Archive of Our Own

They’ve been on this planet for a month now. It’s been relatively quiet- as much as a dying planet can be, with shaking tremors wracking the ground every night and every morning. The temperature rising and never quite falling to what it used to be in some sort of doomsday countdown. The research expedition their crew- team, group, whatever they are officially called on The Exploration Federation’s paperwork- have come a long way since their first meeting a few weeks ago.

It was exciting and fresh and Tommy was so ready to go on his first field mission since graduating that on the morning of the official debrief he’d barely managed to sleep before, therefore oversleeping and rushing out the door with two different coloured socks, his shirt inside out, and all his notes and folders and licensing spilling out of his side bag. Only 2 minutes late to a meeting which, unfortunately, people always come early to.

As it was the formal debrief before all the technical details, before all the payments, and bullshit got complicated and loud- it was just a meeting between the selected members of The Explorarion’s graduates to meet each other, learn about the assignment. Then right after they would sign their lives and bodies away for however long a time the higher-ups deemed necessary. But it didn’t really matter. Everyone who was selected was going to say yes. There was never a doubt about that. Tommy had been waiting for years, ever since he was a kid, to go out into the far fringes of the unexplored and make it known and he wasn’t alone in this goal. It would be insane for one of the thousands of trainees to get finally selected, finally vetted, to get to the first debrief- and then say no to the entire thing.

Tommy should have said no.

Because when he stumbled into those clean double doors, a round table dotted with colourful species who all turned their various eyes and visors to greet him, instantly he knew he had missed something.

In other, Human, informal words? The vibe was off from the get-go.

The first thing he noticed was one person, sitting at the opposite end of the room; a Linpig. They were tall, buff, and mostly neon pink, while neon yellow clung to the ends of their limbs and cheeks.

Nothing wrong with Linpigs, nothing wrong at all- except that they are a species that prefers solitude, barely ever come off their planet, and historically have only spoken with the most high-ranking ranked explorers literally ever. 

When delegates and diplomates came to make contacts and peace, as well as to establish the slowly developing communication paths between the main interstellar community and the Linpig’s planet, Nether, the Linpigs as an entire community decided that the explorers were not of high enough rank to speak with them. They had insisted their words were only to be exchanged with beings of extreme status or wealth.

Seeing one of them in person, nonetheless sitting at the same table as Tommy, was like seeing the core of a planet intact.

Next to the Linpig was a Dwarven Za who looked as calm as could be sitting next to a Linpig, a wide wingspan at their back. Their feathers were curved and longer than they were wide and, to Tommy’s knowledge of the species, their wings were probably hiding their other pair of arms, the four limbs often wrapping around each other like snakes until they blended into one appendage. 

Tommy had met a handful of Dwarven Za and each seemed friendly and easy enough to get along with. The only fault that they shared was their hoarding habit. Just as he guessed, the Dwarven Za shifted in their seat and jingled softly as all their bracelets, belts, and necklaces hidden beneath their clothes rub against each other, surely covering every inch of skin.

The supervisor, a Dre-lay assigned to their debrief, turned around in their seat to face Tommy as he entered, looking nothing but bored. Their absence of neck gave them a ‘sinking into the chair’ look as the rest of their flesh and scales slowly melded into each other with age.

“You’re late,” she accused. Tommy ducked his head in a soothing gesture that most species were accustomed to- hiding his neck that was unnatural to Tommy in the same way that twisting his arm to touch the small of his own back was to show honesty.

“I- yeah, I just-” he cut himself off and hurried to a seat, next to the fourth member at the table who reeked the most of ‘vibe’, a Soot.

In fact, the Linpig was unabashedly levelling a dirty look at the Soot. Actually, as he took  a second glance as he sat down to study the Linpig’s face, he was delighted to see the alien had eyebrows like Tommy did. Human traits were not common in the galaxy.

Humans and Soots were practically opposites facial-wise, which was probably fun for all the other people at the table to see side by side. Where Tommy’s face was bumpy; soft in some places, and hard with bone in others, pale pink with brief spots of hair and many, many holes. The Soot’s face was flat, almost concave, with two dark, almond shaped eyes that blinked horizontally, and a light fuzz across his entire face that rippled with luminance when they talked or brushed a hand against it.

“Alright,” the supervisor announced, rattling the hardened parts of their fingers in announcement. “I’m Snag and I’m your direct communication with The Exploration Federation during this expedition. If there is a problem with supplies, or the planet, or your ship, or each other, I am both your first and last resort.”

Snag reached into his bag and pulled out four crisp information packets. He slid one to each person and Tommy readily flicked it open. All the loose papers inside it accidentally scattered over the Soot’s own folder- which he hadn’t even bothered to open, instead pulling out a single piece of paper with a haughty flick of his wrist.

“Meaning- don’t call me unless someone is dead or dying. I probably won’t pick up. There are hundreds of teams going out to planets and we have more space to cover than we have people available,” Even as Snag says this he glances at a watch on his wrist- a fancy one that glows as he tilts it to his face.

Tommy tilted his head back and forth in a guilty shake that he knew the Soots did but also couldn’t help mixing in the self-conscious rise of his shoulders or the uncontrolled blush to his cheeks. The Soot didn’t seem to care. “Do you have a pen?” he asked Snag instead.

Shag frowned and handed one over. “Inside these are basically all the direct information about the planet and timeline we’ve had with it so far. More information will be given closer to the landing date. It also shows what your data logs will look like day to day, week to week.”

“Specs for the ship!” The Dwarven Za trilled, their hardened lips clacked appreciatively and held up the picture to show the entire table as if they didn’t have the same picture.

“Inside,” Snag continued, “Is also your contract. I legally have to say I recommend reading over them extensively before-”

Tommy was already filling in all the boxes about diet preferences and required medications. The Soot handed over his signed contract and left the room without a backwards glance.

The Lingpig narrowed his eyes at the retreating figure and huffed a breath. Tommy blinked, also put off. “What was that guy’s problem?”

Shag huffed a laugh. “ That guy is now an official part of your crew.” He held up the Soot’s contract with his looping signature.

--

The ‘vibe’ that Tommy got didn’t disappear when they all got piled into the ship’s dock on the first hour of the first day of their two-month-long research expedition.

Upon walking in, everyone was warily eyeing the Soot, who clearly was aware of it, stretching out their frame to appear more sturdy and intimidating, making themselves a more undesirable target.

The entire group kinda just stood awkwardly for a moment in the large, high-ceilinged room, taking in all the flickering lights and open doorways. Tommy could tell that most of the doors lead to empty bedrooms, while two others lead to a spotless lab and a kitchen respectively. He also saw the Soot open their mouth as if to say something, but before they could, Tommy intercepted.

“Dibs!” Tommy shouted, heading to the farthest left room. Despite all the rooms being the exact same width and furniture, the declaration of priority made the rest of the crew pick up their heavy luggage and scramble to different doors.

