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Okay, so. Listen.
They’ve always had an odd sense of humour, is the thing.
Like the time Arkose filched one of Spinel’s fresh-caught fish and gave it a personality and put a hat on it (a hat) and touted it around all day talking for it. This is the kind of thing that’s supposed to be funny to a kid like Arkose, and to all their agemates, but there Gabbro was, fully a decade older and laughing until they nearly upchucked their lunch. Or the time Marl fell out of the big tree in the village, and everyone got to rushing around for clean water and bandages and bone-setting salve, and Gabbro was right there rushing with them only they were also shaking with badly-suppressed amusement—it just struck them as so ironic, the tree breaking a limb of Marl’s after all the limbs Marl had chopped off its siblings. Or the fact that, when the new astronaut mentioned finding their quantum poem, they’d brought up that jumpscare sculpture they’d been thinking about making. You know, a normal thing to want to do to a person.
This isn’t news to anyone, is the point. Ever since they cracked out of the egg, Gabbro’s notion of what’s funny has been tuned to a slightly different frequency than everyone else’s. Couldn’t tell you where it sprang from or why—sometimes that’s just how the stars align, buddy.
Also, like, they’re out of practice? With people? Ever since the glowy business on Statue Island, and the time loop, and becoming top contender for the solar system’s wittiest burnt marshmallow every twenty two minutes, it’s not like they’ve had many chances to wow the crowd. Sure, they radio Hornfels sometimes, or else Chert, but Giant’s Deep has trashed their hearing and they were never great at reading vocal emotional cues without a body to attach them to anyway.
The only conversations that don’t feel half-dream are the ones with the hatchling—the newbie—with Shale, their Time Buddy, who they have to keep reminding themself is not really so much a hatchling or a newbie, not anymore. And if Gabbro’s being honest, Shale was never, you know, tactful. Even before they started playing increasingly intense rounds of hide-and-seek with the supernova’s off switch (score so far: Shale, nil; Off Switch, who knows?) they were a sharp edge to handle; now, they’re so out of orbit around common sense that they laugh in genuine mirth when they recount stories to Gabbro of exiting their ship to do deep-space repairs only to realize they’ve forgotten to put their helmet on. Which is intense even for Gabbro, but hey, what’s that saying about laughing not to cry?
So Gabbro’s always gotten a giggle or two out of a twisted situation. So Shale’s getting more morbid by the hour. So they’re both more than a little sick in the head by now.
All this to say—you can’t really blame them for making the joke, can you?
Open eyes. Rain streaking visor. Here we are again. Douse the fire, trek down the hillside, feel the creak of bones made two and a half times heavier than they were made to be. Tease the ‘Deep for liking them so much it wants to squash them flat: “Buddy, if you want to cuddle, you can just ask.” Their words are swallowed by the storm, by the howl—well, guess it likes their voice enough to steal that, too. Nice to be appreciated. Their Time Buddy hasn’t dropped in for ages (not that it’s their responsibility to visit or anything (but they’re just saying, given the choice between a lazy afternoon with a pal on the beach and chancing the anglerfish in Dark Bramble for, what, the fifteenth time? they know what their choice would be)), so it’s loop number Whatever of being the only speaking thing on this planet, stringing up their hammock and playing flute to entice the cyclones and trying not to try, occupying their mind with the intricacies of time and space and the fact that, in the end, fate’s shown itself to have a sicker sense of humour than them all. Same as it ever was.
Then a burn of orange in the clouds that has nothing to do with lightning, like a cinder eating a hole through a blank page. Complain and ye shall receive. Shale’s ship punches through the atmosphere, strafing cyclones like a pro on course for Gabbro’s little island—and maybe five minutes of nonstop circular breathing’s muddled their head, blurred them out enough that there’s no line anymore between dark and too far, or else maybe their wicked wind-whipped heart thinks a bit of laidback payback is due for being forgotten about—but when they hear those footsteps come running through the tunnel (always running, their buddy, skidding and sliding all over the system like it’s a tent on a windy day and they’re desperate to hammer the stakes in place)—the idea comes up, wouldn’t it be funny if?, and they follow the urge without thinking.
