket and glaring down at the screen in your hand. At some point, you’d managed to convince someone to give you the tablet that you use to monitor Eyes so that you could feel more useful, and less like a burden on everyone. Not that he, or anyone else, had thought that for a single moment, but who could really blame you for feeling like that? 

You don’t look up at him when he approaches, clearing his throat so that you aren't startled.

“Sorry I’m late,” He says, lowering into one of the chairs closest to you. He had plenty of space to sit on the sofa, but he preferred the little bit of space for now. 

“Late is a massive understatement,” You mumble. Curly doesn’t respond to that, instead letting out a long sigh and sitting back. 

He waits for you to decide you were ready to grace him with your attention, knowing that you were likely making him wait in your own kind of mini revenge for his behavior the past several weeks. When you finally do lean forward and drop the tablet onto the coffee table, he sits straighter, eyes glued to your blanketed form. 

“So, how’s things going downstairs?” You ask. Curly jolts a little, genuinely not expecting such a…nonchalant start to this conversation.

“As good as it can,” He says. You make a soft humming noise in the back of your throat, giving a little nod. 

“That’s good, I suppose. Considering everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…you’re in a tough spot, right? Your co-pilot has physically, mentally, and emotionally harmed at least two members of your crew, and you kind of let it happen, by not paying closer attention to everything. Call me presumptuous, but I was thinking that, considering your position and everything going on, you could be struggling with it all,” You say, looking at him with a tired, yet empathetic gaze. 

“You’re right,” He can’t stop the admission before it slips from his lips. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where everything went wrong. I’ve known him for such a long time…I should have stopped it before it could start.”

“Hey, I get it. He’s your friend, no one wants to admit that their friends are horrendous monsters, even when they are. Everyone would prefer to just look the other way. You know, see no evil, type thinking,” You shift positions, unfurling your legs so that your feet touch the floor and you can lean back a little. “But the thing about that, is that while you don’t have to directly face the issue, you’re not directly facing the issue. Does that make sense?” 

Curly grimaces, but nods. You had him nailed, head to toe. All he’d done in these past years is cover his eyes and ears, and ignore the things he saw and heard. He’d known for years what kind of person Jim was, even if he told himself otherwise. He’d always seen it, always heard it, always turned the other cheek just to keep the peace. 

Maybe he’d been hoping that Jim would grow out of it, in a sense. That he’d realize on his own that his behavior was unacceptable, and would change without intervention. But that had just been a wild delusion, a pathetic attempt at avoiding responsibility by clinging to false obligations of friendship.

The warmth of your fingers over the back of his hand startles him back into reality. His head jerks up to find you leaning over the arm of the couch and the little side table separating the couch from his chair, and had your hand resting over his. The sight of you stretched like that when it must hurt to do so has panic filling his chest. 

“Hey, hey, don’t do that-” He starts, rising from the chair. His movement has you curling back into a more comfortable position on the couch once more. “You need to be more careful-”

“I’m alright, you know.” 

Something in the way you spoke makes him freeze, his mind short circuiting for just long enough for you to grab him by the hand and gently pull him to sit next to you on the couch. 

“I-I know that-” Does he? He’s not sure. 

“Grant.” 

Again, his mind reels and sputters, words and phrases and thoughts flying in a million different directions in his brain. He could hear it in your voice, that whatever you were going to say next was going to change something in him. The very air suddenly felt thicker, almost suffocating. 

“How did you know?” He blurts the question, not sure what he was really asking, but just wanting to get ahead of whatever bomb you could be considering dropping on him. “About Jim, I mean.” 

You tilt your head to the side, thinking for a moment. 

“Because I know what men like that look like. How they leer and loom and belittle. He was familiar, even if I didn’t know him personally.” 

Curly nods in mild understanding. Of course, as a woman, you’d likely come across many vile and violent men throughout your life. It would be a statistical miracle if you’d gone all these years without facing a single off remark or unwanted touch.

“Tell me about it,” He’s not sure why, he’s not sure if he’s even technically allowed to ask, but he wants to know. He wants to help, to do something to make sure you knew that you were safe here, that you were safe with him.  

“Not much to say,” You give a little shrug, as if your story was nothing. Just another number on the ever-growing list of women hurt. 

“You said you and Anya have had similar experiences, but that yours happened a long time ago,” He should know better than to push, but he does anyway. “Was it…as bad?” 

You look at him, eyes narrowing somewhat, trying to figure out what was going through his head. You take your time answering him, picking your words extremely carefully. 

“As bad,” You confirm slowly. “If not a little worse.”

He wants to throw himself out a window, and is infinitely grateful that the Tulpar has no windows. He shouldn’t have asked any of these questions, shouldn’t have pried into details he had no right knowing. All he was doing was trying to ease some of the guilt he felt for running away from you all this time, but what you’d just said only made him feel worse. He had asked you to compare experiences, to remember one of the worst things that has happened to you, and think about whether it was as bad as what had happened here. On his ship. That he’s the captain of. 

“I’m sorry, I-I shouldn’t have asked,” He lurches to his feet, itching to get as far away as possible. But you’re faster than you look, grabbing hold of him and digging your nails into his wrist. 

“You can’t run away every time something doesn’t go the way you expected,” You say, halting him in his tracks. 

“I’m not-” 

“You are. You ran when I got hurt, and you’re trying to run now. Did you ask me stuff you maybe shouldn’t have, yeah sure, but who chose to answer?” You ask, still holding onto him as you pull yourself onto your feet. 

“You did,” He mumbles. He feels childish, averting his eyes like he’s being scolded by a parent. 

“Exactly, so instead of running off, you should sit and wait and see what happens. Take responsibility for your words and actions, or lack thereof.” 

He stands frozen in your grasp for far longer than he probably should, just letting your words sink in. When he finally does move, its with a small nod and a sad attempt at a smile. 

“I’ll try,” He says. 

“Succeed. I really believe you can.” 

Chapter Text

Despite how much easier it would be to have stitches that dissolved, the Tulpar only supplied traditional stitches that required removal. It didn't hurt, not really, but it was annoying. Fifteen was no small amount, and considering they were in your head meant that Anya had to get very in your space, no matter how much you preferred your personal space. 

“You look a lot better,” She comments, trying to fill the dead air.

“I feel better,” You hum. “My head doesn’t hurt anymore.” 

“That’s good.” 

“Mm.”

It’s been hard, admittedly, to talk to her recently, no matter how much closer it feels like you’ve gotten. There’s a new respect for you, on her end, as well as a much deeper understanding.

When the two of you first bonded over your assaults, there had been a definite wall of unsurety. Anya had doubted you, and you had doubted her, just like you’d been trained to by society. But now, you’d been a witness to her pain, and her to your deep, unsated anger, and now neither of you dared doubt. But even still, your relationship changed and neither of you were totally sure how to go on, anymore. There were two massive elephants in the room, but what were you supposed to do? Did you talk about it? Avoid it altogether? Pretend nothing happened and pray that time moves faster? 

And she wasn’t the only one you had this problem with. In fact, the only person whose attitude hasn’t changed was Swansea. Though, at least Curly was starting to finally come around. 

After you finally got to talk to him, something seemed to finally click for him, and his skittishness towards you had started to wane a bit. He would still rush through conversations and scurry off, but he at least now you didn’t have to literally chase him down. If you called his name, he answered the first time, rather than the fifth or sixth. 

You also were starting to get lucky and catch him in the quiet hours of ‘nighttime’, when he let the ship roll on autopilot for a couple hours so he and Jim could rest. That was when he’d really give you his time, sometimes even having to wave you over to sit and talk with him. And boy, would you talk.  

