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the hall is open.
the dead crabs - nora, combs, luis, brock, bertie, dreamy - are stealing a spaceship, and they are going to fly it straight into the black hole. shaq knows this because threeby knows this, because threeby was invited to come with the other dead crabs on their spaceship joyride adventure, and because threeby has been bitching about it for days.
“if you don’t wanna go,” shaq says, lying on his stomach in threeby’s bed, watching them struggle to shove their entire plushie collection into a single backpack, “don’t go.”
“hall’s open,” threeby mutters. “where else’m i supposed to go?”
“you could stay.”
“all the dead teams are leaving.”
“not us,” shaq says, and trusts threeby to know who he means. the players who died in the discipline era, the null team, the teamless. the players who’ve made the trench their home for decades on decades.
threeby shoots him a look over their shoulder. “you could, though.”
“with the crabs?”
“sure.” threeby shrugs. “or the garages are headed here, if you’d rather.”
“fuck no.” shaq exhales out their nose. the only garages they recognize anymore are the ones in the trench. there’s no one on the active roster they know except teddy and arturo and - well. malik’s different. not the malik shaq knew anymore. death has helped them avoid that particular confrontation, but it’s looking like that might not be so sustainable at the moment.
“the dale are coming,” threeby says. they’re stacking the empty space in their backpack with stuffed sea creatures, the fuzzy fish and crustaceans the crabs keep sending to the hall for them. “or logan and raúl are, at least. i heard them talking about it. and case and paul were talking about hiding in a closet or something.”
“what, like a stowaway situation?”
“exactly like a stowaway situation.”
“to go to the black hole,” shaq says, turning the idea over in his mind. the living crabs are there, he’s heard, idling near the center of the black hole. the crabs have always been good to him, been good to all the ghosts haunting kennedy. and he’s felt the song of the black hole the same as they have. maybe it’s not such a bad idea.
“end of the world, dude.” threeby cracks a grin in profile, replica’s teeth a little too straight and a little too white from what shaq remembers of the original chorby soul. “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
“right,” shaq says. he knows he’ll stay here, anyway. of course he will.
***
“estes,” shaq says, pacing the limited floorspace of combs’s room, “i’m getting on that fuckin’ ship if it kills me a second time.”
combs estes looks up at him over the frames of their glasses, arches one thin eyebrow, and tucks their hair behind their ear. they’ve grown it out from an undercut into a sharp-angled bob during their time in the trench, but are still bleaching it their trademark silvery white. shaq has no idea where they’re getting the bleach from. they’ve never said.
“i don’t see why you’re telling me,” combs says, returning to the jacket in their lap that they’ve been embroidering flowers on for the past half hour.
“well, you’re coming with me, obviously.”
“you’re insane,” combs says mildly, without looking up.
“but i’m right.” shaq flops backwards onto their bed, displacing several bolts of fabric and what must be a metric ton of tulle. he’s got no idea where they get that shit from, either. maybe there’s a burnt-out joann fabrics in the trench nobody else has found yet.
“the jazz hands are on their way here,” combs says. “why wouldn’t i go with them?”
“i dunno, estes, why wouldn’t you?”
combs makes a little hm noise in the back of their throat. doesn’t answer. they don’t need to. shaq knows that, like it or not, combs feels largely the same way about the jazz hands as he does about the garages - it was a job, not a family. a job to play blaseball, a job to play music, a job to put on plays and sew costumes. a job that got them both killed, in the end. a job that got combs hurt, in more ways than one, then salted the wound by setting them on fire.
there’s an unfairness in what the game did to combs, a cruelness that shaq might joke about if it didn’t make him so mad on their behalf. if it hadn’t kept combs locked in their room for the entire siesta after they died. if shaq hadn’t had to talk to them through the door, coax them out like a pissed off cat dropped into an unfamiliar apartment just to get them to sit quietly in a room with other people. shaq knows it’s annoying, the way he hounds them to make sure they have at least one friend they can’t shut themself away from - but if combs really minded, they’d say so. they’re blunt in the same way he is. maybe that’s why the two of them can get along.
“don’t tell me,” shaq says, when combs doesn’t say anything else. “you’d rather go with the steaks, right? ‘cause i heard they’re also on their way over -”
“shut up,” combs groans. they toss a spool of thread at shaq, which he expertly dodges, letting it roll and clatter to the ground.
“i thought you were a pitcher,” he teases.
“i died a batter,” combs says, grimly.
“hey, me too. we’ve got so much in common, estes.” shaq shifts so he’s lying upside down, head hanging just over the edge of the bed. “we should go to space together or somethin’.”
“you -” combs says finally, pauses, glances sideways towards him. “you’ve got your family here.”
“nothing’s gonna happen to ‘em while i’m gone,” shaq says, with more confidence than he’s earned.