“Hey, Gabbro,” Shale starts, and Gabbro lifts their flute from their lips and answers:
“Nice, it’s you. Good to see you made it here in one piece. The first solo launch is a doozy, isn’t it?”
It occurs to them, in the vacuum of absolute silence that follows, how creepy it is that they still remember exactly what they said the first time. Yikes.
Gabbro elbows themself up on their hammock, the better to watch how Shale reacts to this wisecrack. They’re rooted to the spot, dumb as a stump—then in one brusque motion they yank their helmet off, staring at Gabbro with the kind of absolute po-faced deadpan that would shrivel any other Hearthian into so much fish jerky.
One heartbeat passes, two.
…Was this a miss? Maybe this was a miss.
…Unless—?
“Ha ha?” their Time Buddy ventures, sarcastic like they invented it.
“Ha ha,” Gabbro confirms.
A flash of something spasms across Shale’s face—and then their mouth twists up in a disbelieving little smirk. “Angler’s teeth, Gabbro,” they say with a snicker, “you trying to end my loop early by giving me a heart attack? That was grim.”
At this snarky rebuke, Gabbro is aware of their own shoulders relaxing, of a long breath leaving their chest that they weren’t even trying to hold. “Listen bud,” they jest over the sound of Shale’s laughter, “I do what I can to entertain myself here.” They notice their own voice is not as easygoing as they would have expected. Oh, so they’re relieved. Sometimes it takes an actual physical stimulus for Gabbro to realize what they’re feeling; it’s one reason they appreciate the meditative arts so much. When they were young, emotions seemed like a total mystery to them: either elusive as fish in the river, or huge and disorienting as the zero-g cave back home. Early on they decided—privately, to themself—to become a scientist of thoughts and feelings the same way Chert became a scientist of the stars, or Slate became a scientist of things that go boom. So Timber Hearth’s foremost philosopher was born. After years to themself to ponder—plus the cosmic perspective of deep space, of course—Gabbro’s arrived at the conclusion that their feelings are not so frustratingly opaque after all. They only feel them a little differently.
Shale is still laughing, which is—yeah, it’s relieving, they think, because by now it’s dawned on some part of them that this was a pretty risky joke to make, all things considered. “Heh, can you imagine?” their Time Buddy says, shaking their head. (Does their voice always sound that way?) “What kind of nightmare situation would we have to get into for that to happen? The Ash Twin Project breaks? Your statue gets cracked coming down from a cyclone? You get so sick of me you find some way to decouple it yourself?”
“You do interrupt my flute playing a lot,” Gabbro says, grinning now, playing along, and Shale snorts and breaks into another peal of darkly scandalized laughter.
They’re still laughing when Gabbro hears the cyclone coming.
Their hearing might be wet garbage thanks to the neverending scream of Giant’s Deep, but one thing they still pick up on clear as starlight is the particular pitch and timbre of a waterspout approaching the island. They hear it with their whole body—the way the wind weaves differently around them, plucking at their EVA suit like an eager hatchling; the way the oxygen coming from their straggly copse of trees suddenly smells muddy and vegetal, saturated with humidity. It’s a full sensory warning to buckle up—or in Gabbro’s case, to kick back and relax.
“Better grab onto something,” they call to their fellow astronaut, “we’re about to go for a ride.” They ease themself back into lying prone in their hammock.
And stars above, who knows what would have happened next, if that hammock didn’t swung just so, and their eye hadn’t caught what it caught?
Shale doesn’t have their helmet on. It’s still clutched in their hands; they’re crunched over it like a prawn, shoulders still shaking with mirth. And their laughter is getting louder, and wilder.
Gabbro’s relief starts to sour about now.
“Buddy, I’m gonna need you to put your helmet on,” they say warily, fumbling their way back up to sitting as a sudden flood of dread spikes through their nerves. No response—if anything, their Time Buddy is hunching even further over, they can’t even make out their face. That cyclone’s going to be on top of them any second. “Shale, seriously, I know we’re all in for the bleak humour and we’re both functionally immortal but it would be super not cool to watch you suffocate—”
All of a sudden, with horrific clarity, Gabbro realizes that that’s exactly what’s about to happen.