Tommy, in his new bedroom, left the door open as he unpacked. Galactic-issued clothes, best suited for layering under atmosphere suits and thick thermal protections went in his top drawers, while more personal, comfy clothes went in the bottom drawers. He untucked the sheets of the bed and smacked the single pillow on the headboard a couple times to rid it of the awful recycled space dust that it had been collecting while the entire ship was in storage, waiting for their next passengers. Finally, he dug to the bottom of his bag to pull out a bright yellow mug.

He cradled it to his chest and walked out of his bedroom to the kitchen- on his way sneaking a glance into everyone’s accommodations.

The Dwarven Za, who had contacted them all separately and introduced himself as Philza, was lining his drawers and desk with many, many, combs and bottles of products and lotions. The Linpig, whose radio silence was still honestly expected, had stripped the bed completely and was putting their own sheet on it. The Soot had plugged in a small lamp that, instead of lighting up the room with UV rays, seemed to suck the light from the space- but it flickered and died as soon as they touched the bulb.

The Soot looked up when Tommy peeked in and they blinked at each other.

“I’m Tommy, human. We greet with handshakes.” He holds out his arm to the alien.

The Soot tilted their head and took Tommy’s hand, allowing him to direct their movements. “Wilbur, Soot. I’ve heard humans are touchy but…”

Tommy shrugged, not too off put by the assumption, “It’s different seeing it than reading it. Did you not have any humans in your classes?” There were a lot of schools that were training explorers and some were farther away than others. There were probably some that Tommy hadn’t even heard of.

“No, not really, but a friend of mine talked about humans all the time.”

“What’d he say?”

“Well,” Wilbur said, “He went on about how you could die without physical touch and ate everything and were either the best roommates in the world or the worst with no in between. So, are you going to be the best or the worst?”

Tommy grinned up at him, all teeth.

Philza leaned out of his door, “Did everyone get my messages? Soot, you didn’t reply to me.”

Wilbur did the Soot equivalent of rolling his eyes, or at least Tommy imagined that’s what the gesture meant. “I got them.”

Then the Linpig stuck his head out the door. When he spoke, his voice was deep and rumbly. Tommy couldn’t tell if it was because of underuse or if it was meant to sound like that. “I got them too but mine went through a weird translation. Is your name Philza or Phil?”

“Philllll! I like Phil. How you do, Phil?” Tommy said. English didn’t flow smoothly through most implanted translators and he always thought it was funny when he left out words in his sentences to feel the accent happen. When puns and English jokes got put through the translation shredder and lost their punch, Tommy found his own way around it. Surprisingly, Spanish was mostly intact and didn’t have the same problems.

“It’s Philza,” he said to the Linpig before turning to Tommy, “What did you say?”

“How do.”

Phil blinked.

Tommy turned around, giggling, and went to the kitchen. He threw open all the cabinets and drawers. They were filled with plates and glasses and silverware and packets of freeze dried foods. Tommy pushed some plastic glasses aside so he could put his mug right in the middle and closed the door.

“I’m not allowing you to mark every single place in this ship as your territory. We are all living here!” Wilbur said.

“Humans don’t have territory,” Tommy stuck out his tongue, noting that Wilbur seemed to get most of his interspecies information from books. Not too outdated books, but textbooks all the same.

“Your fingers are all over everything.”

Philza walked into the kitchen, not phased by Wilbur’s shouting, and put about three different soaps by the sink. The Linpig walked in behind him and placed a single-hand towel, woven with thick coarse wool, over the handle of one of the drawers.

Tommy couldn’t help his curiosity, he leaned towards the towering alien. “What’s your deal?”

Steady as stone, the Linpig loomed over him. It was as if Tommy was moving at hyper speed, walking around the alien and poking lightly at the hem of his clothes, while the Linpig just put up with it.

Wilbur put his head in his hands, quickly finding out what type of roommate his human was.

Phil looked interested too, “When did you graduate? I feel like it would have been a big deal, right?”

The Linpig waved his hands at the question. Tommy guessed it meant uncertainty, without-consideration, or unsteadiness.

“Kind of,” the Linpig said.

“I’m Tommy,” He greeted, “Humans give handshakes. I thought-” He stopped himself, his interspecies introduction class’s first lesson resounding in his head with his harsh first-year teacher reminding him to never open a message or new relationship with an assumption, insinuated you knew another planet better or were inferring something. In general, it lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and offences.

That was more of a second-question type of interaction- like Soot had done, something more familiar and done under request.

The Linpig, with his human facial features, lifted a single eyebrow and Tommy couldn’t help the bubble of excitement at the familiar gesture. He hoped it all meant the same things. A lot of facial communication was purely evolution based, and so there probably were a lot of the same conclusions drawn- shock or fear needed wider eyes for more perception, furrowing eyebrows to have a point of pressure and an angle for anger or confusion.

Slowly, Tommy’s hand was taken, and lifted up and down in a single shake. “I’m Technoblade.”

“Techno!” Tommy calls.

Technoblade waited a moment, then when Tommy failed, he added “...Blade.”

“Techno!”

Technoblade sighed, “Okay. I can tell this is going to be a long two months.” He sat down at the small table accompanying the kitchen and brought out his folder, “Before we all settle in, I wanted to establish the new details we got about our planet, Kinoko.”

Tommy and Phil readily sat, while Wilbur stayed hovering- face displeased at something but Tommy couldn’t tell what.

From what he read about Soots and Linpigs, Tommy knew that they were both species of mostly solitude- one residing in tunnels and darkness and small covens, while the other’s entire planet was mostly covered and sealed in by hot, thick clouds, keeping to smaller communities.  Though Linpigs had more hierarchy rules than the Soots did, in Tommy’s opinion, he thought the two would get along great.

“Kinoko is lonely and barren. The growth of the planet is mostly halted or undernourished, and the studies from the soil over the past three years have shown a rapid decrease in nutrients. However, there aren’t any bugs or animals to purge those chemicals. nor have any invasive species become sudden residents,” Techno read. “They want a chart of more soil readings, deeper into the planet and a recording of the wind direction and speeds, the vibrations on the planet, a growth chart of the plants that do reside there including root growth, and they want atmosphere changes.”

“Anything in there about new dangers?” Phil asked.

Techno scanned the document, “Beside the rapid changes in seasons they haven’t observed anything.”

“Pass the report over,” Wilbur requested. Techno waited just a moment too long before handing him the paper.

Wilbur read it over as the rest talked and Tommy peered over the Soot’s shoulder for himself. Apparently, the seasons were simply cold or hot. It wrote that the existing water sources on the planet were not safe to drink and evaporated during the hot season, called Shrivel, and returned to the reservoir at a greeter measurement during the cold season, called Expand.

