Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bart wasn’t alone.

He’d suspected it for months. He’d seen the giant ship when he’d surfaced after the huge earthquake a while ago, though it didn’t seem like there were any survivors at first. But then he saw things that were strange, out of place. It was inconspicuous at first. Wounds on some creatures that couldn’t have been made naturally, wounds that looked like they were made by a knife. Things like Stalker teeth or limestone outcrops disappearing from the location he’d seen them mere days before. At first he’d thought it was the last of his sanity slipping away.

But now he knew it wasn’t a product of his imagination. He’d been passing through the safe shallows, gathering resources for science or whatever, and was on his way back when he spotted the glitter of shiny metal through some creepvine stalks. In the forest full of stalkers, shiny metal wasn’t exactly out of place, but this was too uniform, too free of bite marks. Sure enough, when he left his Seamoth to investigate, it was an identical, although Bart’s was much more dented from years of use, vehicle. But there was no pilot, and from what he could see through the vines around him there was no one around. There should be a person there. Logically, there should be someone. His brain, completely unhelpfully, supplied him with all of the violent, gruesome ends the other survivor could’ve met.

“Shut up.” Bart said to himself, his voice rough and gravelly from years of disuse and his diseased lungs. He couldn’t sit there and think of scenarios when every second could be the difference between life and death. His eyes scanned the environment, looking for something, anything that could lead him to the survivor. Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then, something. An Alterra-standard survival knife, just lying on the seafloor where it met a cave entrance. He swam as fast as he could into the cave, picking up the knife as he passed by to return to its owner once he found them. That was when he heard the voice. It wasn’t one he recognized, but something about it made him feel uneasy nonetheless.

Whoever- or really whatever- the voice belonged to was beckoning someone- someone named Ryley -to come closer.

Searching through his mind for memories of the dangers of the safe shallows, he came upon a conclusion that he didn’t like in the slightest.
He hoped it wasn’t true. But as he rounded a corner into a more open cavern, he was met with his fear- and the form of a human in a dive suit.

“Mesmers.” He muttered, already pulling out his knife. He hated killing anything on this planet, especially something as beautiful as a Mesmer, but he knew that he couldn’t get away from the fish with both his life and the survivor’s. Fortunately- or unfortunately, as it meant that he had to sneak up on an innocent, unsuspecting creature- the Mesmer was facing away from him and he could sneak up on it. With a slash and a moment of mourning for the death of the creature, the voice stopped abruptly, strange blood tinting the water yellow. Still, he gave the lifeless form a few more stabs to make sure it was really dead, until it stopped moving entirely.

Unfortunately, so had the other person. The yellow blood of the creature mixed with a tinge of red that he knew wasn’t from himself. No, no, no, he thought to himself. This couldn’t be happening. His body moved almost automatically, grabbing the other person and dragging them to the Seamoth, his mind racing.

What ifs- what if they’re already dead? What if he can’t save them, and he has to just watch them die in his arms?- , logistics- could he really fit two people in a Seamoth? Did he have the supplies to support two people?- , and fruitless attempts to remember any scrap of medical knowledge he had flew through his mind. He opened the hatch, and struggled to fit both of them inside the 1-person vehicle, clumsily trying to take off the unconscious person’s oxygen mask. What the hell do I do if they aren’t breathing or don’t have a pulse? The medkit instructions never said anything about this! Bart thought vaguely in the back of his mind, occupied with the task of digging out bandages from his bag and wrapping them around a jagged, deep scratch that had torn through the person’s skin and dive suit. He could focus on making it perfect later, now he just needed to do something to help stop the bleeding. He had no medical knowledge with the exception of “screw around and see what doesn’t kill you”, so he didn’t even know if a few bandages would do anything.

“Come on, come on, please don’t die.” He knew that the person- “Ryley”, right?- couldn’t hear him, but he had to say something or he would explode from the weight of only talking to himself or the fish for years. Pressing two fingers against their wrist, he sighed in relief when he felt a pulse. Now that he knew that they were alive, he shifted so that he could drive to vehicle to his base. This was no easy task. The Seamoth was only a 1-person vehicle, and although the other occupant was fairly short, he was built like he was strong enough to lift an entire reaper leviathan. With some trial and error, he reached over to the controls and turned towards the familiar marker of his base.

In what could’ve been the blink of an eye or an eternity, he was back. A battered habitat stood strong against the swaying silhouettes of the pale kelp and the dangerous fauna. It was absolutely terrifying and incredibly dangerous, but it was home. As he spotted the hatch, he left the vehicle. Bart had debated how to get Ryley out, but he’d settled on letting the Seamoth fill up with water and waiting until they floated out or could be lifted. That matter out of the way, he turned his focus to moving them inside. Transporting Ryley out of the water was significantly more difficult, but he managed to carry them far enough to set them down on a semi-comfortable (it was Alterra, it was naturally not made with the user’s comfort in mind, but it was the best he could do) bed.

Now to the matter of the wound. Gingerly, he unwrapped the bandage. He couldn’t properly bandage it again with the dive suit, so he opted to cut off the sleeve at the elbow. This gave him a better look at the injury, and he saw that it was deeper and more serious than he’d thought. It would surely leave a scar, but judging by the skin around it wouldn’t be the other survivor’s first. And either way, that couldn’t be prevented, so he instead focused on applying the healing salve from the medkit (he wasn’t a doctor, he had no idea what it was, but it seemed to be helping so he didn’t stop) and carefully bandaging it. Immediate death avoided, he sat there and waited for the other person to wake up.

And waited.

… and waited.

Eventually, Bart decided to get up. It was no use sitting there doing nothing. Maybe he could get some food and water, that would be the nice thing to do after all. He’d found Ryley half-dead, bandaged his wounds with his dubious medical knowledge, and taken him to wake up in a completely unfamiliar place. The least he could do was make him a snack. He grabbed a handful of lantern fruits and two water bottles from the other room, and was just heading back to his room when he caught sight of himself in a mirror.

“Wow, I look horrible.” He said, the words echoing through the otherwise silent base. It was true. Being the only human on the planet, Bart had stopped really caring about looking good and instead focused on not being dead, only caring about his appearance when his hair grew too long to be manageable. But he suspected being covered in multiple shades of blood wouldn’t be very welcoming to the other survivor. That he could fix. The dark circles, eye bags, wild hair, and general air of a madman? Not exactly. And his voice? That was a whole other story. He didn’t even know if he could manage more than a few sentences before it gave, much less wanted to scare the other with how bad the Kharaa had affected him. Maybe, it was best to use his PDA for now. Not forever. Just until… well, he didn’t know when.

Come on, focus, he told himself. He set the food and water down and focused on the task of walking to the bathroom and washing the blood off of his clothes and hair.

———

When Ryley woke up, he thought he must be dead. There was no other logical explanation, after all. The Mesmer or lack of oxygen had killed him, and now he was dead. Everything made sense. Everything except the sharp pain in his arm, and the fact that asleep at a chair next to the bed, there was another person.

“Where- where am I?” Ryley said, voice barely above a whisper. The other person woke with a start, and Ryley could get a better look at him. He had short brown hair, piercing green eyes, and looked like he hadn’t seen sunlight or a full night’s sleep in months. He pressed a button on the PDA he held in one hand. It didn’t seem to be working, considering he seemed frustrated after some time of nothing happening. After some time, he sighed and handed it to Ryley, presumably to read.

‘Hello! So you’re probably wondering why you’re here, how you got here, how you’re not dead, etc, etc, etc. First and foremost: you’re safe. You got into a bad accident, and I brought you to my base. You can stay here as long as you want. Second: your things are all fine. Your bag’s over there, and I put the knife you dropped somewhere around here. And finally, introductions. I’m Bart Torgal. What’s your name?’ Ryley’s eyes widened. Bart Torgal? No, that couldn’t be. They’d found his last log in the observatory.

“You should be dead.” Ryley said, more bluntly than he’d intended. Bart laughed, taking the PDA back and holding it up when he’d finished writing.

‘Interesting conversation starter.’

“No, but seriously, how are you alive?” Ryley asked. The Bart Torgal from the logs had been deathly ill. How had he survived?

‘That’s a very long story. Based on your reaction, I guess you’ve heard of me?’ Bart didn’t seem likely to tell him anything more about his past, so he decided to drop it for now. He absolutely was quizzing him about it later, however.

“Heard of you? You’re the one who left the voice logs, who got stranded on an ocean world with no equipment and still managed to bioengineer an entire new plant species, who somehow managed to survive on his own for ten years on an alien planet!” Ryley wasn’t going for the tone of a teenage fangirl meeting her favorite music artist, but he knew that it sounded like that either way.

Bart laughed, seeming flustered at the praise.

‘Yep, that’s me.’

Chapter Text

It had been a few days since Ryley had first arrived at the base, and he couldn’t really complain. His arm was healing nicely, he had his own room now, and Bart was… well, he was polite enough. Ryley had a suspicion that he didn’t know how to socialize after being alone for so long, and could they really blame him? An entire decade alone definitely would affect someone’s social skills. But would it kill the man to at least not go out of his way to avoid them? Every morning Ryley woke up, and Bart was off doing something and wouldn’t come back until whatever passed for evening down in the lightless trench, usually sporting new cuts or bruises. When they tried to ask about it, he simply wrote, ‘ Science ’ and left it at that. Ryley found it more than slightly frustrating, but what could he do?

But today? Well, today he was determined on not letting Bart sneak out while he was asleep. Ryley didn’t sleep at all that night- listen, it sounded way less stupid and way less stalker like in their head- and instead stayed up. He was bored out of his mind except for the occasional roar of something off in the distance. When that happened, it made him almost jump out of his skin. He was nodding off, struggling to keep his eyes open when he heard motion from the other room. Ryley jolted awake like they’d been shocked, heading towards the main room where Bart was staring at a wall, zoned out, absentmindedly trying to eat breakfast.

“Hey, Bart!” Ryley greeted cheerfully. Bart choked on the water he was drinking, coughing. They waited for him to catch his breath somewhat before continuing. “So I was wondering, since you dragged me here in your Seamoth, could we go get mine? Maybe so I can join you for your scientific expeditions or whatever?”

‘ Apologies, but that isn’t likely. We can only fit one of us in a vehicle, and it’s over half a kilometer up to the surface. Swimming would be a death wish. ’ Bart’s face was calm, but his eyes betrayed a hint of nerves, or maybe it was worry or concern. There were plenty of reasons for him to be nervous, Ryley knew. Fear of them dying and leaving him alone again or just general anxiety about human interaction, just to name the most likely. But it was still annoying if it was what was going to throw a wrench in his plans, which was seeming incredibly likely.

“Everything I’ve done for the last few months has been a death wish. I’ve done more dangerous things for stupider reasons. I got this scar,” Ryley pointed to a scar on his forearm near the still-healing wound, “from trying to fight a Sandshark.”

Bart still didn’t look convinced, but that at least got a laugh out of him.

‘ What, did they look at you funny? ’ He typed something else, but he deleted it moments later. Ryley didn’t catch the majority of it, they only saw ‘you remind me of M-‘ before the statement was gone. He wondered who this mysterious M person was that he apparently reminded Bart of, but he didn’t want to push him. They decided to ask later, mentally making a note.

“So, can I go?” Ryley asked hopefully, trying to sound as charismatic and convincing as possible.

‘ Still no. ’ Bart replied, leading to a completely overdramatic sigh from Ryley. Bart rolled his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table, standing up.

‘ I have to head out. ’

“Right. Great.” Ryley tried his best to sound sarcastic instead of just hurt. His voice, to his great annoyance, decided not to comply. Without another word, Bart had left and Ryley was sitting alone at the table, annoyed.

‘ Bart Torgal has disembarked the habitat. ’ The calm, vaguely feminine voice announced. Ryley knew it was just AI, but he swore the habitat was mocking him.

And so, he was alone. Again. With nothing to do. Well, maybe he could explore, after all it couldn’t hurt to look around. Anything would be better than of staying in his room and being bored like he’d been spending his time. So far, he only knew four rooms in the base. The first was his room, a multipurpose room that had held storage containers until Bart had cleared them out and added a bed so he’d have somewhere to sleep. The rest were the main room, where there was a table and a few potted plants, the bathroom, and Bart’s room. He’d only seen it briefly when he’d first been brought here, but he remembered that it held a truly unreasonable amount of plants and scattered papers littered every surface. The rest of the base was separated from the living area by a bulkhead door, which Ryley pried open and looked through. There was a long hallway, and beyond that there was a spacious room that held an alien containment unit and was lined with aquariums.

“What a surprise. More plants.” Ryley muttered, seeing the countless pots, plant shelves, and aquatic plants in aquariums. What was this man’s obsession with plants? Ryley’s room was the only one without them. It was strange. Plants temporarily put aside, his attention turned to a second bulkhead door. It had a sign reading “Caution: my lab. Poisonous, explosive and otherwise dangerous substances inside. KEEP OUT.” in a blocky font. The lab, unfortunately for Ryley but probably fortunately for his physical wellbeing and the structural integrity of the base, was locked. He was disappointed, but at least it wasn’t the only room that might hold something interesting. The door next to it lead to a clear glass room, not far off from the observatories on the Floating Island.

“Hooray. More fucking plants.” Ryley grumbled. He had to admit, though, despite the approximately seven billion more plants, the view of the trench outside was stunning. Pale kelp strands swayed peacefully in the currents next to solid white roots studded with vibrant pustules. They would’ve reminded him of human blood if human blood had a slight, eerie glow. The faint light coming from the base illuminated the surrounding area, with anything far away fading into darkness more absolute than he’d ever seen before. Even the deadly, terrifying fauna looked strangely beautiful within the relative safety of the base.

…well, most of them. Nothing about those abominations of nature that looked like a cave crawlers pale, threatening cousin was anything except for terrifying. Cave crawlers were already too much, but these? It was something about a deranged crab that could take his entire hand off and was nearly as tall as him AND ATE DEAD BODIES made him wonder if the eradication of an entire species was worth the possible repercussions on the ecosystem. When one got a little close for comfort to the glass, Ryley absolutely did not scream like a kindergartner and run back inside, because they were a grown adult and was absolutely not scared of glorified crabs. Even tall murder crabs.

The next room they opened was full of books, and strangely lacked plants, an unusual design choice considering the rest of the base. They picked a few books off of the shelfs and skimmed them, and they were pretty boring. They were mostly long and dull, with an author droning on about this or that. Ryley probably had cried over at least five of them at three A.M. trying to study for a test in high school. The books themselves? he couldn’t care less about them. What interested him was the writing inside of them. Little notes about how the subject related to science on 4546B, hastily written reminders about who knows what, what seemed to be lists of materials for various experiments, all written in neat, loopy cursive. Bart hadn’t really talked much, so the he found them interesting. He would’ve read more than the few he managed to read, but he could feel himself falling asleep just standing there. His sleep schedule was already screwed enough, and pulling an all nighter might not have been exactly helpful. He sat down on the floor, only intending to close his eyes for a minute.

                              ———

Ryley woke to a hand tapping him on the shoulder and another dangling a PDA in front of his face.

‘ Good whatever time it is. Have a nice nap? ’

Ryley turned to face the other man. He looked like he’d just gotten inside, and he probably had. He was dripping water. His hair was slicked to his head and stiff with seawater. His face had several new cuts and bruises, but that was to be expected for an excursion on 4546B.

‘ I got the Seamoth. ’ Bart wrote, grinning.

“What? How?” Ryley asked, confused.

‘ Used creepvine to tie them together and then drove them back. ’ Ryley nearly facepalmed. It was so simple. How the hell had they not thought of that? He felt like an absolute idiot.

‘ Plus, I found your base. ’ Bart sat on the floor next to Ryley, pulling out his bag. ‘ Picked up a few things. ’ He pulled out a few items- a handful of purple tablets, a few posters, an egg they’d found in one of the Degasi bases, and… a single fish?

“Oh! There you are!” Ryley cradled the Hoverfish in his hands. Listen, they hadn’t had anyone to talk to for months, so they’d adopted a pet, totally normal. A pet that they’d talked to like a human. Totally normal, of course. Maybe. Suddenly, Ryley became extremely self conscious. Bart would probably find it weird or stupid, after all. He should try to come up with an excuse, he didn’t want to be seen as crazy after all.

“Uh, I mean- um-“ Ryley stuttered. Bart held up a hand, motioning for them to stop.

‘ They’re cute. What’s their name? ’ Bart asked. He seemed genuinely interested. Ryley blinked.

“What?” Ryley asked.

‘ What’s their name? You expect me to believe they don’t have a name? ’ Bart asked insistently.

“Ozzy.” It was stupid to try to honor someone by naming a fish after them, Ryley knew that, but the cafeteria worker was the only person who Ryley had really considered a friend on the Aurora and he wanted to remember him.

‘ Neat. ’ Bart reached out his hand to give the fish a gentle pat on the head. He gently picked them up and placed them in a bowl of sea water nestled in his bag.

‘ What really interested me was this egg. ’ Bart motioned to the unidentified egg. ‘ Where did you find this? ’

“At the base. The destroyed one.” Ryley added for clarification.

‘ Interesting. I was studying this. Before… ’ Bart didn’t have to finish writing out the sentence. Ryley had heard the logs. He knew what happened. The reason why they were here. The reason why Bart was alone. Alone, except for Ryley now.

‘ It’s a very unique specimen. From my studies, it doesn’t match the eggs of anything on this planet. Maybe it was bioengineered. Maybe it’s the last of its kind. ’ Bart looked so… in his element. Talking about alien biology. Like he’d been born for this. His eyes sparkled, and his enthusiasm was almost enough to make them care about science for once. He continued on about his theories, and Ryley was only half listening. The other half of his attention was on Bart himself. Somehow he managed to be expressive without any verbal communication. Ryley found it interesting. In fact, he found Bart himself interesting as a whole.

It was hard not to be impressed, after all. He’d been stranded on a planet alone for an entire decade with an alien bacterium, and after all of it he had his sanity intact. Plus he’d figured out a way to fabricate books, which was a feat in its own right, considering that the equipment was all Alterra (probably a money saving thing considering what Ryley knew about Paul Torgal) and the corporation hated anything that didn’t do the bare minimum to keep their employees from dying.

‘ So yeah! Did you catch that? ’ Bart had seemingly finished his explanation of something, and Ryley realized that he hadn’t been paying attention, and had instead been just staring at him.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Interesting, right?” Ryley said, definitely lying. They had no idea what Bart had been talking about, but he seemed enthusiastic and they didn’t want to make him feel bad.

‘ Well, it’s late. I’m going to turn in. ’ As if to punctuate the statement, Bart yawned. He stood up, waving goodbye. The door closed shut with a click behind him. And so, Ryley was the only one in the room again. But this time, he wasn’t quite as alone.

Chapter Text

Ryley woke up to silence. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He’d gone to sleep the other night much later than he normally did because of the sleep he’d gotten earlier in the day. At least this had given him the time to fabricate a small aquarium to put in his room for Ozzy the Hoverfish. Even if it did mean throwing any last shreds of a sleep schedule out the window.

“Morning, Ozzy.” They greeted the fish. The fish didn’t reply. They were a fish. They didn’t really know what they expected. “Looks like we’re alone again.”

There wasn’t another explanation for the silence (well, relative silence. There was always some ambient noise in the habitats, whether it was creatures outside or the buzzing of various mechanisms) that filled the base. It was disappointing really. Somehow, it hurt more than when Bart had disappeared at first. Ryley had really thought that something had changed after their conversation yesterday, but maybe not. He tried not to be bitter, he really did, but he had to admit… it hurt. A lot. Like being punched in the gut. And he should know, that had happened to him more times in the last couple of months than he figured was probably healthy.

He walked into the main area. Strangely, Bart’s dive suit was just thrown on a chair. The dive suit that he needed to y’know, not die going outside. His bitterness and annoyance was chipped away in favor of concern, and he scanned the room for any other trace of Bart. Nothing. He opened the bulkhead leading to the other section of the base. Everything looked as it had before he’d gone to bed. He started to really worry, but then he heard soft humming and saw the door that had been locked yesterday cracked open.