You got the sense pretty quickly that he’s not used to talking like this, but that he’s needed someone to sit down with like that for a while. He had so much buried in him, thoughts and worries and insecurities that had built up over the years with no outlet, that now that he’d opened the doors, he couldn’t get them to close again. It was exhausting for you, but all the same, you were happy he’d chosen you to be the one he trusted with it all. It was finally starting to feel like you were friends, rather than just coworkers who hung out sometimes. 

“How’s it going in here?” His voice startles Anya. She’d been a lot jumpier since That Night, a lot more sensitive to being snuck up on, even when it wasn’t intended. 

When she jolts in surprise, she accidentally manages to both rip one of your stitches out, causing you to hiss in pain and nearly fall backwards off the cot, and somehow lose her own balance . Thankfully, your captain is faster than he looks, and he manages to get close enough to grab both of you before things get any worse. 

“Captain!” Anya fusses. “Don’t scare me like that!” 

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to,” He smiles at her in a way that has your chest burning in discontent. But the moment he turns that smile on you, it dissipates. 

“Talk about a comedy of errors,” You huff out a laugh, reaching up to touch your freshly bleeding forehead. Curly chuckles with you, but Anya finds this decidedly, and validly, unfunny.  

“Honestly!” She huffs. “Things could have been much worse!” 

“I’m sorry,” Curly apologizes again, eyes filled with sincerity. Anya narrows her gaze at him, then proceeds to wave her hands at him, shooing him away from the both of you. 

She herds him back towards the door with assurances that everything was fine and that she needed a clear, sanitary space to fix what he had just caused. He goes easily, hands raised in a surrendering gesture, that easy smile spread over his face. It had been a while since he’d looked like that, it made you feel a little breathless.

You’d always known Curly was handsome, but why is it that he seems especially so, recently? 

Once she has him out of the room, Anya slides the door shut and returns to your side, changing her gloves before taking a clean antibacterial medical wipe to your forehead, clearing the quickly drying fresh blood so that she can look at the damage caused by the tear. You spend the rest of the appointment in idle silence, you let her work and she lets you drift in your thoughts. 

You decided, here and now, that there was no denying that you sorta…kinda… liked Curly. And though you knew that it was almost 110% likely that nothing ever comes of this little crush of yours, you didn’t hate it. After all, it’s been years since you dared to let your heart flutter at the sight of a man, or anyone, really. Ever since your last love hurt you like he did, you’d been afraid to consider other options. 

But now here you were, stuck on a ship with just under a year left in your transport, and your captain has captured you with his smile and bright eyes and his determination to do what was best. Even if he wasn’t perfect, you were watching him try to change for the better in real time. You had told him to figure himself out, to accept that there were things he just couldn’t do on his own, and you were watching him take that to heart. Day by day, he was changing and he was pulling you right along with him.

-

“Dinner,” Curly slides the packaged meal into the one clear space on the console in front of his co-pilot. 

“Is that what this is supposed to be?” Jim grumbles, curling his nose at the re-hydrated Spaghetti Bolognaise. Curly just hums, sitting in his chair and digging into his own food.

He ate down here now, so that Jim wasn’t left by himself. Not that he really thought the other man would try anything, but it was better safe than sorry. Plus, he still didn’t want Jim to feel abandoned. They were friends after all, or, at least, they were. Curly still isn’t sure if their friendship will survive after they return back to Earth, not with the report he’s been putting off.

He’d been thinking about whether to send it off to HR while in space, or if he should request a meeting once back on solid ground. Money was going to be lost for everyone either way, more than likely, but it may be safest to wait. There was no knowing how Jim would react if he was reported now. Hell, there was no way of knowing how he’d react if reported at all. But he wanted to give you and Anya as much of a safety net as he could. You deserved that much, at least. 

“How’s your girlfriend?” Jim asks. 

“She’s not my girlfriend, and she’s fine.” Curly narrows his eyes at the other man, his tone filled with warning. 

“Good, I guess.”

The silence between them is thick and uncomfortable. Jim had tried over and over again to try to make himself seem like the victim, to force sympathy out of Curly like he always had. But Curly wasn’t falling for it, not after seeing Jim’s true colors that night. He couldn’t bring himself to believe a single word, and he definitely didn’t trust Jim had good intentions when bringing you into the conversation. 

“She ever gonna be your girlfriend?” Jim asks

“Why do you even care?” 

Jim looks at him, the corners of his lips upturning just slightly, and Curly realizes very quickly that he shouldn’t have answered. 

“I’m just asking because I’m worried , man. I mean, I’d hate for both of us to lose our jobs.”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” Curly shakes his head and turns away to focus on his meal. Jim chuckles darkly, but thankfully leaves him be. 

He tries not to think about it, but Jim was technically right. As captain, taking part in any kind of relationship was strictly off the table. And while it could be argued that you weren’t technically part of the crew, and technically wasn’t one of his underlings, the fact remained that you were on his ship, and under his command. Pony Express would throw themselves at the chance to rob everyone on the ship of more money, just to save themselves a few cents. 

Once back on Earth, however…well, there was nothing stopping him from inviting you to dinner, and afterwards who knows? Maybe you’d let him take you home, too.

Chapter Text

The alarms scream in your ears, the world flashing an awful blood red. Every screen, every monitor, said the same warning. 

S Y S T E M F A I L U R E

C R A S H I M M A N E N T

Chapter Text

You honestly didn’t know how things got like this. 

You were working, finally able to get back into the cargo bay and check things over. Then you’d gone to dinner with the crew. And after that, you, Anya, Daisuke, and Swansea had set up one of the many board games stashed in the lounge. Curly arrives later, but by then the game had changed. Daisuke had smuggled a bottle of Coke on board. It was empty, as he’d apparently drank it the first day in space, but he’d held onto it so that he could dispose of it properly upon landing back on Earth. 

“Let’s play truth or dare!” He’d said, a little too enthusiastically. 

“We’re not children,” Swansea had grumbled. 

But Curly. Your sweet, handsome, wonderful Captain…

Agreed.  

“It could be a fun way to get to know each other better,” He’d said. He reminded Swansea that you and Daisuke were new to the group, and that this would be a much more fun way to learn about the two of you than 20 questions. The older man huffed, but gave in.

“Can you even sit and play with us?” You’d asked. “Shouldn’t you be downstairs?” 

“I have time,” He’d flashed you with one of his brilliant smiles, and you’d folded.

And now. You were like this.  

Curly’s arm, holding you in place, is firm but gentle. He doesn’t squeeze you too tightly, and he carefully keeps his hands away from anywhere inappropriate. Which was hard, considering you were going to be trapped on his lap until this stupid game ended. 

You glower at Daisuke, who just grins and gives you a double thumbs up. 

Traitor. 

He was going to pay for embarrassing you like this. You were never confiding in him about liking someone ever again. You should have just told Anya, she, at the very least, wouldn’t fucking torture you.  

In all fairness, you could have refused, but if you had, you would have been forced to do something else equally or more embarrassing. That was the rule that had been added, to keep things interesting, and keep everyone from passing every other turn. So when Daisuke dared you to sit on the captain’s lap for the remainder of the game, you’d had no choice. 

Curly, thankfully, is at least graceful about it. He’d chuckled, tried to argue that such a dare may be too much, but when you sighed and stood from your spot, he’d opened himself up and kept perfectly still until you were settled in the most comfortable position you could get in. Then he’d curled an arm around your middle to keep you from falling off, and you’ve been stuck ever since. 