As the week went on, they found a routine as they travelled to Kinoko. Phil was the earliest to rise and Techno was the last to fall asleep while Tommy’s schedule rapidly jumped around. Wilbur required fewer hours of sleep in shorter intervals so he was spotted moving around the small ship during the morning and night, missing most of the mid-day adventures. Tommy was the loudest during this time, gleefully chatting to both awake occupants and learning more about their interests and favourite studies.

Techno, for example, was a fauna enthusiast and was not pleased this planet had no known creatures. Tommy batted the idea with him about fossils and remnants to explore which seemed to interest both of them. Apparently on Nether, the creatures that died rapidly decomposed into dust, their remnants not lasting long in the warm temperatures.

Phil’s favourite studies were more temperature based. Apparently both his favourite and hated weather was the wind. He found air currents and the flow, distribution, and expanse of all types of hot and cold gas to be interesting despite not wanting to be caught up in it personally. Tommy loved talking about the air currents on Earth, or what he remembered of them. On Phil’s planet, they worshipped the wind and it both literally and spiritually guided Phil toward this path of scientifically exploring how his gods worked on different systems.

-

When the entire crew eventually landed, they were all buzzing with excitement as they put on their respirators and skin-tight suits with their own temperature regulations, and double, triple-checked their safety precautions based on the recorded instructions of the docking bay’s computer.

The doors opened, light blinding them all. Tommy shielded his visor with his hand and his glass vision fogged up with the sudden temperature change. When it cleared, the wasteland of a planet was revealed and his breath left him.

To his sides, he could hear his crew’s breathing change as they adjusted to the awkward forced pressure, depressurization of the suit. One by one they walked out of their ship, carrying boxes and setting up poles for a tent and tables, extending their lab to the outside. 

The atmosphere of the planet wasn’t too bad for any of them, but long-term exposure was to be avoided at all costs. Once, when Tommy was in school, he had been told that the unnatural atmosphere of any planet except for Earth, while breathable, was like inhaling 20 cigarettes at a time. Human bodies weren’t adapted to foreign climates and without years of continued exposure to antibiotics and vaccines the long term consequences of breathing in other planet’s air meant his lungs could grow thin and tear.

The two suns circling this planet in tandem glittered across the vista. The rays of heat rippled and warped their view and made it seem like the world was spinning beneath him. Like he was the largest thing in the world.

The suns were lapping at the ground, and Tommy could already predict the temperature of the planet when it would reach its highest peak. Across from their ship, there were a few scattered plots of flora and a mountain of bare red rocks was behind them. It was so massive, the end of it fading off to the left and right, that it felt as if it was dividing the planet in half.

The information about those rocks that they were given: big, clay-like texture, and dangerous. The mountains hid many hidden entrances to the cave systems beneath, and the sizes of the caves varied due to the malleable ground; it was a little squishy, giving under the weight of their boots. The cave systems were, therefore, high-risk zones, as the rock pushing into the empty spaces underground was the main cause of sinkholes and avalanches.

“We aren’t getting paid to stand here,” Wilbur says, setting his own box a bit away from the overhanging wings of the ship.

They got to work, setting up two tents with sealable doors and opaque fabric to bring refuge from the sun. Inside, they put tables and chairs and a few large rotating mixers for future soil samples to test their chemical balances.

Then the group brought out the map of the planet. It was about half estimation and half missing chunks, especially from the mountain ranges. Wilbur, the entire time, couldn’t look away from the sight of the sun's rays inching its ways up the grand spires of red.

He expressed this to Tommy and to anyone who would listen, “Look at them,” he’d gasp, “Think of what water reserves have been isolated from the extinction of Kinoko’s fauna, think of all the bugs crawling through that, literally frozen in the ground where it’s soft enough to breathe, kept safe under layers and layers-”

“If you love the big rocks so much why don’t you just marry it huh?” Tommy teased.

The fine hairs on Wilbur’s face stood on end for a moment and he cautiously pushed Tommy away, testing the limit on the Humans patience. Tommy exaggerated his response to show the motion was okay and pushed him lightly back, singing a song about Wilbur having sex with mountains.

“You little,” and he said something in Soot’s vibrating language that the translator couldn’t provide.

Technoblade walked up to the two as they circled each other, shouting. He passed three cylindrical soil samplers to each of them. In his grip, they looked light as a feather, but when the two tried to do the same they nearly all came crashing to the ground. They held, clanking metal sounds filling the air instead of yelling.

“These shits are heavy,” Tommy groaned. Techno blinked at him like a cat would, but he was thinking it didn’t mean trust or reassurance or boredom.

“Where do they go?” Wilbur asked.

Techno pointed to the tent and turned around to pick up 3 more. They had a lot of them to unpack. In Tommy’s opinion they were given so many because of 2 reasons: 1, because it was going to be the most useful sampler in their entire armada of tools to record the layers of Kinoko’s crust, and 2, because despite their weight, they were incredibly easy to break.

Tommy sets his pile down a bit too harshly on the dusty ground and one of the samplers dents into the shape of a flat taco. He groans.

-

That night the entire crew retrieves their heavily scheduled rations and leans up against the windows in the sealed ship to watch the sun dip behind the mountain. Warping purple and warmed blue skylight fading into darkness and stretching the shadows of the bulky ship. A cool breeze makes the entire metal structure creak ominously.

Tommy would feel right at home with a sunset and a horizon, if only there were the buzzing of insects or birds settling down to nest in the distance. Instead, it is silent. The rest of the crew finds it just as unnerving and chats idly as they eat.

To Tommy and Technoblade, meals are a common bonding activity. To Philza and Wilbur, though, it is almost strange and they keep getting distracted from their assigned meals to watch Tommy and Techno eat their chewy, tough-skinned bricks of packed proteins and vitamins.

“Just to be clear- Humans don’t have advanced strength?” Wilbur asks.

Tommy shakes his head. “Not, advanced-advanced.”

Phil shoots him a confused look at the repeated use of the word so Tommy clarifies, “It’s not as advanced as you are thinking. In my translator the word ‘advanced’ contextually leans more…” He struggles to find the word, waving his hand around.

“Overwhelming, extreme, enhanced?” Techno prompts.

“Yeah, Humans are not overwhelmingly strong. I’m more likely to be as strong or less so than a Linpig.” Techno looks a little impressed by that, sizing Tommy up.

Wilbur shakes the crumbs out of his ration packet into his palm, “I don’t get why Humans and Linpigs are so similar. You can’t both be bare-handed killers.”

In the corner of his eye, Tommy sees Techno tense.

“Killers?” Tommy asks, mostly confused, a little curious.

“Linpigs and Humans hunt in packs,” Well, that was factually correct, to a certain extent. “And your weapons are apparently just as deadly as your hands. Your strength and speed wipes out entire planet-born species!” Wilbur says, and he finally looks up from his rations to see Tommy and Techno both a little off-put.