He opened the door to find Bart sitting cross-legged in a chair in what they assumed were casual clothes (a t-shirt and shorts, in addition to gloves that made Ryley question how safe whatever he was doing was), surrounded by, to no one’s surprise, more plants, and a few small tanks with Peepers. Not just Peepers- what seemed to be sparkly Peepers?

‘Hello!’ Bart greeted him, smiling. He gestured at the fish. ‘Interesting, aren’t they?’

“What are they?” Ryley asked. He’d never seen something like them before. Did Peepers down so deep have bioluminescence?

‘Those are Peepers, Ryley.’ Bart wrote, looking very confused and a bit concerned.

“No- I know they’re Peepers, just why are they… sparkly?”

‘Enzyme 42!’ Bart explained- well, tried to. When Ryley stared at him, looking increasingly more confused, Bart tilted his head in matching confusion and gave him a look. ‘How are you still alive?’

Ryley was unsure if this was a genuine question, he was being made fun of, or it was a joke. When they just stood there, Bart sighed and started writing.

‘Enzyme 42. Peepers carry it. I don’t know where it originates from, but I think it has something to do with the alien vents all around the place. It seems to be like the stomach enzymes of larger organisms according to the PDA, but I haven’t gotten a chance to check that myself.’

“And… what does it do?” Ryley asked. Bart gave him the same ‘how are you not six feet under, you dumbass’ look as before.

‘It inhibits the symptoms and progression of the Kharaa.’ Bart explained patiently. Ryley was starting to think that he was missing something very vital that he was apparently supposed to know.

“…”

‘You don’t know what the Kharaa is, do you?’ Bart asked, much more patiently and gently than Ryley would have predicted for the sheer amount of dumb questions he’d asked so far. Ryley nodded a yes. Instead of giving them another of his increasingly concerned looks, he took a deep breath and removed one of his gloves. Ryley inhaled sharply as he saw glowing green pustules and green veins. Bart grimaced in what might have been an attempt at a smile.

“Do I have that? Will that happen to me?” Ryley asked, barely speaking above a hoarse whisper. After a long pause, Bart replied.

‘Yes. I’m sorry. But it’s not as bad as it looks, I promise.’ His reply wasn’t much consolation, but Ryley trusted him wholeheartedly.

———

Bart had officially screwed up majorly. He’d shown the other person the effects of the Kharaa, assuming he could handle it. Turns out, he could not. Way to go, genius, he thought. He had no idea what to do now.

‘Chances are you won’t get it as bad as I do.’ Bart tried to reassure him, even though he didn’t know if he was lying or not. He hoped he wasn’t. ‘I developed the pustules before I found the enzyme. It might not happen to you.’

I won’t let it happen, he thought, despite knowing how little control he had over it. He remembered when the disease had first shown major symptoms for him, when he washed up on the Floating Island after the accident. He’d been delirious, seeing things and hearing voices, his hold on consciousness losing grip. That was when he saw Her. He didn’t know who She was- what She was. She’d convinced him to get to his feet, to not give up, to keep going. She was the reason he was here today. But the questioning about what She was could wait- it had already waited a decade, and he had more important things right in front of him.

“Okay.” Ryley didn’t sound reassured exactly, but the look in their eyes was trusting. “Was… was the Kharaa the reason why you can’t talk anymore?”

Bart paused again, then nodded. They stood there in silence, not entirely uncomfortable silence, more understanding. Like a bubble, it was popped with a beep of the radio. The noise hung in the air for a moment before Bart pressed the play button. He knew he wouldn’t get anything except for the haunting last words of some poor Aurora crew member, but what was either hope or stubbornness made him pick up every time. It had become a sort of morbid routine at this point.

“This is Avery Quinn of the trading ship Sunbeam. Aurora, do you read? over.” Bart was too stunned to speak-well, write. He wished more than anything that he could reply, but of course he couldn’t, even he could find the words. The shitty Alterra-brand radio had been broken for longer than he cared to remember- it was a miracle it still worked at all.

“Nothing but vacuum. These Alterra ships. They run low on engine grease, they send out an SOS; you offer to help, they don’t pick up. Aurora, I’m out on the far side of the system, it’s going to take more than a week to reach your position, do you still need our assistance? Over.” The voices continued, but they sounded like they were in the background. “I’ll try them again tomorrow. Damn charter’s going to have us wasting our credits running errands for Alterra. See what the long range scanner picks up in the meantime.”

“Bart, did I really just hear that?” Ryley asked in an awed whisper. As much as Bart wished he shared their hope, he had his doubts. He scrambled for his PDA, which had fallen from his hand in shock.

‘Yes. But…’ He didn’t know what to write next, he couldn’t find the words to tell them his suspicions and crush Ryley’s hopeless optimism.

“But?” Ryley said, looking like he was bracing himself for new, devastating information. Or perhaps just getting ready for the last bits of hope for rescue and escape to sink to the bottom of the sea, like Bart’s hopes had long ago.

‘Ships on this planet just… don’t have the best track record for landing safely, you know.’ Bart said, trying his best to put it nicely. But there was no sugarcoating it. If the Sunbeam did follow through with their landing, it would be a first if it came through the ordeal intact.

“Oh. Yeah.” Ryley looked at the floor. Bart hated how sad they seemed, but he kept telling himself that it was better for neither of them to get their hopes up.

‘But maybe this time will be different!’ Bart could only hope.

“Yeah, maybe it will.” Ryley said. Again, they didn’t look entirely convinced but seemed to trust Bart. Crushing his hopes felt like being stabbed in the chest, and the trusting look in their eyes was like twisting the knife.

‘I suppose we’ll need to make something to meet them. Chances are the landing spot will be far from here, and we’ll need somewhere to stay while we wait. I have the blueprints for a Cyclo-‘ Bart was cut off.

“You have the Cyclops blueprints? You can make a Cyclops?” Ryley asked very enthusiastically, his mood doing a complete 180.

‘We’d need to collect the materials first. Plasteel ingots I have, lead too, but I’m running low on most materials.’ Bart said, messing with the PDA as he talked in an attempt to send the blueprints.

“I can get the materials! I have my Seamoth now, I can go to the safe shallows, I have some lockers back there.” Ryley offered. Bart was unsure. Based on what he knew about Ryley, they were just as likely to gather the resources safely as they were to fight a Stalker or Sandshark for them. They reminded him of Marguerit in that way, like a part of her still lived on. But if he didn’t let either of them leave out of pure fear, then they were dying either way.

‘…Okay.’ Bart agreed tentatively. He’d barely finished the word before Ryley was already moving from the doorway to the room with the hatch.

“Take care of Ozzy while I’m gone!” Ryley called, the words echoing through the base. Bart sighed. It was strange, to have been alone for so long and suddenly to just have someone right there. But what was even weirder was being alone again. He’d been alone for ten years, a few hours shouldn’t bother him at all. But something about Ryley’s presence made the lifeless titanium shell feel less sterile and dull, and when he wasn’t around it was very noticeable.

One of the Peepers made a noise, and he was reminded of the task at hand. He carefully poured the water and fish into an empty container, making sure to not pour out the denser shining gold liquid at the bottom. This he transferred into a few mismatched vials he’d salvaged from the bottles of various chemicals he’d made with the fabricator. Was that safe? Hopefully. He hadn’t died yet, so he figured the effects were minimal.

Nothing to do now, Bart stared blankly out of the window.

———

It only felt like a few minutes, but when he snapped back to reality and realized he’d zoned out it was what seemed like hours later. Ryley, however, was still gone. After checking his PDA to make sure it had actually been as long as he thought it was, he started to get worried. What about gathering a few materials and going back took hours? Maybe it was stupid to worry. He himself had been gone for much longer before, after all.

“You’re overreacting.” Bart said to himself. Talking after so long made him cough uncontrollably, which made him start to be grateful for using the PDA instead of his voice. He decided to pull on his dive suit and look for Ryley, his anxiety winning over the more rational part of his brain.

He didn’t know where to look, so he decided that Ryley’s base was as good a place to start as any. The journey felt much longer than Bart knew it to be, and every second of it was torture. When a familiar form became visible through the kelp strands, he didn’t know whether to hug or strangle the man. Ryley, oblivious to the worry they’d caused, waved. Bart stepped out of his Seamoth and the two of them rose to the surface so they could communicate.

‘What took you so long?’ Bart wrote, struggling to express his immense annoyance without the help of tone and volume.

“So… funny story… I don’t actually know the way home.” Ryley explained, punctuating the pauses with nervous laughter. Bart had no reply to that. Why had he not shared the location of his base? Any annoyance that still remained was now directed at himself. His thoughts started to spiral, worry about what could’ve happened because he was an absolute idiot and just assumed Ryley could find their way home with no directions overcoming him.

“But I got the supplies! Should we build it here, or wait til we get home?” Ryley asked, their enthusiastic voice pulling him out of his thoughts. Bart thought the suggestion over for a second. They had the materials already, why wait? After all, it would probably be better to figure out how to pilot it now than in a less ideal situation.

‘We can build it here.’ Bart determined. He had barely finished the sentence before Ryley was already swimming towards a mobile vehicle bay some 20 meters in the distance, and Bart followed close behind. Instead of holding his hand out and letting the drones pick the materials up like any normal fucking person, Ryley tossed them in the air for the drones to catch. He didn’t see how this made anything any easier or faster. But he had to admit that their giddy excitement was a bit infectious, and he couldn’t help a slight smile from making its way onto his face.

Even half-built, the size of the Cyclops awed him. He could start to see why Ryley found it so interesting. He wasn’t considering changing from biology to technology or anything, but it was certainly impressive. When it finally was completed, the wave it caused nearly knocked him over.

“Woah.” Ryley said, and Bart wished he could echo him. It was certainly an accurate reflection of his current mood. Their PDAs said something about the Cyclops typically being piloted by three people, although neither of them were actually listening- not like they could magically find a third person. Ryley got to exploring right away, but Bart stayed back to read the manual in hopes of preventing or at least delaying the (most likely inevitable) event of one of them crashing the ship. He didn’t get a chance to finish reading before Ryley had grabbed him by the hand and was showing him the inside of the vehicle.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Ryley asked, even though all Bart had seen was the bottom layer, which was pretty much an oddly shaped habitat compartment. He knew that Ryley was excited though, so he just nodded. Fortunately, the upper section was less monotonous. It was actually pretty interesting, despite Bart not knowing much about it. There was a docking bay, the engine room, what looked like it could be a small living area, and a place to pilot the Cyclops. Did they probably have actual names? Probably. Did Bart know what they were? …definitely not.

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of space for your plants.” Ryley said teasingly.

‘I’m not that obsessed with plants.’ Bart wrote, turning slightly pink from the teasing (and definitely, 100% not the fact that Ryley seemed to have forgotten to let go of his hand). Okay, maybe he was a bit obsessed with plants. But the plants had their uses, and what else was he supposed to do for ten years?

“You invented an entire new plant species.” Ryley replied. He was right about both of his points, of course, but Bart wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of winning the argument.

‘We have to get back to the habitat. This can hold one Seamoth, correct? I can take mine home, you can drive this.’

“If I didn’t want to drive this thing so badly I wouldn’t let you change the subject like that.” Ryley said, with a slightly manic look in his eyes that made Bart doubt the planet’s safety with them at the wheel of a vehicle. It took some time to maneuver the Seamoth into the vehicle bay, but soon enough they set off to the base. Making it out of the shallows was difficult, and Ryley must’ve hit about a few dozen rocks in the way (he wasn’t exactly the greatest driver), but when they got to deeper water their trip was (mostly) incident free. After such an eventful day, Bart was pretty much ready to collapse, but when they entered the habitat the usual near-silence was pierced by the radio’s beeping.

“Aurora, this is Sunbeam. We just picked up a massive debris field at your location. I didn’t know how bad- how many of you…” Avery’s voice broke. “I-I didn’t know. We are now en route to your location. Sunbeam out.”

Again, the voices continued in the background. Whoever this Avery Quinn was, he really needs to work on his turning off the radio skills, Bart remarked mentally.

“What else can I say? The only time I parked a rig this big on a rock that small was in VR, and I blew it. It’s a bad option alright, but so are all the others.”

In spite of himself, Bart laughed. In a strange, morbid way, he found it funny. He evidently wasn’t alone in that opinion, because Ryley started laughing too. He knew it must’ve been a strange sight, the both of them laughing like that, but the other option was crying and he much preferred this. When they finally stopped laughing, the tiredness began to set in and Bart realized how long he’d been up- how long had he been up? If he couldn’t remember that was probably a very bad sign.

‘Going to get some rest. Goodnight.’ Bart wrote, yawning.

“Night!” Ryley replied. “To you and your plant children.”

‘Will you drop it about the plants?’

“I will when you stop being obsessed with them!” Ryley said. Bart decided not to dignify their words with a response and instead pushed past him towards his room.

Chapter Text

Ryley had woken up, for the first time in longer than he cared to put much thought into, not to silence. He was beginning to wonder if he preferred the silence.

“Kindly explain to me exactly how the fuck this happened?” Ryley asked, motioning to the numerous holes in the hull that were steadily filling their home up with water.

‘Science.’ Bart shrugged. He looked slightly concerned, but not nearly what was warranted for the fact that they were hundreds of feet underwater and their base was steadily filling up water.

“Thats not an answer!” Ryley said, pulling out their repair tool and moving towards the multitude of hull breaches. Bart watched with mild interest, like the soon-to-be-waterlogged base was just another scientific experiment of his. When the crisis was averted, he looked back at Bart to see him holding up his PDA with text on it.

‘The Sunbeam sent another message.’

“What? Why didn’t you wake me up!”

‘You looked peaceful.’ Bart said. Ryley could’ve sworn he’d seen a tinge of pink on his pale skin, but he brought his PDA up to his face, hiding it from sight.

“What did they say?”

‘They’re looking for a landing spot, they’ll be in touch when they find it. Shouldn’t be long.’

Ryley was almost in disbelief. He’d been stuck on this planet for months. He was finally getting out of this place. His current plans for what to do when he got home were mostly comprised of:

1. Quit his job at Alterra
2. Quit his job at Alterra And
3. Quit his job at Alterra

He could imagine, if he closed his eyes, what it would be like to finally not have to fear for his life every second of every day. To finally see his family again. His friends. His entire life.

‘I suppose we should put some stuff in the Cyclops.’ Bart suggested.

“And by stuff you mean plants?” Ryley asked.

‘They’re important!’ Bart said, looking mildly annoyed. He started walking away.

“Just try to leave some space to walk through.” Ryley called out to him, and started to regret it immediately. Shit, was I too mean? Should I apologize? God, it’s been like a month and I already forgot how to talk to people.

Pushing the thoughts out of his mind until later when he didn’t have something to do, he started wondering what he should put in there. There was a chance that it could be their home for days, and that made it infinitely harder. Maybe it would be best to take a good look at the interior at the Cyclops before planning anything- it would be bad to plan something and not have the space for it.

When he got there he realized that, in reality, there was plenty of space. Maybe for two people living in the same space it would be a bit small, but otherwise he didn’t see much of a problem. He fabricated a few lockers, an aquarium for Ozzy, and counters, in addition to a couple of indoor growbeds. The latter he added on as a sort of peace offering. Ryley really didn’t mind Bart’s love of plants, no matter how much they teased him. Really, if anything he found it endearing. He was invested in his work when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder.

“Oh, hey!” Ryley said. “Everything fine?”

‘Do you have a spare piece of copper?’ Bart asked. Ryley dug one out of his bag and handed it to him.

“May I ask why?”

‘Radio.’ Bart pulled out a habitat builder. The last particles of the radio had barely been fabricated before it started beeping.

“Aurora, we’re approaching the planet now, and we have a landing site that’s… well, it’s better than the alternatives. We’ve sent you the coordinates. It’ll take us a few days to align our orbit, we should be able to establish direct contact with you during that time, then we’re coming to get you. Cross your fingers the weather holds, and don’t keep us waiting. Sunbeam out.” A signal appeared in Ryley’s field of vision. He was ecstatic but Bart was… slightly less excited.

“You okay?” Ryley asked. Bart frowned.

‘The signal location.’ Bart said, clearing absolutely nothing up.

“…what about it?” Ryley asked. How Bart’s mind worked was the biggest mystery on the planet.

‘It’s on the complete opposite side of the crater from the Floating Island. I figured they’d land there, but…’ Bart appeared to trail off mid-thought. ‘It’s probably nothing.’
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ryley wondered if they should let it go, but the way Bart was staring at the floor didn’t exactly scream ‘I’m fine’. He hesitated.

‘No.’ And there it was. One word, but Ryley could hardly imagine how hard it must’ve been to write. ‘I just…’

‘I don’t want another person to die because of me.’ Tears began to well up in Bart’s eyes, and Ryley didn’t know what to do to help. He felt like the biggest idiot in the world just standing there awkwardly while someone he cared about was crying. Should he try to hug him? He hadn’t even known him for a week, would that be weird? What the heck should they d-

Ryley’s thoughts were interrupted by Bart throwing his arms around them. Well, that question had been decided for them. Tears soaked through the shoulder of their dive suit. Bart was considerably taller than them, so it was a bit awkward, but they made it work. When Bart stepped away, his tears were almost completely gone and he looked, if not completely okay, better.

‘Thank you.’ Bart wrote. Ryley didn’t see what he was thanking them for. He hadn’t done anything except stand there like an idiot. ‘I’m going to go get some stuff from inside. We have two days to get to the island, better move fast.’

“Bye.” Ryley said. It was all he could force out of his stupid mouth. Mentally, he was hitting his head against the wall. Why the fuck was he such an idiot around Bart?

———

Bart hummed softly to himself as he gathered seeds. It felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He hadn’t known how much he’d needed to talk to someone until he had.

That should be enough, he thought to himself as he looked in his near-full bag. He started to head back to the hatch. As he passed Ryley’s room, he caught a glimpse of the empty fish tank. They must’ve already taken Ozzy onto the Cyclops. They swam the couple of meters to the Cyclops and climbed up the ladder to the top level. Ryley waved at them, then jumped back.

‘What?’ Bart asked.

“That.” Ryley pointed at Bart’s bag. Bart looked down and saw a tiny Blood Crawler.

‘Oh hey, little buddy!’ Bart said, letting the baby crab thing climb onto his hand. Ryley shuddered.

‘Don’t tell me you’re scared.’

“I think it’s perfectly appropriate to fear a giant fucking murder crab that could take my arm off.”

‘Ryley, it’s the size of my fist.’

“It’s still a murder crab! Do you see those pincers!”

‘Would it be helpful if I took the baby crab back outside?’

“…yes.”

Bart climbed back down the ladder, careful not to disturb the baby creature too much, and released it through the hatch. When he returned Ryley looked vaguely embarrassed. Bart decided that never letting him live it down could wait until later. They had much bigger problems than Ryley’s irrational fear of space crabs.

‘Is everything ready?’ Bart asked.

“Uh… yeah, about.” Ryley surveyed the room. “Do we have a fabricator?”

‘Yeah, downstairs.’ Bart replied.

“I think we’re ready then.” Ryley said definitively. They walked to the controls, and Bart had just started sorting the different seeds into piles when the Cyclops started to move, unbalancing him.

“Ow!” Bart exclaimed. He’d fallen onto the edge of one of the counters. Well, that was going to leave a bruise, he thought.

“Sorry!” Ryley responded apologetically, not taking his eyes off the controls. Bart stumbled his way to a seat that Ryley must’ve made next to one of the control panels. Based on the manual, he knew that it was the panel that controlled the design of the Cyclops, including the name.

‘What should we name her?’ Bart asked, throwing a pebble he’d found at the bottom of his bag at Ryley to catch his attention.

“What should we name who?” Ryley asked.

‘The Cyclops.’

“I dunno.”

‘Well, the obvious one would be something like the Nautilus, but since it’s a Cyclops, maybe Polyphemus?’ Bart suggested, to a blank stare from Ryley. ‘Did you pay attention at all in your reading classes?’