Part of you wondered if this could be considered sexual harassment, if you or Curly would get in trouble for this later. Another part of you, the more selfish part, hoped that this stupid trick actually worked. However, just because his body reacted, that didn't mean his heart changed. 

Though you find it somewhat flattering that you can feel his dick, hard and very noticeable, pressing against your ass.

You’re careful not to draw attention to it, or the fact that you can make an educated guess as to how big he was turned you on. It would make this situation so much more awkward for the both of you, and you wanted to still be able to look him in the eye tomorrow. So you grit your teeth, and make a mental note to take care of your needs once you’ve all gone to bed.

Chapter Text

It was a rare day that Curly was actually happy to be forced to take a cold shower. The Tulpar’s water heating was poor at best, meaning that if you were the last to bathe, like he typically was, he was lucky to get even lukewarm water. It was far more likely to have pure, painful, ice cold water rain down over him, keeping his showers short and to the point. 

But tonight, tonight he needed it. He needed to shock his body back to normality, to lower his body temperature back to normal levels, and to force his brain to think of things other than how soft you are, and how good you smell, and how it felt to have you on top of him, even if the moment was relatively brief. 

He’d meant to talk to Daisuke about that, after the game had ended, but he’d been so wrapped up in figuring out how to hide his… predicament, that the younger man had successfully run off.

God, how embarrassing.  

He knew you knew. It was hard to ignore being poked like that, especially since you’d had no real way out. The dare had been to sit on his lap through the entirety of the game, or suffer a consequence. That meant that you hadn’t been allowed by the rules to sit for a round, then move on. You’d tried, only to be called out on it by Daisuke, who grinned like a maniac the whole time. Maybe he should have the kid watch the HR video about appropriate behavior while on hauls.

It doesn’t take long for the freezing water to become too much, and Curly shuts off the water. 

The cold normally didn’t bother him too much, not really. He liked wintertime, and he spent most of his life in icy space. But being pelted by water so cold it felt like he was being hailed on was a bit much, even for him. He’ll have to turn on the little heater in his room to stop himself from shivering too much. It was one of the small perks he got as captain, and one he’d been trying to get Head Office to agree to giving to everyone for years, but all he’d gotten was more blankets thrown at him for the crew, and a warning to keep his mouth shut.

The corridor is empty when he finally makes his way out, his old sweats and t-shirt helping to fight off the lingering chill. He has a few hours before he needs to get back into the cockpit, which meant he had plenty of time to relax, and sleep, and-

“Ah, shit-” Your voice startles him out of his own thoughts, his pace slowing as he passes your door. It had been so quiet, that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t hallucinated your words for a solid few seconds before he hears another noise come from behind your closed door. So you were still awake, after all. 

He knocks without thinking, the events of earlier still swirling in his mind, as well as the possible repercussions should someone say something to the wrong person. He just wants to make sure you’re okay, that’s the excuse he gives as he waits for you to answer.

It takes a minute, the sound of you scrambling around behind the door making him chuckle a bit, though more at himself than you. It was more than likely that you were in there working, or maybe trying and failing to sleep, like he did most nights. Your whined, breathy curse that had made him pause could just be you moaning your frustration with your exhaustion. 

The click and soft woosh of your door sliding open has him standing up straighter, but one look at you has every ounce of professionalism leaving his body with a pathetic wheeze. If your expression told him anything, you had not been trying to sleep. 

It was clear you’d tried, in your scrambling, to make yourself as presentable as possible, but Curly was no fool. He’d been with women before, and more than a few at that. He knew the look. The flushed cheeks and wide eyes, pupils so dilated he could hardly see the iris. And of course, the slight shakiness in your hands, and the way you spoke. 

“Hey,” You breathe, swallowing. “Everything okay?” 

“I, uh-” He clears his throat, forcing himself to lift his gaze from your pleasure-filled eyes to the top of your head. “Yeah, I was just…I wanted to know if you were alright.” 

“I’m fine. Yeah, totally good.” 

“Good, good. I’ll be talking to Daisuke about his behavior, he should have never put you in that position,” It’s a fucking miracle he can keep his voice steady. 

“Oh, I’m not really worried about it-really, I’m fine,” You say.

Curly forces a nod, clearing his throat again before taking a small step back. He needed to get away, to turn around and walk off and not ask if you wanted him to come inside, and help you finish what you’d started before he’d arrived. It takes every ounce of self restraint he has left to bid you goodnight, and stiffly walk to his room, praying that you didn’t notice his own growing problem.

Damn it all, the shower had worked! He should never have stopped, should have just waited until after you both had time to rest and decompress.

It was his own fault. He had been so absorbed in his own desire, that he hadn’t considered whether or not you had a similar issue. The idea that you’d been equally as turned on hadn’t even graced his mind once during the whole ordeal, or after. He’d been so absorbed in his own want, but had also been so sure that you didn’t feel the same. 

A surety that he knew now was very wrong.

He wondered, shoving his way into his room and sliding his door shut, if you would have taken him up on the offer he wanted to extend. If you would have let him into your room, lay you down, and ravish you the way you deserved. He wanted to touch and taste, to know your body as intimately as he could at night, all while he still got to learn your mind during the day. He wanted to hear every noise you could make, to burn the sounds of your moans and cries into his brain while he brought you to utmost ecstasy. 

He’d have to wait, though. At the very least, until the Tulpar was landed back on Earth. Taking you the way he wanted while you were both on duty could get you both into trouble, should someone find out. He was risking things just by imagining you this way, while he leaned his back against the door, hand shoved unceremoniously down his sweats. 

He should go to his bed. It would be more comfortable, he’d be able to get into a better position if he were sitting or lying down, but his mind was too far gone for that, his legs cemented where they were while he touched himself the way he wished he could touch you. 

God, you were so pretty. And you’d be even prettier in his arms, lips parted in pleasure while he filled you with his cock.  Your voice would reverberate around the walls of his brain, keeping him wanting. He could imagine the way you’d call his name, how each syllable would spill out of you in ways he would dream about for days after. Speaking of noise, he has to clench his jaw far too tightly to keep himself from moaning, just at the idea of you underneath him, clawing at him, begging for more. 

He had to be losing his mind, the stress of the job finally taking its toll. 

He’d worked with beautiful women before, each with their own quirks and pleasantries about them, but none had him like this. He’d never dared to even consider fucking into his own hand with any of them on his mind. But you, with your viciously pretty smile and sharp mind, you had him completely dissolved into nothing but instinct and desire, his thoughts drowning in nothing but you. 

He wanted to take you on dates and listen to you talk. You’d been doing all the listening recently, he owed it to you. Then, afterward, he could take you home, spread you out on your bed, and spend the rest of the night between your legs, in one way or another.

“Shit-” His curse mimics yours, his body jolting with his finish, warmth spreading across his hand, his breath coming hard and ragged. 

He needed another shower.

Chapter Text

Things are, admittedly, a little weird for a few days. Not that you could really blame Curly for avoiding your gaze and keeping his hands tight to his sides. You’re just grateful he continues to seek you out, to start and hold conversations and still be in your presence. But when he did look at you, it was different. 

He’d stare at you, now, eyes focused on every part of your face, watching your lips move and eyes flutter, looking at the details, rather than the whole. He’s also started asking more questions about you, nudging you to be as open with him, as he was with you. He asked about your family, whether you had anyone waiting for you at home, and so on. Then he asked about things you liked, like colors and foods and seasons, it was like going on a first date over and over again. 