Tommy knows the assumptions that aliens made a thousand years ago and how they are somewhat rooted in truth. He knows Humans are trouble- but he is also aware that Humans have expanded and made their own name out in the stars- and maybe, having the idea that a species as a whole were born killers was a bad idea.

He can separate himself from the stereotype of his species, but-

“And Soot’s eat rocks? Sleep for a hundred years and have fangs,” Techno probes with a nasty tilt to his lip.

Wilbur winces and then forces a barred tooth-grin, showing that he does in fact have two small fangs. He hisses to emphasize them and they flex outwards.

Techno looks sore so Tommy butts in. “Where’d you learn that? I keep on hearing you say weird shit.” He means ‘weird shit’ in the sense of ‘off-information’- and Humans have the word ‘weird’ technically classified under a negative tone effect, but he doubts Wilbur has read those language charts.

“My… education was stocked up on many versions of interstellar books. I basically lived in the library.”

Tommy tries to laugh it off. “Sounds like they were written a hundred years ago.”

“Excuse me?”

“Humans aren’t like that anymore. We don’t hunt. And I don't know about Linpigs, but I think your social structures have probably evolved too.”

Wilbur closes his mouth like he hadn’t considered that, like he was always used to knowing everything and being right, “Whatever,” he says.

“Yeah, mate, the first thing you said when you looked at me during the debrief was ‘your wings should be bigger right?’,” Wilbur spluttered.

“Wait-”

“You said to me,” Techno makes his voice higher pitched to mock the Soot. “‘Why don’t you just kick the door open?’”

“What was wrong with that?”

“Linpigs don’t just go around bulldozing establishments,” Techno huffs He folds the edge of his ration packet in a way that would be nervous or self-soothing if he was human.

To Tommy, it seems like Wilbur has just been going around pushing everyone's buttons. Huh. What a weird guy.

“I didn’t mean to…” The Soot trails off and Tommy, with his excellent diplomatic and extroverted skills, takes pity on him.

He bumps Wilbur’s hip lightly with his stretched-out foot and says, “Meh, meh, meh, I’m Wilbur and I know every single species in the entire galaxy despite there being over 700 unique species and even more undiscovered because I'm basically the ruler of the galactic council.”

Wilbur can’t stop the way the hairs on his cheek flow and flicker in what Tommy really hopes is amusement. Wilbur does his own species’s equivalent of a laugh, twittering and trilling, and tackles Tommy, pushing him into the unforgiving ground.

Philza squawks and quickly moves out of the way.

Tommy shrieks in a way that makes them all wince. “Future galactic leader alert! Future galactic-” and is cut off by Wilbur stuffing the plastic packaging of his rations into the Human’s mouth.

-

They start a new routine that lasts them a few good weeks with no complaints. They do different shifts and swap intermittently. Two of them go out and get temperature and samples and check on ongoing tests during the morning, and then two go out later to collect how the data has changed, swap out tests for new ones, and bring in specimens to their rooms to look at under a microscope. Slowly, their work extends out of the labs and tents and into the kitchen.

The map they have of Kinoko is slowly expanding, and with it comes a tear along the folded seam and a round stain from Tommy’s mug.

They have a clock-like schedule for the tremors of the planet and they refine it more and more each day. Some tremors are slight and happen every hour on the hour like the planet has to take a big, long breath of air.

A plastic sealed bag of clay sits at the entrance of Wilbur’s door and every morning he trips over it but it never gets removed. Philza never seems to run out of lotions and puts some on his hands and extra limbs when he finishes running tests. Tommy once compares him to a fly with how much he rubs his hands together and the translation makes Phil think that Tommy was insulting his wingspan. The resulting argument makes Techno take both of their external translators so they could shout outside and get their energy out without the words making any sense to the rest of them.

He gives them back, and both have forgotten what even started the argument in the first place.

It was one of many disputes and Tommy thinks the main cause for at least 40% of them is the close quarters. Kinoko is mostly wasteland, even if one were to go walk a mile they would still see the speck of them from their place at the ship. If one of them truly wanted to get away, the most effective option would be the mountains, but the safety issues that came with that alone was enough to sour any flight risk.

To Philza’s disappointment, the winds slowly were becoming static as the temperatures rose firmly into the Shrivel season.

The first month of their mission passes, and in celebration, they all decide to venture as a group to the edge of the mountains and take their first samples of that territory.

They brought with them many sealable samples, empty packs for rocks, a few cylindrical tubes for the soil, and an array of tubes of different reactors to see, in real-time, what the mountain’s makeup was leaning towards mineral-wise. Techno hadn’t wanted to bring any liquids besides their rations but Wilbur was getting too excited by the prospect of new rocks and hadn’t wanted to waste any time in finding out what their history was.

Once, Tommy walked into Wilbur’s room to see him with a pile of dust from the most recent soil sample, methodically sorting each speck into different piles of minerals. Tommy backed out of there very quickly. There was nothing more dangerous than to sneak up on a man attempting to sort dirt from most iron-like to most glass-like.

Wilbur slowly becomes less weird about species differences, proving Tommy’s guess that he just was really sheltered growing up.

But there were still a few things that bugged him about the alien.

“Yeah I’ve been in the registry for exploration since I graduated, seven years ago,” Phil said, bobbing his head along to the repetitive thuds of the rotating mixer that was currently churning their rock samples into dust.

Tommy and Techno were leaning over their tables, a cylinder filled with a cross-section of soils taken in order from the planet laying sideways between them. They were currently extracting a fossil of a presumed insect out of the deepest layer with steady hands, a glass sheet beside them ready for the discovery to be extracted and examined.

Techno hummed noncommittally and Tommy said, “Wow, you are so old. I thought you graduated at the same time as me.”

Philza, with his second set of arms, clasped the back of a chair and moved it closer. “You don’t know how lucky you were getting a contract right out of school as you did. Most people wait months, years, if at all to do this kind of stuff.”

Tommy leaned backwards not breathing, even though his suit wouldn't expel it, as Techno clasped the fossil between two pincers and brought it to the glass, setting it down a hair’s breadth at a time.

“Wow,” Tommy said.

“Lucky?” Wilbur asked, walking into the tent with a cold chest filled with the few flora they’d found on the surface.

Phil extended a wing and arm towards him and helped him set it on a table. The vibrations from it made both Techno and Tommy flinch and rush to steady their own tools, preventing them from falling to the ground.

“Lucky to be chosen to be an explorer,” He turned back to Tommy. “Did you get a recommendation? Graduated with the highest grades?”

Tommy shrugged, “I think my professors might have put a good word in. I still keep in touch with a few of them and ask them questions.”

Techno says, “That’s smart. I barely talked to anyone in my classes. That didn’t help me, but I knew every book and public interplanetary info website back to front which got me my previous exploration contract two years after graduating.”

