Chapter Text
BANG!
A gunshot. He can't hear it that well. He does see the flash of light though.
He's finally all alone: handless, legless, voiceless, skinless; sitting in an icy tomb. All he can do is wait, as he's done.
He's in pain. The cold hurts his exposed tissues, his raw flesh. But he doesn't scream. No one will hear him. No one will want to hear him; no one wants to hear him—has wanted to hear him since the crash.
That voice in his head: the one that went silent when Anya started choking on blood and phlegm, on bile and stomach acid; the one locked behind shredded vocal chords—no one can hear it. No one has heard it since the crash. The only times he can warble are panic and pain, but no one wants to hear those. Especially not Jimmy.
So Curly sits quietly: words taken and his screams suppressed. He has no noises left to make.
Curly sits with the consequences of his actions, in pain, alone, in shock maybe, dazed, lone eye blurry, dry, aching.
Ice encases the glass slowly, growing like a bush of roses rushing to bloom. Crystals form flowers and snowflakes. Then they start to grow on his flesh, but they're not as pretty. It hurts.
All he does is wheeze. It's all he can do. He has nothing left to do. He's had nothing to do but moan in pain since the crash. But that was taken away too. He's been a battered doll no one truly wanted, but kept for pity's sake. He kinda wishes they'd let him die. But that would be mercy for his sins.
Curly is at fault. He's had no illusions about this, he's known since he stared at those red monitors before white swallowed everything.
This is just his punishment. A bit cruel in his opinion, but, what right does he have to complain? He has no words and no actions. He can't do anything.
The ice has almost completely encased him. Soon, he'll mercifully black out. Then he'll die, hopefully. Maybe he'll wake up in the same situation and slowly starve to death, all while in pain. Maybe he'll be saved, to live whatever future a living corpse like him has left.
Whatever happens, he won't cry, he won't scream, he won't moan.
No one will want to hear it anyways.
Curly's vision finally darkens.
—
Opening his eyes is not what he expected. Opening his eyes is painfully unfamiliar, an action that startles him. He blinks once, then blinks and blinks until his eyelids hurt. He can blink.
Strange.
Last Curly remembered, he had no eyelids and one, bulging eye everyone hated looking at.
He stops blinking, vision cleared enough to show him a ceiling. A familiar ceiling he hasn't seen in some time. The Tulpar’s—the cabin’s.
This isn't what he really expected to wake up to. Ideally, he wouldn't have woken up at all. Maybe he hasn't—purgatory, or a cruel trick of his mind. Surely those would make sense.
What is he supposed to do then? Will someone guide him to hell? Will he wake up again and simply be there? Or will he wake up 20 years in the future?
Curly doesn't know. He frankly doesn't care. There isn't much left to care about. The entire crew is dead. If he makes it back, all he has are his meagre savings from years of service to a now dead company. It'll probably all go towards whatever can be salvaged from his body.
Will he even want to be saved? Curly doesn't think so. He's not sure his family will want him like this: what would his poor brothers think of him now? How would his parents react? How can he face anyone after everything that happened?
It would be easier to die. Maybe it's not what he deserves, maybe relief isn't a salvation he's allowed, but if Curly is granted one wish, it would be for it to be over. Or maybe for it all to be a dream. But a part of him selfishly hopes it's the former. He's so very tired. Even with a seemingly healthy body wherever he is, his eyes are dry and his limbs are numb—as if barely attached to his person.
He wants to rest.
But the voices on the other side of the door won't let him, “You better pay proper attention to this or you're gonna spend the rest of the afternoon with the nurse.”
"Got it! But spending time with Anya is actually good, so it's not really an incentive—"
“Alright alright, I get it ya damn brat!"
Swansea… and Daisuke? Oh… he hasn't heard those voices so clearly in months. Curly's ears hadn't come out unscathed from the crash. But it wasn't like he could tell anyone that he couldn't hear them clearly (couldn't understand why he just kept hitting and hitting and thump thump thump until it clicks and he chokes the sobs down—)
All that he really registered were blurs of words from familiar voices. He could tell them apart by tone: Anya was nervous and quiet; Swansea was gruff and annoyed; Daisuke was cheery and bright; Jimmy was frustrated and angry. He knew whether he needed to brace or not when a certain voice appeared by his side, biting back cries.
