Work Text:
The hum of the ship around them had begun to feel comforting. All their life, Ashes had made sure to cling to whatever was constant in an unstable, ever-shifting world - and every last one of the previous constants were gone, Smooth Mickey, the Sevens, even the solid ground of the planet where they had been born. So the steady buzz of the white walls around them had become their constant. It wasn’t much, but it would do.
The doctor who had found them was nearly done with them, or so she claimed. By now, Ashes was fairly certain that they were going to survive, almost beyond the deep-ingrained suspicion that this was a trap to kill them worse. If Dr Carmilla was to be believed, they would not only live, but live forever. But Ashes knew better than to put blind faith in wild promises. The terrifying, awful pressure of metal nestled within their ribcage, which shifted and ground strangely against where lungs had once been, put them more in mind of terrifying mortal frailty than unchanging eternity, anyway.
They’d been in the lab for days, maybe weeks: first dead, then half-dead, then in a long, brutal process of surgery and bio-engineering and just regular engineering, and now alive but too weak to do anything other than lie on the table where they had been left. The doctor always ordered them to rest before she wandered off; Ashes had bitten back a sharp retort that they could barely lift a finger, that they had no choice but to rest. Usually they were alone. Sometimes Dr Carmilla came back to check on Ashes or make improvements to the machinery inside them, and very rarely, she brought an assistant to help, a young man with a shock of blonde hair and striking eyeliner. The thought of him made Ashes a little uncomfortable: he kept his eyes down, bared his teeth like a snarling dog, his hands shook as he passed the doctor her tools, and he always fled as soon as he was given permission to do so. Somehow he didn’t seem like a fully willing participant in whatever was being done to them.
Everything ached, but that was a good thing. It told them that they were still alive. They were awake, alone, staring at the silver ceiling, occasionally looking at the vast blackness of space wheeling past through the window in their peripheral vision, listening to the gentle, steady vibration of the life support systems that surrounded them.
Or, maybe they weren’t so alone.
They could hear a faint shuffling above them, what sounded like fabric moving along metal - perhaps the ship, despite all its apparent technological sterility, had pests somehow? Rodents living in the walls? They knew that sound from their time in the orphan houses on Malone, but it didn’t seem to fit here, in amongst sleek Cyberian engineering. It was possible that all that was a facade, though. Maybe this Dr Carmilla ran a nice ship to all outward appearances, a filthy one on the inside. Ashes wouldn’t be surprised. They had accepted her offer of immortality, sure, but they didn’t trust her; there was something terrible beneath that woman’s claims, that was for certain. But Ashes couldn’t muster any panic - not that they would show it, even if they could. Instead they felt only dull curiosity.
The movement in the ceiling came closer and closer, passed them, and then paused at a narrow vent. There was a muffled clang, the sound of some internal latch being lifted, and then the grate swung open. Ashes lifted their head, which felt ike a huge effort, interest and wary alarm sparking dimly in their brain - just in time to watch someone swing softly down in a well-practiced motion, military-style black cotton coat falling with them, their leather boots almost soundless as they met the floor.
Outwardly, Ashes only raised their eyebrows - inwardly, however, they could admit that that was very cool.
The stranger from the ceiling turned and met their eyes, and for a few long seconds they regarded each other from opposite ends of the room. This new person’s gaze was as clever and calculating as that which Ashes saw in the mirror, but something in her pale eyes was softer too, more forgiving.
She was a teenage girl, maybe five years younger than Ashes, small and thin, all pointy chin and sharp elbows. She had a narrow pair of glasses balanced on the end of her nose, shoulder-length brown hair with blue ends, and an unhealthy-looking grey-blue sheen to her extremely wan skin. From her belt hung several guns, various tools, and what looked like an instrument, though not one that Ashes could name - and in her hands, bizarrely, she held a thermos and a glass bottle.
The girl didn’t seem to make much of Ashes, stripped down to plain hospital clothes, still soaked with sweat and vaguely feverish, red hair filthy and chest heavy. But Ashes wouldn’t have made much of themselves there and then either.
Something about this woman felt old , despite her slightness, her apparent youth; something in her eyes, the way she moved. Perhaps it was just that she was at home in space, where Ashes had never gone off-world before. Yeah, Ashes decided, bracing their head back against the wall while they continued to watch warily, that must be the reason.
The girl wetted her lips, clearly readying herself to have to speak, and came closer, steps quick and sure; she spoke softly, in a strong Cyberian accent.
“You are Carmilla’s latest acquisition, then,” she said, a bitter edge to the words not managing to entirely undermine her friendly tone. She paused cautiously at the foot of the operating table. Good , thought Ashes. They didn’t like when people didn’t know how to handle themselves, were too confident or too trusting; yeah, Ashes might be almost too weak to move right now, but for all this woman knew they could have had a weapon hidden underneath the thin sheets.