He says it in such a matter-of-fact way that Tommy grins. “Wow, a Linpig not talking to their peers? What a shock.” He put his hands against his visor in a face of shock, the sarcasm punctuated by the exaggerated face but only Technoblade really understood that part and huffed good-naturedly.

“You going to put this under the micro scanner or am I?” he prompted.

Tommy got to work.

Wilbur looked over his shoulder, “It is… really hard to get this kind of work?” he asked.

They all shot him a bit of a confused look. “This line of work is nearly impossible,” Phil said, “it’s been a dream.”

Tommy smiled as he adjusted the virtual lens. “My parent were so sure the call to debrief was a scam that they prepared two different cakes for when I got home. One said ‘future explorer’ and the other said ‘sorry for your loss’.”

Wilbur looked surprisingly crestfallen, staring at his hands.

Tommy nudged him. “I bet you did the same to get work after graduating. Must have been something special.” He thought it would be reassuring but Wilbur’s face did something even more complicated that Tommy couldn’t quite grasp.

“I just didn’t realize that there were so many qualified people wanting… this,” he said.

Phil twitters. “Don’t say it like that. This,” he gestures to their lab equipment, “Is the best of the best.”

It got left on that until their first trip to the mountain range.

They had their supplies and headed out with a pack each on their backs. Techno holds a pad of paper to note the distance between their ship and the rocks to begin expanding this side of the map.

Once they reached the bottom of the mountain range, they’re all hushed with nerves and excitement and Wilbur nearly ran to be the first to touch the massive boulders dotting the incline. It got steep very quickly so they stood at the bottom and put a few samples into their bags, inserting the cylinders into the soft ground and so on.

They were not nearly satisfied and began to slowly climb. The higher they climbed, the cooler it got, like the ground was heating the atmosphere.

Technoblade slipped twice and stopped on an alcove, hooking himself and his gear beneath the dip in a rock. Philza stopped with him, but Wilbur continued up- he seemed to be a much more experienced climber than Tommy and advanced faster and faster until Wilbur stopped at a flat section above.

Panting, Tommy took Wilbur’s offered hand and was pulled up to the spot.

It wasn’t completely flat. Instead, it slowly dived down, and down, and down, right into the middle of the mountain range. A cave entrance: and a massive one. They had found a few while climbing up, big enough for them to put a few fingers or their entire foot into. Mainly tripping hazards instead of real caves.

This, though, is a real one. Tommy stands and puts his hand against the wall of the cave, “Hello!” he shouts into it.

It greeted him back. Tommy laughed and that echoed too.

“Wilbur, pass me a cylinder.” He desperately wanted a sample of these walls. He felt like a cartoon drooling at the thought of all the compacted stones and layers marked into the structure- even from his position outside of it, he can see the texture of the walls changing as it went deeper.

“Wilbur?” he prompts. He turns around.Wilbur’s expression was blank as he stares into the cave.

Tommy waits a moment, then waves a hand in front of Wilbur’s face. “Hey?”

Wilbur blinks. “What?”

“You kinda spaced out on me- your expression went vacant,” he corrected himself before Wilbur could ask.

“Sorry, I just…” his words trailed off and Wilbur turned away from the cave to look at the horizon, their ship a small blob against the wasteland.

Tommy walks past him and leans carefully over the edge to Techno and Phil. He put his cupped hand against the visor of his suit, despite knowing that it wouldn’t help project his voice. “There’s a cave up here, a big one!”

Techno’s expression immediately went both awed and worried in its own human way, eyebrows lifted up and eyes narrowed one after another, “We don’t have the tools for cave exploration, too dangerous. The Exploration Federation will have to send another expedition for that.”

Tommy knew this but groaned despite it. “Such a spoilsport.”

Phil turned to Techno confused at the expression, Techno shrugged.

“Come on Wilbur, let's get our stuff and-” When he turned around, Wilbur was gone.

Tommy scrambled back to the cave to see Wilbur about a foot down into the darkness. His heart leapt into his throat. It looked like the darkness was eating him.

“Wilbur!” he shrieked.

“What?” Wilbur hissed.

“Get the fuck out of there! This isn’t our contract!”

Wilbur thankfully stopped his descent, but did not come out. Tommy was very suddenly reminded of all the times the closet in his childhood bedroom seemed to get deeper and deeper- filled with horrors and the unknown in the darkness of his four-year-old mind.

“I-” Wilbur started, then stopped.

“That’s so fucking dangerous, get out now!”

“I was just, there must be so many fauna down here. The temperature is reasonably cooler, maybe some native species survived and adapted to live in darkness to escape the extinction-level temperatures, maybe the caves were their refuge. Everything is down here,” he breathes, “Everything…”

Tommy is reminded of sinkholes and rocks shifting- pressing in and crushing empty pockets of space and creating new ones, like molars chewing bubble gum.

He turnS deadly serious. “This is not our jurisdiction. If you continue down I will have you removed from this expedition for violation of your health and the entire crew’s safety and wellbeing.”

Wilbur’s eyes glimmered as he gazed up at Tommy and his voice was almost dream-like, “Did you not join the explorers to actually explore?” but he took one step closer to open air.

A part of Tommy’s heart and lungs that were clenched suddenly released and he reaches for Wilbur to help him out. Wilbur doesn’t take it, brushing past him.

They went back down the mountain.

Two nights later Tommy drifted at the edge of sleep but every time he began to fall into unconsciousness he would burst awake, Wilbur’s name on his tongue and the dark of his room creeping in, tugging him down, down, down.

Wilbur and Phil were on night duty for samples, so he really should be sleeping so he could do morning duty tomorrow but despite this, he tossed and turned until finally, he stood and decided to get a drink of recycled water.

Stepping out of his room and into the cool hallway, he spied Techno’s closed bedroom door and two open ones. Out a small side window, he could see the lights on in the tent and a figure standing in the open door of the fabric structure walking away.

Tommy walked past into the kitchen and retrieved his yellow mug.

As he took a sip he couldn’t help but feel like something was deeply wrong.

He returned to the window and looked out of it again, mug clutched tightly to his chest. He spied a dark figure walking away, probably going to get samples or some equipment, and he watched them round the tent, the ship, and out of view.

He couldn’t tell if it was Wilbur or Phil but he rushed to the other side of the ship to find them and after a moment they appeared again.

Closer, Tommy could see they weren’t carrying any equipment on their back or in their hands, they swayed a little as they walked, and walked, and walked.

Sweat dripped down the back of Tommy’s neck. They were walking towards the mountain range.

Something was deeply wrong.

He put down his mug, half full, and put on his suit.

-

“Wilbur! Wilbur stop!” Tommy called, his breath fogging up the visor of his suit. He stumbled across the soft ground and nearly fell, scuffing his feet dangerously and then righting himself.