Three things happen simultaneously:
One—their Time Buddy’s knees give out and they collapse to the ground—
Two—Gabbro lunges out of their hammock, landing wonky on their ankle and putting their weight on it anyway so they can scramble forward, pull Shale’s helmet out of their fingers and slam it on lock just as—
Three—the cyclone sucks them up and volleys them into space.
The constant roar dissolves. The clouds drop away, a soupy green horizon line below. Before them, the starlit sweep of the infinite. Gabbro’s legs leave the island, floating one inch, two, three. They’re nauseous all the way down to their marrow.
“Shale,” they call urgently, their voice gratingly close in their own ears on the short-range intercom, close and shaky— “Shale, buddy, you good in there? What the—what kind of stunt was—”
They cut themself off, brought up short.
In the airless, noiseless, weightless void over Giant’s Deep, Gabbro hears clearly through the intercom how their Time Buddy’s laughing has morphed into hysterical sobs.
Shit.
“Hey,” Gabbro starts, “hey bud, easy.” They feel themself drop down into the slow, smooth register that so many of their friends find soothing. The same tones they used to instruct Shale on meditating, a million loops ago. “It’s okay, it was only—we’re okay.”
It was only a joke. They can’t bring themself to say it. Of course it was—only the cruellest, most horrifying joke they could have made. They should have known better. Should have thought twice—stars, thought even once. They teach meditation; they should have known that even if Shale’s brain understood they hadn’t lost their one and only Time Buddy, their body might be slower to catch on.
Those sobs are tangled up with language, but Gabbro can’t make out what Shale’s trying to say. Hyperventilating does that: all your syllables snag like thorns. Gabbro reaches down and pushes off ever-so-gently from the ground with their fingers, propelling themself in Shale’s direction. Once they drift within hugging range, they draw their Time Buddy into their arms, and if they didn’t already feel guilty, now there’s literally no escaping it—Shale actually hugs back, if you can call crunching yourself into someone’s chest and gripping them like a cliffside hugging. The only person Gabbro can think of who’s less touchy-feely than Shale is Slate. Asides from friendly little punches on the arm or ironic high fives when something spectacularly awful happens to either of them in their respective loops, Gabbro doesn’t think they’ve even really touched. All this time. How about that.
(It crunches something inside Gabbro’s chest, to consider the implications of that. That’s—not great, is it? Sure, Shale was never super physically affectionate, but Gabbro is. (Was? Is that done now, is that a thing of the past? Is there any use in retaining a trait when its fate is probably sealed? (You find peace through radical acceptance, right? Don’t you?)))
“Deep breaths, buddy,” they murmur, wedging Shale’s head between their chin and shoulder. It’s an awkward fit because of their helmets (thank Hearth they made it in time—) “I got you, I’m here, it’s still us, we’re still Time Buddies, promise. Breathe.”
It feels like a whole new loop passes with them suspended up there, locked in this embrace, the whole soundscape painted with the two-toned palette of Shale’s unstoppable crying and Gabbro’s quiet reassurance. It feels like a punishment Gabbro deserves.
Listen, I know, they plead to the stars over Shale’s shoulder. You’ve made your point. I was an insensitive jerk, I’m aware, I am like so fully and unignorably aware. Can you put us down now so I can look my Time Buddy in the eyes and tell them so?
In utter silence, in the far beyond, one star explodes. From this distance, it’s actually quite beautiful.
Gabbro doesn’t get any more time to contemplate it though, because the green of Giant’s Deep is peeling up to meet them, and then the serenity of space is ripped away by the whirling chaos beneath the cloud layer, and man, they should have spent some of that time swimming over to their hammock because when gravity kicks back on it kicks hard, and they’re only hovering like two feet up from the ground but on the ‘Deep two feet’s like punting someone off the edge of Youngbark Crater. Shale’s crying is replaced by a sharp yelp of pain as they crash on some root or other, and Gabbro’s not feeling awesome about their own landing—they hit the ground spine-first and the breath gets absolutely slammed out of them, and for a few worrying seconds they can’t get it back, and they’re just about to start wondering whether they broke their back or punctured a lung or something when it whooshes back in like a ship cabin re-pressurizing. A headache immediately breaks out in the sinuses between their lower and upper eyes. Nice. Cool.