“this is your home,” combs says, like they’re challenging him to argue otherwise.
shaq won’t argue, because combs is right. seattle wasn’t his home, and raleigh - well, he was born there, but it’s not home anymore. the trench is the only home he’s known for almost half a century.
and yet.
“it’s the end of the world, estes,” shaq says, flinging his arms out to either side. “end of the world, and everyone fuckin’ forgot about us. i mean - they forgot about us last time, too, with the hall stars, but this time they kinda left the back door open. and i’d rather go be space pirates than sit around hugging and crying and waiting for something to happen.”
combs sets the jacket in their hands down on their desk. their needle is still threaded, but they set that down too, burying it in the pincushion strapped to their wrist.
“what if something does happen?” they ask.
“what’s it gonna do,” shaq says, “kill us?”
“i would not put double death past this horrible fucking place.”
shaq tips his head back and laughs. “look, the monitor’s gone, the door’s wide open. nobody cares what we do. we’re the cockroaches of the universe, estes. nothing can touch us.”
combs purses their lips. “don’t ever call me a cockroach again.”
“and?”
“and, yes, i am coming with you.” they heave a long-suffering sigh. “to space. on the spaceship.”
shaq tries not to look too smug. from the withering look combs gives him, it doesn’t work at all.
“we’ll need a plan,” combs says. matter-of-fact, like they’ve already made up their mind about it. no doubt they have. that’s why shaq likes them - they don’t go back and forth over things. they make a plan and stick to their guns about it.
shaq grins. “fuck yeah, we will.”
***
packing is harder than it reasonably should be. shaq doesn’t have many worldly possessions in the hall, but still enough that fitting everything they want into one bag is hard. they have to bring their switch, obviously, plus the charger, but that all takes up room they could be using to pack more tank tops, or the gunpla they haven’t had time to assemble -
“you’re really leaving,” derrick says, from the doorway. he’s taking up most of the frame, but shaq can see bennett and tiana behind him, and all three of them pile into the room nearly simultaneously once derrick actually ducks inside.
it’s strange to hear derrick talking in his own voice again. he still looks like it pains him to do it, still sounds like he’s speaking through a film of tinny radio static. but since the hall opened, apparently all bets are off. peoples’ voices have been coming back to them in fits and starts - shaq can swear again, most importantly, but they’ve also heard derrick and seb having hushed, half-morse conversations in the common areas. it feels almost like a spell lifting, like they’ve all finally reached the end of whatever fairy tale or fable they’re supposed to be in.
“uh, yeah, dude,” shaq says. “gonna go see the crabs in the black hole.”
“are you sure you’re not just avoiding the garages?” tiana asks, taking a seat on the floor, and raises her eyebrows at the withering look shaq gives her.
“ so not the point,” shaq says. they’re not a liar, but they do know how to change the subject. “it’s the end of the fuckin’ world, i wanna do something stupid while the hall’s open and i’ve got the time. s’not like i won’t be back, after.”
bennett sits on the floor next to tiana, brow furrowed. “you will?”
“sure.” shaq shrugs. “it’ll probably be like last time, right? monitor leaves to deal with some world-ending crisis, forgets about us, crisis ends, we all get put back where we’re supposed to be. only, this time the doors are open, and i don’t wanna stand around and pace when i could be getting in a fuckin’ spaceship and seeing how far i can jet outta here before i get sucked back in.”
“and if you don’t?” derrick asks. he’s leaned up against the wall next to the door, arms folded, looking distinctly unimpressed. hard to tell if he’s being pessimistic, or if it’s his usual resting bitch face at work. maybe both.
“i’ll still be fine,” shaq says, like the possibility doesn’t scare them just a little. like the fact that everyone’s voices are coming back doesn’t mark this as something different from the last time, something closer to release than to simply being forgotten for a while. being stuck out in space wouldn’t be the worst thing. better than being stuck in the hall, probably.
“i’m not gonna be alone,” they add, maybe a little too hasty. maybe trying to convince themself more than they’re trying to convince anyone else.
“who’re you taking with you?” tiana asks. her eyes are bright with interest, presumably because shaq hasn’t asked anyone in the room to come. was never planning on it, actually. tiana and bennett will stay in the hall as long as they have each other here, and derrick isn’t going to leave seb’s side. those are all givens.
“estes,” shaq says. “and whoever else shows up. threebs said there were other people planning on stowin’ away.” they pause, shoving a pair of shorts into their backpack. “oh, and massey, i guess.”
“you’re taking fitz?” bennett asks, their voice raising an entire octave. they fall backwards onto the floor, arm tossed over their eyes. “tiana, shaq’s taking fitz to space, and he didn’t even ask us to come.”