Wilbur was far in the distance, running to the mass of rocks that started the climb. Only two metres up was their nestled cave entrance, dark and looming like liquid void that seeped through the cracks in the boulders. Wilbur stood in front of the mountains, a mere ant against a hill, and to Tommy, it felt like the mountains were ready to crush him.

Tommy, mouth acidic, out of breath, knew he couldn’t catch up- so he would have to convince him, “What are you doing, Wilbur?” he shouted. His voice carried, an echo against the dark night.

Wilbur turned around and Tommy couldn’t see his eyes in the dark and that terrified him.

“I have a confession,” he started.

Tommy stopped running, but pushed himself to take even, slow steps forward; because forward was forward and stopping was giving up. His lungs were heaving in the recycled air of his gear.

Wilbur raised his hand up to gesture to the mountain range and the star-spotted sky above, “I didn’t go to an official, fancy, galactic, space-exploration certified school like you did. I didn’t graduate with top marks and I did not wait years and years hoping to be accepted by the research federation.” Tommy got closer but still could not see his expression. “It was not hard work or luck. I was gifted this opportunity by my father and my father before him. My explorer licence was bought.”

Wilbur hung his head and put his hand in front of his face. “I don’t truly belong here at all. It-”

“Fuck that! You do belong here. You spent weeks here doing just as much work as the rest of us!”

“But I didn’t! And I don’t deserve it!” Wilbur said. “I was selfish.”

Tommy stopped about a dozen feet away, his nerves stringy and tight. “What are you even-”

“I came here because I wanted to be a great explorer, not a desk job, or a lab assistant, or being a doormat for the rest of my goddamn life. I wanted,” and he started to climb- “to be great!”

Tommy’s eyes stung. For some reason, he’d thought the suit, acting as a separation from the atmosphere, would also separate him from his bodily functions, like the overwhelming urge to scream and cry. “Come back down, come to our ship.”

Wilbur was not listening.

Tommy stood at the bottom of the mountain and carefully stepped in the stone’s impressions left by Wilbur’s own feet. He used his hands to steady himself, caking the gloves with violent red and a piece of the first stone crumbled, making Tommy hesitate.

“I wanted to discover something, a big break- prove that I was somebody. I thought that just once, maybe I could prove that I was worth my status, worth my money, worth my family’s privilege. I didn’t build myself up from the ground. I didn’t work hard.”

Wilbur climbed higher and Tommy made a quick decision.

“I didn’t study until I dropped. I stood in the corners of rooms my entire life and listened and just once,” Wilbur said, “Once, I wanted to show that I could make something of it."

Tommy’s footing was unsteady and skipped down an inch, enough to make it feel like his stomach had dropped out of him, making him feel colder than the breeze that suddenly ripped through right to his skin.

“Wilbur,” Tommy whispered, fingers curling into the side of the mountain. He was not heard.

Above him, Wilbur had finally reached the entrance to the cave. An outcropping that lead sideways and down, into the mountain and into pitch darkness. When they had found it earlier and Tommy had jokingly called down its echo, it felt like a cave. Now, it felt like a maw.

“It’s right beneath our feet,” Wilbur said, tone soft with awe, and he continued- but the words were unable to be translated. If Tommy could logically think past the massive block in his brain screaming ‘hold on, hold on, keep climbing, don’t look down,’ then he would assume Wilbur was calling it pet names, Soot names of beauty and complement.

“These caves are older than all of us combined, older than our ship, older than the galactic council. In all of them are secrets, flora and fauna that have fled for safety from the harsh climate, breathing creatures, impossible findings. This is what explorers do,” Wilbur said.

“You’re going to get yourself killed!” Tommy shouted breathlessly, he reached for the outcropping, able to see the reflection of Wilbur’s horizontally closed eyes in the side of the visor. Tommy’s limbs were shaky from holding his weight.

Wilbur leaned his head back and opened his arms as if to greet the cave.

“I am an explorer!” he bellowed. It echoed and the ground seemed to shake. A tremor.

Something cracked. The friction of two pieces of stone caused many smaller stones to clatter and fall upon the two of them like rain, then fell a larger piece, a jagged red rock harshly snapped from its place above them. It hit the side of the mountain, cracking another and spun wildly.

Tommy screamed and ducked his head to press against the ground, half his body on the steady outcropping.

It hit close enough that he could feel the vibrations of its impact through his bones.

Tommy looked up to see Wilbur’s terrified face, hairs on end. The sound of the stones cracking and falling around them, getting larger and larger in size as the second went on, echoing until it hit a crescendo. The once solid and flat entrance to the cave shifted wildly, as if sinking.

Wilbur fell to his side, shouting, and they locked eyes as the stone under Tommy’s hip shifted loose.

“We have to get down,” Tommy said, his gloved hand sifting uselessly through the soft material, unable to hoist himself up to Wilbur’s level.

Wilbur hesitated, palm open and facing as if ready to reach him. He turned around to look again at the yawing entrance.

“Wilbur!” Tommy shouted.

Another impact of a large rock- and he didn’t want to look up, but he did. The mountains above were a mess of dust and split-second projectiles. He ducked his head just in time for something heavy to fall on his shoulder.

It wrenched him away from the side of the mountain.

He fell backwards.

Tommy screamed. He hit the side of the mountain once, twice, catching nearly on smaller alcoves and outcroppings. Each impact wasn’t enough to puncture, and Tommy couldn’t even begin to think of the pain as heavy impacts fell over his back and stomach and shoulders, the Kinoko sky appeared and disappeared, flickering.

His breath was gone and something in his suit beeped, once, twice.

His helmeted head thudded once, twice, and something snapped. In that same second, he lost consciousness.

-

As soon as he registered that everything had stopped moving, that’s when he screamed. It was as if he ran a track race against his own nerves and they’d finally caught up, beat him in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and then revealed that multiple bear traps had been scattered across the field while he ran.

He couldn’t scream, because when he inhaled it burned instead.

Fire was pouring down his throat. Tommy coughed and saw spit touch his visor, the insulated glass cracked and if he concentrated, he could hear some of the regulators inside it hissing with effort.

He barely moved his head, vision swimming and realized he couldn’t feel his toes or his fingers. In his peripheral vision he could see his right hand moving, twitching upon command. A good sign.

Then he closed his eyes with the effort of it all.

-

Someone is yelling his name and Tommy opens his eyes and turns his head. Too rapidly, darkness creeps in on his eyes and turned everything dark. Then he focused. His left arm was pinned beneath rubble.

He looks up and there is the bright, bright, star-filled sky.  

And he sees Wilbur, his figure fuzzy but coming into view. His crewmate places a hand on his head, and his shoulder and brushed off some dust to properly look at the damage to his suit.

Wilbur lets out a shuddering breath. “Oh shit, oh fuck, we have to, we have to call someone- Techno, the fucking comm- We have to call Shag.”

