#beta fic

Nine-Metis. Home sweet fucking home. One of the larger nickel-iron mines within the asteroid-belt, and Wilbur’s new home for the next three years. An entire lump of rock in space all to his own. Fantastic.

Stepping from the transport shuttle airlock into the airlock of the mining operations center, he frowned a little at the grime and oil inlaid in the metal flooring, and the way that the air was far too cold for human comfort. Thank God he had put on his cardigan when the shuttle had arrived, it was clear much of the auxiliary life support systems were left on low-power. 

The air pump wheezed and caught with a ragged cough of space dust, before registering a clear-to-entry sigil on the inner door of the airlock. Wilbur considered turning around and fucking off back to his home Orbit Station right then and there. Surely even Somnus, with its choking population and underwhelming job prospects, would be better than being blasted into space halfway to Jupiter? 

Do it for the money. Do it for Dad.

He stepped into the mining control center, looking around at the stale air that seemed to sparkle with ice crystals, none of the lights yet on and the only light visible was a pale dull glow of the faraway sun coming through the shaded windows. 

Wilbur pushed his way through the zero-gravity corridor, pulling his tablet from his pocket as he went to try and pull up one of the billion schematics that Astero-idea Mining Corp had sent him along with the job confirmation notice. One of these ought to be the layout of the mining operation center…

Ah, there it was. Heating was a floor up. Set up so the living quarters would be coziest, while he could freeze his balls off whenever he had to go down to the machine storage areas to work.

His job wasn’t glamorous. If anything, he was mostly a glorified machine baby-sitter. His job was to sit here for three years, keep the mining equipment happy, and occasionally send reports home about the quality of the meteor dust that it grinds up. Easy enough. 

It also was supposedly the kind of job that changes the person who takes it forever. The kind that drives those to isolation madness, the kind of loneliness that cannot even be fathomed by the rest of the human race. 

But hey, it paid really well as a result. And Wilbur needed it. He could deal with a little homesickness every once in a while, right?

Right.

There was a sudden heavy clunk that reverberated through the cold dark center that almost sent him jumping into the ceiling-wall panel, and he had kicked off back towards the sound before realizing it was probably the outer airlock disengaging from the transport shuttle, sending the now empty vehicle to dock in the shipping supply bay to refuel for the journey back. 

The sound did attract his attention to the starscape around the meteor that was now his home, however. He knew that he would be able to see other tiny asteroids from his place on Metis, but he had never imagined how they might sparkle and shimmer like miniature moons.  He thinks he could get used to a sight like that, but for now he would drink in the marvel of such an experience. 

    There was something curious about one of the closer meteors though… As if there was something stretched over the surface. Was there another meteor mining operation so close to his own base? Maybe he wouldn’t have to feel totally lonely after all?

    He squinted some more. No… It didn’t seem like a base. He had gotten a good look at the shape of the center when the transport shuttle had arrived, and that dark patch seemed more…

    Organic. Like an outstretched bird’s wing, or some large and elaborately finned fish.

    He blinked a few times, and the shape’s organic shape dissolved into patches of light and shadow against the tiny meteor. Just a trick of the eye.

    Abruptly he was feeling the cold again, and pushed the neighbor meteor’s curious shape out of his mind as he went back to fire up the auxiliary life support on this rock.

…

(feeling lonely, getting into the groove of working there. It mainly involves watching over a bunch of robots that shuttle in piles of dust. He tries to fashion it like he’s a shepherd, and the machines his flock. He grows tired of the joke by the end of that day though. Establish his singing - he does it a LOT while bored because the dull machine silence of the habitat would just drive him crazy otherwise)

Hello?

Wilbur full-body flinches. Then whips around to stare at the dark corners of the room, searching for something living amongst the floating piles of rubble and disassembled drill-bits that threatened to float out of arm’s reach. Nothing. 

Hello?

There it was again. Right at the edge of his hearing, bordering on the unhearable. Did he just imagine it? He might have just imagined it.