“you would’ve said no!” shaq protests. they can feel heat rising to their cheeks, and turn away towards the wall to hide it, cleaning their glasses on their shirt.
“still polite to ask,” derrick says, wryly.
shaq snorts. “saves time if i don’t.”
“rude,” derrick says. “what’s up with you and estes, anyway? you’ve been following them around like a puppy since season fucking fourteen.”
“they’re my friend, dude.”
“we’re your friends,” derrick says, somewhat pointedly.
shaq whirls on him, hands balled into fists at their sides. they know he’s provoking them, prodding them to see if they’re really serious about the whole going to space thing, but they let it get a rise out of them anyway. it’s not like they’ll be able to do this with derrick again for a while, after all.
“if you’re gonna miss me, just say it, asshole,” they mutter. “don’t gotta be a dick about it.”
“of course we’ll miss you, shaq,” tiana says. sounds like she might want to say something else, but then she’s up and pulling shaq into a hug instead - and then bennett’s joining the hug, and then derrick, too, with exactly the sort of eye-rolling lack of enthusiasm that shaq would expect from him.
still. it’s warm, and comforting, and if shaq tears up a little into tiana’s shoulder, that’s his business and nobody else’s.
“come back soon,” bennett says, crushed somewhere against shaq’s side.
“don’t die in space, dipshit,” derrick says, low, into their hair.
“yeah, yeah,” shaq says. they lean back against derrick’s chest, listen for the familiar hum of the radio there, but they can’t find it anymore. “love you guys too.”
***
“seriously,” derrick says later, once tiana and bennett have cleared out, “what’s up with you and estes.”
“they’re my friend,” shaq repeats. and they don’t lie, so it must be the truth.
“sure,” derrick says.
***
the thing about massey is that she used to talk. or, at least, she used to say more than just a few words at a time. she used to help nora with the onboarding for new folks - giving the tours of the trench and all that - when there were enough incinerations that more than one person had to handle it. massey’s the one who showed shaq his statue in the hall of flame for the first time, and who offered him a hug when he burst into tears on the spot. she’s the one who helped him find his room, and the one who thought to check in on him days later to see how he was settling in. shaq always got the impression that massey used to be some kind of teacher, or coach, or camp counselor, or something, but he never asked.
anyway, she’s not like that anymore. hasn’t been since season seven. most people took the necromancy thing hard, but massey took it the hardest out of anyone, like something in her just shut down the moment she figured out that first in first out only applied to jaylen. like the evidence of not being remembered had caught up with her all at once and crushed her completely under its weight. she stopped smiling. stopped talking to people. stopped doing much besides sitting in her room staring at the wall and aimlessly roaming the corridors of the trench at night, drifting through the darkness like the one true haunting in a house full of too-lively ghosts. something in her expression always looks stricken, like she’s seeing through you and into a terrible memory.
she’s been coming out of it, though. slowly. in increments. massey started talking again after the grand siesta, around the time everyone started haunting kennedy. shaq’s not sure if it’s being around the crabs specifically that did it, or if it’s just the simple action of being able to play blaseball again, of having a team who remembers her and greets her by name every time she shows up. either way, it’d be a dick move not to invite massey along to see the crabs.
the other thing about massey is that she’s not hard to find, if you’re really looking for her. sometimes jessi follows her around and talks at her, telling her all the latest trench news, and you can just follow the sound of jessi’s voice. sometimes you just have to know where to look. shaq is good at knowing where to look, mostly because he still talks to massey, too. he doesn’t sleep most of the time - no one in the trench strictly needs to - and he’ll get up and walk with massey if she happens to pass by his door. it’s nice to be able to talk about nothing in particular, and to help them both be a little less alone for a while.
massey’s usual route around the trench takes her through the hall of flame more often than not, because the hall of flame is the heart of the trench. the room everyone always wanders back to. it’s gotten bigger lately, expanding to fit statues of the mints’ and fridays’ rosters, but shaq is standing and waiting in the shadow of his own statue when massey passes through, leaned up against the pedestal with his face resting against his marble self’s leg.
“hey, massey,” he says, peeling himself away from the cold stone, stepping up to keep pace with her.
she looks down at him through her mane of hair, dark brown curls threaded with gray that spill over her eyes and tangle around her face. her pupils are pinpricks that the torchlight of the hall can’t quite reach. there’s a lightning scar that snakes up her neck towards her jaw - like derrick’s incineration scar but bigger, fractals reaching towards her throat, climbing up behind one ear.
“shaquille,” massey says. her voice is flat, no hint of intonation.
“that’s me,” shaq says, like he always does. fitz is one of the only people here who calls him by his full name. he doesn’t mind. not coming from her.
“what do you want,” she says, every syllable slow and deliberate. there’s no lilt at the end to make it a true question.