Tommy wheezes “No, I’m n’ dying. Don't call-” and he loses the thought.

Wilbur tucks his head in close. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-” he took another deep breath, counted to three, and physically seemed to harden. He tugged at his suit, looking for his gear, comms, pen, anything but he had come to the mountains misguided and empty-handed.

“I have to,” he struggles to say it. “I have to go get help,” Then he looks down to Tommy, as if to confirm.

Tommy’s glassy eyes peer up at him, blinking slower and slower.

“Do you understand? I have to go- get help.”

Their atmospheric suits are built to be an assist, not a tool, and its lightweight, tight fit means that it has no secret pockets or distress signals besides a single one to notify the wearer of a rapid change or decrease in airflow. With Tommy’s suit punctured, surely torn or pinched beneath rock it was currently beeping in his ear, just loud enough for Wilbur to hear it too. The suit’s pressure was uneven and unable to draw in the planet’s air to filter it and make it breathable. This didn’t mean Tommy couldn’t breathe, though and Wilbur set his trembling hand against the Human’s chest to feel it inflate and deflate, but it meant Tommy wasn’t breathing the best quality air, he could.

Wilbur tugs at Tommy’s arm experimentally, worried about the Human’s spine and prone position, and then immediately lets go when Tommy gasps through his teeth.

His required first aid and deep space health class are ringing in his head. He lightly ran his hands down Tommy’s exposed suit, feeling for any obtrusions or wet spots. He quickly snuck his fingers as far as he could beneath Tommy without jostling him and his gloved fingers came away red.

“Okay,” Wilbur whispers, “Tommy, you have to respond, tell me you hear me.”

Tommy closes his eyes and takes a shallow breath.

“Please,” Wilbur leans down and takes Tommy’s hand. The ground still shakes with residual tremors.

Tommy dipped his chin by an inch and squeezed Wilbur’s hand.

“Tommy?” His hand was squeezed again and the Human suddenly went completely limb, tenseness that Wilbur hadn’t thought was there left in a gigantic wave and Tommy closed his eyes.

Wilbur wanted to scream, to wake him up and drag him but he turned his head to look at the ship in the distance, slowly being silhouetted by the rising suns. The temperature had started to rise, and it would be uncomfortable if not dangerous if Wilbur did not leave right this second.

So he stood. He silently promised one more thing and started to run.

-

Tommy opened his eyes.

He felt as though he was in an oven, warmth, and thick humidity clogged his nose. He opened his mouth and licked his dry lips and tasted iron. Grit was lodged between his teeth when he bit down and the grains of it ground and pressed against his gums.

He had to wake up for the morning shift.

He felt like he slept wrong, or didn’t sleep at all, and he tried to blink away the gunk from his eyes but the mere effort it took to lift his gaze was like being in slow motion, like lifting an ocean, like holding a car’s wheel in donuts while it dragged you against the force of motion.

He tilted his head and felt the separation between his skull and the ground beneath him. His right hand moved up to touch, pins and needles wrought up and down his skin but he managed to touch the side of his head- metal. He was wearing a helmet, wearing the suit.

Tommy rasped something unintelligible, even to himself, a sound of surprise- and he could finally focus on the sky above. On Kinoko, there were no clouds like Earth’s, or ceiling-like floating structures like on Nether. Despite the winds, nothing was carried across it. Kinoko’s sky was blank save for its two suns but right now a bolt of lighting divided perfect blue.

He reached his fingers to his face and couldn’t quite manage the precise motion he meant- instead thudding lightly against his visor and feeling the uneven surface with a bold, wiping motion, smearing dirt across the glass. A few grains of the red planet fell onto his face through the crack.

He felt his heartbeat in his ears and tried to move his feet, but the numbness turned into a crackle of flame, a racing sort of pain that made his jaw clench and him lose his breath.

“Wilbur,” he called, voice so, so quiet. “Phil, Techno?”

It was so hard to breathe past the residual pain that blocked out his hearing, and past the heat that encompassed him like a blanket in a burning house.

He tilted his head to face something, anything and he gazed up, up, up, and past the top of the mountain range with all its crevices and secrets.

The edges of his vision blurred, but he could see spots in the steepness above where chunks of rock were missing, jagged edges and handholds pushed into nothing.

The slow incline leaning up against the bottom of the mountain range his crew had walked up is not a dip, like a small ditch or ravine. A hole. Tommy was in a hole, and despite being half buried, the ground was not cold, not like Earth’s rich soil. This was wastelands, and this was the heat. Kinoko was a dying planet and Tommy was buried in it.

Tommy closed his eyes and tried to count the breaths he took. His lungs burned a little as if they were raw.

For a moment it was just him and Kinoko.

And then Kinoko began to wake, it breathed in with its morning tremor, shaking loose grains and vibrating Tommy’s bones. A larger piece, pinning his arm and his leg, seemed to fall down into the ground more, grinding into him and Tommy screamed, half pain, half fear, as the once small shake he had recorded from the safety of his crew’s kitchen now seemed bigger.

Something on the mountainside shifted.

Tommy closed his eyes again, not sure when they opened and counted his breaths until the ground fell still.

Where was everyone?

He furrowed his eyebrows and tried to think. It was dark when he left the comforts of the ship, scrambling to put on his suit, leaving every safety tool behind in order to run after Wilbur, who had run after the mountains.

They had climbed and when Tommy reached for him, he fell.

He couldn’t remember what it was like to hit the ground. He’s almost thankful for it if it was not extremely important for what happened after.

He tried to call out again, “I’m here!” He took a larger breath despite the weight of it on his lungs. “I’m here! Guys…” If he was on Earth there would be crickets, the buzzing of insects and electronics, there would be wind, but here it was silent and deadly.

Tommy shuddered. “Please. Don’t leave me here.”

He gasped as the ground began to shake once more, his fingers clutched into the planet for any semblance of safety, of grip and control, and the mountain range looming above shifted once more, then something came loose.

It broke free from the side of rocks and red clay, unravelling and twisting. It stayed close to the mountain as it fell- travelled down, flowing in between rocks and growing in size.

It then branched out- turning into the open air and revealing a red, scaled, face. Its head was half the size of his ship and its body, following behind it like a writhing river was an extension of raw power. Its bulk locked and rotated seamlessly, limbs with massive claws, each dwarfing his body clasped at the darkest parts of the mountain.

It turned its head, like watching a crane move across a skyline, and two molten lava eyes peered down at him.

Tommy inhaled and his body locked.

The creature’s head split into two and revealed a gaping inside that was both void black and glowing with red and its breath washed over Tommy, another source of fiery heat rolling overtop- a tsunami of heated air that sizzled and popped and made him sweat.

Tommy blinked harshly against the wall of it.