But at least they’re in the clear for any more immediate meteorological threats—the planet never sends more than one cyclone in a row to shake things up. Gabbro staggers their way up, stumbling as the island bobs and a slosh of knee-high seawater sluices across the island. Off comes their own helmet, tossed into the cradle of their hammock; this screw-up is bad enough to deserve a face-to-face conversation.
“Hey bud,” they say, kneeling close enough to stray one hand over Shale’s shoulder (a bit tentatively, they notice of themself). “We’re good, we landed, did you break anything? You hurt?”
The pain seems to have knocked them out of their sobbing rhythm at least—they’re doing more coughing than crying now. Guess they both got lungpunched by gravity.
With a double surge of guilt and responsibility, Gabbro puts their hands more firmly on Shale’s shoulders and helps them to sitting. “Hey, you,” they try again, looking closely at their friend’s suit for any preliminary signs of damage. Nothing looks torn or cracked, so at least there’s that. “Gonna take your helmet off…again. That okay?”
And Shale manages a definitive nod, so off comes the helmet, and—yikes. Not the prettiest sight, with their eyes all puffy and discoloured from crying and a gnarly new bruise blooming on their jaw. Must have whacked their face into their own helmet on impact. Gotta love the newer visor models for durability.
Gabbro is as gentle as they can manage around that bruise as they place their hands on their Time Buddy’s cheeks, holding their face steady. Shale winces, but holds fast. They look at Gabbro like they know what’s about to happen, and like they hate it already. Funny, how even the two of them become predictable eventually.
“I know,” Gabbro says in response to that furious, desperate glare, “I know, it’s the most boring thing in the world. It’s so stupid that it works, I know. Humour me anyway?”
And maybe Shale hears the good sense in Gabbro’s plea—or maybe they just don’t know what to do with a Gabbro who sounds this sorry. But they close their eyes, and Gabbro feels them consciously shift their posture, trying to straighten up even while they’re still shaking, so Gabbro knows they’ve agreed.
“Cool,” they say, relief washing through them like another seawater sweep. “Thanks, buddy. With me. Inhale, two, three…”
For a while, they just breathe together, and things are simple again.
If Gabbro could have it their way, maybe they’d keep on breathing like this until the sun blew them up. They’d be able to dodge the next bit of this interaction, which is looking pretty squirmy as it bears down on them. But all it really takes is a good look at how miserable Shale is, even after calming down, to nip that idea in the bud. After scaring someone that bad, it’s the least Gabbro can do to own it.
So. Inhale, two, three— “I’m really sorry, bud.”
“S’cool.” Shale keeps avoiding Gabbro’s gaze. Knowing them, they’re withering away inside from embarrassment. Gabbro sympathizes; they tend to look away from people even when they’re not upset about things. But right now, they’re squarely focused on their Time Buddy’s expression, trying to decipher how much it’s giving away. How much is bravado, and how much it’s worth pointing that bravado out. Ever since they were a hatchling, for reasons Gabbro never could surmise, Shale has always hated being seen.
“Okay, but, like, no it isn’t,” Gabbro presses levelly. Shale rolls their eyes, and Gabbro feels themself smile reflexively in response. “It was deeply uncool. Profoundly uncool. We’re talking down-to-Giant’s-Deep’s-core fathoms of uncoolness here. I don’t even know why I said it—” (except maybe they do, and it’s not because they’re careless and it’s not because they were spacing out (maybe part of them understood from the first how bad this could hurt and said it anyway (maybe what they really are is vindictive, a word they never in their life thought they would use to describe themself, but here it is, and here they are.))) “—but no reason is good enough to do something that messed up. I feel crummy about it, and I wish I could take it back.”
It takes all of a second for Gabbro to realize what they’ve just said, and how given the topic and the circumstance it could be extremely not the right thing to say, and they’re just about to start wishing instead that they could shove their Little Scout in their mouth—
“But you can’t,” Shale says suddenly, and when Gabbro’s eyes flick across their friend’s face they don’t find any new pain, just a grim sort of relief. A certainty. “You can’t take it back. Just like I can’t take anything back from you. Because we’re—” They sniff. They scowl. “We’re Time Buddies.”