They fade with distance, muffled behind his door. Curly moves his neck to follow them. His bones creak like unoiled hinges. He tries to wiggle his fingers. They twitch like a mummies’ hand, crusted movement from years of rotting. Except he's only been rotting for a few months.
What is he supposed to do? Get up? Walk around the Tulpar until he finds an out? Who else is here? Is Anya here? Is Jimmy—
His heart twists painfully into short and uneven beats, breathing strangled by the tightness in his throat. On instinct, Curly throws himself up to clutch at the weight on his chest pressing and pressing, and it hits him suddenly—he can move.
Not pathetically bat his stumps aimlessly, but move his hands and feet, wiggle his toes in his socks, and the fabric moves around his toes because he has toes now. He has fingers too, large, dry, pale. Skin, healthy, not flesh, not raw red, not bleeding.
Morbid curiosity tinged with a hint of fear (fear that this is all real and it really has been a dream) has him piqued. He shuffles off the bed slowly, moving like a newborn fawn, eyeing his limbs with a wide, disbelieving gaze. The feeling of flooring beneath his feet floods him with something. It's scarily real, it drags out the muscle memory barely alive in him. The cool metal crawls up the soles of his feet through fabric, gripping. He doesn't know whether he likes it or not.
There's no mirror in his room. He'd have to go outside to the communal bathrooms, but seeing the Tulpar might just make everything too real, and all he wants to do right now is disappear.
In the back of his mind, the fear whispers.
He can't tell if it feels real. It had only been a few months, but all Curly had known for those awful weeks was the medbay dowsed in bleeding red and the constant pain of being nothing more than a living corpse. He flexes his hands. Was this what it felt like to have hands? He grabs the bottle of pills on his desk, his fingers wrapping loosely with the grip of a newborn, so weak, so shaky. The bottle slips from his grasp to the floor.
The rattle of pills inside plastic chokes his heart between his ribs. He stumbles away—falls and crawls away as memories at the edge of his brain threaten to drown him.
(Fingers in his throat pushing down the tiny white dots that gave him temporary relief, fists on his stained gown and pin prick pupils glaring at him—)
For a moment, his breath feels strangled, coming out in wheezes that hurt but they don't because Curly's lungs are functional and healthy and didn't hiss every time he tried to breathe.
Shaky cold fingers dig into sweaty arms, arms that have skin, and it's almost unreal but this feels so real. He's here, in his cabin, alive and whole, not in the carcass of a human.
Someone knocks on the door.
Curly jumps, staring. The glass on the doors is too blurry to see a proper outline. He can only hope it's not Jimmy.
This—everything, the crash, this awful months, all their corpses, the knife cutting burnt flesh and the piece of leg in his stomach, and the ice that slowly grew over him—had to be a dream right? It had to, right? If this is all real…
So he has nothing to fear—sure Jimmy was abrasive, and rude, and impulsive, and quick to hurt and quick to anger, and Curly always stepped on eggshells around him, and Curly felt like he had to soothe Jimmy down from bursts of fury that terrified him, and Curly's emotions were always too big around Jimmy so he had to dull them down and bite back complaints, and Curly always moulded himself around Jimmy's weathering moods, but that was fine.
Because Jimmy also had his back. Jimmy made him feel less alone. Jimmy was always there when there was no one else Curly could go to. Jimmy was his friend from high school. Jimmy made that awful, charcoal cake because he knew Curly didn't really like sweet things, and that meant something because Jimmy was normally so stingy with everything else, and Curly had to be the one to give give give until he had almost nothing.
Gosh, if everything was all just a dream and this wasn't some post death hallucination, then he hoped it wasn't Jimmy. He didn't have the ability to make his emotions smaller, not when fear cling to him and his body feels off, and his skin isn't familiar and he just wants to crawl out of it—
The knock comes again.