“we-e-ell,” shaq says, stretching the word to its absolute breaking point, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep himself from fidgeting. “the dead crabs are gonna fly into the black hole to see the alive crabs, and a bunch of people are stowing away, and me and estes were gonna also stow away, and i know you like the crabs and the crabs like you, so -”
“yes,” massey says.
“- i was thinking it wouldn’t be fair to you to -” shaq cuts themself off. pauses. looks up at massey, who is nearly a head taller than him, who has a very small smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. “yes to what?”
“yes,” massey says again, with that same tooth-pulling cadence. like she’s rationing her words. “i’ll go.”
“oh,” shaq says. “well. neat.”
he chews the inside of his cheek, hands still jammed in his pockets. massey doesn’t fill the silence as they pass out of the hall of flame between the two newest statues - peanut holloway and lenny marijuana. shaq hasn’t met either of them, not formally. not with how much of a shitshow this season has been. most of the older ghosts have been keeping to themselves, and nora hasn’t been doing much onboarding since the monitor fucked off, so the new people must be more disoriented than usual. more scared, too. more alone. it doesn’t feel good to think about.
“is it cool if i walk with you for a bit?” shaq asks, tilting his face up towards massey again. “i don’t feel like going back to my room.”
massey inclines her head in the slightest of nods, so slight that shaq nearly misses what it’s supposed to be. they get the message when massey reaches down and takes them by the hand. shaq squeezes, gently - and massey squeezes back, that small smile still playing around her lips.
“i’m glad you’re coming, massey,” shaq says. “on the spaceship and all, i mean. to the black hole.”
“fitz,” she says, in return.
“what?”
she looks down at them, and this time she’s looking at them, directly into their eyes. not through them. not at something else beyond their notice or understanding.
“you can call me fitz,” she says.
“cool,” shaq says, holding her gaze for as long as they feel like they’re allowed. “glad you’re coming, fitz.”
***
no one really knows where the spaceships came from, but there’s a whole fleet of them docked near the open gates of the hall, noses pointed towards the glittering curtain of immateria just beyond the threshold. the ships are - according to nora - mostly for the prehistory teams, to go on some kind of mission the monitor hasn’t given them yet. shaq has some opinions about what the prehistory teams can go and do, but they’re not exactly polite opinions, so he’s kept them to himself for the most part.
it’s not hard to find the ship that the crabs are stealing. the main doors are open, for one, and the ramp to get in has been lowered all the way down to the floor. there’s also a small crowd around the base of the ramp. only a handful of people, but still enough to be conspicuous.
“okay,” shaq says, approaching the ship with fitz and combs estes in tow, “so we’re all sneaking on? ‘cause i think at this point, we could just man our own ship.”
“less work this way,” someone says from above, poking her head out the door. shaq vaguely recognizes the round face and curly, overgrown mullet - augusta, he thinks. from one of the newer teams, the one with the brown uniforms. ohio, maybe. apparently she knows her way around a spaceship enough to get everyone on board, which is thinking farther ahead than shaq bothered to.
“point,” shaq concedes.
the other faces around the ramp are ones he recognizes better than augusta. case sports, looking impatient and indecisive all at once, running their thumb in circles over the handle of their cane and turning every so often at some imagined noise. annie roland, unreadable as per usual, her mirrored sunglasses reflecting shaq’s own distorted reflection back at him. paul barnes, distinctly out of place next to a spaceship in a flannel shirt and jeans, duffel bag slung over one shoulder. and behind those three -
“you know,” shaq says, “you could totally get away as a plus one. i heard logan did that to get raúl on.”
“hm,” tot clark says. “less fun that way.”
“you have an interesting idea of fun,” combs says, dripping with barely withheld judgement. shaq’s hand has been around their wrist until now, but they slide out of his grip and start making their way up the ramp.
combs’s easing away is gentle, not abrupt by any means, but shaq still feels it keenly. it’s a little surprising. he feels knocked off balance by the urge to grab after them, and settles for following combs up the ramp instead, tugging fitz carefully along behind him.
“we should all spread out across the ship,” augusta says. “no piling together in the storage hold or anything. you don’t want them finding you before the ship takes off.”
“but it’s fine if they find us after?” case asks, taking their first few hesitant steps towards the ramp.
“oh, sure,” augusta says, grinning broadly. now, seeing her a little closer, shaq can spot the flash of fangs in her mouth. “they won’t kick you out once we’re already on our way. what’ll they do, shove you out the airlock?”
“would not put that past the crabs,” someone - probably annie, and shaq doesn’t turn around to check - mutters under their breath.
combs sniffs. “i’d like to see them try.”
“i could go back and invite jon,” tot offers, entirely evenly. “luis would love to push her out an airlock.”
augusta makes a face, and steps aside to let combs into the ship. “i’m not sure that’s necessary.”
