Chapter Text
Rose and the rest of the medical team care for the bloody bodies in the observatory. Dave comes in sometimes, making sure Rose doesn't neglect her own health for it. Yeah, it's transparently hypocritical of him, considering that he's down to one meal a day himself and also that a day is now about thirty-two hours long. But he still cares about her.
For the first few days he tries not to look at the people in the hospital, but eventually gives in and decides to get it over with. Exposure therapy, he rationalizes. Better to know what I'm dealing with.
That doesn't make it any less terrible, though.
Pyrope's eyes are still wrapped in white, but the blood has at least stopped seeping through. If Dave looks for more than a moment, he can see her swollen eyeballs rolling in erratic patterns under the bandages, though, and it makes him want to vomit. He tells himself she's dreaming, and maybe her dreams are better than reality right now. He ignores the possibility that they might be incomprehensibly worse.
The chaotic mess of bandages Dave strung around her torso in the aftermath of the accident have long since been replaced with Maryam's careful lattice of ointment-soaked gauze and clean wrappings. Antibiotics, moisturizers, and topical painkillers are pressed directly against her wounded skin, because she can't reliably take anything by mouth. She lost four teeth and can barely sip applesauce from a pouch if she stops screaming. Sometimes Maryam forces a sedative down Pyrope's throat to quiet her for a few hours. Maryam says her hands are going numb from applying the painkiller-dosed bandages twice a day.
Serket is maybe the best of them. She's mostly conscious and even lapses into coherence when her painkillers drop off. She jokes and teases Maryam, insists her arm is fine despite the fact that it hangs off her shoulder like a bag of sticks. Rose whispers that they would amputate if they could be sure it wouldn't kill her outright. Serket's eye socket is also still packed with gauze, and Dave had the misfortune of walking in while Vantas was changing it and seeing bloody remnants of the eyeball clinging to the cloth. Serket just stuck her tongue out at him.
Nitram is sad but alive. That's what he tells Rose every time she comes to check on him. His spine's been injured and his legs are barely strapped together with shambled splints. He's paralyzed below the waist, and Maryam is forced to diaper him in the bulky underwear meant to be worn under an EVA suit. It's fine, they both insist. They've both been worse. Above the line of paralysis, Nitram still suffers from burns and a concussion from where his head slammed against the wall in the blast. He complains that he's bored, but the doctors insist he needs to rest and keep his brain quiet. He wants someone to read to him. He cries.
The team of emergency doctors wander around like ghosts every moment they're not in the hospital. Maryam talks the most, and she only talks about the patients. Dave spends an afternoon with her and shares his habit of counting layers to calm down. They start cataloging injuries instead, methodical and rhythmic. Double orbital fracture. Chemical burns to both eyes. Fractured clavicle. Burns: scalp, face, neck, shoulders, forearms, hands, underarms, one breast, one hip. Three teeth knocked out, one forcibly impacted into the gum. Damage to the esophagus, sinuses, and mouth from gas and smoke inhalation. Probable hearing loss in both ears. Shock.
It keeps them detached enough to function, to compartmentalize every type of damage into its own place on the list and pretend it's an independent entity instead of something that happened to one of their friends. Each injury is a person Dave learns to hate uniquely.
Peixes appoints herself as the hospital’s night shift, says she can’t sleep anyway. She looks the part. She appears sick and gaunt, and she still eats her designated 2,100 calories a day but doesn’t seem to be absorbing any of the nutrients. Dave is weirdly reminded of that Christopher guy who ran away to live in the Alaskan wilderness and starved to death, some kind of poisoning that meant no matter how much he ate he starved anyway. Is that their fate? To repeat the same mistakes fifty years later and starve to death, not in a broken down bus but a glimmering futuristic space station? Maybe that’s it, that’s human nature: to die, scared and stupid and alone in the middle of nowhere. Dress it up in dreams of a pristine wilderness or technological glory, it ends the same way.
Megido authorizes everyone to use the intercom in case of an emergency. Dave hopes his crewmates wouldn’t have been held back by stupid ideas of duty in the first place.
All communications are down. Nepeta tells Dave she's upset because she didn't get to upload their vlog. "I know it's not that important," she says time and time again. "But if I focus really hard on being upset about this one thing, maybe I won't have the energy to get upset about everything else." Dave mostly sits next to her in silence as they try to distract themselves from the situation. Sometimes he sits silently next to someone else, sometimes he sits alone.