“I payed attention plenty!” Ryley said defensively

‘You’re about to hit a rock.’ Bart warned. Ryley pulled up on the controls with a string of words that would’ve made Marguerit proud.

“Maybe let’s save the discussions for later so I don’t crash this thing.” Ryley suggested. Bart pulled out his “sketchbook”- a collection of blank pieces of paper he’d thrown together from wherever he could find them. It had come in handy for diagrams of various creatures he found interesting and wanted to study. He wanted to draw the Blood Kelp, but he wouldn’t have any references once they left the trench so that was off the table. He settled for drawing the interior of the Cyclops. He wasn’t as practiced at drawing inorganic objects and it wasn’t as interesting, but it seemed easy enough.

Soon enough they were in the open ocean, and beams of light filtered into the compartment. Bart noticed the way it streamed through the water, causing a strange dappled pattern to reflect onto the floor. He found his eyes, almost involuntarily, drawn to how it shined on Ryley. Forget the Cyclops, he felt inspired to draw something-someone- else. He hummed to himself as he worked, filling the silence.

“Almost there. You see that cloud, in the distance? I think that’s it.” Ryley told him a little while later. Bart didn’t look up from his sketch, but he could practically feel Ryley’s excitement.

“Look! There it is!” Ryley exclaimed some four or five minutes later. This time Bart looked up. And yeah, there was an island. It looked to be made up of one or two small mountains, but nothing else seemed special. Pretty standard as far as islands go.

“…looks like there’s something else.” Ryley muttered. Bart was unsure if they were talking to him or themselves. At the edge of the island, he could make out a hint of green- too vibrant to be another mountain, too dark to be clouds or sky. Bart didn’t know why, but it seemed foreboding. His eyes returned to his drawing, but his focus was shattered by Ryley’s next words.

“Bart, what- what is that?” Ryley said, sounded strangely choked like his brain didn’t want to process what was before him. The vehicle slowed to a complete stop and Ryley turned around to look at him. Bart turned his gaze to the island, and his breath caught in his throat.

‘That… can’t be good.’ Bart wrote.

Chapter Text

‘That… can’t be good.’ Bart wrote. Ryley laughed.

“Evidently.” They didn’t know what to say. What to do. All of his Alterra training had never really specified what to do in… whatever the fuck this situation could be considered.

“So… we probably have to investigate that, don’t we.” Ryley said.

‘Unfortunately.’ Bart said, groaning. ‘I have to get my diving gear from the other room. You go, I’ll catch up.’

Ryley climbed down the ladder and into the cool water. The tranquilness of the water calmed his thoughts, slowing them down enough that he could even register a few of them. He should’ve known better than to close his eyes, he really should have. He’d been on this hell of a planet long enough to know that turning your back, closing your eyes, was a bad idea. But he was overwhelmed, and he wanted to calm himself down enough to think properly.

That was a mistake.

Purple light flashed bright enough for him to see it clearly through his closed eyelids. He opened them to find the soulless eyes of a horrific creature that absolutely had not been there moments before staring at him. It made a screeching sound that made Ryley want to rip off his ears and rushed at him, strange claws slashing. He was like a deer in headlights, stuck there while the creature approached. He knew he should do something- reach for his knife, signal for help, anything at all, but he was frozen in fear.

Claws met his arm, and blood plumes clouded the water. The saltwater stung the wound, and the pain shocked him back into reality enough to make him reach for his knife and slash at the creature. It made another horrible screeching noise, and Ryley took the opportunity to drag himself the remaining few meters to shore, trailing red as he went. When he reached it, he felt too weak and too scared to try to do anything. He knew that he was bleeding a lot, but he didn’t have a first aid kit and couldn’t do much except for hope Bart would get there before their condition took a turn for the worse. Mercifully, it didn’t take long until Ryley could see the outline of a human against the waves.

‘What happened?’ Bart pulled a first aid kit out of his bag and tried to patch up Ryley’s injuries.

“There… there was a creature. It was… purple, and three times the size of me at least.” Ryley recounted, gesturing vaguely to where it happened. “Over there.”

‘Ryley, there’s nothing over there.’ Bart said. Ryley struggled to look past Bart to where he’d been attacked. There was nothing. No, no, that couldn’t be possible! He’d seen it, seen the creature, seen the cloud of blood- mostly his, mixed with the some of the creature’s. There couldn’t just be nothing there!

“I-I saw it!” Ryley said, but he was beginning to doubt himself. “I’m not going crazy!”

‘I don’t think you’re crazy. Even if you were I’m not in a place to judge.’ Bart said, almost reassuringly. They’d have to think harder about what he’d said later. Right now they had to pool most of their focus on not passing out at the sight of their own blood, soaking into the sand and dyeing it crimson. Bart had done a good job bandaging his arms, but he’d been lying there for who knows how long and the creature’s claws had cut deep.

‘Maybe it has some sort of camouflage.’ Bart mused. The look in his eyes made Ryley suspicious he was resisting the urge to call it fascinating. ‘Are you okay to stand up?’

“Yeah, should be.” Ryley said, pushing himself up in an attempt to rise to his feet. This was another mistake. He fell forward, and would’ve faceplanted into the sand had Bart not caught him at the last second.

“Thanks.” Ryley said. Bart laughed, and Ryley knew how embarrassed and utterly stupid they must have looked.

‘What was that about being okay to stand up?’ Bart grinned teasingly. He had a gap between his front teeth that Ryley had never been close enough to notice before. Wow, they were close together. Ryley suddenly, miraculously found his footing for… completely different reasons. Definitely. He stumbled out of Bart’s arms and almost into not one but two trees before finally managing to steady himself fully.

“We should probably go check that structure out.” Ryley said, looking in the opposite direction to hide their blush. Bart, thankfully, hadn’t seemed to notice.

‘I volunteer. The Sunbeam could arrive any minute now, one of us should stay out here. Plus if I stay outside too long I’m going to get sunburned and that would suck.’ Bart decided, moving towards what seemed to be some sort of control panel. Ryley followed close behind, only tripping over his own feet a few times.

“Huh… looks like some kind of forcefield.” Ryley said, gesturing towards a glowing transparent wall separating the structure from the outside.

‘We should probably check if it’s solid before we try anything.’ Bart cautioned.

“Good idea.” Ryley agreed. He slammed into the wall of light, and yeah, that was definitely solid. Ow. Bart just looked at him, halfway between utter shock and amusement.

‘I meant throw a rock or something at it! What if it was electric and shocked you!’ Bart tried his best to keep a stern facade, but he just couldn’t hold back his laughter.

“…whoops?” Ryley offered, and that made Bart laugh even harder before taking a few breaths to compose himself.

‘Okay, back on task. This panel looks like it needs a sort of… key to work. It looks like it might fit a purple tablet like the one that Ma- the one that got found at the Floating Island.’ Bart rifled through his bag before producing the tablet from within its contents. He offered it to the pedestal tentatively, then placed it into the slot. The panel snapped shut, pretty damn close to taking Bart’s fingers with it. The wall of light dissipated, and when Bart reached his hand out it passed right through.

‘I’ll be back ASAP.’ Bart promised. Ryley watched him disappear around a corner. The first few minutes he stood there attentively waiting for Bart to return.

Jeez, how big is the interior of that building? Ryley thought. God, he was bored out of his mind. They decided to occupy themself by picking up oddly shaped stones. When they ran out of cool looking rocks, they stashed the cool rocks in their bag and started throwing normal rocks at various targets- trees, clumps of grass, patches of dirt. His aim was… not the best. When a particularly off-target stone instead hit a, now very pissed off, cave crawler that began scuttling towards them at record speeds, Ryley decided that he much preferred the relative safety near the facility’s entrance to the outside.

He could’ve sworn he heard a loud exclamation coming from the inside of the structure at some point, but passed it off as just his ears messing with him or the sound of the ocean. He was about to call out to ask Bart if he’d found anything before he heard rushed footsteps hurrying towards him.

Bart came into view from around the corner, coughing and struggling to catch his breath. He sported several new bruises-alarming- and what looked like a puncture wound in his forearm-very alarming. As he grew closer, Ryley could also see that he was crying. That couldn’t be good.

“What happened?!” Ryley asked.

‘This place isn’t just some building, it’s a giant weapon, and it’s-‘ Bart’s hands were shaking so hard he dropped the PDA. He didn’t even try to pick it back up and finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. Ryley understood what he meant to say without another word, and he hated it. He wished he was wrong, that he’d just interpreted it badly and the two of them could laugh about it. But it really didn’t take much brainpower to know that that was about as likely to happen as him waking up safely aboard the Aurora.

“Survivors, we see you!” A voice crackled over his helmets radio in his bag. Oh no. Not now.

“Man, I don’t know how you two held out down there. We’ve broken atmosphere and we’re descending towards the landing site.” Ryley screamed internally. This could not be happening. But it was. The tower was moving, shifting into a giant turret. And Ryley could do nothing to stop it. Lives were going to be lost and all he could do was stand there. He felt completely powerless.

“Is that a building down there? What do you mean you can’t identify it? Hold on, no turning back now.” Static began to overcome the transmission. “Positions everyone, touching down in 10, 9, 8- it’s coming from the building? Change course, set thrusters to full-“

Beside him, Bart had covered his eyes. Ryley wished his conscience would let him do the same, but he felt like he needed to watch the ship. If he had to die in such a horrible way, he would want someone to remember his final moments. He just couldn’t look away. In a beautiful, horrible explosion like a deadly firework, a ship was destroyed and five lives lost in barely the amount of time it took for Ryley to take a breath.

“That… really happened, didn’t it.” Ryley said when it was all over and the structure had returned to its unassuming tower shape. They knew Bart wouldn’t respond in this state, by this point they were mostly talking to themself. Bart half moved, half fell to the floor, like his legs couldn’t support his body. Ryley joined him on the sandy ground, feeling like his entire world had been crushed. They sat there in silence for some time, almost in disbelief. At some point the sun must have set, but he was too far in his thoughts to admire it, even to register it. He should’ve done something, tried to fix the radio and get a signal out to tell them to turn around, anything at all that would’ve prevented this. Or maybe he couldn’t. Maybe whatever he did or didn’t do, it would’ve ended the same. He didn’t know which thought was scarier. Finally, one of them snapped out of their thoughts.

‘We should go to the Cyclops.’ Bart said. Despite still having the same features, scars, and clothes as always, he looked like a completely different person. Ryley hated seeing him like that, staring blankly ahead like his brain couldn’t keep up, couldn’t process the horror he just saw. He showed no emotion as Ryley stood up and offered him his hand. He showed no emotion when they entered the water. He showed no emotion when they emerged through the hatch and climbed the ladder to the upper level. But when he got to his seat and got a second to think out of possible immediate danger, he broke down crying.

As usual, Ryley had no idea what to do to comfort him. Emotions he had no cure for, but Bart still had the wound on his arm and at the very least he knew could fix that. He took out a first aid kit to bandage his forearm as he tried to gather shreds of memory about how to help someone sobbing like that. Maybe he could try to distract him? That’s what he’d done to himself back in the Aurora when the fact he hadn’t felt land or seen his loved ones in months became simply too much. It seemed like a stretch, but he was willing to try if it would make Bart feel better.

‘Can you tell me about… uh…” Ryley’s brain came up blank until he remembered one of the other man’s logs. “The symbiosis between Crabsnakes and those big pink mushrooms?”

Bart nodded, wiping away his tears with his uninjured arm. Ryley handed him his PDA (they’d picked it up earlier, Bart seemed to have had forgotten it), and Bart began his lecture on symbiosis and coevolution and other things that Ryley really didn’t understand at all and would have to ask Bart about later. Soon most of his tears had dried and the wound on his forearm was bandaged. How had he gotten that? It was yet another question on his ever-growing list of concerns.

“Mind if I borrow your PDA for a sec?” Ryley asked. Bart nodded and handed it to them, first typing out a message.

‘The information I found about the structure is in there.’ Bart pointed to a folder of information labeled ‘Aliens??? :O’. Huh… that was kind of adorable. Nope, he needed to focus.

Quarantine enforcement platform? 100MT nuclear explosion? Disease research? Primary containment facility? Just looking at the entries made their head hurt.

“That’s a lot to take in.” Ryley said, mostly to himself. Understatement of the year, but unfortunately the English language didn’t have nearly enough adjectives nor curses to properly describe his current situation. “We should head home. Get some rest and go over it in the morning.”

‘Agreed.’ Bart answered when Ryley handed the PDA back.

Ryley made their way over to the controls, pressing buttons and steering the vehicle almost robotically. His mind was anywhere but there, thoughts, questions and fears swirling around in his head like a chaotic, very loud whirlpool. It seemed like he blinked and the base was right there, but he supposed that was what happened when you pretty much put yourself on autopilot and screamed mentally for like half an hour straight. It was a miracle he hadn’t crashed, especially considering how bad he was at driving already while actually paying attention.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” Ryley nudged Bart awake. He must’ve fallen asleep while somewhere between the island and their home. At least someone could sleep peacefully at night. He wished he was that lucky.

‘Five more mi-’ The PDA slipped out of Bart’s grip, clattering loudly against the metal floor. Ryley helped a reluctant, still mostly asleep Bart to his feet and into the base, his arm slung around their shoulder for balance. When they managed to get inside, Ryley used his free hand to open the door to Bart’s room. They lied him down gently on the bed before leaving (and only tripping on a few plants he couldn’t see in the darkness).

‘Good night.’ Bart wrote, blinking in
the PDA’s light. The message was surprisingly coherent for how tired he was.

“Night.” Ryley replied, waving goodbye from the doorway. He went to his room and lied down in his bed, but sleep eluded him for a long time.

Chapter Text

It had been… wow, how long had it been, actually? Down in the depths, time was difficult to gauge. Anyways, it had been quite some time since the Sunbeam had met its unfortunate demise. Ryley felt, for lack of a better word, stuck. Bart shut himself in his lab for hours upon hours at a time, studying something or other about the alien’s technology. He sometimes got so invested he forgot to eat or drink anything, so Ryley tried to check on him periodically. But other than making sure Bart didn’t accidentally work himself to death, there was nothing he could do. He felt no less helpless than if he was still standing on the island, watching his only chance of escape get blown to pieces. He was still stuck in his thoughts about his own complete and utter uselessness when Bart settled in the chair across from him.

‘Do you have any coffee?’ Bart asked, dropping a small stack of papers onto what usually served as a dining table. At that moment it was littered with papers.

“Yeah, I think you’ve had enough coffee.” Ryley decided. It only took one look at him to tell he definitely did not need to stay awake any longer. Bart looked so half-asleep it would be better described as halfway to death.

‘Come on, I’m so close to figuring something out.’ Bart complained, gesturing to the papers he’d brought with him. Ryley looked what were presumably his notes. They made absolutely zero sense.

“Are your notes in a different language?” Ryley asked.

‘No, those ones are in English.’ Bart replied with a confused expression. He looked down at the notes, mostly gibberish with a rare coherent sentence here and there. ‘…I may see your point there.’

“Maybe, and just hear me out on this… you go get some actual sleep.” Ryley suggested. His voice was teasing, but it was coming from a place of concern. Before Bart could reply, the radio on the wall started beeping. The two of them exchanged glances. Neither of them really wanted to answer the signal, to hear the last words of whatever poor soul had made it off of the Aurora only to meet a cruel end at the claws of some creature. Eventually, the piercing, insistent tone became too much to bear and Ryley moved to answer it.

“This is Alterra HQ. This might be our only communications window.” The recording said. The person’s voice was rushed, like at any second the connection could be severed. The urgency made Ryley anxious. “We can’t send a rescue ship all the way out there, so Aurora, you’re just gonna have to meet us halfway. We’ve uploaded blueprints to the ship’s computer.”

“We’re doing a sandwich run, you in?” A voice offmic asked. Ryley could hear Bart stifling a laugh behind him.

“Uh, yeah, give me a second. Blackbox data shows the high security terminal in the Captain’s quarters is still functional.” The voice continued.

“Becky’s leaving in like five minutes.” The voices kept on bickering in the background about, of all things, sandwiches. After impatiently waiting through the argument, they finally got the door code, 2679.

‘We should go.’ Bart urged him when the transmission ended. Ryley was… unsure, to say the very least.

“The quarantine enforcement platform will shoot anything down that leaves.” Ryley pointed out.

‘Not if we turn it off.’ Bart countered.

“And how exactly do you propose we do that? We’re both infected. Even if we left, we’d be at risk at spreading the disease.” Ryley argued. His tone was much louder and harsher than he intended, but Bart didn’t seem to notice, and if he did then it didn’t faze him.

‘Well, I guess we’ll just have to find the cure.’ Bart was standing now, the look in his eyes somewhere between passionate and crazed. ‘I’m not letting you give up. Not on escape, not on yourself.’

Ryley had no comeback for that. He had no doubt that Bart meant it.

“You’re going to go on your own if I don’t agree, aren’t you?” Ryley asked.

‘Maybe.’ Bart replied. He was bluffing- at least Ryley thought he was. He couldn’t be sure. Ryley sighed.

“Fine.” Ryley agreed tentatively after a long pause. Bart was halfway to the hatch before Ryley stopped him.

“You still need sleep.” Ryley reminded him. Bart groaned, but complied and headed to his room. Whether or not he would get any actual sleep was… well, it was debatable at best. Ryley hoped he would.

———

Begrudgingly, Bart had gone to sleep. In truth, he did feel much better after resting, though he would never admit it to Ryley. He didn’t need another “I told you so” about neglecting his health. Ryley was nowhere to be seen in the base, evidently waiting in the Cyclops. Bart made his way to the vehicle, stopping for a moment to marvel at the beauty of the ghostly forest of kelp as he always did. He ensured he didn’t have any Blood Crawler hitchhikers on him, mindful of Ryley’s phobia of the creatures.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.” Ryley greeted him cheerfully.

‘For the record, that’s a dumb nickname.’ Bart wrote. Ryley only grinned in response.

“I’d sit down if I were you, so you don’t fall over like last time.” Ryley said, moving towards the control panel.

‘That wasn’t my fault!’ Bart said indignantly, but Ryley had already turned around to mess with the controls. He sat down with a huff, looking through his bag for something to do. While searching, he caught a glimpse of his drawing of Ryley he’d started days ago. He’d thought it had looked good enough then, but he couldn’t help himself from noticing the glaring mistakes. There was something about the man that was so hard to capture on paper. Ryley was just so alive, so… Ryley.

Bart crumpled up the paper and shoved it into the bottom of his bag, where he wouldn’t have to see it or think about it ever again. He would stick to safe, predictable things he knew he could draw. Were Peepers or Boomerangs or the like interesting subjects at all to draw? Not by a long shot. But were they easy? Yes. So Bart focused on sketching the colorful, small forms of the fish that inhabited the shallow areas. Slowly, so gradually he hardly noticed, the water turned a murky color and any life was sparse.

“Radioactivity from the Aurora.” Ryley said, as if he’d heard what Bart was thinking. “Unfortunately for us, nothing seems to be able to stand it except the Reapers. One of those fuckers nearly snapped my Seamoth in half while I was scavenging for Cyclops blueprints near the back of the Aurora.”

Bart’s blood ran cold. Reaper Leviathans? He hadn’t seen one since ten years ago when… no, the memory was too painful.

He’d avoided them ever since, skirting the edge of their territory even when crossing through would save him time. He still had nightmares of their roars, of their cold, unseeing eyes, of the sound of solid metal being torn like aluminum foil, glass shattering under pressure.

It took Bart some time to realize he was gripping the arm rests of the chair like they were all that was anchoring him to the planet. When he let go he noticed there were crescent shaped imprints left from his nails. He drew in shaky breath after shaky breath to calm himself down with little success.

“Well, looks like we’re here.” Ryley said finally, to Bart’s relief. Bart followed them down the ladder and out into the water. And, wow, he wasn’t even above ground yet, and it was already looking like a disaster. The sight of sparking wires, mangled metal, and Cave Crawlers greeted his eyes. The latter he minded very little, but Ryley he knew would hate them. Out of the corner of his eye he could see them shuddering already. But when the full wreck came into view, it was somehow worse than what Bart had expected.