“funny, though,” fitz says.
lower down the ramp, behind case, paul makes a choked sound of surprise. shaq can see in augusta and case’s expressions that the significance of fitz choosing to speak is entirely lost on them. figures. they got here after the grand siesta, long after fitz stopped speaking.
“definitely funny,” tot agrees. doesn’t even question paul’s reaction. ze’s not been questioning much about the trench, as far as shaq knows. maybe ze knew the doors would be open soon enough.
shaq pulls fitz into the spaceship. the entryway is bigger than it looked from the ground - shaq had expected it to lead into a narrow passage, something like an airplane, but the pseudo-room they’re in can comfortably fit both them and augusta. fitz doesn’t even have to duck to avoid her head bumping the ceiling. combs is waiting for them on the other end of the room, framed by the next doorway, looking impatient with one hand resting on a cocked hip.
“let’s find somewhere to hide out,” they say. “i’m not going to stand here all night and wait for the crabs to find us.”
“you know we’ll probably get found way sooner if all three of us hide together, right?” shaq asks, just to be sure, and shifts the weight of his backpack on his back. being here, being on the spaceship, makes this all feel more surreal than it did before. he’d thought that the reality of the situation would catch up to him once he was here, actually stowing away, but it hasn’t yet. it feels like he’s stepped into a dream, or at least a low budget sci-fi movie.
combs scoffs, and brushes a loose strand of hair back behind one ear. “they’ll find us one way or another, regardless. weren’t you listening? we only have to hide until the ship’s up in the air.”
“and you wouldn’t rather do that alone?”
it’s a fair question, shaq thinks. combs likes their alone time, is no stranger to kicking him out of their room when they need space to themself (or just a little peace and quiet). but right now they’re staring at him like he’s grown a second head.
“you wanted to do this together,” they say. “should i be trying to get rid of you?”
“oh, estes,” shaq says, a grin splitting his face. he stops in the doorway to face them, fitz still trailing a few steps behind him with her hand in his. “you are never getting rid of me.”
“that’s what i was afraid of,” combs says, with a thin smile, and begins to walk.
shaq almost reaches for their hand again, and stops himself short, grabbing the strap of his backpack instead. the end of the world might be the perfect time to make bad decisions, but he’s not going to push it.
***
they end up in a narrow, windowless closet off of what shaq thinks is supposed to be a med bay. it doesn’t help that none of them know much about spaceships. combs thinks they might have a cousin who works at the air and space museum, fitz mutters something about having watched alien before, and shaq could explain to you the ins and outs of how a gundam functions before he could tell you a single thing about a spaceship. but any room with steel gurneys in it must be a med bay, and if there’s one room a bunch of already dead people will never have cause to use, this is it. the logic, from where shaq stands, checks out perfectly.
the closet is big enough to fit all of them, more or less. shaq sits in the corner with his legs crossed, backpack in his lap. his eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to see fitz close by, still standing, stooped slightly with her back against the wall. combs is somewhere near the door - shaq can barely pick out their outline in the shadows, but he can hear them shift in place every so often, or sniff, or make some kind of sound under their breath. the sniffs eventually come close enough together to be bona fide sniffles, and shaq cocks his head in combs’s direction at the sound of them sliding down the wall to sit on the floor.
“you good, estes?”
“fine,” combs says, thickly, in the terse voice of someone who was hoping not to be caught crying.
shaq has never seen combs cry before. he’s heard it a few times, but always through the door to combs’s room. he gets the impression that combs prefers it that way - that they would rather people see them in a way they can control, or not at all.
“it’s cool if you’re not,” shaq says, closing his eyes, keeping his voice low. he has no idea how long they’ve been hiding here for. time passes so much more slowly in the dark. “fine, i mean. it’s cool if you’re not fine.”
combs sniffles, again. “i am fine.”
“still time to get off the ship,” fitz murmurs. it might be the longest sentence shaq’s heard her say in recent memory. he doesn’t love that it’s directed at combs, even if it’s more compassionate than rude.
“hey, no,” he says. “estes isn’t leaving.”
combs makes a noise in their throat, something between a groan and a whine. shaq opens his eyes and watches their silhouette curl in on itself, watches their hands lace together at the back of their head and push their face down as they bring their knees up to their chest.
“i’m happy,” they say, voice muffled by their legs, sounding so miserable it startles a laugh out of shaq.
“don’t laugh,” combs snaps.
“sorry,” shaq says, and means it. “are you?”
“of course i am,” combs says. like it should be obvious. “we’re leaving that - that hellhole, aren’t we?”
shaq hums. he doesn’t take personal offense to the way combs - or anyone else, for that matter - feels about the trench. sure, it’s his home. but for most people, it’s prison, or hell, or something like that. a place they might try their entire afterlives to escape.