Gosh, he couldn't do this. It didn't matter who it was. Anya, Daisuke, Swansea, Jimmy—he couldn't deal with any of them right now.
He didn't want to see Anya with blood and tears streaking down her cheeks, red on her face and vomit on her overalls.
He didn't want to see Daisuke with that horrid gash that cut through his bright face and peered into his skull.
He didn't want to see Swansea with a hole in his head, brains leaking from the edges of his shattered skull and torn tissue.
He didn't want to see Jimmy's too wide eyes and too wide, shaky smile and distant voice like he wasn't really there while he dragged Curly around like a doll, through the foamed insides of the dying Tulpar.
He didn't want to see anyone.
“Curly?"
That voice—that was Anya. Anya, whole and alive and clear. Not dead. Not scared, not crying, not blurred.
"Is everything alright? We didn't see you at breakfast.”
Breakfast.
All of Pony Express’s best. The porridge, the gruel, the snacks bars Swansea always finished before a few months in.
Breakfast, because Curly had hands and fingers and a mouth with lips and a tongue to eat with.
Breakfast, because they were still on their way and nothing had happened and the Tulpar hasn't crashed and—and—
It really was all a dream.
It had to be.
Because it couldn't be anything else. It can't be—Curly refuses to even acknowledge otherwise.
"... Curly?”
Oh, he needs to respond. He can respond. He has vocal chords that aren't shredded.
The first sound he makes are faint moans mixed with his shaky breaths, just shy of being a tiny cry. The second is a mumbled mess. Words feel unfamiliar on his tongue. He can't shape his lips right without something feeling off.
It was a dream, he tells himself. There's no need to struggle so much. Nothing happened. Everything in those months was fake, conjured up by his mind for no reason, like a cruel joke Jimmy would make and Curly has to laugh to fill the awkward silence—
"Curly? Are you alright in there? I'm going to come in if you don't answer.”
No, no he can't do this. Not right now. He needs to curl up into a ball and breathe, breathe through the fear scuttling through his blood vessels, crawling in his lungs and tightening around them; he needs to breathe through it all, even as those breaths sound like hiccups and quiet sobs because if he cried Jimmy would hit him and he'd deserve it. His own best friend turning on him. His own best friend killing everyone.
The handle clanks, and the door slides open, the Tulpar humming. Even the hydraulics sound too loud.
He wishes there were locks. Then he could lock himself from everyone.
("Why do you think Pony Express only put a lock on the medical room but not in the sleeping quarters?")
Oh… is this how Anya felt? The overwhelming fear as artificial light creeps in, as a shadow stands in that light spilled over the floor, a few inches away from Curly's pathetic, hunched form.
And for a moment, his blurry sight makes out a shape more like Jimmy than anyone.
His heart drops, until Anya speaks and it's her again once he blinks through the tears.
“Curly?"
He sees her.
Anya, the Tulpar’s hardworking nurse, persevering to an admirable degree, still chasing med school despite all the setbacks.
Anya, her dark eyes soft, her face smooth of months-long stress, her skin free of deep eye bags, her hair shiny and cared for.
Anya, alive, not bleeding, not throwing up on medbay’s floor, not rocking on the cockpit floor, not dead.
His lips move before his mind.
"... Anya?” Her name feels foreign. He knows it, he heard in his head over and over as he apologised and all that came out were pathetic wheezes and cries.
It was all a dream, but his body remembers. His body remembers how he forgot everything.
“Curly! What's wrong?"
Her voice makes him flinch. She stops abruptly, hands out, “It's okay, I'm—I’m not going to hurt you.”
Why did he flinch? Of course she wouldn't hurt him: Anya wouldn't hurt a fly.
It was all a dream. He has no reason to be scared, to be crying on the floor, to stare like she's a ghost, like she'll throw up at any moment.
"I'm—I'm fine… Anya,” he wills himself to say. Curly breathes slowly through his nose, forcing himself up to lean on the cold, metal walls. Cold is—cold is better than hot, but cold is like the cryopod—
He jerks away from the wall.