“I’m Nastya.”
Ashes opened their mouth to reply, but all that came out was a dry croak. Nastya’s eyebrows quirked, as though something had been confirmed, and she extended the hand that held the bottle full of clear liquid. For a moment Ashes just blinked at it.
“It’s water.” explained Nastya, angling it for Ashes to take.
Their expression shifted into a glare. No way, thought Ashes, sure it is.
Nastya rolled her eyes, but with a hint of the same approval Ashes had felt at her caution - they were right, then, that this was not a place with a lot of easy trust. She opened the bottle and tipped some back into her own mouth, demonstrating theatrically that it was safe to drink. This time, Ashes took it. Their hands were unsteady, and they couldn’t prop themselves any further upright, but they were grateful that Nastya didn’t try to touch them in order to help. Instead, she took the opportunity to speak while Ashes was occupied.
“Jonny’s keeping Carmilla busy, and Aurora will alert us if that changes. We should have at least a few minutes.”
Don’t worry , Nastya might have said, if they were different people. As it was, her words came out more pragmatic than kind. Ashes didn’t know who this Aurora was; Jonny must have been the kid with the eyeliner and the way-too-many belts. Maybe it was just surgery he didn’t like, but Ashes had the sense that he was more afraid of the doctor herself than what she did, which made him distracting Carmilla a sacrifice. This must be important.
At the inquiring look that crossed Ashes’ face as they thought that through, Nastya only stuck her chin toward the now almost-empty water bottle.
“You were thirsty,” she remarked wryly. Ashes stopped drinking immediately, and Nastya held her hands out in placation.
“Relax. Do you think you can eat?”
God, Ashes had never felt so hungry as they did in that moment. All at once they understood that a large part of the gnawing ache that they’d been feeling for what could have been hours or weeks by this point was hunger , not pure pain. They’d been half-starved in the orphan houses, gone without meals if they pissed off Uncle Mickey, sometimes, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of suddenly realising that they hadn’t eaten since being resurrected. Ashes didn’t know if they would be able to keep it down, but they had to eat.
“Yeah,” they croaked, trying for casual and failing. Luckily Nastya didn’t comment, just unscrewed the cap of the thermos slightly and handed it over, a strange sympathetic twist to her lips. Perhaps she’d gone through this too.
“Here.”
Inside was a thin brown liquid that smelled good enough that Ashes could almost cry. Still, they hesitated, even as they wrapped their fingers gratefully around it, seeking comfort. It wasn’t hot enough to burn, but the warmth leeched through the metal into their skin like a lit match.
“I don’t know what kind of soup it is,” Nastya went on. “Probably not anything interesting. Just broth, I think, for sick people.”
Ashes had to resist the urge to slump back even further in relief; it took real effort to force themselves not to chug it all at once and make themselves sick, too. They didn’t care what was in it, or how these people got hold of ingredients to cook with in space. Nastya could have told them it was made of old shoes, they wouldn’t have cared, that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was…
“Why?”
“Hm? Why soup?”
Nastya sat down cross-legged on the shiny floor; her fingers found a tangle of wires in her pocket to wind through, and she adjusted her glasses, apparently in thought.
“Dr Carmilla has a rather specific diet. She does not feed very often, and when she does, it… well, it is not food that she needs. So she can be prone to forget that we do need to eat. Sometimes it has… it has happened that she has forgotten like this during an experiment, and when her creations have begun repeatedly to die, she has assumed it is because there is something wrong with their mechanisms, and her experiments have only become longer and more invasive.”
Nastya gave a particularly vicious tug to the knot of wires, thin fingers flexing briefly in distress. Around them, the ship whirred louder, almost as if in response.
“I am sure that this will not happen again,” stated Nastya, mustering herself, voice slightly raised like she was assuring someone other than Ashes. “But we thought it would be best for you if you did not starve. Best for us, too. The doctor’s frustration at one is also bad for the rest.”
Ashes exhaled slowly through their nose, a silent sigh of understanding. Really they should say thank you, but something about those words, the vulnerability of them, had always jarred against them and stayed their tongue. They preferred to pay their benefactors back in kind - no need for charity or debt. So, rather than using words, they just took a long drink from the thermos to show Nastya that they believed her. It was amazing - but they absolutely could not tell if that was because anything would have tasted good to them in that moment, or actually because it was good soup.
Nastya kept her attention on her tangle and politely didn’t stare, but after a few minutes she did say, voice quiet and neutral,
“Don’t eat so fast that you vomit. Wouldn’t want to have to explain that, either.”
Reluctantly, Ashes huffed, slowed down.
“M’name’s Ashes,” they said, taking a breath, hoarse. Nastya nodded with a small smile.
“Charmed.”