It’s…intense. But you don’t hate it. It’s nice to get to be the one rambling on and on, while someone else sits and listens intently, nodding every so often and taking note of whatever he thought was most important. It makes you feel like you’re actually getting closer to him on a more personal level, which unfortunately feeds your growing feelings for him. 

It also didn’t help your poor heart that you now knew what it felt like to be held by him, even if it was just barely. 

You knew, now, that he was strong, but had a softness to his body, like someone who worked out and ate well but wasn’t overzealous. You knew what his hands felt like, grasping at you to keep you from falling, fingers digging into you, nails gently raking across skin. And you knew what it felt like when his stubble tickled your face. 

It made you wonder if his hair was as soft as it looked, if he’d have let you touch it if you’d just asked. You wondered if he smiled at everyone like that, and how many hearts he’s broken because of it. You wonder if he’s going to break your heart at the end of all this. 

Though, of course, your brain liked to remind you that he’d had a… firm reaction to you sitting on him. And sure, you tell yourself that any man could have had that happen. Boners were a natural function of the male body, and they came out of nowhere for all kinds of reasons. But the fact that he’d gotten one from you had fed your ego and delusions in a way you wouldn’t admit to anyone. It made you dare to think that he may somewhat feel similarly. That he might, at the very least, want you physically. 

But Curly, you knew, was a man who took his duties seriously. The very idea that he’d break several rules just to get you in his bed, was borderline madness. And once you were all back on Earth, there was no promising that he’d have the time or desire to seek you out, or ask for more. No longer being stuck in such close quarters like this could kill the mood, so to speak. 

But that didn’t stop you from hoping.

-

“What’s your favorite memory?” 

Your gaze flits towards Curly, eyebrows raising. 

“That’s tough,” You say. “I don’t remember a lot of my childhood.” 

“It doesn’t have to be that far back. Just the first thing that comes to mind,” He smiles at you, eyes filled with something you can’t quite place. 

You think for a moment. There were a few good memories worth sharing, mostly from new experiences you’d had, like driving and getting your own place outside of home for the first time. Your happiest memory came from a place of a lot of pain and fear, but you weren’t sure if he really wanted to know that. 

“Maybe…getting my license?” You decide on an easy answer. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. It was nice having that freedom after being reliant on my parents for so long.” 

“Mm.”

He’s looking at you like he knows you’re not being totally truthful, but he doesn’t pry. You wonder what he’d do if you did tell him that the best day of your life was when you’d run away, sobbing and broken and utterly hopeless. When you’d escaped your ex, the man who abused and assaulted you on the regular, and ran without any heading until a police officer picked you up on the side of the highway, and took you to the hospital, where you’d given a false name and begged them to call your parents for you. 

Would Curly be sad for you? Angry? If you told him your sob story, would he pull you close and hold you in his arms until he was sure you were okay? Was it selfish of you to want that? 

“Mine’s kind of silly,” He says, giving you a sort of lopsided grin. 

“Yeah? Let’s hear it,” You smile back, and you think his ears turn red.

“Back in college, a bunch of my friends tried to make me a cake out of protein powder for my birthday. It tasted awful, ” He chuckles, shaking his head a little. “But it was the best any of them could have done, and it meant the world to me to get to share that shitty little moment with them.” 

He gets a look on his face, far away and a little lonely.

“Was it chocolate flavored, at least?” You ask, nudging him a little to bring him back to you. He looks at you, that grin forming again. 

“Chocolate and caramel, if I remember correctly. It was so dense and heavy it collapsed in on itself.” He says. You snort out a laugh, and he follows suit.

He had such a nice laugh. Warm and happy, the kind of laugh you wanted to hear all the time, matched with a smile so great that you wondered if he was even real sometimes, or just a fucked up figment of your lonely, depressed imagination.

Once your laughter dies down, you’re left in a soft silence, comfortable and casual. The kind of silence that allows you to simply exist next to each other, while not feeling the need to force a conversation. It lets you just look at him for a moment, while he drifts into his thoughts, taking in his silhouette. His strong nose and long eyelashes, square jaw dusted with blonde and light brown, eyes bluer than the sky…he was purely handsome. Handsome and kind and willing to work through his own flaws to make sure he was the best he could be. 

God help you, you think you love him.

Chapter Text

He should have kissed you, fuck , he should have just fucking kissed you. It’s a regret he’ll have for the rest of his life, if he survived this, but you didn’t. 

The emergency lights flash around him, alarms screaming in his ears as he runs as fast as he can. 

He never should have opened his damn mouth. He should have followed procedure, done what he was instructed, and fucking waited. Now he was racing through the halls of a ship that suddenly felt so much larger than it really was, each step bringing him closer and closer to possible damnation. 

It was his own fault. The news of the company shutting down had weighed on him, and the fact that he was the one that had to break the news made it even worse. If he’d waited, like he was supposed to, this wouldn’t be happening. He would be at the helm, guarding the controls from anyone panicky enough to try something like this.  

No, not anyone. Jim.  

Jim was the only one other than him who knew how to work the ship, who knew how to turn off autopilot, and steer directly into oncoming debris. 

Damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it!  

He should have done more to keep Jim secure. Should have had Swansea or someone bolt a fucking makeshift lock on the door to the room he’d been moved into, so that he couldn’t leave unless released. But he hadn’t wanted Jim to feel like a prisoner, he hadn’t wanted him to feel inhuman. 

Thinking back now, he shouldn’t have fucking cared. Not after what happened to Anya, to you. He didn’t deserve his sympathy, his kindness, his worn down patience, nothing.  

Your voice filters in his ears, but he can’t focus on your words. Just that you’re ahead of him, having been where you were supposed to be, and much closer to the cockpit than he’d been. He thinks you say his name when you spot him, eyes wide and panicked. He thinks you’re trying to ask him what’s going on, what he needs you to do, what’s happening , but his mind can’t focus on any of it. 

All he can do is pull you into his arms, squeezing you like his life depended on etching the feeling of your body into his, and tell you to get back.

Chapter Text

First it was too quiet, then it was too loud.  

You were checking some cargo boxes, Eyes having flagged the same spot twice as having the wrong number of units. You’d had to open a box for the first time in weeks to count each individual bottle of shitty mouthwash, and of course , that’s when the ship jerks, and the alarms start to scream.

The world becomes awash with red, disorienting you in a similar way as if the lights had gone out completely. The screeching in your ears makes your brain rattle, and all you can do is run, cargo be damned.

Something was wrong, seriously seriously wrong. 

You race through the aisles of boxes and up the metal staircase that leads to the platform where the massive door stood. You slam yourself against it, mashing the exit code into the small keypad and wishing your body were more liquid as you waited for what felt like an excruciatingly long time for the door to open, even if it really only takes a handful of seconds. The sound of your heartbeat is almost as loud as the alarms. The lights in the hall flash, rather than remain that static red it currently was in cargo, adding to your disorientation. 

“What’s going on?!” You yell out, hoping someone is in Utility, or anywhere else nearby to hear you. The only answer is the screaming alarm. 

Distantly, you can hear footsteps running your direction, towards the cockpit. 

If you’d thought to look at your watch, you’d have noted that there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the cockpit right now. That Jim should have been in his room, and Curly should have been upstairs. The ship should have been running on autopilot, that should be able to get itself into a safe position should something go wrong when unmonitored. 

But you hadn’t looked. All you could think about was whether or not Curly was in there, and if he was okay. If Jim had snapped on him and hurt him, and managed to damage the Tulpar’s piloting controls. All you could think about, all you could do, was worry.