“so, what,” he says, “you’re having second thoughts about not going with the jazz hands instead? they probably wouldn’t’ve made you fly in a closet.”
“shut up,” combs says, stretching the words into a groan. “don’t speak to me. i’m being pathetic.”
“you’ve seen me be pathetic like a billion times.” shaq uncrosses his legs to splay them out in front of him, grimaces at the pins and needles in his feet. he’s not wrong, and he knows it. he cries far more easily than any of his friends in the trench, more or less at the drop of a hat, and combs has been his friend long enough to see it happen more than once.
combs snorts. “that’s you.”
“what’s that supposed to mean!?”
“you have a certain ambient degree of patheticism.”
“point stands, then,” shaq says. “and you didn’t answer my question. i’m not lettin’ you off the hook that easy, estes.”
“i’m not having second thoughts,” combs mutters into their knees. the floor of the ship starts to rumble and shake as they say it, the contents of the closet vibrating violently. it’s the rumble of engines coming to life. the feeling of the ship waking up like some slow, ancient creature they’ve found themselves swallowed by.
“good,” shaq says. “‘cause i’m pretty sure it’s about to be too late for that.”
“i just -” combs heaves a sigh, cutting themself off. “i never thought i’d get out of there.”
fitz hums, quiet, from her spot against the wall. shaq knows her well enough to know that it’s an agreement.
shaq studies his hands in the dark for a long moment, and says, “yeah. me neither.”
“it’s different for you, isn’t it?” combs asks. not needling in the way they so often do, but genuinely asking. “it’s your home. your family -”
“doesn’t make it hurt any less to see other people get brought back to life,” shaq says. honest, always honest, because he doesn’t know any other way to be.
“it used to be -” combs starts.
“yeah,” shaq says. they’ve had this conversation before. he knows the beats. “used to be that necromancy would happen because people remembered you being good at the game, or because they thought it’d be funny. you’re either a jaylen, or you’re a chorby.”
combs snorts, derisive. “or york silk.”
fitz hums again.
“either way,” shaq says, “gotta be memorable.”
which has always been the sticking point, for people like shaq and fitz and combs. the players who were more normal than memorable, who kept their heads down and played the game and didn’t stick out from the crowd. the ones who weren’t particularly talented, who didn’t have a gimmick that made them interesting, or funny, or statistically notable. the ones who fell through the cracks through no fault of their own.
“and now -” combs goes on, “well, now it’s just a free for all, isn’t it? with ambush, and people walking out of the hall, and that game in the vault -”
“the goose!” shaq says, maybe a little too loudly.
“the fucking goose,” combs hisses. “the goose goes free, and we get left behind to rot.”
“hey,” shaq says. reaches across the narrow closet space to brush his fingers against combs’s ankle, unsure of what they need or what he’s allowed to provide them. “not anymore, right? we’re out. we’re leaving.”
“it doesn’t feel real yet,” combs mumbles. shaq hears them moving in the dark more than he sees it, and doesn’t quite register what they’re doing until he feels their fingers threading into the gaps between his own, their cold palm pressing against his.
“yeah,” shaq says, with a soft laugh, “it really fucking doesn’t.”
“but we’re here,” fitz says. her voice is wondering, like she can’t quite believe it herself.
“and what happens next?” combs asks. they sound more distant than afraid. lost, almost. shaq can’t blame them - he knows they like to have a plan, and there’s no real way to plan for anything that comes after this. no way to plan for the way things have been falling apart, the way the universe feels like it’s coming undone. nothing they can do but make decisions on impulse, and hope.
“doesn’t matter.” shaq hooks his pinky around combs’s like he’s making a promise - and he is, really. “long as you and fitz are here, i’ll be here. pase lo que pase.”
he can feel combs rolling their eyes. but they curl their pinky around his all the same to reciprocate, leaning in closer towards him. the floor is still vibrating beneath them, the ship moving with purpose. maybe it’s already airborne. there’s no way to tell, not from this windowless room.
“pase lo que pase,” combs repeats. “if you say so.”
shaq grins broadly, sure that combs can see - or at least sense - it, even in the dark. “like i said, estes. you’re never getting rid of me.”
combs laughs, finally. it’s short, and still thick with unshed tears, but a laugh all the same. “not even at the end of the world.”
“not a fuckin’ chance. cockroaches, remember?”
“right,” combs says. leans away from shaq again, tipping their head back against the closet door. “cockroaches.”
***
shaq’s not sure when they fall asleep. all they know is that one moment they’re dreaming, rocked almost soothingly by the rumble of the ship underneath them, and the next moment there’s neon light searing into the back of their eyelids. they know what they’ll see when they open their eyes, but they do it anyway, squinting as their vision adjusts to the sight of raúl leal poked halfway through the closet door.