Can you hear me?

This is fine. Just fine. Everyone’s heard of the exhaustion catching up to the average asteroid worker, the way the isolation causes auditory hallucinations. He’s just having a minor one. It’ll clear up after he gets some rest. 

Hello, Wilbur.

He’ll break open an extra caff pack tomorrow morning. He deserves it. Especially after sleeping through the night with all of the lights on.

You can hear me.

…

Wilbur had decided, after much groaning, to reclassify his brief mental break as ‘ongoing’ after the third experience of hearing something whispering to him right at the edge of his hearing. He had honestly hoped that he would be able to avoid the ‘meteor madness’ everyone talked about for more than three months, he had really expected more from himself. 

After the fourth instance of hearing voices whisper from the walls of the inner hull of the station, he decided that, what the hell, there was nobody else here to listen to him other than the mineral auger drill bits hes still got to polish and replace. So he answered back.

“Yea yea yea, I hear you, I’m here, I’m here. Could you speak up?” He called out to nothing in particular, taking the time to stop squinting at the newsfeed burst that had come through for this week (all some dumb political dick measuring contest happening back on one of the Venus orbiters, he really didn’t care about it but there wasn't much reading material out on a space rock like this) and stretching out his back in a cacophony of pops.

There was a couple of moments of silence that made him feel like an idiot, straining his ears only to hear the faint hum and chuff of the ventilation system. Then -

How about now?

The voice was extremely clear now, loud enough that it made Wilbur twist and stare wildly behind him. He could almost hear the breath that his mind had inserted into the voice, the inhalation that preceded those words.

As his heart slowed down from a race, he muttered a “fuck” under his breath. “Please- Please don’t do that again. Please.” For now there was too much adrenaline in his bloodstream for him to think of how ridiculous it was that he was begging with his own now obvious case of meteor madness. 

Ok Wilbur.

And with that it had faded back into a far-away echo.

Wilbur didn’t read another two words from the news burst that day, and decided to turn on some loud music over the intercoms of the station instead.  

…

hes really lonely. And one night on his time off he ends up sleepwalking to one of the larger windows on the small base and he… sees…. Something that looks like more than reflected rock on one of the asteroids. Something with enormous wings that glitter like comet trails

he doesnt see it again for a while. He starts hearing things though.

he tries to mention it to his family, but apparently isolation issues are a common thing with asteroid workers (inspo from antarctic workers?). dad puts it aside.

…

[This Call Has Been Inactive for [30] Minutes - Disconnecting in [5] Minutes To Save Broadband]

Fucking Tommy. He had planned this for a week, had done the time conversion to Earth Orbit schedule, everything. He’d even fucking called into his supervisors to get the long-range call times double-checked so he wouldn’t end up with his signal blocked by Mars or something. And Tommy hadn’t picked up.

Wilbur pushed out of the zero-gravity hammock contraption that acted as his chair with a groan that edged into a scream around the edges. He had looked forward to this for so long, long enough that he no longer cared that it sounded pathetic that this was the only thing he was looking forward to at all in recent memory.

“My own fucking brother! Standing me up on a call! Can you fucking believe it!” He yelled at the ceiling, rocking his head back and leaning back as far as the ‘chair’ would allow. He kind of wanted to kick something. Or bite something. Preferably Tommy. 

The on-screen display ticked the [4] minutes and he closed it dejectedly. If Tommy wasn’t showing up right on time, he wasn’t ever going to show up. What kind of excuse would he give, Wilbur wondered. He hoped it was at least elaborate enough to make up for his rapidly plummeting mood.

Hopefully at least the voice will chat with him later today. 

...

Today was shipping day, the anti-Christmas as they (as in he, and absolutely nobody else) called it. The day where all of those rock-dust filled capsules had to be packed into the homeward bound shuttle, and where he had to spend fourteen hours scrambling over boxes and completing checklists in making sure everything was properly labeled and accounted for and the rockets weren’t about to blow up and destroy millions of dollars worth of raw material (and maybe also him). And then after that he got to spend another four hours filling out more forms to pack with them asking for the higher ups at home to maybe please send some more mining equipment, and also food? 