It sucks. It sucks hard.
It's at least a couple hours past midnight when Dave stumbles into the kitchen to eat something. The door to the observatory is permanently open, now. Zahhak tore it off the rails at Maryam's request. Dave sees Peixes staring wistfully out the glass walls, as still as a statue.
"Want something to eat?" Dave calls out to her. Peixes jolts, surprised, and shakes her head no. Dave shrugs in response. Everybody talks less now, it seems.
Dave grabs a packaged meal out of Serket's compartment; maybe it's part of the shock, or maybe it's just something space does to his body, but spice is the only thing he can taste anymore. He rations hot sauce from Nepeta, but Serket apparently doesn't mind that everyone steals from her food constantly. She's stuck with hospital standards, anyway, the blandest and softest food everyone could muster from their multinational menus, mixed with vitamins and pills. Regardless of any of these other factors, Indian food tastes fucking great, and Dave needs every molecule of dopamine he can squeeze out at this point.
Occasionally, someone will suggest the idea of rationing food, but nothing ever comes from it. They have plenty. And communications will come back, eventually.
Dave sits down outside the observatory-slash-hospital door to munch on his pakora and pulihora. It feels better, more natural, maybe, to sit next to someone else when eating, even in lonely silence. He can't see Peixes himself, but he can feel her staring at him. He turns around and proves himself right. "D'you need to talk about something?" He asks, awkwardly choking down a crispy pakora.
Peixes sighs. "Maybe," she says, rubbing her forehead with one hand. "It's just… do you ever…" she fumbles around the words. "Have you ever found yourself not caring as much about people as you used to, and then got mad at yourself for it, because it feels like a failure on your part?"
Dave turns around to face her properly, setting his food to float at his side. "You feeling burnt out?" He asks.
"Guess so," Peixes answers, bringing both hands up to her forehead. "I… you know what, I'm going to put my hair down proper. It's pulling at my scalp." She pushes her hands all the way back, running her fingers through her elaborate braids until they come undone and her long, wavy hair floats around her like a charcoal halo. She exhales deeply. "Okay," she mutters. "Better."
"You're beautiful," Dave says after taking another bite of the pulihora. "I say in, like, a non creepy way. I mean."
Peixes chuckles. "Thanks," she says. "You're not that bad yourself, mate." She winks.
Dave smiles. "I'm aware," he replies. "Damn if the one constant on this fucked-up space station hasn't been weird and traumatic flirting."
Peixes laughs again, melodic and sweet. "Not every compliment is a flirt, you know," she says.
"Or is it?" Dave quirks an eyebrow, then puts it back down. "Sorry. I'm not being a very earnest conversation partner here. Swear to God I'm ready to listen to whatever you have to say."
"I appreciate that," Peixes says, some of the happy-go-lucky energy draining out of her with one drawn-out exhale. "I guess I just feel terrible when I can't help people, even when, you know, there's not anything for me to do." She glances back at the sleeping hospital patients behind her. "I mean, what am I supposed to do here?" She continues. "Logically, I know I'm doing everything… everything I can be reasonably expected to do, but part of me is still like, hey, you're an awful person 'cause you're not, I dunno, ripping out your own eyes and giving them to Terezi." She winces as the words leave her mouth. "Sorry, sorry, I try not to be like that. Sometimes I compensate for, like, being too empathetic by being all gruesome and weird."
Dave nods. "Oh, man, I get it," he finishes the last of his meal and folds up the trash. "When I was, I dunno, twelve or thirteen years old, some birds outside my house died, like four of 'em right in a row. And I got really sad about it, and like actually kind of mentally fucked up 'cause it was disturbing as shit, but instead of processing it as man sometimes animals just die and you gotta deal with it I went fully to the other end like dead things are cool, I'm gonna collect dead birds to show how cool and tough I am."
"Exactly!" Peixes exclaims. "That's it exactly."
" 'N like, I still have fossils and some preserved specimens," Dave says, wiping curry sauce from the corner of his mouth. "Because they are legit cool, after all. But I'm not picking up dead birds off the corner of the street to prove how stone-cold-cool I am, as a thirteen year old who wears sunglasses indoors."