“Curly? What's wrong? What happened?" Her voice is much softer now. He really appreciates it.
He needs something lukewarm, neutral, not hot or cold. His skin is cold to the touch. He shivers even in his own embrace, and his teeth chatter but he's not sure if it's fear or the cold of the Tulpar cabin.
“C-Cold," Curly manages, a quiet whisper he hopes Anya will hear.
"You're cold?"
He nods. She grabs his discarded blanket and drapes it over him. He grabs onto his for life, feeling the material through his fingers, wrapping it closer to himself. It's warmer, better than cold, better than hot. It's warm.
It was all a dream.
Surely if he repeats it enough his body will get it; his mind will get it too and discard the fear that clung since he woke up and everything became too real.
Anya sits next to him, silent.
He wants to say something. He should apologise. For being such a mess. For causing this mess. What mess? The one where they all died? They died because… because Curly let Jimmy off like he always did. He let Jimmy off and the one time he wasn't going to Jimmy takes the steering handles and flies then straight to death.
Only no one died, but Curly might as well have died. He should have. He deserves it.
“Curly?"
Finally, Curly forces himself to meet Anya's gaze. There's nothing like betrayal or hurt in her eyes. The whites of her eyes are pristine from any red rimmed cries.
"Can I ask what happened?”
He lets out a slow breath. He speaks when the lump in his throat loosens, “N-Nightmare… I think.”
"Oh. I see. It must've been an awful one,” Anya says. She scoots away to give him space. He really appreciates it. Her warmth and the blanket are starting to get suffocating. He's warm, not hot, not cold either.
"Yeah, gosh, it was real awful…” the laugh he tries to force comes out as a shivering puff of air.
"Can I ask what happened?”
Curly thinks on it all for a moment. The bright light and the pain he remembers feeling but only in concept, the medbay's sunset wall on his side, always red and angry and bright on his dry eyes, the hands in his mouth and the fists on his battered body—
No, no, he couldn't think of—it's all a dream.
"It's okay—it was all just a dream. Nothing… nothing happened. Everything's fine." Right?
Anya answers after a moment of quiet, “I see… Well, do you feel up to breakfast? Maybe seeing everyone would take your mind off the nightmare.”
Curly thinks about food. In his nightmare, he couldn't eat. He hadn't eaten until Jimmy shoved a piece of his own leg and—
Nausea rolls around his gut like stones. Curly shakes his head, clenching his teeth through the discomfort, “No—thank you. No food. Not right now.”
"Are you feeling nauseas?" Anya asks gently.
Curly nods.
“How about some nausea tablets? We should have those onboard," she offers instead.
Tablets. Pills. The bottle of pills on his desk, sleeping pills for his insomnia. Back when he had eyelids to sleep instead of zoning out. He has eyelids now, because it was all a dream. It had to be.
(Right?)
The idea of pills turns his blood cold. He looks at the bottle on the floor, discarded, little white dots inside.
The pills started all this—the fear, the tears, the dread. Pills, something he was so used to. Pills, stuck in his throat, fingers jammed in his mouth, painful and hurting and burning and raw and searing and Jimmy punching—
Curly shakes his head, "Uh… no. I'm—I’m fine. I'll be… fine, in a bit,” he hopes his shaky, muted words will suffice.
Anya nods hesitantly, "Okay. Is there anything else I can do?”
When he looks at her, he remembers abruptly why the Tulpar had crashed in the first place.
("I'm pregnant.”
"Who would you even—”
"I told you captain.”
"Or this can all be remembered as a tragedy.”)
“Anya." Dread churns in his gut along with the nausea. It mixes into a sickening brew in his stomach. His voice drops a cadence, so serious Anya does a small double take at his tone.
“Captain?"
“Wha—how many days until we land? What day are we on?”
Anya told him what happened with Jimmy—no. Nothing happened. Jimmy did something. He r—
A shiver runs down his spine. Cold beads of sweat trail down his face.