There was so much fire. That was the first thing Bart noticed. Fire, fire and more fire everywhere. The second was the true immensity of the Aurora, a kilometer at least. It had been impressive from far away, sure, but nothing compared to standing next to it. He felt like he was standing in the shadow of some sort of giant, beyond his comprehension and long deceased.

“Home sweet home.” Ryley said beside him, his words dripping with sarcasm. He tried to disguise the pain in his words with humor, but it showed through.

———

Ryley had expected this. Or at least he thought he had. Seeing the smoldering wreckage, he was suddenly unsure. This place was his home, he’d lived here for months. But the Aurora where he’d “fixed the vending machines” (mostly an excuse to talk to Ozzy) and had to find his hair gel after his roommates hid it for the millionth time seemed like a different ship than the skeletal… thing that stretched out as far as he could see. He put one foot in front of the other, forcing himself to walk forward and ignore the scuttling creatures that threatened to close in from all sides and the blazing fires everywhere and the metal that was twisted like horrific sculptures.

‘Caution: scans show th-‘ Ryley pressed the mute button at about twice the speed of light. The message still lingered on the screen, like it refused to let him live in ignorance of the new, disturbing information. ‘Scans show the digestive tracts of nearby lifeforms contain human tissues’.

Human tissues.

Bart gave them a puzzled look at the fact they’d stopped walking but said nothing.

In the back of his mind, he’d sort of always knew, even if he had never registered it fully. It was just how nature was. The crash had left bodies, that was obvious. And scavengers had… repurposed the bodies. That was how ecosystems worked. But it felt so, so wrong, the fact that these creatures had consumed the corpses of people. Not just people. People he knew. His friends.

In some ways, it was a mercy. It was horrible, yes, but was the alternative any less horrible? Seeing the mutilated, lifeless bodies of his fellow crew members wouldn’t be any better for him. They didn’t need yet another thing to see whenever they’d close their eyes to sleep, his imagination could manage that mental image all on its own.

‘Do you know if there are any entrances?’ Bart asked. It took Ryley some time to realize that he was talking to them, despite no one else being around, and he snapped back to reality.

“No, no, none that I know of. They’ve all been blocked by debris.” Ryley said. His voice was shaky, and his emotions must’ve shown through more than he’d intended, because Bart offered him a reassuring look.

“Do you see the piece of metal over there?” Ryley asked, pointing to where a long strip of metal had broken off and now formed a sort of curved bridge.

‘Please don’t tell me you’re going to try to cross that.’ Bart said with a sigh. ‘Ryley, that is the stupidest idea.’

“You know me too well.” Ryley replied with a grin that didn’t do nearly as good a job at hiding his discomfort with just about everything as he had hoped. He started walking towards the metal bridge, testing its strength with one foot before carefully walking across.

“Come on, I think I see an entrance!” Ryley called out around to the other side of the bridge where he knew Bart stood.

‘This is so stupid.’ Bart complained when he got close enough to show them his screen, although there was no bite in his words. He walked up to where Ryley was standing.

‘Are you okay?’ Bart asked.

“Yeah. It’s just… inside there, it used to be home to me.” Ryley said. Bart nodded.

‘I’ll let you have some time.’ Bart stepped away, not too far but far away enough to not intrude on his personal space. Ryley appreciated it. He needed a second to calm down his thoughts before entering the ship he’d once thought of as his home, even if it was only an empty shell now.

Slash.

Of course, the universe was hellbent on cutting any moment of peace he had short. He turned around to see Bart -thankfully unharmed- standing over the body of a Cave Crawler, knife slick with blood. Judging by the proximity to him and how close it had sounded it would’ve collided with Ryley’s head (those things could jump that high???) had Bart not intervened. Instead of triumphant or relieved, he looked, if anything, mournful. Bart’s compassion for any creature, no matter how strange or dangerous (even murder crabs) was truly the planet’s biggest mystery.

A small crowd of other Cave Crawlers had gathered around the body of the dead one. Bart swatted them away and picked up the blood-covered, lifeless creature to drop it into the ocean, presumably so the other scavengers couldn’t get to it.

‘It deserves to rest peacefully, not be ripped apart.’ Bart wrote.

“Thank you.” Ryley said quietly.“Maybe we should go inside. I don’t think there are any creatures in there.”

‘Yeah.’ Bart agreed.

One problem: wall of fire. Ryley, in their hurry to get to there, had forgotten to bring a fire extinguisher. Yes, it seemed obvious enough, bring a fire extinguisher on the giant flaming ship, but it had slipped his mind. From the way Bart was standing there he had forgotten too. Thankfully, after a little searching they found one of the supply boxes that did have one. When they got into the ship, the path split.

“Over there’s the cargo bay. Needs a code though, and I don’t know it.”

‘Why don’t you know the code?’

“I was a janitor with an important sounding title, they didn’t tell me shit. One of my co-workers must’ve wrote it down, can’t remember where.” Ryley recalled. After going to Admin and doing endless sifting through mountains of useless papers, he finally found it. Judging by the handwriting, it looked like it might have belonged to Berkeley.

Notes to self

So here we are, finally, in open space. We crossed the galaxy to install a phasegate, to send ships to mine resources, to build more expensive ships, to install fancier phasegates… Are we trying to exhaust the galaxy or just ourselves?

18.06 - Yu’s birthday
40 - weeks before we get home
400 - weeks it feels like before we get home
Not enough - credits Alterra’s paying me
1454 - cargo bay code

Yeah, that was definitely Berkeley. Thinking about it made him almost nostalgic for his time on the Aurora, even though when he was onboard he had nothing but complaints. Sure they might’ve had to fit 157 people in living quarters that were made to fit only 150, and yes most of the “food” felt like eating blocks of dirt (blocks of dirt might have actually been preferable), but it it was a hell of a lot better than his current situation.

The cargo bay was no better than the rest of the wreckage, save maybe the fact that it was free of Cave Crawlers. Anything that wasn’t nailed down was thrown across the room as if by invisible hands. Maybe there were useful blueprints in one of the scattered crates, but Ryley didn’t think he could bear to be there any longer than was strictly necessary. So he kept going, out of the room and into the submerged hallway. After a few turns, they located the drive room.

“Well, I certainly hope you brought a radiation suit.” Ryley joked in an attempt to lighten the mood. Radiation wasn’t exactly his specialty, but it didn’t take a genius to tell the state of the drive room was pretty bad.

‘If I didn’t have a radiation suit I’d have been long dead.’ Bart wrote. ‘Even with the suit I don’t think the amount of radiation this thing’s giving off can be good for anyone.’

“Yeah, let’s try to fix that. I’ll repair the left side if you take the right?” Ryley offered, tossing their repair tool into the air and catching it. Bart nodded and started repairing the breaches on the right side. Everything was going well enough until Ryley stepped into the water to repair a breach just below the surface.

“The fuck?!“ Latched onto their arm was a huge alien leech thing. They hit it repeatedly with their repair tool until it detached and started floating motionless in the water. Ryley clambered up the ladder like a kid who’d just seen a huge spider. Bart looked up from what he was doing with a confused expression as Ryley took out a first aid kit to bandage the wound.

‘What happened?’ Bart asked.

“Look!” Ryley pointed towards the water, where clusters of the blood-sucking creatures swam, most swarming next to the corpse of the dead creature. Looks like acceptable sources of food included the blood of their own species. He wasn’t sure if anything could be worse than Cave Crawlers or Blood Crawlers, but this planet was sure as hell trying at every chance it got. Bart knelt down next to the water to scan one.

‘Bleeders.’ Bart read from the PDA entry. ‘Parasite… looks like it consumes blood. Mostly carrion feeders, but latches onto larger organisms if it thinks it won’t notice.’

“Oh, why does everything here have to be absolutely huge and either would kill me or would eat my already dead body.” Ryley groaned. Giant leeches the size of his hand. Of course. This planet really must hold some grudge against him. “I really don’t want to get back in the water now.”

‘I can do it.’ Bart offered, giving the breach he was repairing one last zap with his repair tool before moving towards the water. Ryley hesitated for a second, then followed. If Bart was willing to put himself in danger for them, the least Ryley could do was try their best to not get him killed. Ryley stuck near Bart, stabbing any Bleeders that got too close and watching with mild horror as the corpses were sucked dry of blood by the rest of the swarm. It seemed like no matter how many he killed, there were a dozen more to take its place. (They were like mice. Or was it cockroaches? They forgot how the old Earth saying went.) The seconds ticked by agonizingly slowly until the final breach was fixed and the radiation leaking out stopped.

Drive Core taken care of, the two of them started for the Prawn Bay, which, for some inexplicable reason, was the only way to access the living quarters. It had always been annoying to have to take such an out-of-the-way detour every time he had wanted to get to his room back before the crash. He never complained though, because it had meant he got to pass the epic Prawn Suits every day.

Ryley had to use a laser cutter to cut open the locker room door, leading to the near entirely submerged locker room. There was a PDA that Bart picked up, probably to check later, and a few supplies they stashed away just in case. Apart from that the room didn’t have much to offer, so they moved on. The Prawn Bay was massive, and just as much of a mess as the rest of the ship. To their left there was more burning wreckage. If the outside had seemed skeletal, then this had to be the guts. The fires blazed so strongly it made Ryley long for the water again. His suit was bone dry and singed in places, and he didn’t think he’d ever felt heat like this in his life. And to the right?

“Wow.” Ryley said, looking at the Prawn Suits. The one good thing about this ordeal was that the suits were undamaged enough to scan for blueprints. As they scanned the Prawn Suit closest to them, they trailed their hand over the glass absentmindedly. Maybe they didn’t need one exactly, but they’d always fascinated him. Ryley had put up so many Prawn Suit posters up in his cabin in the Aurora that his roommates had actually complained.

After scanning all of the Prawn Suits, his attention turned back to what they were there for. The stairs were blocked, but with Ryley and Bart’s combined strength they just barely managed to move the debris. The two of them made it to the entrance of the corridor that lead to the living quarters. Ryley paused, taking a deep breath before walking forwards. They took the left side, the cafeteria, while Bart took the right. There was little there except for the “Keep Calm” poster that Ryley had always been fond of (he pocketed it of course) and a PDA outlining the day’s menu. Bart’s search of the supply room didn’t yield anything more significant.

Beyond that, there were the cabins themselves. This time Bart took the left in search of the blueprints in the Captain’s Quarters and Ryley took the right. Standing in the entryway to Cabin 4 though, he had regrets about that decision. It looked like it had the day of the crash, except significantly more on fire than usual. That was the worst part. If it was absolutely destroyed, completely unrecognizable, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad. The room seemed to almost flicker between pristine walls and well-kept beds to the flaming mess that lay before him. He grabbed the only poster that wasn’t burnt beyond recognition along with a PDA he found before turning right around and getting out of there.

The other cabins were still bad, but not nearly as much as Cabin 4. There was a poster and another abandoned PDA, but anything else personal had either been destroyed in the crash or the fire or taken in a last desperate effort to escape. Ryley waited for Bart to meet him where the hallways joined each other, but after a few minutes they opted to check on him.

‘What’s this?’ Bart asked, showing him a PDA titled ‘Responsible Autonomous Relationships’. Ryley knew vaguely of it, it was the foreword to a book that Alterran employees were supposed to read. He didn’t really know much about it, he’d barely skimmed the first few chapters, but it was all about how relationships were like trading stocks and fair exchanges of value and other stupid things that no one in their right mind would agree with.

“I take it that mindset isn’t quite as popular in the Mongolian States?” Ryley asked, though the puzzled look on Bart’s face had told them the answer already. “Don’t even get me started on relationship contracts.”

Bart looked like he wanted to ask more but was refraining for his sanity’s sake.

‘The escape rocket blueprints are on my PDA. We should leave now. I mean, unless there’s anywhere else you need to see.’ Bart wrote. Ryley shook their head. He’d already had more than enough of this place. The walk back was much quicker with a clearer path and less detours, and soon enough they were back outside. Ryley had never been so glad to see the blue spreading out in every direction as he was now.

“Y’know, we aren’t too high up. If you jumped from this height you might be fine, and that would be faster than walk-” Ryley’s musings were interrupted by Bart grabbing the collar of his dive suit and physically pulling him away from the ledge.

‘Nope.’ Bart wrote with his free hand.

“Fine.” Ryley sighed. They made their way across the makeshift bridge and down the sloping platform of metal, brandishing their knife at any Cave Crawlers that got a bit too close.

———

When they were back in the Cyclops, Bart started to look through the things he’d found in the Aurora. He hadn’t checked out any of them except for the “Responsible Autonomous Relationships” PDA because the title had intrigued him. He’d also grabbed a miniature of the Aurora, a small toy of a strange (maybe dragon-like?) creature, and a Prawn poster. He had been tentative about the last one, only having limited space to carry things, but Ryley seemed to like Prawn Suits if his previous excitement had been any indication.

“Shit.” Ryley’s voice could be heard from the control panel. Bart sat up abruptly in his chair. What was going on?

His question was soon met by a series of roars that he found all too familiar. It was distant at first, but judging by the way it got louder and louder the creature was approaching them at an alarming speed. Something huge rammed into the Cyclops, causing the chair to tip over, Bart along with it, and he couldn’t do anything but lie there with the wind knocked out of him and his arm throbbing painfully where he must have hit the sharp edge of something. More colorful language echoed off of the metal walls as the vehicle made several sharp turns and the speed picked up. The engines threatened to catch fire from the strain, the hull creaking and water streaming through several punctures in the metal that resembled bite marks.

Oh gods, they were going to die, weren’t they. They stood absolutely no chance. His breathing quickened, body going into fight or flight mode. But there was no escape. No fighting it. Only imminent, inescapable death. Was it just him or were the roars getting unbearably loud, the room closing in on him, his heart pounding so hard it might beat out of his chest and his hands shaking? And was his arm bleeding? He had to get out of there, but he couldn’t.

Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, he repeated in his head like a broken record. The room around him had started to blur into vague shapes. Tears stung his eyes. Water seeped in through the holes in the hull and pooled on the floor, the salt doubling the pain in his arm. He could see the blood staining the water a dark crimson. His blood. He felt nauseous. Like it was in a different world, he became vaguely aware of a figure rushing towards him. And they were talking, saying something, something they couldn’t make out above the sound of their racing heart and the ever-present roars.

“…Bart! Bart!” Ryley called out. They tried to put their hand on Bart’s shoulder. The light touch was too much, too much to bear. He tried to flinch away, but he’d already pressed himself against the wall, he was trapped.

“Sorry, sorry!” Ryley drew their hand away guiltily, noticing Bart’s discomfort. Bart wanted to tell them it wasn’t their fault, but words wouldn’t come no matter what he tried. It was too much, everything was too much. His shoulder burned where Ryley had touched it and he wanted nothing but to get away, anywhere, anywhere but here. The hyperventilating made him feel dizzy, Ryley’s face slipping in and out of focus.

“Hey, Bart.” Ryley said, trying to get his attention. “I can’t promise that it’s going to be okay, because I don’t know that. But I found a spot where the Reaper can’t get us. It has to decide we aren’t worth it at some point. We’re like a fortress under siege, we just have to outlast it.”

Despite himself, Bart laughed. The imagery was too ridiculous.

“You’re bleeding.” Ryley noticed. “Do you want me to bandage that? Looks like a pretty difficult spot to bandage yourself.”

Bart hesitated. He wasn’t exactly eager for human touch when the feeling of merely being bumped into sounded less favorable than being stabbed. But he was bleeding a lot, and Ryley was right, it would be hard to bandage himself. So he nodded.

“You sure?” Ryley asked. “You look pretty tentative.”

Bart nodded. To absolutely no one’s surprise, the physical contact stung nearly as much as whatever disinfectant the first aid kits came with. But it was slightly more bearable than before, if only because of the warning. At least the pain of the wound distracted him from what he’d been panicking about. His heart rate and breathing were still at levels that absolutely couldn’t be healthy, but at the very least they weren’t as bad as before. After what Bart figured was about an eternity and a half, the wound was properly bandaged. Ryley held out a hand to help Bart up. Normally he would’ve been insulted that they thought he couldn’t stand on his own, but at that moment he felt like he’d been picked up by a propulsion cannon and launched into a wall. He took the hand and clumsily got to his feet. Ryley uprighted the chair and Bart collapsed in it gratefully.

———

He was back on the Aurora, but something was off, wasn’t it? He’d been there before, but hadn’t someone been with him? Yes, someone had, Ryley. So why wasn’t Ryley here now? Before he could contemplate this any more, the ground seemed to open up beneath his feet, and now he was falling, falling for what felt like an eternity. And suddenly, now he couldn’t breathe, but why? Was he underwater? He must be, he could see the surface above him and it certainly felt like it. He cursed mentally for forgetting an oxygen tank, though he didn’t know exactly why it was missing. He barely ever went without one, even inside. He needed to get to the surface soon, he’d run out of oxygen in minutes, maybe less. He swam to the surface, barely making any progress before he heard the roar. Then he knew where he was. He wasn’t in the Crash Zone, he wasn’t even near the Aurora. For now, there wasn’t even an Aurora yet. He was back ten years ago, held hostage by his own subconscious to experience what would come to be the worst moment of his life again. Having a dream like this wasn’t a first, not by a long shot, but he never got used to it. It was always strangely disconnected but scarily real, like he wasn’t in control of his own movements. The feeling of desperately swimming for the surface never faded, the terror coursing through his veins never dulled. He finally broke through to the surface, slipping on the sand of the Floating Island as he struggled to his feet. He slowly made his way to the observatory, breaking down into sobs as he walked. He recorded his last log on the Floating Island, then slumped against the side of the habitat compartment. He was delirious with pain and visions swam across his sight. He considered letting go, putting an end to the pain. But he couldn’t. Something-someone?- stopped him.

Bart woke up from the distorted nightmare. He wasn’t in the Aurora, he wasn’t in the water, he wasn’t on one of the peaks on the Floating Island. He was lying on his bed, blankets scattered everywhere where he’d kicked them off in his sleep. His throat hurt like it did when he spoke after weeks of silence, and it wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume he’d cried out during the nightmare. He just hoped he hadn’t woken Ryley.

That hope was squashed when he heard movement and his door creaked open, letting a beam of light in through the doorway until Ryley closed it. Bart figured that Ryley would be annoyed at the fact he’d woken them up and would ask him to be quieter before going back to sleep, but Ryley didn’t say anything. Instead they sat down next to him. It was a silent gesture of support, an action that told him “I’m there for you”. Bart sat like that in near perfect stillness, almost as if he was scared that if he moved they would disappear. After a while, Ryley’s head fell on his shoulder, their slow breaths signaling that they were asleep. He stayed even more still then, if such a thing was possible, scared if he moved he would wake them up. But Ryley didn’t wake up, and slowly Bart’s eyelids grew heavy, sleep starting to overcome him too. Neither of them would ever admit it, but it was the best sleep either of them had gotten in months, if not years.

Chapter Text

‘ Hey, I found something weird. ’ Bart’s PDA appeared mere centimeters from his face, and Ryley didn’t even flinch. Shoving his PDA right in front of their face was a slightly jarring habit of Bart’s, and one that he had just about gotten used to at this point.

“Hold on.” Ryley replied, not yet ready to turn his attention from his work. He’d been sitting in or around one of the alien containment units all morning, looking for an elusive leak. The only thing stopping them from just deconstructing the thing and rebuilding it was stubbornness, and even that had begun to fade.

‘ I think you really might want to see this. ’ Bart urged Ryley. Something in his expression made them agree. Ryley set down their repair tool and followed Bart to the hatch and out into the inky darkness. In the back of his mind he noticed that he wasn’t wearing his dive suit, only his badly handmade T-shirt and shorts over his AEP suit, which he always kept on in case of emergency. He figured he’d regret that later when he got back inside and he was soaking wet and miserable. That was a problem for later Ryley.