Even when you make it to the cockpit door, just a breath before Curly appears behind you, chest heaving, face flushed from running all the way from wherever he was, all you can think about is how scared you are for him. You try to get him to tell you what’s happening, or if he needs your help. But when he looks at you, eyes alarmed and distant, you get a weird sense he’s looking past you. At a future he’s made up in his own mind without any consideration for the present. 

When he throws his arms around you, pulling you close and holding you like he was afraid to lose you, your heart leaps and tears flood your eyes. His nose presses into your hair, his lungs sucking in air, breathing in your scent. He holds you like that for a moment endlessly long, and painfully short all at once, before pushing back and gripping your shoulders tightly, his eyes finally meeting yours. 

“Get back,” He tells you. “I’ll fix it.”

Chapter Text

The ship somehow rattles even more now. Though, you supposed, that was par for the course when things get damaged like that. It was a miracle the Tulpar was even still functioning after hitting an asteroid.

You had Jim to thank for that. And oh, did Curly thank him. 

You didn’t think he was capable of that level of anger, his voice echoing off the ship's walls, traveling so far that you could have heard him from space. You aren’t sure exactly what happened, but Anya had needed to clean and wrap Curly’s hands, his knuckles busted, bruised, and bleeding. Jim hasn’t been seen since, having apparently been shoved back into the storage closet he’d been using as a room, and locked inside. 

“He’ll be lucky he gets out to piss,” Swansea had grumbled. “We’ll have to escort him everywhere.”

“If that means everyone is safe, I don’t fucking care,” Curly had never spoken like that before, his voice harsh as exhaustion mixed with pain and anger. 

Curly had barely made it, he’d gotten there just fast enough to swerve the ship, though that didn’t mean everything came out perfectly. The hull was damaged pretty seriously, and a few parts of the ship were now flooded with emergency foam. But you were alive, the rest of the crew was alive, and the captain had been able to get the ship back on track. You were going to make it to your drop-off destination, with all your cargo in as good a shape as possible. 

You’d only lost a handful of boxes, leaving you to clean up far more mouthwash than you ever wanted to see again in your life, but at least you could claim none of it was stolen. Though, you weren’t sure that was going to get you out of losing what little money you were still owed. Curly had been forced after the crash to call in to HR about it, and give them full details on everything that has happened on this haul so far. 

Needless to say, you all were lucky that you were getting paid at all. Everyone’s pay was docked so severely, Pony Express may as well not pay you at all. Daisuke thinks that the company will end up shelling out hush money, but you weren’t sure they could afford to do that, considering they were closing shop upon the return of the last few haul ships-the Tulpar included.

“I can’t believe they’re making us finish the run, instead of just turning us around,” Anya sighs, a few nights after the ordeal.

“I’m not shocked. They probably need the money from the company we’re shipping for just to pay our pathetic wages,” You say, making her sigh again. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I could barely afford to live as it was, and now with the company closing, and our pay being cut-”

“Don’t catastrophize,” You warn. “It’s not helpful.”

She heaves a third sigh, and nods. 

One of the places affected by the emergency foam is the end of the hall that held the sleeping quarters, so the two of you had been forced to find a way to share a small room so that Swansea and Daisuke could move into safer, less compromised rooms. 

Curly slept in the cockpit now, if he slept anymore at all. Every time you go down to deliver food or water or just to make sure he’s okay, he looks more and more tired, his eyelids heavy and sleepless.

The autopilot had been one of the unsalvageable parts of the controls. Jim had, apparently, slammed his fist into the control panel, breaking more things than should be possible in a decent ship. The Tulpar’s age and cheapness was showing more and more now that it was literally falling apart.

But life and work goes on, as best it can.

-

“You need to sleep.”

“I can’t.” 

“Curly.”  

Anya narrows her worried eyes at him, a frown pulling at her lips. She’d been harping this same worry over and over for days now, but it’s gotten her nowhere. She shifts her gaze to you, who she’d dragged here to back her up. 

“We’re flying pretty straight, yeah?” You ask, tentatively. “Is there no chance you can get any kind of rest?” 

“No,” He repeats, for the hundredth time.

“What if someone sat and watched everything for you? Surely someone knows-”

“No.”  

Now it’s your turn to frown, shifting anxiously on tired feet. You were only agitating him, and that wasn’t what either you or Anya wanted to do.

“I don’t appreciate being ganged up on, here,” He says.

“We’re not-” Anya fidgets, her anxiety even worse than yours. “Captain, please just-”

“You don’t even have to go all the way upstairs if you don’t want!” You say quickly. “You can sleep in the chair, or we could bring you a sleep mat from medical for you to spread out. You could sleep in the cockpit while a trusted individual watches everything. That way, they can wake you if something happens.” 

Curly’s eyebrows furrow, his eyes narrowing at you, now, as he takes in your words. He’s exhausted, worn down past the bone. You had to convince him, one way or another. 

“Surely Swansea knows enough about the ship to be of help here,” You keep talking, letting words babble from your lips while Anya nods quickly next to you. Curly’s gaze is heavy, every second of lost sleep clear on his pale face.

“Please,” Anya says, pressing her hands together.

There is a beat of silence as he looks between the two of you, then his shoulders slump, and a sigh weightier than the heavens themselves wheezes out of him. The silent acquiescence makes Anya nearly jump happily, grabbing your arm with a relieved smile on her face. Curly’s eyes raise to once again find yours, blurred eyes searching. 

“I’d prefer, at the very least, to not drag Swansea from keeping the ship running,” He says slowly. “Can you stay?” 

“Me?” You point to yourself, just to make sure. He nods, the movement sluggish as his surrender and acceptance started to affect him physically. He was already starting to fall asleep, but you had a bad feeling if you took too long to answer, he’d snap back awake and shoo the two of you away. 

“Of course,” You say, giving him a small smile. Anya gives you an appreciative look and turns to leave, scurrying out the door with promises of some blankets and is gone before you get the chance to even say goodbye. 

Curly motions for you to sit in the co-pilot’s seat, and slumps back in his own, leaning as far as the stiff chair would let him. 

“We’re on course, but if we start to deviate-”

“I’ll wake you up, I promise,” You lean forward and place a hand on his shoulder, feeling his muscles relax under your fingertips. He mumbles something that sounds like ‘good’, and lets his eyes fall shut. It takes maybe a minute before his breathing evens out, sleep overtaking him without any more resistance.

Chapter Text

There’s a sound in the air. Soft and light and pretty, a song he thinks he’s heard before, but never like this. The melody leads him as he trudges through darkness, liquid sloshing at his feet too thick to be water, but too thin to be blood. A gross medium, one that soaks through his shoes, and has him praying for dry land. All around him is pitch nothingness, above him a dark sky with neither sun nor moon, but stars that shine so brightly, yet they give no light or comfort. It leaves him feeling hollow, empty and afraid. 

The song starts to fade, urging him to move faster, to find where it was coming from before he lost it forever. The faster he moves, the heavier he feels. Formless hands grasping at him, pulling him back, pulling him down, desperate to keep him from reaching his destination.

But he trudges on. He’s not sure he’s making progress, but still he walks forward. 

He can’t let himself be stopped, can’t let himself be convinced to turn away. He had to reach the source of the music, the source of the song that gets softer every time he dares to pause in his journey. He needed to keep going, he needed to find it. 

He needed to run.  

It hurts, his lungs burn as they fill with smoke, the world around him shakes and rattles, and in the distance, someone screams. The voice of his father, deafening in his ears, anger and worry mixing into incomprehensible words. It makes it hard to hear the tune, whispering through the cracks of noise, telling him he was still going in the right direction, no matter how backwards he felt.