“hey, shaq,” raúl says amiably, lifting one of its hands in a half-wave.
“son of a bitch,” shaq groans. “who snitched?”
“oh, we found tot in the storage hold pretty much right away,” raúl says. “ze told us the rest of you were here. said we had to find you ourselves, though. logan ‘n me have been keepin’ score to see who can find the most stowaways.”
“are you winning?” fitz asks, still standing, still leaned up against the closet wall. shaq’s not sure if she’s been awake this whole time, or if she was asleep like that.
raúl grins. “i am now.”
***
“seven,” combs duende says aloud, stalking up and down the line of stowaways standing shoulder to shoulder in the hall. it’s hard to tell if they’re angry or not. their face is always stoic, their eyes always hidden by the curtain of their bangs, and shaq has never learned to read and translate their microexpressions like nora can. he can at least appreciate the oversized captain’s coat they have draped over their shoulders like a cape, billowing behind them as they pace.
“seven plus tot,” nora says from the end of the hallway. she has a clipboard in hand, because of course she does. she’d look naked without one.
“clark doesn’t count,” duende and brock say in perfect harmony - the latter leaned up against the wall, eyeing the stowaways with an unimpressed frown.
“are you going to throw us in the brig?” augusta asks. it’s the first time any of the stowaways have spoken since being brought here, though case did briefly attempt to insist on being read their rights if they were being detained. “and if you’re going to, can you do it already? i’ve been standing in a kitchen pantry all night, and i’d like to sit down.”
“hm,” brock says.
“hm,” duende says. “too much work.”
“it - i’m sorry,” paul says, clearing his throat, “it’s too much work to throw us in the brig?”
“too much work to take care of prisoners,” duende elaborates. shaq is almost certain they’re joking, but there’s no way to confirm it. their expression hasn’t changed in the slightest.
“well, we should probably put roland in the brig, or she’ll try to kill ken on sight,” bertie says, from where xe’s sitting on the floor, just in front of brock.
annie growls low in her throat. bertie laughs.
“kidding! i’m kidding.”
duende eyes the line of stowaways. shaq feels their gaze pass over him even if he can’t see it happening, tries to stand a little straighter even if he doesn’t know what he’s being appraised for, or why. he does know that combs duende was the captain of the crabs once, and apparently they’ve elected to take up that title again to captain a whole damn spaceship of the dead. that’s enough to be intimidating.
“you want to come,” duende says, not addressing any one stowaway in particular. “to the black hole.”
there’s a pause, then everyone (sans fitz) starts to speak at once, talking over each other in a cacophony as they all try to explain their reasons for being here, for hiding away on the ship. shaq’s barely aware of what he’s saying, just that it’s coming out of him in a flood that feels somehow angrier, more desperate than the usual fast-talking patter he’d use for something like this. and then duende eyes the stowaways again, and combs - estes, that is - grips shaq’s arm tightly, and they all fall silent.
duende nods, once. “okay.”
“okay?” case asks, hesitant.
“what, uh,” augusta stammers, “what’s okay?”
“you’ll stay,” duende says, like it should have been obvious.
the sigh of relief that runs through the line of stowaways is a tangible thing. shaq slumps sideways against fitz, combs estes’s hand still gripping his upper arm like it’s the only thing keeping them upright. duende seems to lose interest in them all the moment they relax, and turns towards nora, shifting their captain’s coat on their shoulders.
“they’ll have to help,” duende says. “around the ship.”
“i’ll add them all to the chore rotation,” nora chirps, scribbling something down on her clipboard. and - well, that won’t be the worst thing in the world, trading chores for passage. shaq’s familiar with nora’s chore rotation from decades of enduring it in the hall, at least.
“pick out your bunks,” duende tosses over their shoulder at the stowaways as they sweep out of the room.
shaq watches them go, nora hot on their heels, then turns back to brock and bertie, who haven’t moved an inch.
“we get bunks?”
“mm,” brock hums, the noise a low rumble that comes from somewhere deep in his chest. “the ship is built to house a whole team. there should be rooms for everyone.”
“sick,” shaq says. not that they would have strictly minded sleeping in a closet for the whole journey. they would have made the best of it, at least. but this - not being thrown in the brig, getting their own room - is vastly preferable.
“i can show you to ‘em,” bertie says, hopping to xer feet with more agility than xe looks capable of with xer massive crab-arm.
“oh, would you,” combs estes says. they finally uncurl their fingers from around shaq’s bicep, standing up a little straighter. shaq gets the sense they were rattled, a bit, by having to suddenly justify why they should be on the ship, why they want to sail to the black hole. shaq still feels a little rattled, himself, but combs is better at pretending they’re not than he’ll ever be.