‘ Just a little bit farther. ’ Bart promised as they swam, the words difficult to determine in the little light there was down there. The environment shifted from a vibrant blood red to more muted tones to a sickly, poison green, and the walls arched around them to form a vast cavern. Ryley stopped for a second, wondering if this was the thing Bart had been talking about, but Bart shook his head and pressed on.

Small puddles of green grew until they  cascaded in waterfalls that were so green they seemed radioactive. But he also noticed that there were signs of some sort of struggle. Plants uprooted, silt stirred up, and a shallow trench where it looked like something had been dragged, presumably unwillingly. Combined with the contrast of the occasional splotch of the yellow of alien blood, it painted a pretty clear picture of what must have occurred. Some creature must’ve been dragged down into the depths by another creature stronger than it, likely to be eaten. Both creatures had to have been decently sized to cause a disturbance this large, and it kind of scared him.

‘ This. ’ Bart said as he came to a stop. Ryley didn’t notice anything until Bart brushed a blanket of sand off of a strange pinkish-white rock. It was a strange shape for a rock, slender with a tapered point. No- not a rock, it was too organic looking to be rock, no rock looked like that.

“Oh god.” The words reached no one, forming into bubbles and rising to the cave’s ceiling. This was so, so strange, even for 4546B standards, and that was really saying something.

How had one of the horns of a Reaper Leviathan ended up on the seabed 700 meters deep in a cave system ,impossibly far from Reaper territory? It felt like something insane and impossible, but it clearly wasn’t impossible because it was right fucking there . As confusing as it was, the puzzle pieces begun to slot into place to form a horrifying picture.

What ungodly thing could almost kill a Reaper?

                               ———

The realization dawned in Ryley’s eyes, just like how Bart had felt when he’d first come across the thing lying in the sand. Bart found it incredibly fascinating from a science standpoint. The same couldn’t be said from an “ oh gods there’s something here that hunts and kills Reaper Leviathans ” perspective.

Bart took a photo with his PDA of the horn before picking it up and motioning for Ryley to follow him back to the base. He was curious and eager to explore more, but their oxygen was finite and the only protection they had were two flimsy knives. Proceeding with only what they had would be one of the dumbest ideas he’d had to date- and he’d once eaten an acid mushroom whole.

When they got back to base, Bart placed the horn, still dripping saltwater, onto the table in the main room. Due to how quickly they’d left Ryley was still in normal clothes instead of a dive suit, and he was soaking wet, hair and clothes plastered to his skin in a way that couldn’t be comfortable- his own skin crawled just looking at it. They reminded him remotely of a cat that had been left out in the rain. Behind the curtain of messy, sopping wet hair, his expression was thoughtful.

“I think I’ve seen a biome like that before.” Ryley said after a long pause.

‘Around here? ’ Bart asked.

“No, no, near CTO Yu’s lifepod.” Ryley responded. The name meant nothing to him, but it was vaguely familiar. He must’ve heard it in a distress call, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember where the signal came from. “Far away from here, at least 500 meters. It could be two near-identical caverns…” Ryley trailed off, half inviting Bart to finish the sentence and half asking for confirmation that the idea was plausible.

‘… or it could be one humongous cave system. ’ Bart finished. That was an interesting development. There was something else too- something he couldn’t quite place that was gnawing at him. It was just out of reach, but nonetheless he felt it was important. He looked at the information he’d gotten on his PDA when he’d first entered the cave, sifting through everything that was of no use to him until one line jogged his memory. “Unusually high concentrations of organic and fossilized remains.” Where had he heard something like that before? It struck him.

What had the alien facility databank entry said? “Cave system, extensive fossil record, something, something, something.” Bart scrambled to find the entry, showing the first the environment scan and then the alien data to Ryley. Their eyes widened.

‘ It certainly goes deep enough, 800 meters at very least. ’ Bart mused. ‘ I didn’t see anything that looked Architect-built, but if it’s as large as we think, it could be anywhere from right underneath our noses to kilometers away on the other end of the crater. ’

“Only one way to find out.” Ryley was already grabbing his dive suit and ducking into his room to change. Maybe such a hasty departure was unwise, but Bart was just as excited as Ryley was, and he couldn’t be bothered to care. He wasn’t going to be caught completely unprepared though, so he grabbed a few tasteless nutrient blocks and bottles of water. A few spare power cells for the Cyclops couldn’t hurt either, he didn’t want to run out of power at a bad moment.

When Bart was satisfied with the supplies he had, he headed to the Cyclops. Ryley might not be there for some time, so in the meantime he might as well plant some of the seeds he’d brought onboard earlier and promptly forgot about. He immersed himself in the monotonous work, hands working almost on autopilot. Even if he was hundreds of meters beneath the surface of the ocean, the feeling of dirt beneath his hands felt natural, and some of the crushing weight of all that water felt lifted. Some minutes later, he became acutely aware of the presence of another person.

‘ Planning on teasing me about my plants again? ’ Bart asked Ryley, who was leaning on the doorway observing him. Gods knew how long he’d been standing there before Bart had noticed.

“No, no, I’m not going to tease you.” Ryley said quickly. “I just think you’re- it’s neat.”

The correction didn’t go unnoticed, and neither did the slight dusting of pink on his cheeks. Bart decided to say nothing of it- it could just be attributed to his general awkwardness, that’s what he told himself, and besides, they had something to do. Bart brushed the dirt off his palms and stood up to get to his chair, not keen to fall over when the Cyclops started.

After pausing for just a moment, Ryley followed suit. The now-familiar whir of the Cyclops’s engine filled the silence as it sputtered to life. A prickle of anxiety lingered in the back of Bart’s mind, the events that had taken place last time they’d been in the submarine not so quickly forgotten. But he told himself that they were safe- well, saf er - and that any Reaper so deep down was likely a skeleton. He tried his best to push the fact that Reapers wouldn’t be the most dangerous thing out there out of his mind.

Metal scraped against rock as the Cyclops strayed too close to one of the canyon’s walls, the sound only amplifying the eeriness of the gaping cave mouth before them. It stretched wide, like a creature beyond comprehension opening its jaws to swallow them whole. As they entered, a chill passed through him. He would’ve thought it was just him, but Ryley shivered too, and he realized that so utterly devoid of light, the strange cavern was absolutely frigid.

The corridor they’d entered through continued for a while before widening into a more open chamber. Pillars of pale stone curved up from the seafloor. They looked natural. The shapes were too organic, the color too not-green for them to be built by the aliens. But as more of the pillars came into view, there was a larger more rectangular structure. No, not a structure. A skull.

A gasp escaped his lips, causing Ryley to stop the ship in alarm.

“Bart, are you okay?” Ryley asked. Bart had no idea how to reply.

‘ Im okay, just- just look! ’ Bart managed. Ryley’s eyes widened as he took in the skeleton in its entirety. It must have been at least 300 feet long. Bart itched to see it up close.

Ryley returned to his post for a moment, but instead of easing the Cyclops back into motion he pressed a button and the engines came to a halt. He was halfway down the ladder before Bart started to process what was happening.

“You coming or not?” Ryley called up at him, and Bart scrambled to his feet.  He was somewhat surprised. Ryley themself didn’t take half as much of an interest as him in the creatures of this planet, but he’d still stopped. And for what? So Bart could look at some old bones? He had to admit, it was a touching gesture.

Wow , Bart mouthed wordlessly as he swam to get a closer look. Even the skull’s smaller teeth were almost the size of him. Once, something this big had swam the waters of 4546B. At that size, what would it even eat? How could something so big even survive on a planet like this? Maybe in it’s time, the other creatures had been bigger too. As that thought crossed his mind, a vision of a peeper the size of the Cyclops came to him. He wasn’t sure if it was horrifying or hilarious.

In the shadow of the remains of such a creature, he felt content to just float there and let his thoughts drift from one question about it to another, or thoughts about the various organisms that lived on or around the skeleton that were almost as interesting as the skeleton itself. He would’ve stayed there until his oxygen had almost run out if he could.

Something clamped around his wrist, dragging him somewhere. Bart scrambled for his knife in his bag, ready to slash at whatever new creature that had attached itself to his arm. A bleeder? He’d seen them wrap around Ryley’s wrist like that before. But nothing pierced through his dive suit and started sucking his blood like an intergalactic leech. He stopped struggling and realized the thing around his wrist was merely a gloved hand, dragging him the few remaining meters to the Cyclops. Bart wriggled free and followed Ryley into the hatch.

‘ What’s going on? ’ Bart wrote. Ryley didn’t answer, already almost on the second floor. He clambered after them, and through the domed window the reason why they’d dragged him back here became evident. A translucent, bioluminescent, snake-like creature roared in the distance, majestic and terrifying.

“What is that?” Ryley muttered. It might have been a rhetorical question, but Bart answered anyways.

‘ That’s a ghost leviathan. I’ve never seen one that wasn’t in the void, though. ’ Bart responded. ‘ It’s too small to be fully grown. If I had to guess I’d say it’s a juvenile. ’

Ryley paused a moment, as if questioning what in that statement was the most concerning and should be addressed first.

“That things a juvenile?” Ryley decided on.

‘ Most likely. ’ Bart replied.

“And does it eat humans?”

‘ The juveniles might be different, but the grownups at very least are filter feeders. ’

“Oh. Good.” Ryley restarted the engine.

‘ Highly territorial filter feeders .’ Bart added swiftly, but the damage was done. The leviathan was already beginning to hurtle towards them, making horrible roaring noises. At least Bart didn’t freeze again, like he had last time. He sprung from his seat, pressing the “silent running” button. It might not do much, but who knows, if they were quiet enough maybe they could slip past the leviathan. The Cyclops abruptly stopped, unbalancing him. He managed to grab hold of one of the displays to regain his footing, but moments after, the Ghost Leviathan slammed full force against the side, flinging him to the floor and throwing his PDA against the opposite wall. By the time he could breathe normally again, the Ghost had left them behind in favor of more interesting prey. Ryley was beside him, breathing heavily and probably bruised but still in one piece and not bleeding at all.

Bart retrieved his PDA, which was no worse for the wear despite its accidental flight. Ryley returned to his place at the controls and tentatively moved forwards, sighing in relief when no Ghost Leviathan barreled towards them to tear a hole in the hull. Under their breath, they muttered a string of insults. Bart had to applaud him for the creativity- he definitely couldn’t say he’d heard the phrase “godforsaken, slithering excuse for a glow stick” before, though he supposed this was the first time the opportunity had presented itself. After sticking as close to the cave wall as humanly possible and creeping along slower than a half-asleep Gasopod, they made it out of the cavern and into a new corridor. They stuck to the left cave wall now and a new opening appeared, blue light spilling into the green.

Despite his best efforts, Bart let out a yawn. As if in response, Ryley yawned too.

“Bart, how long has it been since you’ve slept?” Ryley asked, looking back as he turned into the leftmost cavern- that couldn’t be safe. Gods, how long had it been since he’d last slept? No, never mind, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

‘ No comment. ’ Bart replied. Ryley sighed.

“I’m tired too. Here looks… well, safe enough. We left too quickly, we should’ve rested first.” Ryley said. “We must have enough materials somewhere to fabricate beds.” They headed down the stairs to the lockers where the two of them had shoved materials that had seemed important. He just hoped fabric had been deemed important enough. Ryley resurfaced with fabric and a few hunks of titanium, habitat builder precariously balanced on top.

“I can take the floor, I’m used to it, been doing it for months already.” Ryley offered. Bart furrowed his eyebrows. Most everything about that sentence was concerning. “There’s only enough material for one.”

‘ Are you sure? I could check. ’ Bart replied. Ryley shouldn’t have to sleep on the cold floor, that was just unfair.

“No, no, it’s fine.” Ryley said, already starting to fabricate it before Bart could protest more. But what could he do? Ryley wasn’t going to give in, and it would be pointless insisting on sleeping on the floor himself- then neither of them would be comfortable.

It felt horrible taking the bed when Ryley slept on the floor, but the idiot had insisted. He didn’t envy them, not with the cold adding even more discomfort than usual. Even the horrible Alterra-brand beds were much better than freezing metal.

‘ Ryley, are you sure? ’ Bart asked after a few moments.

“100%.” Ryley replied, not entirely believably.

Some ten or fifteen minutes later, Bart was still trying to sleep, but Ryley’s shivering and tossing and turning kept him awake.

‘ Ryley… ’

“Fine! I’m fine.” Ryley said, and Bart didn’t believe a word. He wished there was some sort of compromise, a way neither of them would have to take the floor.

An agonizing amount of time passed, and Ryley was still tossing and turning and Bart was still wide awake. Without the heat of the engines, it had gotten even colder, and Bart was staring to get cold even through the blankets. Ryley’s teeth started to chatter, and Bart had had enough. But this time, an idea came to him- a compromise, one that was so simple that frankly it was stupid that it had taken him so long. He slipped out of bed and found Ryley in the dim blue light. Just like Ryley had earlier to him, though this time under very different circumstances, Bart grabbed Ryley’s wrist in one hand and still clutched his PDA in the other.

“What the…” Ryley said confusedly.

‘ You really think I’m letting you suffer all night? ’ Bart asked.

“It’s fine, I promise.” Ryley tried to assure him, but Bart was having none of it. Ryley was stubborn, Bart would give them that. But so was he.

After plenty of complaints, Ryley finally relented and lied down. It was much warmer with the two of them, and despite their attempts to stay as far apart as possible (made especially difficult by the fact that it was only a single bed), Bart found himself so close to Ryley they were nearly pressed together. He felt like he should protest, but gods was it cold, and even if it hadn’t been, he found he didn’t mind much either way. The warmth from the body heat was second only to the warmth in Bart’s chest. He supposed that this was what it felt like to finally have a friend. This would have been awkward had Ryley been anyone else, but instead it felt comfortable, and totally, absolutely right.

Chapter Text

After a much-needed night of sleep, both Ryley and Bart were ready to resume their exploration of the cave. Ryley stood at the Cyclops’s helm, while Bart sat in the chair nearby, sketching something- Ryley wasn’t sure what. The soft light shed by the enormous glowing tree tinted everything a light blue, slowly fading into the same monotonous green as the rest of the cave system. The pools on the seafloor changed too, from calm, harmless-looking sky blue pools to toxic green rivers threading through the landscape. It reminded him uncomfortably of Bart’s green veins, unnatural and out of place against his skin.

Somewhere off in the distance, a boxy, tan shape came into view. It must have been another skeleton, not nearly as large as the one with jaws that could fit the Cyclops comfortably and still have room, but still nothing to scoff at nonetheless. There was no shortage of skeletons in the cave system, which he was pretty sure the PDA had dubbed the Lost River, but this one was notable for its impressive size. Of course, few of the skeletons had been anything close to what could be considered small, with most being twice Ryley’s size at least. They were so big he was quite sure they had to be the remains of long extinct creatures. He didn’t think anything currently grew that big on 4546B except for maybe the Reapers or Ghosts, and their shapes were too distinct to be any of the assortment of skeletons.

Ryley glanced back at Bart, who was staring not at the skeleton but somewhere beyond it and a bit to the left, where a cave entrance lay. Ryley squinted, and he could just barely make out the green, unnatural glow of ancient alien technology. They adjusted the Cyclops’s course towards the glowing pillars. If the alien facility was in the Lost River, then must be through that cave entrance. They were in the right place and more or less the right depth. Behind the first set of pillars, more rose up to guide him to the facility. At first it was just a mass of green on the horizon, but as they neared it more details came into the focus.

The first thing that struck him as odd was the fact that the building was settled on the seabed. Based on the cables surrounding it, it hadn’t always been like that. The second was the state of the cables. They were snapped and frayed like they were pieces of yarn instead of metal indestructible by any human means. They once anchored the facility to the walls, allowing it to remain suspended in the water, but now they stood alone, their one purpose failed. Something had caused this damage. But what?

The sight alone made Ryley shiver. They knew they’d need to approach it to get any answers, and they knew that whatever had caused the damage was long since dead and maybe even extinct, but he didn’t want to nonetheless. It certainly didn’t help that almost every creature was decorated with acid green spots, like the marks on Bart’s skin but ten times more vibrant and even more wrong looking. He pulled the Cyclops into a turn, circling the building a few times before a gaping hole in one of the building’s walls proved to be an entrance to the facility.

The alien structure was completely flooded and the Seamoth would have been well below the depth limit, so they went in without any vehicles. It made him feel more on edge than he already did. If they encountered something dangerous or were close to asphyxiation, they’d have to travel back through the facility, which would be long and winding if it was anything like the first one. Bart had been out of breath and exhausted after having to run through the last alien building, could they really outswim a creature to safety? If they encountered anything more dangerous than a Rabbit Ray, they were just about screwed.

The two of them double checked that they had the Alien Tablets, Ion Cubes, and first aid kits before dropping through the hatch into the cold water. Ryley also made sure his knife was at his side, mostly because he could’ve sworn he’d seen the bright purple ripples of the creature that had attacked him next to the Mountain Island out of the corner of his eye. Through the opening, the path led down to a ramp on the left and a room with a forcefield panel on the right. On the right side, Bart used one of their last purple tablets to unlock the room with what looked like a data terminal.

As he did that, Ryley went down the ramp to the left and grabbed an Ion Cube from a stand. They wondered what their purpose was. The things couldn’t be of any particular importance; the aliens had merely left them lying about everywhere.

Further down the ramp there was a tank, completely devoid of life with the glass shattered. Maybe once it had held a large variety of colorful life forms, but now it was dull gray and utterly empty. After a short wait, Bart caught up to Ryley. They continued down the path and through an archway half obstructed by fallen debris. There was a room to the right with specimens held on pedestals or in displays. Bart found it interesting, but it freaked Ryley out to see all of those creatures motionless and displayed like trophies. Bart explored the specimen room, most likely scanning everything in sight as eagerly as Ryley picked up every possibly dangerous alien artifact like the two curious idiots they both were. While Ryley waited, his eyes traced the patterns on the ceiling and floor. What might this place have looked like in the alien’s time? Grand, no doubt.

Further into the facility, there was another data terminal that Bart downloaded, and a massive aquarium with skeletal remains lying in the corner. Ryley passed by and wandered down the hall further. They moved forward but still kept their eyes on Bart, making sure he hadn’t cut himself on the jagged glass that once separated the facility’s interior from the hundreds of tons of water inside the aquarium. When Bart was safely past the shattered glass, Ryley turned back to see what lay in the room he’d been walking towards the end of the hallway.

And found themself face to face with the creature that had left them bleeding out on the sand of the island.

                              ———

Not that long ago, Ryley had messed around with both of their helmets. They’d wanted to put a radio in for communication. Bart hadn’t really understood the purpose- if they were close enough for the radio to work, they might as well just write down the words on their PDAs. But as a scream crackled through the radio, he started to understand the appeal.

He drew his knife and swam out of the aquarium he’d been exploring, dive suit and quite possibly skin tearing on the sharp surface of the glass. If he was bleeding, the saltwater’s sting was muted by fear and adrenaline.

When he caught sight of Ryley, they were standing still as a statue, holding their arms in front of their face and bracing for some sort of attack. Bart almost reached to slash at the creature in front of them before he noticed it was unmoving and incomplete, like the facility had been abandoned in the middle of a dissection. But as his eyes scanned the room, he noticed the creature parts lay scattered on tables and suspended from the ceiling. Something was being built here. Was this what Ryley had been attacked by, the thing that had appeared and then disappeared in moments? It would make sense, if it was alien-made, to have it patrolling near the alien facilities.

Bart put his hand around Ryley’s wrist to show that he was there. Ryley flinched and pulled away, but stopped when they opened their eyes and realized it was only him. With his free arm, Bart gestured to the room around them before pulling out his scanner to see what the PDA thought of all this. Ryley’s eyes widened taking in the disassembled creature, and he backed away slightly, if only subconsciously. Bart slipped his hand from Ryley’s wrist into their hand to give it a reassuring squeeze. Even though that might have helped some, Ryley definitely didn’t want to be there and, admittedly, neither did Bart. They found their way back through the winding hallways to the Cyclops.

“Did it get warmer in here?” Ryley asked when they made it back. Bart frowned, shaking his head no. It was still frigid, and if anything colder than it had been when they’d left.