Jimmy. His best friend. His partner in Pony Express. His friend since high school. His mate. His co-pilot.
Jimmy, who's tough to be around when he's angry, and he's often angry; who's always so blunt to a painful degree, and Curly's the one who always takes the fall because Jimmy says it isn't his fault if someone is offended; who looks at Curly's distress like he's undeserving of it, like he's supposed to be happy all the time because he has it better, like Curly's troubles and worries are irrelevant, unreasonable, even. And Curly thinks so too, because Curly had it pretty good.
But Jimmy had been a good friend before. He's shown Curly kindness. He's shown Curly patience. He's shown others selflessness, very rarely. He always thought Jimmy wasn't a bad person. Just troubled, with a troubled past and troubling future that had hope.
They used to talk about changing.
“I'm… not sure. Normally you're the one who knows the date off the top of your head.”
Anya looks concerned. She's right. Normally he does. He stares at the date often in the cockpit, the numbers sitting somewhere in the corners of his brain, etched from the hours of piloting.
But he can't remember. The dream, the nightmare has thrown him off. He lost time in the months as a mummy. And he can barely remember anything before that. Why can't he? It was all a nightmare, shouldn't he have brushed it off by now? He's never remembered nightmares in much vivid detail. He's never had a nightmare this long before.
It has to be a nightmare. It has to be. Curly can't stand the idea of it being anything else. His lungs falters at the idea, his mouth dries and his throat closes up with a quivering breath dangerously close to a sob.
“Captain, what's wrong?" Her gaze brims with concern, soft and careful.
Gosh, has Jimmy—he can't even say it. It's too real. It's too…. awful. His best friend, hurting Anya. For what reason? Anya hasn't done anything. Is Jimmy just awful? What were all those years of friendship for? What is he supposed to do? How can he come to terms with this? Has anything actually happened? Was it all a prophetic dream?
It has to be. Jimmy wouldn't… Jimmy couldn't… if it's all a dream, then Curly can just say his mind got the better of him.
"Captain!” her raised voice snaps him out of his own spiral. He looks at Anya with wide, red rimmed eyes, simultaneously dry and teary. She gazes at him with worry, and he gazes back tired and scared and dreading something but he's not sure what.
"Anya, can dreams… can dreams feel so real, you think they happened?” Can dreams be real? Can they be prophetic? Is his dream real? Is his dream prophetic?
Taken aback, the nurse blinks "What?”
"The—the dream. The nightmare I had. Felt so real. Lasted so long,” I can't remember anything before. Your face looks different than how I remember it.
Anya hums unsurely, “I'm… not sure. It depends on the person. It definitely can be the case that a dream feels real and ends up disorientating.”
Okay. Anya says it's possible. So it has to be. Because, Jimmy wouldn't do this, right? Curly knows Jimmy, knows how to handle him, knows how to calm him down, knows how to skirt around his bad moods and stoke his good moods.
"Captain… Can I ask what you saw?” there's something more than concern in Anya's tone. Something he can't pick apart.
"I…” no, he—he can't tell her. Just thinking about it makes him quiver, shivers running along his spine, even under the warmth of the blanket.
Besides, what would he tell her? He had a dream that everyone died? That it was all his fault? That it was all Jimmy? That Jimmy—
He whispers instead, “I need. Some time alone. Please.”
The nurse hesitates. She sits still before she moves, "Okay. But please come see me in Medway after breakfast, okay? We can talk there if you want."
Medbay. Curly isn't sure how long he can last in medbay, not with the remnants of his nightmare still nipping at his back (he's warm, not hot, not cold. It's starting to get hot though, and he sweats more than he usually does).
Curly manages a jerky nod. He knows Anya had left once the door closes, hydraulics echoing like a final gong, and it sounds so much like the doors to the cockpit where red lights blinked and blinked and blinked and the ship rocked with violent turbulence, and Jimmy sat on the floor with his hands in his head as Curly rushed to the cockpit but before he could make any course corrections hot white engulfed him—
Fingers dig into his scalp, yanking at golden curls until pain snapped him from the memor—nightmare.