Shipping day fucking blows. If it weren’t for the voice intermittently coming in and keeping him company (and how weird is that, how can a hallucination keep you company?) during those long and backbreaking hours he might have just given up on even writing the worker-products request slips and slept for two days straight. As it were...

Why do you need to request for food? 

“Well, voice in my head,” he said as he tugged at his foot, which had caught itself between two 600 pound capsules that bobbed around like balloons in the null gravity and might just crush him by their sheer inertia, “If I don’t put in the request then they can’t have enough ready to send back next time they send the delivery shuttle. And if they don’t send enough then I’ll have starved to death before the next one can arrive.”

That is silly. Isn’t the sun bright and beautiful from out here?

“I can’t exactly eat the sun, and no. This is pathetic compared to a summer’s day back home.”

Can you tell me about summers?

“I’m probably not the best person to answer, given I had them in England, but I can try.” The foot came free, and he hurried to keep the capsules from drifting too far with a couple of tether cables that he attached to the inner carapace of the delivery shuttle. 

Thank you Wilbur.

…

With the shuttle barely another glimmer of light to hide among the stars, Wilbur couldn’t help but stare out at it. That was the only way home, before his tenure was up at least. With each shipping day come and gone, the desire to huddle himself and a couple of tanks of oxygen up in the spaces between the capsules and try to survive the two month journey back to the nearest meteor processing center grew more enticing. As if he would ever survive the trip, without suffocating or getting crushed by one of the shipping pallets or running out of food. 

Besides, this paid good money. He needed to keep reminding himself of that. Money was hard to remember when he had nothing to spend it on, after all.

He tried to squint at it one more time, just one more before he would go and finally get his much-needed rest, but his tired eyes drifted and he found himself watching one of the smaller asteroids that orbited far off. It glittered slightly in the weak sunlight, and it was close enough that he could see it tumbling very slowly end-over-end. 

He stifled a yawn, about to turn and leave, when he detected the faintest movement from the meteor that wasn’t consistent with its orbit. He was abruptly awake and aware, squinting as hard as he could at it. There was something… dark, cast against the surface of the meteor. He could barely see it stretch into the void above the meteor, but with the blotting out of a nearby star he could almost see… wings?

Wings, like the ones he had seen that one night so long ago, a shape that seemed more at home flitting around in the Earth sky than the darkness of empty space.

He hesitates before, in a feat of exhausted reasoning, he waves an arm at it as if he were hailing a spaceship.

Hello Wilbur! 

He froze mid-wave. Did the voice in his head just… 

The shape on the meteor changed slightly and, against the deep blackness of space he could almost see… an arm? It must be an arm, but of impossibly large size to be seen from so far away. It mimicked his wave.

“Is that you?” He asked, immediately feeling dumb about it. Probably visual hallucinations again. 

(But… He had seen the wings before…)

Yes! I have come to live closer! What was the small flying thing? 

His arm dropped to float in the zero-gravity air, his heartbeat suddenly pounding hard and fast in his ears. The voice was real. There was something out there. Was it aliens? Was he first contact with alie-

No. He had to take this logically. And the logical thing was that he was just having an exhaustive hallucination because he just spent an entire day doing hard work, both physically and mentally.  

He needed sleep.Without much fanfare, he located the nearest decently soft surface and collapsed on it as much as one could without gravity.

Ok Wilbur. I’ll be here when you wake up.

…

And it was still there the next time he woke. Inexplicably, there was a dark shape upon a nearby meteor that was utterly unexplainable. That is, unless it was…

Hello again Wilbur!

“That’s you.” He pointed out at the shape again.

Yes! 

The voice sounded a little bemused, and he realized he had probably asked that question already. He still had to ask it again. “Are you sure that is you? And not some… other… space… thingy?”