Ashes rolled their eyes - if this setting was Nastya’s idea of charming, then they were going to have issues with her - and went back to their soup. Its warmth spread pleasantly through their body: with that and the thrum of the ship, they felt sort of sleepy, maybe almost even safe , although they weren’t stupid enough to let their guard down in front of someone they barely knew. For a while they sat in silence.
“What did she say to you?” asked Nastya eventually, still wrangling the wiring, faux-casual.
Ashes narrowed their eyes - but Nastya didn’t look up, just kept running her mouth.
“We’re still orbiting Malone. It is your home planet, correct?”
It was the planet they had the misfortune to spend their life on, yeah, but they didn’t know if they would go so far as to call it home .
“There is a reason for that, and a reason that Dr Carmilla picked you up. So. What did she promise you?”
That was not the kind of question that Ashes liked to answer. They looked at Nastya with suspicion, gaze long and hard. She didn’t display any obvious ulterior motive on her expression or in her body language, not openly, but maybe that was her job here, the friendly con artist, the innocent face to get the mark talking. Maybe Ashes having the doctor’s attention had upset the dynamics of the ship in a way they didn’t know yet, and Nastya was scoping out a rival’s weaknesses. Maybe she wanted something in return for all of this, and she wanted to know how Ashes could be useful to her.
Or maybe she was telling the truth, asking questions and offering help for no other reason than solidarity. What Ashes wanted and needed mattered to her now, and to the others she had mentioned; it affected them. Their lives were tied together now, by this ship, this scientist, the machine pumping away in Ashes’ chest.
So, against their nature, Ashes swallowed their doubts, and said, very simply,
“Revenge.”
The word tasted like smoke and helpless rage on their tongue.
Nastya tilted her head in thought. She didn’t seem shocked.
“Jonny was the same.”
The urge to ask more about him was easy to quash. Ashes would have time to leave this one sterile room and meet him properly soon enough, they were sure - nothing but time, if they really were immortal. But they did note the evasion, and they weren’t about to just let it slide.
As a gesture of goodwill, Ashes finished their soup before they offered a question in return.
“What about you? What was your price?”
In Nastya’s hands, the knot of wires finally straightened out into a single cord. It could have been a connecting lead for one of the many sprawling servers necessary to power a ship as complex as this one - or it could have been a weapon, a garrotte. Possibly both. She smoothed her fingers across the metal, twisted it tighter together, then finally shrugged. The movement revealed a scarred old augmented reality port at her wrist.
“I just wanted to live.”
Nastya shook her head slightly, dislodging a strand of hair from her glasses and shaking off the tone of the conversation all at once. She opened her mouth to speak again, with a gentler set to her brows.
But then something in the veins of the ship let out a short sharp beep , and Nastya’s head snapped up in alarm. Before Ashes could ask anything she had one hand raised for quiet, holding her breath to listen intently. There were a few tense seconds of silence, and then distant footsteps and the tap of a cane became audible, and Nastya scrambled to her feet, grabbing the water bottle up from the floor and holding her hand out for the empty thermos - though, wisely, she still didn’t press into Ashes’ personal space.
"Пиздец, shit, okay. Aurora says it looks like Dr Carmilla wants to come in here. You never saw me, alright?"
The soup had helped some, but Ashes was still disorientated, shaky, and it took them a moment to comprehend how fast things were happening.
“Hey, wait -”
Their chest was so much heavier now, a crushing weight that held them down as they tried without thinking to sit up. Nastya paused briefly below the vent, looked back.
“Who’s Aurora?” blurted Ashes, voice still sore.
The expression that crossed Nastya’s face was not something they would have been able to predict: for a split second she looked incredibly warm and fond, and she rested one hand affectionately against the smooth white wall of the lab, which buzzed happily in response.
“My lovely girlfriend,” explained Nastya, perfectly sincere. “The starship.”
She tucked the bottles underneath her arm, and pulled herself gracefully up into the ceiling, lifting the grate shut behind her. And then she was gone.
The steps that were the doctor approached gradually, bringing Ashes’ heart up into their mouth in apprehension… then passed by the door to the lab and faded again, heading off down the corridor to somewhere else. Ashes felt their whole body relax. They weren’t scared of Dr Carmilla, not really, not the way that Jonny and Nastya seemed to be, with long experience - but they were smart enough to respect that kind of fear of anyone in power. Besides, the surgeries that had saved them had also hurt, and that made things complicated.
Alone again, then. That was alright. Fewer people meant fewer complicating factors to negotiate, after all.
They closed their eyes against the headache-bright pulse of the fluorescents above them and took the measure of their circumstances again. There was food in their belly. The other crew members were, at least, not actively malicious toward them, that was a good place to start. And the ship itself was conscious, alive - possibly even a potential ally.
Around them, the life support systems thrummed away pleasantly, constantly.
Maybe Ashes was going soft, but the buzzing almost felt like a purr.