“Huh. Weird.” Ryley said. He looked slightly bewildered but mostly unbothered.

Bart pushed away his concern, opening the PDA’s data bank to look at the data from the alien facility. Instead of going back to piloting the Cyclops, Ryley stood behind him to read over his shoulder. The information was pretty similar to what he’d expected. Some of the specifics were shocking- 143 billion deaths, and those were only the confirmed ones- but Bart started to notice something else. The data there, combined with the fact you couldn’t move around in the Lost River without practically tripping over the skeletons of huge creatures that could easily cause damage like what happened at the facility, outlined a story. The data showed that the eggs of a leviathan- the Sea Dragon- had been taken. The enraged mother Sea Dragon must have rammed into the facility in a desperate, futile attempt to rescue her child, and died for it.

“They took her child. She just wanted to rescue her baby. ” Bart said, his voice so quiet calling it whispering would be a stretch. Ryley looked shocked, but his surprise faded to a look of pain, and he started coughing. Soon he was almost doubled over, body shaking with each cough. Bart looked around frantically, like the walls could somehow help him, unsure what to do. When the coughing subsided just enough for them to breathe, Bart handed Ryley a bottle of water, which he drank gratefully.

“My- my hands.” Ryley said, clumsily trying to take off their gloves. Bart stepped in to help, noticing the way Ryley winced every time his hands brushed their skin. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but Ryley was still grimacing and fighting back tears. His hands started shaking uncontrollably, fear evident in his expression. It was slow, imperceptible at first, but green veins spiderwebbed beneath their skin. Patches of skin developed into pustules a violent, sickly shade of green. The entire sight was sickening. Of course, it must’ve been impossibly harder on Ryley. Bart wanted to hug him, to tell him everything would be okay. But he couldn’t truthfully say that, and contact would only worsen the pain. Ryley stumbled towards the controls, and Bart almost grabbed their hand but decided better of it.

‘ You’re really going to drive like that? ’ Bart asked in disbelief.

“Someone has to.” Ryley replied. Bart had no reply. He didn’t have any sort of experience driving anything bigger than a Seamoth, and a dangerous, winding cave system wasn’t the best place to practice. If they stayed there, they would run out of supplies and power eventually. There was nothing Bart could do except let him.

                                ———

It was late at night. Ryley should have been asleep long ago. He’d tossed and turned for ages, the pain or the coughing or the soft green glow of the pustules keeping him wide awake. He’d given up on sleep hours ago. Instead, he’d been in one of the large rooms, so bored he’d just been staring out the window.

Crack ! The noise was soft but noticeable, and Ryley didn’t know where it had come from. He listened intently for another few seconds, but nothing else happened. Some Ampeel must have bumped into a rock, that was all. There was no sign of one out of the window he sat next to, but it might have been just out of sight. They stared absentmindedly out of the window, taking in the pale stalks of kelp with their roots dotted with the blood-red pustules the kelp was named for. Looking at it, Ryley wished the pustules scattered on his hands were as harmless as the ones on the roots. Bart had treated them with the golden enzyme earlier, which had dulled the green glow and helped some with the pain. Bart had seemed concerned, and he had tentatively admitted that the enzyme hadn’t helped as much as he’d hoped.

Crack ! The noise sounded again, this time louder. It didn’t seem to be coming from outside, but nothing inside could have made a noise like that. Or could it?

Crack ! There it was a third time, loud and definitely nearby. Ryley’s eyes scanned the room, settling on a tank with a few Bladderfish, Peepers, and the mysterious egg. The latter was quivering, noticeable fractures running across the surface.

Bart would definitely want to see this , Ryley thought. He rushed through the hallways and rooms to Bart’s bedroom, where they knew he would be peacefully asleep. They navigated through the maze of plant pots and miscellaneous science equipment, only almost tripping once. Ryley shook Bart awake as gently as they could. He groaned and turned over but eventually got up, blinking tiredly as he grabbed his PDA off a table. Ryley grabbed his hand, ignoring the pinpricks of pain, to half guide, half drag them towards the egg.

Bart muttered something incoherent under his breath, probably a complaint about being woken up like that, but followed. Bart stood there in front of the aquarium, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light, and Ryley suddenly became very aware about the fact that they hadn’t let go of his hand. They couldn’t let go now, that would be rude, wouldn’t it? Instead of giving any useful insight, his brain, completely unhelpfully, decided to stare at Bart. His hair was messy, in an adorable way. He wanted to reach out and tuck the strands covering his eyes behind his ear, but that was in the top five dumbest ideas he’d had to date. When Bart dropped his hand to stretch his arms, Ryley could have sighed in relief, that decision made for him.

‘ What was I dragged here for? ’ Bart asked, and Ryley was reminded of what he’d brought them here to show them.

“Oh, yeah! The mysterious egg started hatching.” Ryley said, grateful for the distraction. Bart perked up at that, eyes pinned to the aquarium. Ryley briefly considered the fact that going in there without a dive suit was dumb, but found that they really couldn’t care less and opened the hatch to enter the alien containment unit. Bart looked slightly surprised but followed them anyways. The assorted small fish looked warily at the two of them, but resumed their normal activities. Ryley gently picked up the egg in their hands, brushing off the sand to see the tiny shape wiggling around, straining against the egg’s interior.

Crack ! Another fracture appeared in the egg, almost splitting it in two this time. With a final nudge from the creature inside, the egg broke open.

The creature inside was absolutely adorable . It was a pale blue-gray with white markings, stubby fins and tentacles, and eyes that seemed to stare into Ryley’s soul. The creature looked up at them and nudged their arm. Bart laughed, bubbles of air rising from his mouth. The creature raced in a circle, much faster than Ryley would ever assume of a creature like that. Upon further observation, it seemed to be chasing its own tentacles. Not a bad alternative to sleep after all.

Chapter Text

‘ If they aren’t edible, then why does the PDA give statistics for nutrition and hydration? ’ Bart argued, holding up a gel sack. Ryley sighed. He wasn’t  winning this argument, was he?

“Fine, try to eat one. Twenty credits says you get sick.” Ryley responded. Bart glared at him and took a bite out of the weird alien plant (?) thing (they really didn’t know what it was). Judging by his expression, it wasn’t the best tasting.

‘ It’s like gelatin from hell. ’ Bart wrote, spitting out pieces that fell to the seafloor. Ryley snorted. ‘ I have learned nothing and would absolutely do this again .’

“Of course.” Ryley replied. He couldn’t really judge, he’d done more than his fair share of dumb shit, both before and after landing on this planet.

The two of them had returned to the Lost River, specifically the Cove Tree, in hopes of scouting out a place to build a base. It was definitely a good place for one, close to the alien facility and the biggest skeletons while still being safe from the Ghost Leviathan and the brine pools that damaged anything that touched them for even a second. They’d admired the tree itself, and then they’d found a trail of caves leading off of one of the sides that they’d been following since. They’d paused their exploration to argue briefly about the edibility of Gel Sacks, but now that it had been resolved they would be on their way.

Bart stayed back near the Cyclops-which they had decided to name the Nautilus, from a book that sounded like something Ryley would’ve had to read for school and hated- examining the various flora and fauna and potential base locations, but Ryley had noticed something else. At the edge of the cave system, there was a strange chasm leading down to something. Maybe it could just be a small divot in the cave floor, but nonetheless Ryley wanted to explore.

As he descended, the normal cold of the biome abated, and it could be even considered warm. That seemed counterintuitive, wasn’t it supposed to get colder the further you went down? They shook it off, there must be a thermal vent they weren’t seeing. But the heat increased further as they went down, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Was he getting feverish again? But no, he rose again and the cold returned, the contrast making him shiver.

“Bart, can you come see this?” Ryley asked over the radio.

“Mhm.” Came the quiet reply. Bart, it turned out, could talk, but preferred not to. Ryley had respected their privacy and didn’t inquire further.

A few moments later, Bart appeared, peering down at him over the ledge before joining him. Ryley motioned for him to follow and swam downwards, going down as far as they possibly could without getting scalded before stopping. Even as deep as they were, the bottom of the trench was still out of view.

‘ What the… ’ Bart trailed off, puzzled. Ryley was as lost as he was. ‘ How? ’

“You’re the space nerd, you tell me.” Ryley said. Bart rolled his eyes.

‘ My best guess is some sort of volcanic activity, considering we’re in one giant crater. ’ Bart replied.

‘ And I may be a space nerd, but at least I know the difference between biology and geology, genius. ’ He joked, elbowing Ryley playfully.

“And I thought it the heat was because of giant fire-breathing leviathans.” Ryley said teasingly, though the painfully obvious answer hadn’t occurred to them. “Do you think we could bring the Cyclops down here with the next depth upgrade?”

‘ We don’t have the materials for one. And without it we’d implode, so that’s out of the question for now. ’ Bart responded. ‘ We’d have to go back for the materials, and there’s a chance we’d need reinforced suits with the heat too. Who knows, those might not be enough, we might need a vehicle. Not the Seamoth though, that wouldn’t go anywhere near deep enough. ’

“Something like a PRAWN suit?” Ryley asked, masking his excitement very badly. Bart considered it.

‘Actually, yeah.’ Bart decided. Ryley had always wanted to drive one, but due to his busy schedule (and probably his notoriety for being reckless) he’d never gotten the opportunity on the Aurora. He felt almost giddy with excitement.

‘ I see that you’re absolutely crushed by this information. ’ Bart said, a teasing smile on his face.

The ride back to base was uneventful,

save for a Blood Crawler dropping out of absolutely-fucking-nowhere and smacking against the glass cockpit, which may or may not have scared Ryley out of their skin. But after that ordeal, they arrived home.

                               ———

After getting back with minimal interruptions (read: Ryley screaming like a five year old at what was pretty much just a tall crab), Ryley had gathered the materials to make a PRAWN suit and the mobile vehicle bay, along with a few different upgrades, to find a shallower place to build. That left Bart inside the base, gathering supplies and trying to remember where in the world he’d put all of the titanium. Finally he found the final few pieces he needed scattered in the bottom of a random locker, which he placed in his bag with the rest of the supplies. The only way to fabricate this specific depth upgrade was to use the built-in Cyclops upgrade thing, so that’s where he went, after a quick stop to make the needed plasteel ingots.

The plants were doing well, he noticed. They’d be fully grown soon. Who knows how long we might be gone exploring , Bart thought idly as the fabricator rearranged the materials, it’ll be good to have a reliable source of food with us . The relative peace and calm was shattered by the loud, echoing sound of metal against rock. Bart cringed. He hoped it wasn’t the sound of Ryley crashing the PRAWN already, but that was the most plausible explanation.

The doors to the vehicle bay opened, and the hatch creaked open. Ryley’s head popped out, grinning like an idiot. He was bleeding slightly from a cut where either he’d smacked his face into the controls while crashing or accidentally dropped something sharp on his face (probably while throwing it to the mobile vehicle bay’s fabrication drones) but was otherwise unharmed. They also seemed to be practically vibrating with energy, and it was a bit infectious. Bart found himself smiling, like Ryley had somehow transferred a bit of their excitement to him.

‘ Ready to go? ’ Bart asked, mentally going over the list of supplies to make sure they had everything they needed. Ryley nodded, and they set off on their way. This time no rogue Blood Crawlers surprised Ryley, and the Ghost Leviathan seemed uninterested in the Cyclops as long as it stayed in silent running mode, so they made it to the chasm again easily.

Even inside the Cyclops, the temperature difference was very noticeable. Bart wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this hot in his life, save for maybe when he’d been feverish and dying on the island. There hadn’t really been any opportunities to experience anything like extreme heat before the crash, really. He’d spent years and years on climate-controlled ships and habitats. But on 4546B, comfort was much less important than his main goal of not dying, so he’d gotten enough time in the elements to more than make up for it.

The chasm was deep, deeper than Bart had expected. The water’s blue sheen disappeared in favor of dim, murky darkness, and beneath steep cliff walls and the occasional shelf of rock jutting larger outcrops of rock grew visible. Even though they were deeper than Bart ever would’ve thought the caves would go, 1000 meters and still descending, the outcrops weren’t the cave floor. The cave floor finally leveled, and they left the last blue waterfall behind.

It was hard to make out the caves in the near total darkness, but he could just barely see the path forking ahead. The Cyclops’s headlights flicked on, slicing paths of light through the inky darkness so the caverns branching off were illuminated. After a moment’s pause, Ryley took the path to the right, the cave floor falling rapidly beneath them. They were even deeper now, almost 1200 feet, and the cave’s floor was almost out of sight.

‘ Do those boomerangs look weird to you? ’ Bart asked, clearing his throat to get Ryley’s attention. Ryley squinted at the small fish.

“Huh. Yeah.” Ryley remarked. Bart fumbled for his scanner, but he stopped for a second. A creature swam outside, one that didn’t resemble anything he knew of. For some reason, the strange fish willingly swam to the vehicle, despite the fact that the Nautilus must be absolutely enormous to such a relatively small creature. It stuck to the glass cockpit as if attached by glue. Bart finally found his scanner and scanned the creature- Lava Larva, they were called, although the databank didn’t mention anything about them actually being the larval state of a species.

“So that things stealing our electricity?” Ryley asked from behind him. Bart skimmed the rest of the entry, frowning as he read. With the Lava Larva consuming their energy, the few reserves of power cells they had wouldn’t go very far. If they had the thermal power upgrade, that wouldn’t make a difference, but without one it was a definite concern.

‘ It should be fine unless too many of them attach themselves. ’ Bart concluded. The creatures were only trying to survive, after all, not any different than him or Ryley. Ryley nodded, taking the wheel again.

The dimly lit, claustrophobic tunnel widened into a gaping cavern. The water took on a red tinge and the temperature rose even further, almost  like they’d stumbled into an active volcano. Pools of lava flowed almost like water, giving off a warm orange-red glow. Thin stalactites and stalagmites rose from the ceiling and floor, some meeting to form thin columns of rock. Through the cloudy reddish water there was a huge, looming shape. When it came into view fully, it revealed itself to be a huge formation of rock. It could be likened to an old Earth castle, with its towering spires of rock and small, singular cave entrance. It wasn’t too much of a stretch of imagination to imagine it as a mighty fortress, capable of defending against a battle or outlasting a siege.

“Do you see that?” Ryley asked. Bart squinted, but nothing stood out against the castle of rock and vague shapes of smaller rock formations off in the distance. A handful of creatures wandered the area, patches of bright crimson and vibrant green and dull purple-grey against the murky red background, but none of them were anything too out of the ordinary for 4546B standards. Bart shook his head.

“The green glow. Are those pillars?” Ryley gestured vaguely in the direction of the big rock formation. There was a touch of fuzzy green light against the sharper landscape.

“An extensive natural rock formation, in an area of intense volcanic activity.” Bart recited, more thinking aloud than anything. Intense volcanic activity? You couldn’t do anything down where without almost running into pools of lava. And extensive natural rock formation was evident enough. Paired with the familiar green glow of alien technology, it was a safe bet to say the thermal power thing was in there. Ryley seemed to come to the same conclusion as him and adjusted their course towards the cave entrance.

‘ We should see if the water’s too hot to touch. ’ Bart cautioned. He climbed down the ladder and towards the hatch, tentatively sticking out a hand. The water was scalding hot, and Bart had to hastily pull his hand out before he got badly burned.  He shook his head. Swimming was out of the question.

“I dunno if the PRAWN can fit two people.” Ryley said worriedly, watching from the top rungs of the ladder.

‘ We can make it work. ’ Bart said. They’d fit the both of them into a Seamoth before, and Ryley hadn’t even been conscious that time. How difficult could it be with a PRAWN?

The answer was incredibly difficult.

Maybe if they’d been on land it would have been slightly easier, but with only the small vehicle bay hatch it was a near impossible task. It was a struggle just to get the both of them in there, much less find a comfortable position. The two of them had eventually settled for the least uncomfortable option they could find, with Ryley in front with the controls and Bart awkwardly smushed in between Ryley and the wall. The fact that they were pretty much pressed against each other absolutely did not help with the heat. Ryley seemed to be really struggling in the stifling warmth too. Their skin flushed deep red, and they actively tried to put as much space between the two of them as possible.

Soon enough the vehicle bay’s doors opened, and they dropped a few meters onto the ground right in front of the cave entrance. There wasn’t much there except for a strange reptile-like creature and, of course, the pillars. The cave was about your standard cave, a few confusing forks and turns and a fall that made Bart’s heart skip a beat, but nothing too unnatural. As Bart began to wonder if their depth module would take them far down enough, greenish light filtered through an exit to the cave. There was the alien facility, this one with functional anchor cables securing it and no signs of damage. But how would they get across? The gap looked too far to jump, and they couldn’t exactly get out and swim.

The answer to the question came in the form of a sickening lurch downwards, then the PRAWN suit catching itself with what must’ve been the grappling arm. They swung from the cable they were clinging onto to the next, and Bart almost fell over. He had to wrap his arms around Ryley’s waist for stability, though even then he nearly lost his balance again. If such a thing was even possible, Ryley seemed to get even redder- it was a little strange, Bart remarked mentally.

On one of the sides, there was an opening protected by one of the forcefield. It didn’t look like the ones meant to keep people out, but rather the ones meant to keep the water out. The grappling arm attached itself to the frame, and they swung into the entrance corridor of the facility. The PRAWN’s cockpit opened, and cool air flooded in. Even if the aliens had been absolutely horrible in most other ways, at least they’d had the good sense to put air conditioning in their facilities.

Ryley wriggled out of his grip and practically fell onto the cool floor. Bart stepped out slightly more gracefully, nudging their arm with his foot. Ryley groaned and sat up.

“It’s too fucking warm .” Ryley complained. Bart nodded sympathetically.

‘ Yeah, you did look pretty hot. ’ Bart said. Ryley blinked at him, looking at him like he’d grown a second head.

What? What was it?

Oh shit-

Maybe he should’ve chosen his words a bit more carefully.

Bart quickly tried to correct himself. Beside him, Ryley doubled over hysterical laughter, and Bart soon joined him when the worst of the mortification wore off.

“I know what you meant, don’t worry.” Ryley assured him, but the laughter hadn’t yet disappeared from their eyes. And there was something else- something that Bart couldn’t fully figure out. The flash of emotion on Ryley’s face, right after Bart had misspoke but before they’d taken on their shocked expression- something more akin to disbelief, rather than surprise. But disbelief wasn’t exactly the word- it was much more complex. He shook his head, resolving to think more about it later. If the two of them planned to cure the Kharaa and get Ryley off of this planet, they couldn’t sit around when important information could very well be right there.

Bart offered a hand to a still amused Ryley, which he took gratefully as he rose to his feet. Bart had barely started down the hallway when he heard a noise behind him. His hand instinctively went to his knife just in case, but it was only a tiny creature with two antennae and four legs, somewhat shaped like a Cave Crawler. No, creature wasn’t the right word, it seemed to be a tiny robot. Ryley tentatively reached a hand out towards the thing. It regarded the hand, then poked Ryley with one of the antennae with a zap . Ryley let out a yelp, backing away. The robot didn’t  seem to care much, scuttling away with an air of disinterest. Ryley seemed to be fine, so they continued on.

Further down the pathway, there was a chamber protected by a forcefield. Bart stayed to examine it while Ryley moved to the next room. Bart rifled through the contents of his bag to find one of the purple tablets he’d brought with him. The forcefield gradually vanished, revealing a room with a pedestal holding a tablet. It wasn’t the usual purple hue, nor one of the orange ones he’d studied years ago. It was completely unique, glowing a vibrant blue color. The tablet was heavier than he’d expected, certainly heavier than the other tablets, almost slipping from his grasp before he got a better hold and tucked it into his bag.

Dizziness struck him suddenly, and a shape came into his view. It was dark, punctuated with piercing blue-green dots. But it fizzled out like one of the force fields as fast as it appeared, and he shook it off. It was achingly familiar, but he didn’t have the time to dwell on it.