The blanket—too warm, too stuffy, too hot. He throws it from himself. The Tulpar’s recycled air glides along his sweaty skin like icy ants. Too cold. He needs his overalls. He needs something that covers his whole body so he can just feel his body, feel his arms and legs and hands and feet.
Shakily, Curly gets up, using the wall behind him, ignoring the way cold spreads from his fingertips to his palms, discomforting to his overly tuned skin. He gathers his work clothes from the tiny closet: his overalls first, very slowly eases himself into them, taking his time, fixated on the way fabric smoothes over his skin. He zips it up to neck, collar flayed open in the way he's always worn it.
Something familiar.
Next are his cowboy boots. Jimmy teased him for them. Curly's always liked them. They went well with his belt: together they were the favourite part of his attire. He slips them on, wiggling his toes inside of them, watching in awe as leather bent around them. He's always had toes. Why is he so shocked now?
His body remembers the nightmare differently than he does.
Curly ties the belt around his waist, but his fingers fumble on which hole he usually clips it at. It's at the tip of his fingers, just out of reach of his muscle memory, but he can't remember which one.
He takes a moment, forcing slow breaths through his mouth to fight back the rising panic. The dream has just, thrown him off. That's all.
When he steps through the hallways of the Tulpar, bad dreams will fade into reality. Bit by bit, dread will unlodge from his lungs, and he'll take a deep breath of air. He'll see everyone alive and getting along, as much as possible with Jimmy and Swansea. Hopefully Jimmy will be in a good mood, so Curly won't have to tip toe around him, not in this frazzled state that would just frustrate Jimmy.
He finally ties his belt.
There are no mirrors in their cabins, only a few at every sink in the communal showers.
So mechanically, Curly makes his way over. The healthy albeit old thrumming of engines fills the silence around him. The Tulpar hums under his boots and in his ears. It's a sound so etched into his nerves he can't sleep without it.
It's a sound he finds somewhat unfamiliar, like he hasn't heard it in ages.
Curly ignores the thought and carries on. He needs to wash his face. He'll feel better with the layers of sweat washed away.
In the bathrooms, the face that greets him is his. Hollow blue eyes, messy golden curls, sunken eyebags. It's his face, like he's always known it.
It's his, but a little off: the two eyes he's always had don't seem right; the lips over his teeth don't seem right; the hair on his scalp doesn't seem right; like staring at a familiar stranger, like he hasn't seen himself in months.
He never saw himself in those mon—that nightmare. All he knew was that he only had one bulging eye no one liked. Curly hadn't liked it either, with how dry it always was, how he was forced to see everything he didn't before. He didn't have lips, only teeth pried open by gentle and rough hands.
But it was just a nightmare. It had to be.
Curly turns on the water.
He flinches back, flashes of searing heat on his skin under it on his muscles and face and burning burning bright light blinding—
The—the tap was on hot. Too hot. He needs lukewarm. Neutral. Not hot, not cold. Even if it was a nightmare, his body remembers.
Gathering a small cup of water in his hands brings to his attention that they're shaking. His breath is shaking. His body feels like it's quivering under its own weight.
The water drips through his hands’ cobwebs
It was all a dream. A nightmare. He'll step into the lounge, see the daylight screen, see Daisuke on the couch, Anya at the table, Swansea might be there too, and maybe Jimmy if he hasn't gone to the cockpit to cover for Curly already. Ah, Jimmy would be mad at that. But that was fine, he'd deal with it.
The water drips, drip drip drip, slipping through his hands that shake. The tightness in his chest hasn't abated since he's awoken.
It's just a nightmare. It'll pass.
The water in his hands is nothing but a sheen of moisture. Curly shakes his hands as he forces deep breaths down his lungs. They don't feel full, a pressure in his chest that crumples when he breathes.
His fingers don't stop quivering. Imperceptible to others, but noticeable to him. He tries to will them to stop.
His hands don't belong to him. They don't respond to him. They're his, but they're not exactly his. He hasn't had hands in months. Except he must've last night, but he has no memory of last night, only the nightmare.