He crests what feels like a hill, and just in the distance, he sees it. An oasis, bathed in warmth and sunlight. That’s where the song was, that’s where he needed to go. But when he steps towards it, all the noise stops. It’s so sudden, it’s jarring, knocking him off balance. Something curls around his throat, squeezing his airways shut. A voice, familiar and cold, creeps in, telling him he can’t leave. He can’t abandon his friend. The only person who has been a constant in his life for years. The only person who cares. Grant can’t leave him behind. 

He’s being pulled backwards, his oasis shrinking in his vision, the song fading to nothing but a murmured whisper. Barely there.

He digs his heels in, forcing heavy legs to move forward. He’d reach it, even if it meant throwing away everything he’d worked for, he’d reach it. He’d lay his head in those warm sands, and he’d finally find some peace. Something snaps, and suddenly he’s moving faster, his body light enough to make it feel like he was flying. 

The darkness around him starts to lift, the stars above sparkling as they fade into light, and finally his boots hit land, and keep moving forward. He pushes through overgrown plants and steps over fallen trees, but these obstacles are nothing to him, now. He breezes by, feeling freer than he had in a long time, breaths coming calm and easy. The center of the oasis comes quickly thanks to his determination, and finally-

His eyes open.

The cockpit is dim, as always, but warmer than usual. He’s sure he has the heavy blanket tucked around him for that. Everything sounds normal, with soft beeps and the incessant rattle the ship developed after the crash. The only difference was the soft humming coming from his left. 

He turns his head slowly, the image of you filling his vision, sending butterflies rushing through his whole being. 

You were curled in the co-pilot’s seat, knees pulled close to your chest. You were focused on your nails, eyebrows furrowed as you scraped at them with a file as you hummed along to whatever song played in your head. Occasionally, a lyric or two would slip through your lips, your voice filling him with a different kind of warmth. 

Pretty.  

Your head snaps up, as if you’d read his thoughts. Or maybe he’d spoken out loud, he wasn’t totally sure. Your eyes find his, and you smile.

“Hi,” You say softly.

“Hi,” He murmurs, a smile creeping onto his own face. 

“You okay?” You ask, tilting your head a bit.

He just looks at you for a moment, really taking you in. Your uniform had been abandoned for something more comfortable, you’d likely traded places with someone just long enough to change but not leave him totally alone. Your eyes were tired, though that was nothing new, and God you were just…

“You’re pretty,” He says before he can stop himself. You make a noise, like you’d choked on air, and your face fills with color, pink dusting your cheeks and ears. 

“Wh-where did that come from?” You ask, letting out a nervous laugh. 

“My heart, I think,” He says, feeling awfully cheeky. You laugh for real this time, rolling your eyes and shaking your head. You open your mouth to quip back at him, but he speaks first. “I mean it though. You’re really pretty.” 

You pause, blinking at him real slow, thinking about how best to respond to him. Not that your hesitation was much of a surprise. His words came out of nowhere, surprising even himself when he’d blurted them out. He was honestly somewhat glad that you were taking your time to speak, rather than waving off what he’d said as a joke, or something he’d said out of exhaustion. 

“Thank you,” You finally reply. “You’re not so bad, either.” 

“You think?” He asks, feeling a grin stretch his face. 

“Mm. Very handsome,” You nod. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” 

The silence that falls between the two of you is long, but comfortable. You shift in your seat, moving to sit criss-cross rather than bunched in a ball, your gaze following him as he sits up and stretches the sleep from his limbs. Your eyes burn into him, making him grateful for the blanket still covering his lap. He couldn’t say why you looking at him like that made him feel this way, but it did. It gave him a surge of something, confidence or bravery or stupidity, it didn’t matter. 

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, hoping you saw the sincerity in his face. You make that choking noise again, eyes blowing wide and lips parting in shock at his question. The pink on your cheeks darkens to more of a red color, and his heart beats so fast he’s not sure he’ll survive to see tomorrow. 

“You want to…kiss me?” You ask, voice shaky despite your clear effort to keep it still. 

“Very much.”

“Oh.” 

“You don’t have to, I just-”

“I want to.” 

It’s his turn to choke on air, your words stopping every thought in its tracks as now he has to pause and think about what you just said. You were agreeing with him. You were going to let him kiss you. There was a high probability that you kissed back. That he wasn’t out of his fucking mind, and you felt the same warmth he did when you were close. 

He chooses not to say anything, instead he sits straighter, smoothing his hands down his wrinkled shirt before fussing with his hair. He catches how you snort quietly at his hurried primping, but he didn’t care. This was important, it was a major event. He had to look nice. Or, at least, nicer than he did when waking up from a very long nap. Once he’s ready enough, he turns his chair and stands, motioning for you to come closer. His hands twitch, eager to get ahold of you, to pull you close and finally find out what your lips tasted like. 

You shuffle from your seat to stand in front of him. The two of you look at each other and laugh, both equally as anxious and awkward as the other, almost like you were teenagers again about to kiss their first real crush. But when he reaches for you, fingertips brushing across your face, any worry he may have had falls from his shoulders. 

It’s easy to hold you in his hands, easy to lean down to meet you as you lean forward, easy to press his lips against yours. What’s hard is letting go. 

You fit against him perfectly, your hands reaching up to hold the front of his shirt, cementing you in his presence. Your lips are soft and pliable, moving against his own like you’d done it a thousand times, and parting when his tongue requests access to the rest of your mouth. The longer he kisses you, the deeper he goes, the harder and harder it gets to separate.

Eventually, though, you both need to breathe, and you’re forced to part ways. The room is filled with the sounds of soft panting as air fills your lungs, and you both just let yourselves bask in the knowledge of what you’d done. If the company wasn’t shutting down, he was certain he’d get fired for this. But he didn’t regret it, not for a single second. 

He looks at you, at your red face and wide eyes, mouth still partially open, and knows that if he pulled you in, you’d happily fall against him. 

So he does.

Chapter Text

It’s a blur, at first. Everything moving so fast you don’t get the chance to really think about what you’re doing, or how it’s going to alter your future. Not that either of you care at this moment, instead focusing solely on finally letting go of what was holding each of you back, and letting the world disappear in favor of pleasure and excitement. 

His hands are softer than you expect, though there is a certain roughness to them that can only come from someone who uses them regularly. His fingers dig into your hips, nails scratching skin, making you shiver. 

He drags you down with him when he drops, pulling you tight into his lap, lips finally leaving yours in favor of meeting the rest of you. You let your head fall backwards, panting softly as he trails kisses along your jaw and neck.

Somewhere in a dark corner of your mind, you remind yourself that anyone could walk in and catch you. You hadn’t exactly locked the door, after all. But you didn’t care, and neither did Grant, if the fact that his hands are sliding up your shirt and pressing into your breasts tells you anything. 

You silently curse yourself for thinking to keep your bra on, wishing instead that you felt his hands without the wall of fabric between you. He mumbles something into your neck, you think he might call you beautiful, but your mind doesn’t really process his words. They don’t matter. All that matters was him, and how he was touching you, tearing at you in his own equal desperation for intimacy. 

Your hands fall from his shoulders, sneaking between the two of you to rub your palms over his clothed cock, pulling another groan from him. 

“I want it,” You pant, less than eloquently. Grant lets out a chuckle, nipping at your shoulder. 

“I know, lovely” He says. “We’ve got to be quick about this.” 