Further down the corridor, the only room branching off seemed to be completely devoid of life. There was no sign of Ryley, only a diamond shaped frame encasing a green thing , like someone had taken a pond of vibrant green water and turned it on its side. The ripples forming across the surface intensified in one spot, and it spat a disgruntled Ryley onto the floor. They lied there for a second, like the breath had been knocked out of them, then rose to their feet and brushed sand—how did they have sand on them?— off of their dive suit. They looked slightly motion sick, like they’d been tossed around.

“It’s a portal to the island.” Ryley explained once he’d caught his breath. That explained the sand.

Further down the hallway and down a ramp or two, there was another room protected by a forcefield. Ryley placed the needed purple tablet onto the pedestal and the forcefield dissipated. The entries on alien power didn’t particularly interest him, that was much more Ryley’s thing, but the entry labeled “Primary Containment Facility” caught his eye.

The information he mostly knew- “area of volcanic activity” and “connected to this cave system” were evident enough- but it was a nudge in the right direction nonetheless. And 1.4 kilometers, that was really deep. The current depth module they had probably wouldn’t even go that far.

After getting the information from the thermal plant, the two of them headed back to the Nautilus. Bart learned that being crammed into the PRAWN was just as awkward the second time as it was the first- and Ryley no less of a reckless pilot. Immediately after they left the facility’s safety, they plummeted a good ten meters before Ryley caught them on a cable just in time. Bart had to cling on to Ryley again just to keep his balance. They made it the rest of the way without incident, fortunately.

When they got back, Bart realized how tired he felt, and he could see that Ryley was yawning too as they stumbled out of the PRAWN suit. By unspoken agreement, they decided now was the best time to rest. It would suck to be surrounded with even more futuristic alien technology and have to stop to take a nap. Bart lied down on the bed and turned off the lights (pretty useless with the light streaming through the cockpit, but they could close the door if it really bothered them), but Ryley stood there awkwardly. Bart really didn’t know why they objected to sleeping in the same bed so much. It was hardly any different than sleeping separately, at least to Bart. So why did they oppose the idea so adamantly?

After a considerable amount of time, Ryley lied down on the floor again before getting up, muttering about getting a drink of water. Gods , that man was an idiot sometimes. Bart didn’t know how to argue with him- but it turned out, he didn’t really need to.

Again, dizziness struck him, this time accompanied by piercing headache. Based on Ryley’s reaction, it was happening to them too. They stumbled, then caught themself on a shelf nearby. A dark, vague shape swam in front of his eyes, again punctuated by four blue-green dots. This time it was clearer, and he realized that he did recognize it. No, not it- Her.

The reason the form had been so familiar was because he had seen it before. Back ten years ago, on the island. He was in a much better place now, and it seemed odd to see Her and not be in danger, like seeing a strand of Blood Kelp in the shallows. His memories of Her were all vague and fuzzy from the near-dead state he’d been in the first time, but this was right now, clear, and absolutely real.

“ Come here, to me. ” The voice beckoned, and Bart knew they must somehow be getting closer to her. Maybe it was plain idiotic to trust a mysterious voice on a planet with no other (well, excluding Ryley, but it was very clear that Her and Ryley weren’t the same person) sentient life forms, but that mysterious voice had helped him through the worst time of his life. There was a good chance that Bart trusted Her more than he had even trusted his own father.

Ryley, however, had no such affiliation  with Her, and was infinitely confused and concerned. Bart could hardly be described as used to Her transmissions, but he was a heck of a lot more accustomed to it than Ryley.

“ What was that? ” Ryley asked. That… was a decent question. He wasn’t quite sure himself. There wasn’t really any way to reply to that while sounding anywhere in the realm of sanity- “Oh, don’t worry, sometimes you’ll see a vague shape and hear a voice talking to you. Just an average day, totally normal, happened to me for years.”.

‘ Her. ’ Bart replied. He realized that that explained next to nothing and made him sound no less insane, but he truly didn’t know any other way to put it.

“Her.” Ryley repeated slowly, like the word was completely foreign to him. To Bart’s surprise, they didn’t ask any more questions. Ryley sat down on the far side of the bed from him, sitting there in silence, and Bart moved to sit next to him.

After a moments hesitation, Bart wrapped his arms around them. Ryley seemed a bit caught off-guard, but didn’t move away. They looked up at him for a second, making eye contact (probably on accident), then ducked their head. They were embarrassed.

It was the same way they always were whenever the two of them got too close or had to sleep in the same bed or one of them slipped up and accidentally said something that would’ve been considered… not exactly platonic in most contexts.

Bart sort of knew how that felt, if only because of his mistake earlier that day. It hadn’t really been an incorrect statement, though, Bart thought- he did find the man attractive, after all, but really, who wouldn’t? But he certainly never got half as flustered as Ryley did. For him, it had just been the split second of mortification, then he laughed it off. Ryley, on the other hand, seemed more likely to lose his composure and turn the hue of a tomato. This was only proven by the fact that despite the dim lighting, Ryley’s red ears and cheeks were visible if you squinted hard enough.

Eventually, Ryley sighed and leaned into the embrace. His breaths slowed, and Bart too was struggling to keep his eyes open. Bart noted with slight amusement that even drifting off to sleep, Ryley still looked no less flustered.

Why is he always so embarrassed? Bart’s thoughts started to border on incoherency as sleep overcame him, but his final intelligible thoughts were clear enough. After all, it wasn’t like they could ever be romantically interested in him or vice versa, after all. That was absurd, right? Right?

Chapter Text

After what felt like way too little sleep, Ryley was yanked into wakefulness by a loud, echoing roar. It didn’t sound like anything he’d yet encountered, but it was menacing nonetheless. Ryley scrambled to his feet quickly, wriggling free of the blanket around him to dart to the cockpit. It wasn’t until the blanket made a vague noise of protest until they realized that it was not in fact a blanket and was, in reality, another person. Not slowing to explain the situation to Bart, they grabbed his hand and dragged him along with them. The door opened with a click, and warm light spilled into the room.

A massive green shape stood out against the red landscape, the biggest leviathan they’d seen. Taking the place of fins, it had huge, powerful arms ending in webbed hands. In the place of any sort of tail, several large tentacles propelled the leviathan at terrifying speeds. About 30 sharp, ominous teeth protruded from a mouth that looked like it could easily swallow a human whole. It seemed uninterested in the stationary Cyclops, though Ryley feared that might not last long. It looked, to put it simply, powerful, although the face was kind of goofy and OH MY GOD IS IT BREATHING FIRE-

Bart’s grip on his hand tightened at the sight, and Ryley’s did the same a heartbeat later. The blast of fire cooked a few unlucky small fish to a crisp, and they shuddered to think the effect it would have on a Cyclops- or, god forbid, a person.

“I think we found our Reaper killer.” Bart breathed. Ryley hadn’t even thought of that, but just looking at the thing it wasn’t a stretch by any means to imagine it dragging a Reaper Leviathan down into the hellish depths. He had seen the skeletons of somethings that could very possibly have been Reapers on the way in, but he hadn’t put two and two together to come to the, now obvious, conclusion.

In the distance, the gigantic form of the leviathan vanished behind the lava castle. The roars faded away into the distance, and Ryley’s heartbeat slowed to a slightly more reasonable speed.

“Well, I’m certainly awake.” Ryley remarked. “We might as well look around for the containment facility.”

Bart nodded in agreement. The facility had to be somewhere nearby; Ryley could say that with utmost certainty. There was nowhere else that went as deep as 1.4 kilometers, nor anywhere with so much as half the volcanic activity. It was so far down that they’d need to make a whole new depth upgrade just to get down there- it was a good thing they’d brought so many materials. Ryley didn’t think he could stand having to take the time to go back up to the surface to get more.

They were so, so close- to answers, to finding a cure, to leaving this planet. But Ryley found that he tried to think of that last one as little as possible. He wanted to leave this planet, he really did, but it was oddly bittersweet. It really was a beautiful place, and Ryley would be sad to leave it. The ocean could be just as amazing as it had been foreboding and cruel at first.

And then… there was Bart. It wasn’t hard to tell that 4546B was a part of him, and leaving would be like cutting off his arm. If Ryley left, he was leaving Bart behind. The two of them would split paths, Ryley going on to live their life and Bart going on to his. They had their entire lives waiting for them, after all.

Ryley realized that he’d been staring out of the cockpit and looking sad for far longer than he’d intended, and he started up the engines. How hard could it be to find a huge chasm?

Preeetty difficult. The answer was pretty difficult. Everything looked the same. One pillar of rock looks nearly identical to every one around it, and the only way to judge if they’d moved at all was by their location relative to the lava castle. They’d already circled around twice- no, three times , Ryley corrected himself as the green alien lights came into view yet again- and they’d had no luck. The Sea Dragon’s roar got close again, and Ryley’s eyes scanned for somewhere to hide until it passed by. A rift sliced through the landscape, big enough to fit the Cyclops and then some.

They were nearly at the Cyclops’s maximum depth, but by some miracle they stopped right before they hit it. The massive leviathan passed overhead, one enormous limb reaching out to nudge the Cyclops. Metal scraped against rock, and Ryley almost was knocked over as the cliff wall brought the vehicle to a sudden halt. Bart wasn’t so lucky and fell out of his chair, something he seemed to be making a habit of.

Huh. There was an opening in the chasm wall that seemed to open into a wider cavern. Ryley came to the conclusion at the same time Bart did, and they exchanged looks of triumph. Unfortunately, the depth module wouldn’t go nearly that deep, a crucial detail both of them had overlooked. Ryley looked through the lockers for the needed materials, and found that they had all of them except for kyanite. That was scattered everywhere in the lava zones, though, it would hardly be difficult to find some. Ryley headed towards the PRAWN and dropped through the hatch.

It was a long fall, but he caught himself with the grappling arm. He found that it was certainly more comfortable without another person squeezed next to him. But something about it was almost lonely. Even in the stifling heat, they would’ve appreciated the other person’s warmth. Nope, nope, nope. Ryley shoved the thoughts out of their head. They couldn’t keep thinking like that, wouldn’t allow themself to. It would only make it hurt more when he had to leave.

They focused on finding the kyanite, pushing any thoughts about Bart to the back of his mind. They got more than enough for the depth module, but maybe they would need some later. When they returned, the other materials were waiting nearby. Bart muttered something about how he got bored waiting. It was a small gesture, but caring nonetheless. Ryley, the idiot he was, just about melted. They muttered a hasty thanks before grabbing the materials and hurrying to the modification station.

In their distracted state, they kind of maybe forgot that the very depth upgrade needed for the fabrication of the new one was the reason the Cyclops wasn’t wreckage on the seafloor. As they removed it, the metal around them started to bend with a sickening creak. They rushed to the modification station, placing the old depth module onto it. They grabbed the new depth upgrade the second it was fabricated, practically running back to the engine room to replace it. Crisis averted, they returned to the cockpit.

They guided the Cyclops down, the temperature increasing even further as they descended. A cave entrance stretched in front of them, just large enough to fit the Cyclops. The chasm opened up into a cavern with pools of lava the size of lakes. Another Sea Dragon was visible in the distance, but it was far away enough to only be a small vague green shape. A few of the horrible teleporting purple creatures roamed the area, and Ryley knew they must be getting close to their goal. Another green shape loomed in the distance, this one stationary, and they could just make out what seemed to be an entrance. They set their course for the entrance, the building inching closer until they were almost touching it.

Looking out at the distance from the hatch to the entrance, Ryley warranted that it was short enough to swim, if they were fast. There wasn’t any need to cram themselves into the PRAWN. But… maybe they should, just in case. Wouldn’t want to risk getting burned, after all, that’s what Ryley told himself. No other reasons at all.

“We should probably take the PRAWN.” Ryley suggested, and Bart nodded in agreement. It as just as difficult as usual. Bart wrapped his arms around their waist again like he was anticipating a long fall- or maybe just anticipating Ryley’s general recklessness when it came to piloting. He tried to be careful, he really did, especially when Bart was with him, but A, he had no formal training, and B, the uneven terrain and abundance of falls didn’t make it a great place to practice. Whatever the reason, Ryley’s heartbeat felt like it had doubled. It was only to keep his balance, Ryley knew that, but his heart didn’t seem to care either way.

The heat was almost overwhelming for a second, even through the glass, but the cool embrace of the alien facility met them immediately after. Fresh air flooded the PRAWN suit as the two of them stumbled out. The pedestal that lead into the actual facility was a strange blue color, nothing he’d seen before. For a second, Ryley thought that this was it. They had missed some integral thing, and they’d have to scour the entire crater to find it. Maybe it had even been destroyed, by the crash or by plain old weathering and age. But Bart produced a new, bright cyan tablet from his bag. It fit into place with a click, and the forcefield protecting the inner chamber dissipated. A ramp led up to the main section of the facility, the middle  of the ramp lined with two rows of pedestals.

Bart stepped onto the ramp, Ryley following close behind. The ramp lit up before them, and a series of loud noises echoed through the chamber. It was truly, unreasonably loud, and he hoped that the noises didn’t trigger every single time you neared the ramp- that would just be annoying. The path widened into a much, much larger chamber. The ceiling stretched far, far above them and the room was enormous. More ramps lay on either side of them, converging at the top to meet an entryway, and there was a room, guarded by another one of the pedestals that accepted blue tablets, opposite to them. Six rooms branching off to either side were arranged symmetrically, three in the left and three on the right, and several display cases stood in the room’s middle.

Bart gave Ryley’s hand a squeeze (when had they started to hold hands???), though this time it wasn’t out of fear, rather excitement.

“I’ll take the corner rooms, you take the middle rooms?” Ryley offered, trying to hide his red face.

“Sure!” Bart agreed.

The corner rooms, it turned out, held more empty frames that could become teleportation things. One lead to what looked like the Lost River and another to the Mushroom Forest, but the teleportation made him too sick to his stomach to check out the rest, so he decided to check in on Bart. He wasn’t in the main chamber, and when they checked the room that had glass pipes full of Peepers (why?) there was no one to be seen, nor was he in the room with the eggs. When they reached the room above the ramp leading outside however, they had more luck.

Bart was standing in front of a case, crying softly. Ryley didn’t understand until he saw the contents of the two displays in the room. It was otherwise empty, walls and floor free of any other objects.

There was a broken egg encased in glass, which wasn’t bad by itself. But next to it there lay a preserved creature that, despite its size, didn’t seem to be any more than a day old. It lay lifeless in the case, and it had an air of great sorrow about it. It had been stabbed with numerous things that bore some similarity to human IVs. Realistically, it was no different than the remains of anything else on the planet. But the little creature looked so… sad. Bart’s fingers trailed against the glass, like he wanted to break the long-dead creature free so it wouldn’t have to lay there for eternity.

“ Oh. ” Ryley breathed, tears pricking at his own eyes. They awkwardly put their arm around Bart, who threw his arms around them in return. Tears soaked through his dive suit, though theirs or Bart’s they couldn’t tell. Probably both.

                              ———

Bart didn’t know how long he stood there crying. He had never doubted the cruelty of the aliens who visited 4546B, that had been evident from the very start, but seeing the tiny, lifeless creature had just been too much. They had been so hellbent on finding a cure to save their own sorry asses- a cure to the disease that they had brought to half the galaxy- that they had disregarded the lives of anything else. The Sea Dragon baby and mother, the Sea Emperor baby (because based on the context and a few of the data entries, it was definitely that) and all of the lives of the creatures on 4546B. How many creatures had suffered, how many species gone extinct?

“I’m so sorry.” Ryley said softly. Bart wanted to respond, tell them it wasn’t even close to their fault, but all that came out was a strangled sob. Ryley’s hand reached to cup his cheek, angling his face to look at theirs. Their thumb wiped away his tears. The gesture was sweet, but it only made him want to cry more.

“I think I’m okay now.” Bart said. It wasn’t really true, but he wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. With one last mournful look towards the poor creature, Bart turned away. Ryley’s hand had dropped from his face, but he still clutched onto it like it was the only thing that anchored him to the planet.

Bart was glad that he’d had the sense to make a second blue tablet. Never mind that he had accidentally been thrown into the wall when he’d tried to fabricate it (after installing the depth module, Ryley hadn’t given much warning before starting the Nautilus up again), the bruises were worth it to not have to make another trip to the Cyclops. The forcefield disappeared as he placed the tablet to make way for a clear view of the world’s largest fish tank. The size astounded him- what in the galaxy could warrant a place so big?

The Sea Emperor Leviathan, he realized. He’d expected it to maybe be the size of a Reaper but… with the size of the tank, and the size of the hatchling…

Wow.

Impressive.

Of course, anything in the tank, leviathan or otherwise, would be long dead. They would probably find yet another skeleton. Definitely not the size of the giant rib cage and skull in the Lost River but bigger than anything currently alive on the planet. Maybe, if they were particularly unlucky, it would be preserved just as the little one had, and they’d have to witness the horrible sight magnified a hundred times.

Well, only one way to find out.

He made his way carefully down the huge stairs until he reached the water’s edge. He stepped off into the water, a surprised Ryley dragged in behind him. They coughed up water, dunking Bart’s head under for a second in retaliation. After that, they two of them put their masks on and ducked below the water’s surface.

There was a platform not too far from the surface, suspended by metal cables that looked near indestructible. Bart settled on the floor of that, staring in surprise. Anything down here should very well be dead, but that was definitely a school of fish. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to take in his surroundings or register the PDA’s observations fully before the entire world tilted.

A strange chirping noise rang out from an unknown source. The cables bent like paperclips, the flat platform tilting to slope gently downwards. Giant flippers pushed on it, and a huge form rose from the depths below. It looked like a copy of the preserved Sea Emperor, but much, much larger. His vision blurred, the edges tinted a blue that rippled like water. She began to speak (if speaking was really the word for her strange telepathic communication) a calm, clear tone that was clearly audible even over the creak of metal and Ryley’s steady muttering of “what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck”.

“Are you here… to play?” She asked. “Others came here once. They built these walls.”

“They played… alone. They bored me.” Her tone shifted to sadness for those sentences, and then to an eager curiosity. “Now, they’re gone. And instead… we have you. We are curious whether you will swim with the current, or fight against it as they did.”

The Sea Emperor Leviathan (Bart was sure now that she- or rather, She- could be nothing else) glided away gracefully. The platform righted itself, and both Ryley and him just stood there.

This raised. So. Many. Questions.

“Her.” Ryley whispered, having come to the same conclusion. Bart found it  impressive that he could form coherent thoughts, something he was having difficulties with. After he stood there for a bit, completely dumbfounded, they dove deeper into the water.

There was an entire thriving ecosystem in an old alien facility 1400 meters underwater that was thousand of years old. That was an absurd statement in and of itself, but the sight was stranger yet. Prey fish approached him with only a hint of wariness, and creatures that would’ve usually tried to take a bite out of him seemed to disregard his presence entirely. The Sea Emperor propelled Herself in circles around the tank, in a way that reminded him of pacing. The cavernous enclosure must’ve been tiny and cramped for a creature that size. But She had been content with it for thousands upon thousands of years. He didn’t see how She could go through all She had and still be sane. Though maybe the concept of sanity didn’t really apply to telepathic fish. Whatever the answer, it only made his anger towards the aliens grow.

Ryley wasn’t beside him anymore, having moved to an alien structure half-covered in sand. It held five spherical objects and a strange looking terminal. Not too far away, there was another alien arch, though it was hardly usable in its current state lodged underneath meters of sand. As Bart approached the area with the assorted alien technology, the Sea Emperor settled on the ground in front of them. Ryley offered an ion cube to the terminal, then watched as the Sea Emperor rose again, this time heading towards the partially buried arch.

“My young need to hatch.” She said as she went, the rippling blue returning. “To play outside this place. We have been here so long. The others built a passage to reach the world outside. I asked them for this freedom, but they could not hear me. If you help us, I will give you freely what the others tried in vain to take.”

The last few words held a bitter quality, the rightful dislike of the aliens seeping into Her voice. Him and Ryley followed parallel to Her, approaching the arch moments after She did. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled with impressive force. It was enough to clear the sand from the arch. It was also enough to send Ryley, who hadn’t been able to get somewhere to hold onto in time, flying. Their face was almost forcefully introduced to the wall, but Bart caught them.