The creature extracted itself from the inside of the mountain, cracks in the ground following its mass as if it was crawling out of a hardened shell, hatching and the ground continued shaking until the top of the mountain broke in two.

Boulders fell to the sides of the world and Tommy was helpless at the foot of it, watching red rain down the mountainside. By luck only thin dust and small rocks fell to Tommy’s immobile body.

Erupting from the mountaintop were two planes of dark red, maroon blood that blocked out the blue of the sky and arched over everything like a parachute.

The creature tipped its head back and bellowed.

Tommy was deafened and the world blurred, he was forced to close his eyes against the sweeping of dust that churned from the winds made by the creature’s minuscule movements.

He had to remind himself to breathe.

“What the fuck is that!” A whisper, a tinny voice.

“Tommy!” Another shouted, muffled.

“Tommy! He’s there!”

“Tommy, fuck, fuck, what is that?!”

Tommy drifted, feeling light.

Something jostled him and above him was the creature’s molten lava stare and three figures, faces obscured by visors. One had their palm against Tommy’s head, cradling him gently while their fingers touched the side of their own helmet as if concentrating on a translation or message.

“You alright? You have to say something,” Tommy could do nothing but blink.

“It’s not attacking us- fuck, Kinoko is not a planet.”

“It’s so fucking hot, help me load Tommy onto the sheet.”

They touched the metal of Tommy’s suit and hissed in pain but held on. Their touch felt dreamy, not quite solid, and Tommy felt himself lift and then fall as cold wetness on his back was exposed to the heated air, the contrast in temperature enough to make him grunt.

“Wha’sit-” Tommy coughed before he could say anything else.

A figure leaned over, strapping him tightly against the ground, “We are getting you back to the ship. Tommy, you have to keep breathing, stay awake.”

“Hello, we need immediate evac, we have a severely injured crewmate- yes, dying, he is dying and the planet you put on is crumbling beneath us because it’s not a planet-” A grunt of effort. “It’s not a planet it's a fucking egg!”

They hooked something in the ruined material of his suit and tore it, removing the helmet and sliding his skull free from its glass cage. Tommy’s hair was slick with sweat and his throat was burning but he wasn’t sure if it was from dehydration, the atmospheric poison slowly corroding his airways, or if he had strained himself by screaming on the way down.

“Tommy, look up at me.” Tommy did, squeezing the hand in his grip because it was the only thing he could do to stop himself from falling apart completely. “Tommy, do you see it?”

It was magnificent, it was bigger than anything Tommy had ever seen.

“It’s an egg. Kinoko is an egg!” Someone else said, breathless as they hauled Tommy off the ground.

Tommy smiled with bloody red teeth and the creature roared again.

-

Days later, Wilbur’s grip had not had a moment of slack. It had been so tightly held that Tommy’s hand left imprints in his skin.

Off Kinoko- the ship having left the atmosphere just as the ground beneath their tents and samples, a month of hard work- began to sink and crumble into empty space and hot magma, incubating fluid began to overtake and seep through the mountain.

Tommy was cleared by the medics Shag had sent them. They’d stitched and bandaged as best they could with Tommy’s back and upper arms shredded to pieces, scabs and a broken rib secured tightly. At first, it looked like he was dead. They were unable to see where the red clay from Kinoko ended and where his red Human blood began.

Now he rests, just as pale, just as silent, right beside Wilbur’s bowed head with half his limbs arrested by casts and the other half hooked into lifelines. 

He could hear the reassuring wheeze of Tommy’s breath as Wilbur gingerly laid his arms and head on the mattress and closed his eyes.

The medics had told them ‘the only thing now is to hope he wakes up.’ So hoping is what Wilbur is doing.

Hoping and apologising.

The windows on the ship showed their aimless path, drifting in the open arms of zero gravity and darkness. The bedroom was dark, save for the stars outside and the red and green lights of Tommy’s breathing assist, a mask fitted to his nose and mouth.

“I’m sorry, Tommy. I haven’t made it, not even close.” 

He shuddered, “I wanted to be great and all I got was…” He didn’t want to say dead teammate because Tommy was not dead, not yet, and not even- not because of him. “I came back though, so please, please I’ve never done that before and all I want, call me selfish or not, all I want is for you to be okay.”

Tommy didn’t respond.

“I came back,” He whispered, squeezing Tommy’s hand. 

A Human-designed IV bag was providing nutrients and fluids into Tommy’s bloodstream and he could see the steady drips as well as feel each breath Tommy took.

“This is all my fault,” he said.

Techno and Phil stood at the door behind him. He could feel their silent eyes on him.

Wilbur turned around. “You know it too.”

Techno frowned, very Human-like, and rolled his shoulders. Phil looked away but then said, “No. It’s not.”

“He followed me to the mountains, I couldn’t catch him and he-”

“You were an idiot, you were uncooperative, and you were putting everyone at risk including yourself,” Techno said. Wilbur flinched. “You’ve never done that before, Wilbur. So tell us why?”

Wilbur closed his eyes and could picture the crumbling mountainside. Seeing Tommy fall and disappear past the rocks. Feeling it sinking beneath him as he scaled down, falling over his own feet and only stopping himself from following Tommy headfirst down by the thin grip of his gloves.

“I became an explorer… not because I wanted to find something new, or be famous, I just-” he spoke as if in pain to admit it. “I wanted to show that I wasn’t going to sit around for my entire life. I wanted to be something proud. I wanted to be great and now… I hate myself for it.”

Techno and Phil didn’t say anything for a while, but then Phil walked over and sat by Tommy’s bedside.

Techno huffed and put his hand on Wilbur’s shoulder, “You will never be exactly what you want for many reasons,” he said, carefully damning him.

And he continued. “But, you can be exactly what’s needed.” He sat next to Wilbur. He leaned gratefully into Techno’s side to hide his expression and Techno allowed it. “Tommy needed you to go find help and you did that, he’s alive because of you.”

“He’s hurt because of me too,” Wilbur snapped.

“I’m proud of you and I’m proud of him.” Wilbur made a gut-wrenching sound. It felt like something was pulled out of the deepest part of him, and the absence of it made him want to mourn but also cry for relief. Techno continued, placing his hand lower on Wilbur’s back to prevent him from completely kneeling over. “And I’m proud of everyone and everything we did. I hope that’s enough for you.”

Wilbur could do nothing but heave into his open palms while Techno and Phil gave him a silent vigil.

Tommy’s breathing hitched, pulling oxygen out of his assist awkwardly and fogging up the mask.

The crew stood frozen as Tommy, as if sensing them, reached out blindly, face pulled tight with pain. Wilbur caught his hand, already hating that he had let go.

“Tommy?” he dared to whisper.

Tommy’s eyes flickered open and beneath the machine’s foggy mask, Tommy’s mouth fell into a sleepy smile.

“...that was a fuckin’ space dragon.”