By all that glitters, they really did give Shale the scare of their life. Shale has never once voluntarily uttered the words Time Buddies in Gabbro’s presence; in fact, they’ve been adamant from the beginning that it’s an unnecessarily cutesy and childish term, as if they aren’t barely out of childhood themself. For a second all Gabbro can do is blink in stumped surprise.
Then, “Yeah,” they find themself saying, taking Shale’s face anew in their hands and bonking their foreheads together in unabashed gratitude, “yeah, you’re right, we are.”
And maybe they imagine it, or maybe it’s the rolling sway of the island beneath them, but Gabbro thinks they feel their Time Buddy press into the touch.
“…speaking of the Giant’s Deep core,” Shale says after a while, “I did come here to tell you something, you know.”
Gabbro releases Shale from their grasp, sitting back on their heels in the wet sand. “Yeah? Lay it on me.”
“I made it in,” they say simply, as if that’s enough of a revelation on its own—which, yeah, it is, it totally is, because how? Gabbro tried everything they could think of to dip below the current, and neither idea worked. And third time’s the charm, right, but they’ve spent at least four loops trying to brain up magic idea number three to no avail. “There’s a thing in the Southern Observatory, on Brittle Hollow, the Nomai made a model explaining—basically, it’s the cyclones.”
“My buddies? Ol’ Spinny? Twistalot? The Punisher? Those cyclones?”
“Just one, it spins the opposite—no, hang on, what. You named them?”
“It a crime to give your friends nicknames, Time Buddy?”
Shale blinks, the picture of dispassion. “The Punisher?”
“It’s said with affection, trust me. Punisher’s usually the one who clips in and lifts my little island into orbit.”
“That cyclone’s killed you like twelve times by now?”
“Love is pain sometimes, o hatchling,” Gabbro says, grinning, and Shale makes a disgruntled noise somewhere in the back of their throat. “So. One of my twisty pals is a contrarian.”
“Sure, if that’s how you want to frame it. If you fly into it, it’ll dump you below the current.” Gabbro twitches their ears in appreciation, and Shale’s expression shades just a little smug. “That’s the first hurdle. Then there’s the electric field.”
As their Time Buddy explains the daring feats necessary to reach the core of the planet, a part of Gabbro can’t help but think it’s—funny. Look at this kid. The youngest, snottiest graduate of Outer Wilds Ventures, barely able to keep down their sap wine, and they’ve seen things in this solar system that used to be the sole province of Feldspar the invincible (and some things, to hear stories of the Interloper, that even Timber Hearth’s ace pilot would not have survived to boast about). The baby of the space program, suddenly out-exploring them all. It’s ironic. It’s hilarious. It’s unfair—in so many ways, it’s unfair.
But between all the research Chert and Hornfels can pool between them, no one’s ever come up with a theory that proves the universe is fair. Sometimes, a joke hurts. Even if it’s funny too.
“…actually kept track of them all. Gabbro? Are you even listening to me?”
The world comes back into focus; raindrops land clear and cold on the side of Gabbro’s jaw. “Whoops, sorry bud, went somewhere for a second. You’re telling me when the probe cannon flashes up in orbit, the piece of it that records the actual probe data falls off and ends up at the bottom of Giant's Deep? But you’ve found a way in, so you can recover the data.”
Shale seems at least a little placated by this; Gabbro thanks their lucky stars they’re good at thinking and listening at the same time. “Yeah. But it doesn’t just record the probe from the current loop. Gabbro—it remembers all of them.”
That gets Gabbro’s full attention. “Whoa. You don’t mean—?”
“I actually know how long we’ve been in this?” Shale smiles. It’s a grim thing. It doesn’t fit the youth of their face at all. “Yeah, I do.”
“Okay, out with it,” Gabbro says, forcing their voice neutral even though a weird little zing of unease lights up their sternum; “How many times have we cooked?”
“One hundred and thirty four,” Shale recites. They shrug one shoulder. “And counting.”