“sure.” bertie cracks a grin, and flashes the line of stowaways a little salute. “welcome aboard the nonagon.”
***
“why nonagon?” shaq asks, later, on the tour through the ship’s bunks.
“nine dead crabs,” brock says, like that explains anything.
“crabs and former crabs. there’s eight of us here - but counting tillman,” bertie adds, “which we do - that’s nine of us. nonagon.”
“eighteen, now,” brock says.
shaq glances behind them at the trailing line of stowaways. there’s only seven, like combs said - shaq can’t figure out who the two missing passengers are until they remember tot, then raúl. plus ones, not stowaways.
“okay, so, nine times two,” bertie concedes. “still fits with the nonagon thing.”
“we’re not crabs, though,” paul protests. he’s still shouldering his duffel bag from earlier. shaq wonders if he ever took it off to begin with, or if he hid holding it. they still have no idea where the other stowaways hid, or what order they were all found in.
“hey, you heard combs,” bertie says, grinning. “you’re here for the long haul. that makes you one of us.”
“whether we like it or not, apparently,” combs estes says - under their breath, but just loud enough for shaq to hear. he doesn’t have to wonder if that’s intentional. he knows it is.
***
it’s been half a day since they claimed their bunk - half a day, shaq thinks, because it’s impossible to measure time in here, anyway. they’ve been exploring the whole ship top to bottom, as much as they can. being outside of the hall for the first time in decades makes them feel a bit like they’ve been let out of a cage. and besides, who wouldn’t want to explore a fucking spaceship?
fitz hasn’t moved from her own bunk. or spoken to anyone, so far as shaq knows. she’s seated cross legged on her bed, staring into the middle distance as per usual, when shaq ducks back in through the door. they were hoping to find her here - but they’re also disappointed, in a way, because it means she isn’t getting up to much of her own volition.
“fitz,” shaq says, coming to a stop across from the bed, “you gotta see this.”
fitz blinks at him slowly. “shaquille.”
“that’s me,” shaq agrees, like he always does. he leans over, takes both of fitz’s hands in his. “c’mon, i wanna show you something, okay?”
fitz hesitates - shaq feels her hands tense against his palms - then nods, gets to her feet. allows herself to be tugged out of her room and down corridors, pulled around corners and up ladders, told “okay, it’s just up here, i promise” until the two of them come stumbling out into an empty observation deck near the top of the ship. even fitz, as tall as she is, is dwarfed by the windows here, giant panes of glass that curve to fit the shape of the room and arch upwards into a dome that makes the space feel something like a planetarium. the ship has breached the immateria around the hall, though it’s still visible below, a vast sea of gray that reflects the twinkling of the stars.
fitz slips her hands out of shaq’s, steps forward to place a palm against the glass and look outward at the vast expanse of space. at the churning gyre of the black hole on the distant horizon line, nearly hidden by the glow of the supernova at the center of everything. the sky is an explosion of lights and colors, overwhelming and soothing all at once, and as much of the ship as shaq’s explored, this is the place he keeps coming back to. the view that would take his breath away, if he still had breath to take.
“the stars, fitz,” shaq says, stepping up to the window next to her. “ain’t it something?”
“something,” fitz agrees, her eyes wide. “yeah. it is.”
they stand like that for a while, shoulder to shoulder, silently watching the nonagon drift through space. the sound that breaks the silence doesn’t come from either of them - rather, it’s a voice from behind them, from the entryway they came through.
“there you are,” combs estes says. “i’ve been looking all over.”
“sorry,” shaq says. “were you freaking out?”
“of course not,” combs scoffs. their boot heels click on the floor as they come to join shaq on his other side, leaning an elbow against his shoulder. “but you’re doing an awful job of not leaving me alone.”
“i was exploring!”
“oh, well, if you were exploring,” combs says, with a sigh that’s definitely meant to read as melodramatic.
shaq snorts. this might be as close as it gets to combs admitting they wanted his company, so he’ll take what he can get. they’re not exactly the clingy type.
“check out the view, estes,” he says, digging his own elbow into their side. “not so bad, right?”
“no,” combs says, surveying the window. “not bad at all.”
they move to dig something out of the bag slung over their shoulder. shaq’s not sure what it is that they’ve gotten out at first, not until a flash of metal catches the light, and he realizes combs is unscrewing the cap of a flask.
shaq grins. “tell me you’re sharing.”
“of course,” combs says. takes a long swig from the flask, wipes their mouth on the back of their hand with a grimace. hands it off to shaq, and catches his eye while they do it.
“to the cockroaches?” they ask.
shaq tips the flask in their direction. a toast. “to the cockroaches.”
“to the cockroaches,” fitz echoes, her eyes still reflecting the stars, hand still placed on the window like she could pluck one from the sky like an apple.