Peixes smiles, showing just a hint of her teeth behind parted lips. "When I was seven, I had a pet caterpillar and literally every night I was throwing up from the stress, and I couldn't sleep or anything," she says. "And he was fine! He turned into a butterfly and I released him into the garden and it was fine! But, like, the responsibility of caring for another living organism…" she trails off, and Dave knows she's thinking about the wounded crewmates floating behind her. "It was so stressful to me. When I got older-- my mom's a marine biologist and we've always kept fish and stuff, and sometimes she has other critters like octopus or cuttlefish she's studying-- I kind of learned to cope with, you know, 'sometimes animals just die' but it was, it still is something that hurts me. Like, I have a moral imperative to save every creature on the planet and do it perfectly and if even one caterpillar dies I am a failure." Her eyes start to glisten a little, reflecting the fluorescent white light of the kitchen and just a tiny catch of blue from the Earth visible through the observatory. "Sorry, I didn't mean to start crying on you," she laughs and sniffles at the same time.
"Hey, I offered," Dave counters. "Better out than in, right?" He smiles at her, hoping beyond hope that he actually looks reassuring rather than mocking. It's a skill he never quite mastered, but Peixes seems to relax at the gesture anyway.
"Um," someone says quietly from the other side of the room. "Hi, Dave, I wasn't trying to interrupt your feelings jam or anything." It's John, bleary-eyed and looking very much like whatever it is the proverbial cat always drags in.
"No worries, kid," Dave says.
"You're only five months older than me," John scoffs.
"Yeah, yeah," Dave flaps his hand dismissively in John's direction. "Anyway, what brings you to the combination kitchen-living-room-therapist's-office-hospital-observatory-Taco-Bell tonight? Had a nightmare and want to ask if you can sleep in my bed?"
John smiles like a doofus. "I was just getting something to eat," he says.
"Try the pulihora," Dave suggests.
"I don't know what that is," John responds.
"Good, leave more for me," Dave says. "Also, this is, uh, Fe..? Fifar…? This is Officer Peixes." He nods in her direction. John waves at her politely.
"Feferi," Peixes says kindly.
John grabs a packet of cereal and dehydrated milk, which he combines into a proper snack at the faucet. He floats over to hover next to Dave and Peixes, awkwardly lowering himself into a sitting position. "So…" he says awkwardly, not looking at either of them. "Whatcha talking about?"
"I dunno," Dave shrugs. He rests his hands on his knees. "Grievances. Machinations, even."
Peixes giggles. "Just chatting about stuff that's been on our minds, I guess," she says, making direct eye contact with John, who seems slightly intimidated by her. "What do you want to talk about?"
John makes a noncommittal hum and slurps milk from the cereal packet. "Have any of you guys seen, uh, Gamzee or whatever his name is?"
The tension snaps. The elephant in the room has begun trumpeting its big fuckin' snout in full force. Gamzee is the elephant. It's him.
"No," Peixes mumbles.
"What she said," Dave adds.
Gamzee is a major problem. Since the day after the explosion, he's made himself scarce. Karkat claims to have run into him in the hallway once, but he is conspicuously absent from all group activities and also, apparently, most solitary activities as well. His food parcels remain untouched and he hasn't clocked in at the gym, things Mission Control would get very mad at him for if they had any way to actually know about it.
"Shit, I wasn't supposed to mention that, was I?" John says apologetically. "Sorry, I just… what is his deal?"
"Do you think he had something to do with it?" Peixes whispers loudly to them, as if he might be lurking somewhere within earshot. Which, Dave considers, he might be, but being so tall means there's not very many places he could hide in without breaking his spine.
"What? The accident? No!" John answers, trying to match Peixes' hushed tone and failing. "I just thought he was weird and maybe kind of stoned!"
" 'Kind of?' " Dave quips.
"Whatever!!" John whisper-yells. "But, did he, though?"
"I mean, I don't have any evidence, per se," Dave admits. "But, like, he was looking mad sus right after it happened, and he was saying weird shit about my eyes the other day and then we got three severe eye injuries… okay, I know this sounds stupid once I say it out loud," he sighs. "But man's vibes were rancid as fuck."
"It's a little stupid," John mutters.