His words bring you into full clarity, reminding you again of the position you’re in. You’re in his lap, straddling his waist and rubbing yourself against him like a cat in heat. You must look ridiculous, you think. Anyone who walked in would be scarred for life. 

His hands fall from your chest to grip your hips and jerk you forward, grinding you against him, shaking you from your own thoughts. Your mind filters out the worry of possible unwanted guests, and fills your head instead with the memory of how big you knew he was. It made your mouth water, your pussy dripping. You didn’t just want him, you needed him. 

How long had it been, again, since you had a man inside you consensually? Months? Years? Did it even matter?

Your hands grasp at his belt, unbuckling it with a determination like you’ve never felt before. You wanted him inside you, and you needed to be quick about it. This wasn’t going to be the most soft and loving fuck you’ve ever had, but you think you’d be able to convince him to give it another go once you’re in a much more stable situation.

You feel your bra come undone, and have to force yourself to stop your failing attempt at unbuttoning his pants to tear your shirt off and let the undergarment fall. It’s his turn to pause, now, sucking in a sharp breath as he takes in the sight of you, nipples hardening in the chilled air.

“Shit,” He hisses. “Remind me to appreciate you more, later.” 

You can’t help laughing, your face flushing. He’d just confirmed his own want to have you again, and something about that made you feel giddy. 

He lurches forward, pushing you back to your feet. It takes you a moment to figure out what exactly he’s doing, but all it takes is a single look from him at your shorts for you to realize that he was not only asking you to take them off, but had also taken over the duty of getting his own pants undone. 

Right. You’re supposed to be in a hurry.  

You’d gripe about the unfairness of being the only one naked later, but for now, you all but leap out of your bottoms. He doesn’t give you a chance to really look at him once his cock is freed from his pants, his hands moving straight from the fabric around his waist to your hips to once again pull you onto him.

The feeling of him stretching you would etch itself into your body to be remembered forever. Grant was by no means a small man, and you could feel every inch as you ease yourself down, clinging to his shoulders for dear life. 

It burns, your body not accustomed to sex after such a long time without it. But the pain eases into pleasure with the rolling of your hips. It’s distinctly unsexy to think about it as a mad dash to the end, but once you start, it’s impossible to slow down. His hands bruise your hips, eyebrows furrowing in deep focus. You slide up and down his cock, moving on muscle memory alone to chase after your pleasure.  

The room is awash in the sounds of sex. Skin meeting skin, moaned curses and whiny breaths. He litters you with praise and encouragement with a rough voice, his hips lifting with every movement, thrusting up into you.

The familiar pressure of an oncoming orgasm builds quickly, but you’re not allowed the option to hold off. The moment the pitch of your voice starts to raise and your body starts to tremble, he’s telling you to cum, growling the order into the skin of your shoulder and all but tearing it out of you with several well-placed thrusts. You fall apart around him with a choked cry, hoping you weren’t too loud.

You’re still coming down from your high when he shoves you up and off, giving you barely a second before spilling his own pleasure between the two of you.

The room falls into silence, nothing but the idle beeping of the controls, and your ragged breaths permeating the space. Then, a chuckle from your paramour. His chuckle evolves into a laugh, one hand coming up to press into his eyes, shoulders shaking. 

You look at him, bewildered and ready to ask what’s wrong, when he lifts his gaze, eyes filled with amusement. 

“I think I’m going to need clean pants,” He says between laughs. “You made a mess.”

You pause, blinking at him, then your own laughter bursts out of you. 

“ I made a mess?!” You grin at him. “I think you mean we made a mess.” 

You don’t remember the last time that laughter after sex felt like a good thing, but you couldn’t bring yourself to even consider feeling mocked. Grant really did have a rather large wet spot on the front of his pants, and you thought it a good thing that he could find the humor in everything, that you both could find the humor in everything. 

“Don’t forget to appreciate me later,” You say, grinning at him as you stand on shaky legs. 

“Oh, I won’t.”

“Good boy.” 

The look he gives you is both a warning, and a promise.

Chapter Text

You don’t know how many days pass after the crash that the rescue ships turns up. Hell, none of you even knew they were coming until a few hours before it arrived. Grant got the notification while you were on your knees, his hand in your hair one moment, gone the next as he forced himself to push you away so that he could read the paper that comes through the janky printer. You never get to finish. 

A scant few hours is nothing when in space, especially when you were trying to get everything in proper order for the rescue crews. According to the instructions you all were given, there would be two ships. One to take over the haul, another to cart you and the rest of the crew back to Earth, essentially relieving you of your duties early. These ships were supposedly faster, being government owned, and would have you back home in half the time it took to get to where you were. That was the power of money and proper technology. 

You’re not even really done preparing before the ship jerks, and Grant’s voice comes over the rarely-used intercom, telling everyone to prepare for company. 

The man who takes over the cargo listens intently as you explain to him what information you had. You tell him exactly how many boxes were in the warehouse, and how many you lost to the crash. You apologize for not having a better organizational system, only to have him place a hand on your shoulder, and tell you not to worry, that he understood.

Jim is taken and put in a proper detainment cell in the belly of the massive rescue ship, and you’re positive no one loses sleep over it. Not even Grant seems to care much as the man is marched past him, glaring holes into your lover, who just watches with a small frown.

Then, just like that, you’re swept off the Tulpar, and headed for home. 

Grant doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself over the next several weeks, now that he was truly relieved of his duties as captain. His input wasn’t needed anywhere, no one was looking for him to solve a problem, or whining to him about poor sleep and shit food. He was able to just sit back, and let others handle everything. And it was driving him crazy. 

Everyone from the Tulpar could see it. It was in how he paced the unfamiliar lounge, how his eyes followed the new crew. It was in the way he sat, spine straight despite the slight twitchiness of his hands. He wanted something to do, he needed something to do. But it couldn’t be you, not until you were back on solid ground. 

He is careful not to let his touches linger, neither of you totally sure what any of these new crew members would think if they figured out what was going on between the two of you. And that wasn’t even considering what your friends would think. Though, he does whisper promises of what will come, which leave you blushing, slightly disoriented, and wishing this ship moved even faster.

You and Anya encouraged him to finally get some rest. He barely slept while running the Tulpar, and now that he didn’t need to be in charge, he had the chance to actually sit down and relax. He’s not as susceptible to seduction in this aspect, but he lets only you push him into his room and lay him back down, his only caveat being that you sit with him until he passes out. On the days you can’t get him to go back to bed, you make sure he goes along with you to meet with the others to play games to pass time, and talk about your futures. 

Daisuke wants to go back to school to study robotics. Getting to fix Eyes for you had apparently opened his eyes to something he actually enjoyed. He grins talking about it, the subject lighting him up like a spotlight. 

Swansea says he’s going to retire. He was old enough, and his wife had been asking him to do it for years. He’s not super pleased with the idea, wishing he’d gotten the chance to leave the workforce on his own terms, but mentions being glad to be more available to spend time with his kids and grandkids. 

Anya whispers that she’s thinking about leaving nursing. She’d been spending a lot of time studying psychology, and says that she thinks she’s finally found a field of medicine that she could be successful in. Grant beams at her, and everyone wishes her the best of luck. 

When he’s asked about it, Grant shrugs and admits that he genuinely isn’t sure what to do next. He’s done this for so long, that he’s not sure he can do anything else, even if he wanted to. He mumbles about feeling too old for that sort of thing, which gets a small pillow thrown at his head by Swansea. 

You want to take time to rethink your career. There are plenty of things you like, and think you could do for work, but you weren’t sure exactly which one suited you. Thankfully, you had the savings to get you by for a little while so that you can do your soul searching, but you have less of an answer about the future than Grant.