Gabbro tilts their head. Oh. That’s—it sounds like a lot, but when you do the calculations, it’s not, it’s only— “Two days, huh? Where has the time flown? Seems like only yesterday I first called you Time Buddy,” they say blithely, waiting for the joke to land, only it doesn’t. Shale looks uncomfortable again.
“…there’s more, isn’t there,” Gabbro says. Shale nods.
“That’s the number of loops we’ve been in that…we remember,” they say, and Gabbro knows something big is coming from the way Shale is being so delicate with this. Their buddy has many fine qualities, but stepping lightly around sensitive topics is not one of them; Gabbro is frankly surprised that every step Shale takes on Brittle Hollow doesn’t metaphorically knock out a chunk of the planet, that’s how unlightly they step. So this is—different.
Shale hesitates, and Gabbro feels some ancestral instinct brace them low in their gut.
“…loving the dramatic timing,” they eventually point out, not unkindly they hope, “but it’s all gonna be for naught if Big Blue gets us before you make your point, bud.”
Shale snorts a harsh little laugh. “Obviously.” Their eyes stray in the direction of their ship, parked on the far side of the island, as if reaching for the notes their computer contains. “The probe’s been launching on different trajectories every time, trying to find the Eye of the Universe by random chance. The odds are ridiculous—but they worked. The probe did locate the Eye, and that’s the loop we linked up to, when the statues activated.” They swallow visibly. The wind shrills. “On loop number nine million, three hundred thousand. And something.”
That is a significantly larger number.
Gabbro starts spinning the math in their head, but Shale’s already beat them to it: “It works out to something like four hundred years, Gabbro. We’ve been dying like this for four hundred years. We just…didn’t notice, until the last little bit.”
“No wonder we’re so good at it,” Gabbro says, because they just can’t help themself (because they’re out of practice (because they’re uneasy)). “Practice makes perfect, yeah?”
This time, finally, thank Hearth—Shale laughs. A real laugh. Which is to say, still morbid as anything, but sincere. “Yeah,” they answer, wrapping their arms around their bent knees, tilting their head to take in the hazy green of the sky. “Sure does.”
For maybe half a minute, they sit in silence together, as this fact sinks in with the rain. Gabbro finds their gaze drawn out to sea, to the quartet of cyclones roving the water near the horizon. The sight of them undulating in concert with each other soothes something in Gabbro that they didn’t know needed soothing. That’s the way with the cyclones though—they’re a pretty ferocious lullaby, all things considered, but they lull you all the same. And they change, even from loop to loop. How fascinating is that? Slate would probably be able to spell out how that works, something something fluid mechanics, but for Gabbro it’s enough just to witness. To see that even across the same seemingly identical twenty-minute span, water is willful enough to change its mind. To follow a new path instead.
Gabbro has made a life out of trying to flow like that. Like water. They like to believe they’re pretty good at it. But now they’re wondering: was there any time, in the four hundred pseudo-years before their memory friend glowed to life on Statue Island, that they did things differently from the loop before? To hammock or not to hammock—that is the question. Were there loops where they went looking for their ship? Did they radio anyone for a chat? Without anything to tip them off that they’d already done this before, would they have spontaneously changed up their behaviour, like the cyclones? Or were they just as predictable as their friends back on Timber Hearth are now?
Hey, comes a reproachful thought in their head, you aren’t exactly a wild card now either, bud. What have they done with their ill-begotten omniscience, asides from give themself headaches thinking about it? They’re not like Shale. They don’t (((get to))) shuttle around the solar system, doing something different at the cusp of every new loop. Has their Time Buddy ever come here and not found them swaying in their hammock, playing the same old reliable tune?
It’s an uncanny thought. It lodges awkward in their throat. They remember how creepily easy the words came out, just minutes ago: Nice, it’s you. Good to see you made it here in one piece.
Isn’t that just the funniest possibility of all, that Gabbro’s become more predictable since they became aware of the loops?
“So I’m just gonna say it,” Shale breaks out, interrupting their pensive camaraderie with a sudden heated gruffness. “I’m just—given that data, you’ve been telling me the first solo launch is a doozy isn’t it for nearly four hundred years. So it would—it’d be really, really super duper fantastic if you stopped now. Forever. Cool?”