With an ion cube, the empty frame came alive with shimmering, swirling green. The blue crept into the edges of his sight yet again.

“With the passage you have opened, my young can leave this place. But first they must feel the time is right and break free of their shells. This is what the others could not force from me. To you, I give the secret willingly.” The blueprints for “hatching enzymes” appeared on his and Ryley’s PDAs. This raised even more questions, namely how She could even do that, but he was willing to ignore that with the final goal in sight.

“I don’t know where half of these plants are.” Ryley said. Bart examined the list. With the knowledge he’d gained from his ten years on the planet, the locations of most plants were known to him.

‘ Ghost weed, that’s the Lost River; Eye Stalk… Crag Field, I think; Fungal Sample is obviously the Mushroom Forest; Bulb Bush, Bulb Zone. ’ Bart listed on the PDA. He would’ve preferred to speak out loud, but ever since they’d left the Thermal Plant he’d been feeling more and more sick. The only plant unknown to him was the Sea Crown. He didn’t think he’d ever heard of that, but the photo looked like something he’d seen in passing.

“Wait.” Ryley said. “Those- Lost River and Mushroom Forest at least- have alien teleportation things! In the corner rooms.”

‘ That would make sense, I suppose. ’ Bart wrote. “ They’d want to have a way to reach the Sea Emperor’s natural habitat if they wanted to make the eggs hatch themselves. ’

“Makes sense. But also, are you okay?” Ryley asked, motioning towards the PDA.

‘ Are you okay? ’ Bart returned the question. Losing his voice? That he could deal with. It was only a mild inconvenience. But Ryley looked exhausted, and green splotches blossomed on his arms to match vibrant green veins. He was pale, and the dark circles under his eyes were large enough to be noticeable from orbit. Ryley didn’t answer, just swam towards the surface.

After an unremarkable journey to the Mushroom Forest and a very rushed visit to the Lost River, where they’d gotten the opportunity to scan a Ghost Leviathan (mostly due to the both of them having zero common sense), Bart noticed Ryley lagging behind.

“I don’t think I can do the next ones.” Ryley admitted, after he’d had to stop to cough- not just clearing his throat for a second, but all of the air knocked out of your lungs, doubled over coughing- for the third time. Bart nodded and went on. Nothing worth noting happened when getting either of the other plants, unless you counted Bart scraping his arm on a rock when trying to escape from a Boneshark, and that had hardly even bled.

He knew something was wrong when Ryley was still in the central room. They were slumped against one of the display cases, and as Bart approached they began coughing again. It went on for so long that he began to wonder how they hadn’t passed out from lack of oxygen. The Sea Emperor’s tank, he thought, that might have enough enzyme 42 to help. It wouldn’t be very potent, but he’d completely forgotten to bring any with him in the Cyclops- he hadn’t had much time, being dragged from one urgent place to explore to the next. He hadn’t really thought they could be somewhere so secluded and separated from the rest of the planet that they couldn’t get to the base in time either, nor had he thought that the sickness could progress so quickly.

When the coughing eased for just a second, Bart helped Ryley up. With the state they were in Bart wondered if it would just be easier to carry them, but they successfully made it to the water’s edge after the slow, painstaking walk down the huge alien steps and to the ramp that reached down to meet the water. Bart’s grip almost slipped numerous times, but fortunately Ryley never actually was dropped into the water. He gently lowered them into the water, and after coughing violently one last time their breaths became more even.

“You’re lucky that I love you, or else I would have dropped you from the ledge over there to get you into the water.” Bart joked, the words escaping his mouth before he got the chance to even think about them. Ryley, thank the gods, hadn’t heard- because he’d been losing his voice, the words had been quiet. That left him to wonder what the fuck he just said on his own.

The words had been an accident. Gods, he didn’t mean it- did he?- or at least not in a romantic way! They’d been stuck together for a while, of course they’d be irregularly close, and of course what he felt could, technically, maybe, be classified as love - but platonically! You could love someone platonically- but why was romantic the first thing his brain had jumped to? No, no, no, it couldn’t be!

But beyond his thoughts trying to rationalize that what he meant was platonic love, the puzzle pieces began to slot into place. He had to admit it made sense in a way- if it really was romantic. There were countless small moments he hadn’t payed much attention to, and bigger ones that he’d passed off as good old friendliness. And how Ryley had acted towards him… oh gods, that was a whole other can of worms. He didn’t even want to think about that.

Getting flustered often, awkward whenever they got too close, hesitant to initiate physical contact. More specific moments, like when they had to get from the Cyclops into the facility. They could’ve swam. Ryley knew that. Bart knew that. But they’d found an excuse to take the PRAWN- and Bart was beginning to doubt that it was because he wanted to pilot it that badly. Maybe he was reading into it too much, he told himself. But from less of a “feelings” perspective and more of a “scientist” perspective, he had to admit that the evidence to support his hypothesis added up to quite a lot.

Bart didn’t even want to think about what that meant. He had too many problems to deal with already, concerning the infinitely more important goals of not dying of an alien disease and trying to get Ryley off of this planet. He did not want to add what was going on- whatever was going on, because he wasn’t quite sure himself- to his enormous list of worries.

Ryley pulled himself out of the water and settled next to where he was sitting cross-legged next to the water.

“I found this. You were kinda…” They trailed off, searching for the word. “Out of it? But I found this down there.”

Cradled in his arms, there was a blue-green plant that he recognized from the PDA’s image of the Sea Crown. Bart grinned, thoughts of his internal crisis shoved to the back of his mind for now. They had all of the materials to make the hatching enzymes. Now all they needed was to actually make them. Then the Sea Emperor eggs would hatch, and they’d be free from the Kharaa bacterium. It was right within their grasp.

Chapter Text

Ryley walked through the main chamber of the alien facility, arms full with the plants required to make the hatching enzymes. They’d asked Bart if he wanted to come with, but he’d hesitated, then declined. It was admittedly a bit strange, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

After a quick look to make sure the Sea Dragon was nowhere nearby, Ryley stepped through the forcefield. The water was almost too hot to stand, and he started to regret not taking the PRAWN. But the Cyclops was close by, and he was out of the worst of the heat soon enough. The fabricator was placed on the bottom layer, squeezed between a radio and a row of glass lockers. Ryley shoved the plants onto the flat piece that held the materials and searched through the options until he found the hatching enzymes. When the bottle was fabricated, it seemed horribly small and delicate for something so important. This one vial was what would cure them and Bart, not to mention the entire planet, and yet it looked so tiny and insignificant.

After the trip back, they met up with Bart. He was sitting at the water’s edge, staring down beneath him. He startled a bit when Ryley approached, but afterwards smiled. They dove into the water together and made their way towards the dormant eggs.

How were they supposed to get the enzymes to the eggs? He placed the hatching enzymes onto the piece of technology with the glowing photo of an egg. The contents seemingly vanished, the bottle falling softly to the ground. For a second, everything was still. But then, a tiny limb emerged through a brand new crack in one of the eggs. And that was followed by more cracks in all of the eggs, then tiny bodies shaking off the last of their shells. One of them went up to Bart and nudged him, as if asking for attention.

“Oh, hello!” Bart greeted them. They chirped in response, bumping against him like a cat. Bart laughed, grinning at the little creature. The baby Sea Emperor swam off to join their siblings, who were gathered around their mother. He was cute- uh, the little Sea Emperors were. Wow, nice save, he thought sarcastically.

“My young are swimming for the shadows. I thank you.” The Sea Emperor began. “Their freedom is my end. What will it be like, I wonder, to go to sleep and never wake up?”

Oh .

It was really a mercy. Death would be better compared to an eternity condemned to living in a horrible prison like this. Beautiful, but a prison nonetheless. She’d been staying alive for all of these years holding onto the hope that someone would find Her and hatch the eggs. By all means, She should very well be dead. The three of them were all similar in that regard.

“Perhaps next we meet, I’ll be an ocean current carrying seeds to a new land. Or a creature so small it sees the gaps between the grains of sand. Farewell, friend.” With those final words, the Sea Emperor Leviathan slumped over.

He felt so many feelings that his brain was struggling to process them. Relief; they weren’t on the verge of death for the first time in so long. Mourning; the death of such an amazing creature anchored a deep sadness in him. It had been so… sudden. It was inevitable, but they hadn’t had any real, clear warning, just a few moments and She was gone. Hope; the five new leviathans would cure the planet and heal at least some of the damage caused by the aliens thousands of years ago.

The baby leviathans seemed distressed. Inquisitive chirping turned into cries of sadness (or the fish equivalent). They bumped into the enormous body, wailing when it didn’t move. Eventually, they approached the two humans.

“…I guess we’re parents now.” Ryley said.

“…mhm.” Bart replied quietly, then started talking to the fish. “Hey, little guys. I’m sorry about your mama, but you have to leave. This isn’t a good place for a leviathan.”

Whether or not his words were understood was debatable, but they seemed to calm down at least a little. He started to swim towards the teleportation arch that would take them… well, somewhere different. They hadn’t gotten a chance to test it out. Hopefully it didn’t drop them in the middle of Reaper-infested waters.

“You’re going to feel a little dizzy, but you’ll be out of here soon.” Ryley added. He felt so incredibly stupid talking to fish, but maybe they were like human kids and needed to be talked to so they could develop speech or something. At the very least, their voices seemed to calm the creatures down.

The green light swallowed them, then let them out onto another arch somewhere near the surface. After their eyes adjusted to the light, they guessed that they were near the island with the gun. The baby Sea Emperor nearest to him made a sound halfway between a hiccup and a sneeze, and produced a sphere of golden… something. They poked at it experimentally, and it stuck to their glove. They took the gloves off, but then the substance stuck to their hands. But after a second, the material was absorbed, and the green pustules and veins faded to a pale, dull golden colors. He smiled.

“Catch!” He said, throwing a sphere of Enzyme 42 to Bart. Bart turned just in time for it to collide with the visor of his rebreather and cover his vision.

“What the heck?” Bart asked, wiping the enzyme from his mask. It stuck to his gloves too, and he tried to shake it off to no avail.

“Take the gloves off.” Ryley suggested. Bart looked at him doubtfully, but still did it. The gold stuck to his skin, then got absorbed in the same way. Ryley noticed that the golden tint to Bart’s skin was much more vivid than theirs. Maybe a byproduct of using the less potent enzyme for ten years, or maybe because he’d had the Kharaa for longer.

By that time, the first Sea Emperors had started to disperse. Ryley felt sad to see them go, but he knew that they had to spread the cure and heal the planet. One of them lingered just long enough to chirp a goodbye, but after that they were alone.

“Come back safe.” Bart whispered, almost so quiet that the microphone couldn’t pick up on it.

                            ———

Bart collapsed onto the soft sand of the island from both exhaustion and relief. It felt good to be able to really breathe again, in a way that he hadn’t felt since before he’d washed up on the other island 10 years ago. He lied there for a little while, the sun warming him and stealing the moisture from his suit and hair.

Eventually, he opened his eyes. And what he saw was beautiful. The blue of the sky faded into a beautiful sunset, oranges and reds and purples swirling in the sky and mirrored in the water. Small waves crashed onto the beach, going back and forth in a calming, steady pattern. It was like the entire world was mourning the Sea Emperor, but instead of being subdued, it was colorful and vibrant. Putting on a show to honor her sacrifice. More of a celebration of life than a funeral.

Golden light glinted off of the deep green of the tower. It looked out of place, like it wasn’t meant to be there. It was only a reminder of what was to come. They would turn the tower off, then Ryley would be off of this planet in the blink of an eye. But for now, Bart was content with just being here as long as he didn’t think about it too hard.

Ryley was sitting further up on the beach, where the sand was almost nonexistent. Bart stood up and joined him. At first he sat a decent length away. But he realized that this might be the last time he could ever get that close to them- and somehow, that overpowered his instinct not to do anything that could give away his crush. So he pressed close to their side, leaning down to encircle his arms around them.

Ryley seemed a bit surprised, but they leaned into the embrace. After a moment, Bart tucked their head into the space where Ryley’s shoulder and neck met. It was strangely confident of him- maybe Ryley’s recklessness was rubbing off. Ryley’s breath caught in his throat, and even though Bart’s eyes were closed, he could feel their skin getting warmer.

“We- uh…” Ryley started. “We should turn off the giant alien gun.”

There was hesitation to those words. His voice broke, almost imperceptibly, halfway through the sentence. And despite suggesting they leave, they made no attempt to move. Eventually, Bart stood up first. He offered a hand up, but Ryley insisted on getting up by himself. Gods, had that been too much for him? It wasn’t like they hadn’t ever shown affection before, but this time it felt… different. More intentional, maybe? Shame burned in his chest. Oh , he felt bad now.

Ryley seemed more withdrawn than usual, in a way that made it obvious he was trying to seem fine. But Bart wasn’t having it. The faint smile that they put on their face didn’t quite reach their eyes. Maybe it was leaving this planet. It would only be reasonable for him to be sad too, after  all. But they’d both made up their minds long ago. Bart was staying, Ryley was leaving. He’d survived 10 years without anyone else, he could survive the rest of his life!

…right?

Bart wanted to ask him to stay so badly it hurt. Oh, forget asking, he wanted to beg him to stay. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to be that selfish.

                               ———

Ryley walked a few steps behind Bart, following him through the maze of corridors. Mentally, he alternated between being frustrated at how he’d panicked earlier and whatever the idea of leaving here made him feel. It wasn’t bittersweet exactly, no, but something much sadder. He’d only lived here for what, a few months? And the idea of leaving hurt like 4546B was a part of him he was cutting off with nothing but a survival knife.

Ryley stopped suddenly as the ground dropped away some three feet in front of him. Otherwise the hallway was a dead end. He shot a questioning glance at Bart, who held out a hand as if in answer. It was weird, considering how he’d been staying as far away as possible. They took it anyways, if incredibly skeptically, then suppressed a scream when Bart pulled him towards the steep drop. His eyes were squeezed shut, and for a second, the only thought he could piece together was “what the fuck”. But after a moment, nothing had happened. Ryley was decidedly not dead.

They opened their eyes slowly. They were suspended in midair, the ground far beneath them. Across from them, Bart floated there with an apologetic smile, and Ryley couldn’t help but laugh. The strange elevator-like thing lowered them down slowly, though not  nearly slow enough not to make Ryley feel slightly ill. Their feet finally touched the floor, but their body didn’t take to the recently returned gravity very well. Ryley stumbled, faceplanting onto the floor. Since they still gripped Bart’s hand, he fell too. Ryley sat up with a groan, gathering his rebreather, which had flown off of his head when he’d fallen.

After resting for a short while, they turned out to both be fine. They continued on their way, past a giant pool that, as far as he could tell, extended to the ocean outside, and up about a billion sets of stairs. Then they entered a new room, this one with a walkway leading up to a large terminal with a button.

“Oh, before you press that, you should know that it stabs you.” Bart interjected as Ryley was about to press the button, motioning to decently sized scar on his arm. Ryley hesitated. It wasn’t that the idea of that was worth hesitation by itself, no, pain was hardly something he cared about anymore. But the interruption was just barely enough to get his brain to stop acting on autopilot and acknowledge that what he knew he should want might not be what he actually wanted.

“I can press it if you’d like.” Bart offered after Ryley stared at the button blankly for far too long. But the hesitation was still there. His brain screamed at him that he was so close to leaving, just press that button and he would be pretty much there.

“I don’t know.” Ryley whispered.

“Think of your life, how everything will be when you get back home. You have your whole life , Ryley.” Bart urged, moving his hands towards the button.

“A mountain of debt from Alterra and a bunch of people who hate me, more like.” Ryley said bitterly, grabbing Bart’s hands before he could turn off the Quarantine Enforcement Platform.

“You could easily pay off the debt with just half of the alien data.” Bart pointed out.

“Maybe so, but my other point still stands. Dying alone is hardly the future I want.” Ryley responded. Okay, he was exaggerating a little, but it was true that not many people had wanted to be friends. And that was even before the crash, who knows how much stranger he would seem to normal people after months after being stranded somewhere that was almost always actively trying to kill him. He would still jump at every tiny sound or movement, still reach for his knife whenever something surprised him. The only difference would be that it would be a pen rolling off a desk or someone greeting him instead of something intending to do him harm.

“Then make friends, for gods’ sakes!” Bart said, almost hysterical. “What’s on this planet that could be worth staying for?!”

“There’s plenty!” Ryley replied. “Why are you acting like you want me to leave!”

“I don’t.” Bart replied. It was quieter than usual, but his voice grew louder again. “ I want you to stay more than anyone ! I care about you so much, which is exactly why I’m trying to convince you to leave! You have a life to return to! Give me one good reason for you to stay!”

“You!” Ryley exclaimed.

“So? I’m just one person, there are billions more!” Bart laughed sadly. “What makes me any different?”

“Because…” Ryley tried to say it, but he couldn’t force the words out. He cursed underneath his breath and inhaled deeply, hoping his voice wouldn’t fail him again.

“Because I love you.” Ryley said softly. Bart dropped their hands and took a step back, their expression one of pure shock. The silence felt like a physical object, one so delicate that Ryley didn’t even want to breathe for fear of shattering it. They stood there like deer in headlights, neither of them moving or speaking. Ryley looked down to avoid eye contact. He didn’t think he could take that without breaking down. He didn’t regret saying it. He only regretted how Bart must hate him for it.

He was staring adamantly at the floor, on the verge of tears when arms wrapped around him. He looked up in disbelief, but this was really happening. Why? How? What? No, this couldn’t be right.

“I- what?” Ryley said. “You should- you should hate me!”

Bart didn’t reply, just hugged him tighter. They gave up struggling and put their own arms around him. A part of them still couldn’t be convinced that this was actually happening, but that part was tiny and only getting smaller by the second. This was real.

“If I’m going to hate you, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that.” Bart said. His words were teasing, but his tone was so gentle that Ryley could hardly stand it.

Ryley looked up at Bart’s face, then averted his eyes. Bart smiled softly, pink blush dusted across his cheeks. He tilted their head slightly, leaning downwards until their foreheads were pressed together. Ryley’s brain short circuited.  The only thought he could form was “???”. But once the worst of the shock faded, it was nice. The outside world- his debt to Alterra, the deadliness of the world around them, the very thought of leaving- seemed to fade away. They were staying. They were really staying.

And maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe it was something else, but that was when Ryley did something really stupid.

Ryley tilted his head up until he was eye to eye with Bart, who seemed to clock what was happening before Ryley did himself. Bart gave them a reassuring smile and a thumbs up. It erased the last bit of hesitation in Ryley’s mind, and they gently pressed their lips against his.

It wasn’t really especially amazing, as far as kissing goes. On the contrary, it was a bit awkward. They were clumsy. They had no idea what to do with their hands, so they just kind of wrapped their arms around him and hoped for the best. They hadn’t kissed anyone in like, a bazillion years, and it seemed painfully obvious. But it was Bart, and that made all the difference.

“So, what do we do now?” Bart asked a few moments after, their faces now a few inches away.

“What?” Ryley tilted his head in confusion.

“Well, if you aren’t leaving… what do you want to do now?” Bart clarified.

“…I don’t know.” Ryley said after a long pause. That was a good question, one he hadn’t put much thought into. What would they do?

“Just don’t rope me into something like cataloguing every plant on the planet.” Ryley teased. Bart pretended to be offended.

“Oh, I already finished that long before you got here. I can manage that perfectly by myself.” Bart replied.

“We could teach the kids algebra or something.” Ryley suggested.

“What? The kids- oh, you’re talking about the Sea Emperors.” Bart laughed. “I mean we certainly could try.”

“I mean, I’ve also always wanted to punch a crashfish, so that’s another option.” Ryley added.

“Ryley!” Bart said, trying to sound stern but ultimately giving into laughter.

And it went on like that for a while, Ryley suggesting increasingly unhinged ideas until the both of them could hardly breathe from laughing. Maybe it was fine not to have some grand plans for the future. Ryley was okay with just being here.