"I know you can't persecute someone based on vibes," Peixes adds, leaning closer to the middle of the group. "But just so you know, I agree with you. He is really shady."
"What are you people whispering about?!" Another someone shouts. Everybody jumps and John inhales some of his milk. Dave turns to look, it's Karkat, obviously, being noisy as all hell in the middle of the night.
"Oh, Karkat," Dave says calmly. He makes a point of using his first name as often as possible, even when he doesn't for other crewmates, because it makes Karkat hilariously angry even though they are kinda friends now. "Snooping around as usual, I see. Crashing our slumber party. Tsk tsk."
"We were actually, um," John sputters as he tries to clear dairy out of his windpipe. "We were talking about something that maybe, you would know about?" John's voice rises in pitch as Karkat's frown darkens. Quite a linear function, indeed.
"No, I haven't seen him," Karkat grumbles. "That dickweed. I'm kicking his ass as soon as we land."
Peixes beckons for Karkat to come closer, which he reluctantly does with an exaggerated eye roll and tilt of his head. "Do you think he was involved with the accident?" She asks him quietly.
"No," Karkat says flatly. "Don't say that shit."
"Sorry," John interrupts. "But his name is actually Gamzee, right? Because nobody confirmed that for me."
"Yes, his name is Gamzee!" Karkat hisses. "And we all know he's a terrible crewmate, but there is no way he was responsible for blowing up the lab!" He huffs and tries to lower his voice. "Listen, Kanaya was telling me, she says she told Megido too already but-- she was telling me that someone changed the oxygen levels remotely."
"So we're being sabotaged," Dave remarks. "By who, space pirates?"
"I don't know!" Karkat says angrily "The same person who fucked up our comms lines!"
Gears turn in Dave's head as he connects the two events. He promptly feels stupid for not realizing earlier. "Captor knows this?" He asks.
"Yes, Sollux knows this," Karkat is exasperated. "He's confirmed, everything on our end should be working, and we know if it was a ground issue they would have fixed it by now. So…"
"So someone's interfering in the middle ground?" Peixes finishes, concerned. "What does that mean?"
"Sollux says," Karkat explains carefully. "There's a satellite near our orbit that's jamming the signal."
Suddenly, a deafening static crackle blasts through the speakers. John ducks and covers his head as if there's an earthquake or something, and the others tense up with panic.
"What?!" Serket shouts from the hospital, startled awake and confused. Peixes floats to her side and tries to calm her down.
The static stabilizes into progressively more recognizable fragments of noise before finally settling in as a coherent voice. "Congratulations," it says. "On putting the pieces together."
"What the fuck?" Karkat shouts, twisting his head around, looking to see if there's anyone else in the room. There isn't, and only the ceiling-mounted speakers are talking.
"My introduction is your reward," they continue. It's a smug, masculine voice on the other end. "At this point, there is nothing I need to hide."
"Who the fuck are you?!" Karkat screams. Dave notices Rose, Jade, and Maryam leaping through the entranceway into the room. Jade stares at Dave with abject shock and terror, while Rose and Maryam only look at each other.
"My name is Doctor Scratch," says the voice crisply. The line has apparently stabilized and now has perfect sound quality. "You are part of my plan, and have been for quite a while now. It's nothing personal. You are simply the resources I need."
"Can you hear me?" Rose calls out to the ceiling.
"Yes, I can," Scratch chuckles. "I apologize for disrupting you all so late at night, or so early in the morning, rather. I simply wanted to let you know that I have no intent to kill any of you. The incident in the laboratory was my colleague's idea, actually. She insisted. She and I are in a mutual state of being unable to refuse the other, for various reasons."
"Gross," John says, lifting his head out of the defensive posture.
"I am indeed the one who has taken the liberty of disabling your communications with ground control," Scratch says. "A necessity of the plan."
"Fuck your plan!" Karkat howls like an animal. Dave gawks at him as he pounds his fists against the kitchen wall. "You could have killed them!"
"But I didn't," Scratch replies serenely. "Trust me, whatever chaos I inoculate your system with is carefully calibrated. All of it is necessary. I am not a wasteful man. And," Dave can hear him lean in towards his microphone. "I am a famously excellent host."
The speakers cut out and there is only the placid silence of the station left. It lingers for a few moments before someone starts crying.