Ah. See how it all comes back around. Gabbro studies Shale, the harsh line of their shoulders, the resolute set of their jaw. This is the closest their Time Buddy will come to admitting how much this shook them. Honestly, it’s impressive they’re even letting this much out. So it’s with no small amount of wincing apology that Gabbro agrees: “Understood. No fun using stale material anyway.”
And that should have been the seal on the marshmallow tin, except Gabbro is Gabbro, and their brain never does know when to quit probing at thought experiments: “Hang on,” they add, straightening up from their slouch, “that’s a fallacy, bud. That logic only makes sense if you visited me on your real first flight—otherwise, no dice.”
To which Shale shoots back, with the utter contempt of someone who is still, ultimately, a teen: “Yeah, and? You were my first stop, idiot.” And before Gabbro can even react— “And I was planning on visiting even before the statue opened its eyes at me, so don’t go using that as another loophole.”
For a precious moment, Gabbro is speechless.
“…I didn’t—know that,” is all they can scrounge from the surprise blank of their mind. Shale scoffs like why would I bother to tell you, it isn’t important, and maybe once it wouldn’t have been, but now, with all they’ve been through, with them being each other’s only anchor as the mystery shifts and the horrors pile up and the sum of Shale’s discoveries begin to shape some great and helpless leviathan truth, the curve of which neither of them can bring themselves to look at properly yet—with all that, it’s much more important than Gabbro ever realized, to know they cared about each other before caring became non-negotiable. That they were buddies before they were Time Buddies.
Gabbro thinks back to the start of this loop. Playing flute. Eye on the sky. A dull thing cousin to loneliness. Maybe in that moment, they were resentful of Shale for getting the solar system; maybe they were resentful of the solar system for getting Shale. For being left behind by both.
But anyone would get sick of each other after four hundred years, right?
Complain and ye shall receive. Isn’t it funny, how the cosmos does that? How it always has a punchline custom made for you in the end? Most of the time Gabbro’s found the universe is laughing at them, and honestly can you blame it, but this time—maybe—in its own twisted way, the universe is laughing with them instead.
“Hey,” Gabbro says, and finds a smile is tugging at their mouth. They reach out and nudge Shale with one foot. “Come hang out next loop, too. Take a breather from dancing with anglerfish or falling into the black hole with Riebeck or whatever other kooky things you’ve got on your to-do list. I want twenty minutes to visit with my Time Buddy without saying something stupid and harshing the vibe. Sound good?”
“I don’t know,” Shale says doubtfully, because Shale doesn’t know how to take a breather even though Gabbro literally has taught them, “I think I’ve finally figured out the path to the original Nomai ship. The Vessel.”
Gabbro can’t not hear the capital V on that word. Sounds important. Still, though: “It’s not exactly going anywhere. Come on, I’ll have a perfect marshmallow roasted and ready for you by the time you land.”
“Eugh, no thanks, you make them into charcoal before you’re happy,” Shale retorts, but they seem to be fighting their own smile. When they glance back at Gabbro, there’s a sudden youth in their eyes that’s nearly startling. “I guess it’s okay to rest for a loop?”
Gabbro doesn’t even know if Shale realizes they’ve uttered it like a question. Like they’re seeking permission. There’s a hollow pang, way down in their chest, as they remember just how much responsibility their Time Buddy feels, how heavy it weighs. Compared to that kind of burden, the ‘Deep must feel light as a leaf.
So it is with even more fervour that they respond, “Totally and absolutely okay, buddy. We’ll sing campfire songs, tell jokes—”
“Maybe take you on a joyride in the cyclones,” Shale muses, warming to the idea now. Gabbro’s heart jumps. “Long as you don’t mind having no seatbelt.”
“Slate gave your ship a seatbelt?” Gabbro says, filling their voice with mock surprise. “They’re getting soft in their old age.”
“Oh you think so, do you? Let me tell you what they said when I tried telling them I keep dying in ghost matter—”
“Okay, but scoot up closer, my hearing isn’t as sharp as it used to be—”
This is where the sun finds them, when it comes. Shoulder to shoulder, knees bumping, telling stories intended to make each other laugh.
Because really, what else can you do?