What you do know, is that whatever is in store, you want him by your side.

Chapter Text

He smooths his hand over the front of his jacket for what must be the hundredth time. He knew everything looked good. His suit had been ironed and picked for dust and stray hairs, and he’d groomed himself to as close to perfection as he could get. But this was important, and he couldn’t help the anxiety that bubbled in his chest when he thought about what was on the other side of that door. 

Or rather, who was on the other side of that door. You were waiting for him inside, likely having been ready for him to arrive for far longer than you’d dare to admit. All he had to do was knock, and let you open up for him. But the idea that you could still turn him away made him hesitate. 

Sure, he’d seen you naked a number of times by now, and sure, you had been the one to ask him out on this date, but what if you changed your mind? What if you’d texted or called him about it hours ago, and he’d just missed it? What if-

A rush of air startles him, and he jolts as the door swings open. The sight of you sucks all the air out of his lungs, freezing him to his spot. 

God you were so beautiful. The dress you wore clung to your skin in all the best places, your lips painted an intoxicating red. All he wanted to do was shove you back inside your apartment, and kiss you until his face was coated in your lipstick. 

“I was going to let you keep standing there,” You say, “But that felt rude.” 

He chokes out a laugh, his cheeks flushing in embarrassment. Of course you already knew he was there. Of course you’d been waiting for him. He’d worked himself up for nothing, but he’d never felt better about it. 

“I was just making sure I looked alright,” He says, smiling at you. 

“Mm,” Your eyes flit across his form appreciatively. 

You didn’t need to say anything, he could see every filthy thought that flashed across your mind. He’d give you what you wanted later, first came his carefully planned evening. He offers you his arm, like a true gentleman, his body warming even more when your hand curls around his bicep. You let him lead you back out to his car, grinning like a cat when he opens the passenger door for you, making sure you were all in before shutting it again behind you. 

“Where are we going?” You ask as he starts the car and pulls from his parking spot. 

“Dinner,” He says. “Then the aquarium.” 

“Is the aquarium open this late?” 

“Not usually. But they’re having a fundraiser event. It’s adults only, and goes until one in the morning, so we have plenty of time to see everything,” He says, the worry that you’d refuse his plans lifting off his chest when your face brightens. 

“That sounds amazing! How’d you pull that off?” You ask. 

“I know a guy,” He winks at you, grinning when you start to laugh. In truth, he’d essentially bullied the higher ups at the now dissolved Pony Express to get him the tickets along with some hush money for you and the rest of the crew, with the promise that you’d all sign NDAs, and keep what happened on the Tulpar, as well as your work experience in general, away from outside ears.

“I can’t wait,” You say, leaning back in your seat. Grant hums, eyes focusing on the road as he turns onto the highway. 

The drive to the restaurant he’d reserved a table at is filled with idle chatter and soft music playing over the radio. At some point, one of his hands falls from the wheel to rest on your knee, his thumb rubbing gentle circles. He grins to himself when his touch makes you squirm, knowing just how much he was going to drive you crazy once he got you home. 

He could already imagine what you’d look like, strewn across his bed, naked and perfect and just for him, and he had to fight not to drive straight to where he really wanted you. Hell, he’d take you in the car if he wasn’t so determined to see this night through as he’d planned to. He was not going to waste this chance to literally wine and dine you, not after thinking about it for so long while in space. 

The drive goes by far too quickly, and soon enough, he’s pulling into the parking lot to the restaurant. 

Just as he led you out of your apartment, he leads you into the restaurant. He’s sure he looks goofy, with a big grin and slightly flushed cheeks, but the host at the door pays him no mind as she leads the two of you to the table. She leaves with a clipped enjoy, and vanishes, allowing for your server to seamlessly slide in and take her place. 

Dinner is filled with more conversation. Stories and secrets are whispered between glasses of wine and perfectly prepared food. When Grant gets up to go to the bathroom, he pauses to steal several small kisses, leaving you a giggly mess as he practically skips off. He does it again when he returns, not caring in the slightest that the server had returned to deliver dessert at the same moment. 

You don’t finish the bottle of wine Grant ordered, but the restaurant is happy to put it in a bag for you before you leave, and the two of you make a silent promise to drink the rest soon. 

The aquarium was only a few minutes drive, but you’d taken your time at dinner, so the two of you ended up running across the parking garage to get there before they stopped letting people in. You squealed and laughed when he scooped you into his arms to keep you from twisting your ankle in your shoes, and for a moment you’re not sure the person taking the tickets is going to let you in for fear of you being too drunk to enjoy the event. Grant just barely manages to convince him, swearing on his honor that the two of you were just in that good of a mood. 

More alcohol is served inside, the two of you getting a free glass of wine the moment you step into the building. There are several booths for a silent auction, with all kinds of things up for sale.

The two of you look at everything carefully, commenting here and there on things you liked, or how ridiculous the bids seemed to already be on a few items. Grant puts his name down on something for Daisuke. A baseball bat signed by a player on the local team that you both knew the young man liked. 

As you walk through the exhibits, you fill him in on how Anya is doing. She’d moved in with you not long after you all had returned to Earth. She hadn’t been able to afford living on her own anymore, even with the money Pony Express gave everyone, and you’d offered your spare room. Once she was settled, you’d helped her get back into school so that she could work towards her psychology degree, and supported her where her family failed. In a way, you had become her family, and you were closer than ever. 

He returns the favor by letting you know that Swansea and Daisuke were both doing alright. The older man had settled nicely into retirement, and spent his time spoiling his grandchildren. The younger man called Grant almost daily, babbling to him about his classes and the girl in his math class that he had a crush on. 

Neither of you had expected this much connection to the crewmembers of the Tulpar after you’d been safely delivered home. You’d known that you two would stay close, with every intention to build your relationship properly, but it was nice to have made such good forever friends.

He wraps his arms around you, standing with his chest pressed against your back as the two of you watch the sharks swim in front of you and overhead. The buzzing of the people talking around you is mere background noise to your quiet moment. He kisses your shoulder, and the side of your head, murmuring every now and then how glad he was that you were with him, and how beautiful you looked. 

You turn and tilt your head back to look at him without fully turning around.

“I’m ready to go home,” You say. 

“Already?” He asks. “It’s barely eleven.” 

“I know, but there are other things I want to do, and I don’t want to be too drunk or tired to do them.”

“Is that so? Just what are you planning on doing?”

“You, for one thing.”

He laughs so loud that several people glare daggers at the two of you, but their displeasure goes ignored by both of you. He doesn’t say anything, he only nods, and lets you lead him this time through the aquarium and back outside. 

It’s a miracle he can keep his hands off you during the drive, but you’re not so lucky once you pass the threshold of his apartment. 

He has you pressed against the wall the moment the door is shut and locked behind you, grabbing you and hoisting you up so that you can wrap your legs around him. His hands ruin your perfect hair, and smear your lipstick over both of your faces. You don’t process him pushing back from the wall and carrying you through his apartment, kissing you the whole way. But before you know it, you’re dropped into his pillows.

“I’ll never get tired of this,” He breathes, shucking his jacket off and tossing it into the ether of his bedroom. “I could look at you like this for the rest of my life.”

“Promise?” You ask, chest heaving with soft pants. 

He drops back down, capturing your lips in a heated kiss, his hands shoving your dress up so that his fingers can find their way under your lacy underwear. 

“Cross my heart, lovely. You’re perfect. Perfect and all mine.”