Curly splashes water in his face and rubs until his skin burns. He slaps a handful of water onto his pale face marred with bruises under his eyes, rubbing his palms deep into his sockets until the black of his eyelids fills with colour.
When he looks back in the mirror, the face that stares back is still not entirely his. It looks nothing like his Pony Express card. He tries a smile. It looks something like the tired but cheery Captain of the Tulpar.
It looks like someone, like him, but Curly still feels like he hasn't seen his face in a while. A long, long while.
… He should get breakfast. He should see everyone. He'll make sure they're alright, he'll check the date and prove nothing is wrong.
He'll see Jimmy and—...
The too loud, too present rhythm of his heart in his ears skips a painful, stressful beat.
He'll see Jimmy again.
Curly's not sure he has the capacity to act accordingly.
He hangs by the lounge door longer than necessary. He doesn't mean to, but his hands shake on the handle and he feels dread in his gut that tugs him away. He wants to open the lounge and see the facsimile of day on the screen, yet fear tells him it'll be an ugly sunset.
Curly swallows nervously. The hand on the door finally pulls it open. The lounge is as it has always been.
Blue skies and clouds. The kitchen on the right, next to that small nook no one ever used. The table in the center. Anya sat there, nursing a mug. The smell of coffee hits him first, refreshing compared to the sterile nothing of the Tulpar. He sees Daisuke on the couch, the back of his head swaying to something. The beeping of the vending machines, Swansea punching in the numbers for a snack.
Curly lets out a shallow breath.
He takes a step in.
When he looks again, red threatens to douse the room, sunsets all around, foam in the corners.
Himself in the center, pain in his leg.
Curly stops—shakes his head.
“Cap’n?"
Swansea looks at him funny, eyebrow raised, "What's the matter with you?” His rough and gruff tone takes Curly back, back to the simplicity of just flying the ship, like they did every cargo.
“Nothing," Curly manages, “Just. Tired."
Swansea huffs a small laugh, “Yeah, can see it all over your face."
"Oh hey cap!” Daisuke’s smile dims into a wince, “Oh, you look like crap, cap."
“Daisuke!" Anya admonishes, hiding a small laugh in her tone.
“Sorry! I wasn't trying to be rude," the intern offers him a sheepish laugh.
Curly finds the corners of his mouth twitching into a smile, the normalcy of it all dragging him back, back to the room of blue skies and white clouds, “‘S fine, Daisuke. I do feel like crap."
Anya sighs before beckoning him over with a kind smile.
He finds himself staring at Anya's face. Something had seemed off initially, back in his room. He hadn’t recognised it properly, but now he sees her face so clearly, free of tears and free of the sheen of blurriness that came with having a lidless eye.
She looks happy. She looks alive. Her brow rests neutrally instead of perpetually turned up. Her eyes soften in concern rather than narrow in constant stress. The curve of her lips is upwards, not down. Her shoulders don’t hunch and her body doesn’t fold like she’s trying to disappear.
She looks happy, in a way that isn’t right to Curly. In a way that doesn’t match dream Anya, because dream Anya had suffered for months, longer than Curly. Even as early as before the crash, there had been a dourness to her expression he’d never picked up on.
But it’s not there anymore. Or rather, it’s not there. It never has been, because nothing has happened. Nothing…
As he stares, the thought dies…
Can he truly say nothing happened? Can he look at her - her happiest self he’s seen in ages, the image of her corpse threatening overlapping in his vision - and say nothing is wrong? Is he—is he supposed to tell her? Tell her what happened, what Jimmy did, what she did, what they all did—
“Captain?”
The dream fills his mind like memories. He thinks he can’t let anything happen to her, but nothing did happen, and he wonders what he’s supposed to prevent. His instincts flare up as if danger approaches, but all he sees is her, alive and well. And still, the thought prevails above anything.
“Curly?”
‘I don’t want to leave Anya alone with Jimmy.’
“Captain Curly.”
‘I can’t ever leave her along with Jimmy. Ever.’
“Swansea, he’s—”
“I get it nurse.” A grumble to his right, “C’mon kid, we’re doing our daily check ups in utility.”
“Huh? What’s wrong with the captain?”
“I said move it kid!”
“Alright, alright!” movement to his left, a blur of pink.
All he can think about is Jimmy again.
Jimmy, his best friend. His copilot.
His mind circles around Jimmy like a dog, pawing and sniffing and thinking and ruminating.
Jimmy hasn’t done anything yet. But Curly knows a part of him dreads seeing him again. A part of him fears Jimmy. Always has, tangled with affection. But his friend would never stoop as low as his dream self, because Curly knows Jimmy and believes in him—has believed in him for years.
(How could he be wrong for years? Surely he isn’t.)
Still, he fears what Jimmy would do to Anya. What he will do, if left alone. He fears it and he wonders why, when Jimmy has never gone after Anya. But maybe Curly doesn’t know what that looks like. Has never known, even though he should have, because sometimes Jimmy was rude and made crude jokes that no one laughed at, except Curly to fill the gap. And sometimes Jimmy said things that left a chill on Curly’s spine, but Curly never said anything knowing he’d be called out or chastised for being so soft. And—
“Curly,” a hand on his shoulder, “Are you there?”
…
Is he?
Curly blinks. The world comes back into focus. Was it ever out of focus? Anya’s hands on his shoulders squeeze. Her gaze pierces the fog in his mind; her words drag him from wherever he vanished to, “Why don’t we sit?”
He nods slowly, “Okay.” He must’ve gone away for a bit. He did that a lot in those months. In that dream. In the nightmare. He didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Anya pulls back a chair. She sits in it, pulled a little farther away from him. Distance, space. He appreciates it as he takes his seat.
Curly stares at his still fingers.
“Are you feeling any better, Captain?” she asks, her tone quiet, soft.
He hears her question. It takes a moment to process it, bouncing around his head as fading echoes, “Yeah. Yeah, I am."
"... That's good. Did you want to eat something?”
Did he? He has little appetite. Curly shakes his head, “I'm alright." He's content staring at his fingers, avoiding Anya's lively gaze that shines wrong in his vision.
"Still nauseous?” She asks.
Curly thinks on it. His guts don't twist as violently as earlier. He's had time to breathe, even as the nightmare still holds on to his shoulders and whispers in his ears. His appetite has yet to rear ahead despite how empty his stomach feels.
“No. I'm okay… now,” he should be. And he will be. He can't… he can't leave Jimmy to pilot the ship alone. That would be too cruel. Curly is captain for a reason.
Anya tilts her head with a small smile, “Still not feeling up to breakfast?"
The more she talks, the more her voice grounds him. He loves to hear it, loves to know she's well even though she's been well since yesterday, “Yeah, not really," he huffs a small laugh.
Anya chuckles with him, and it's a melodious sound, “Well, alright. Talk to me if things get worse, alright?"
He won't. He can't really, not without seeming insane, "I will Anya.”
Anya pushes her chair back to stand. She offers him a wave he reciprocates as she leaves for medbay, leaving Curly all alone with his thoughts again. Except his mind feels blissfully quiet for once.
In the silence of the lounge, filled by the humming engines and the Tulpar chirping quietly, Curly lays his head on the table, pillowed by his arms. The nightmare still swirls in the edges of his brain, no matter how much he swats at it, trying to keep his mind free, empty, quiet.
The tranquility around him breaks when a door slides open.
“I was wondering where you were."
Curly's gaze snaps open in tandem with a strangled breath.
"Here I am working my ass off first thing in the morning, only to find you lazing at the table.”
A bead of sweat trails down his face.
Curly looks up hesitantly; wide eyes crawling up his Tulpar uniform at a snail's pace, fixated on bloodless blue fabric and pristine white sleeves, trailing up the scar curved around frowning lips, all the way to the pair of tired, dull grey irises glaring straight at him.
His heart catches in his throat, lungs tight and throat even tighter,
“Jim."