The voice actually laughed, less a sound and more a feeling that fluttered around the inside of his skull like a trapped bird. 

It’s only me Wilbur. I think I would know if there were anyone else.

He was half way into eating a bowl of something he would be generous and call scrambled eggs when the uncertain calm he had been feeling upon waking up breaks like poorly-made glass. He’s conversing with an alien, who is not a hallucination. 

“Holy fuck! I’m talking with an alien!” He cried aloud, because why not, he’s already being pretty pedantic this morning. 

Another laugh, gentler.

Can I come closer?

“Oh, of course you can!” He was up and out of his seat, letting the spoon spin freely in the air as he swung towards the window and peered out desperately. Like a kid in a candy store, he laughed to himself.

The shape on the meteor moved, and to his amazement grew closer. And larger.

A lot larger.

As it approached one of the closest nearby meteors that took up large chunks of the ‘sky’ for Wilbur, he could see it was easily able to dwarf not only him, but probably the entire base he lived on and all of the machines that swarmed it.

He was panicking now, something animal in him violently rejecting the concept of something inhumanly large and dark flying towards him through the silent void of space. Before the - he couldn’t call it a voice anymore, it was an alien, it had a body  - could, he didn’t know, leap from the next meteor towards his own, it stopped. 

You’re scared.

He probably should be more worried about how easily the alien was able to determine his mental state, but he could only manage a nod. “Can you… stay there for now?”

Ok Wilbur.

He took a few stabilizing breaths, letting his heart settle, and leaned in closer to the window. With the alien now closer, he could see a little more of its body. For one, it was massive on a scale that baffled him. Human brains weren’t really meant to interpret such large scales, but he could tell that a living being and a crater should not be of comparable size.

He eventually calls it Sally. It says that it likes him. That he’s funny. He doesnt know why he feels so happy that an auditory hallucination that is brought on by asteroid isolation called him ‘funny.’ 

He mentions Sally in passing on one of his calls back home. Everyone is concerned because clearly hes having a mental break.

Finally, he starts to get desperate enough and starts asking Sally if it (now she) will come visit him. That he is so lonely and that he loves talking to her and if she was on that asteroid maybe they could see eachother? Sally laughs and tells him that she’s always been seeing him. But yes, she can come.

He’s never been so delighted and excited. This is the most energetic hes been in months, since he took this job even, maybe even beforehand.

...

Are you ready?

“I’ve been ready all morning, Sally. I’ve been so excited.”

Good. Come on out, I’m here.

He had the EVA suit on already, had been sitting impatiently in it for hours at this point. The helmet was pressed to his knees, and he now hurriedly put it on and sealed it tight. Without a second thought he checked his oxygen (2 hours, not too bad but would mean he probably would have to come in and trade out tanks a few times) and the seal on the suit. He lifted his tether rope and hooked it to his suit, and floated into the airlock. Sally was right here! Right outside the door!

He bounced from one hand-hold to another, as impatient as a small kid, and wished that the airlock cycle would just happen faster, damn it! Why couldn’t he just open up the door right away, he didn’t need this air that it was pumping out. Not when Sally was right there.

Wilbur?

“I’m almost there, I promise I promise,” he placated, smiling widely at just the sound of her voice. 

The airlock at long last finished cycling, and he pushed at the outer door with a bit more force than he probably needed. Without sound in space he couldn’t hear the clang of it hitting the outer edge of its hinges’ range of motion, but he could certainly feel the jolt. He giddily scanned the dark and endless sky for a hint of those comet-light wings, the flash of red and green. “Sally?”

You have to come out further, Wilbur. I’m just a little further out.

Of course, of course. Stupid of him to think otherwise. He’s getting ahead of himself. That’s why he brought the tethers along in the first place after all. He reluctantly tore his eyes from space and, with the hand not holding onto the open airlock door, clipped the other end of the tether to one of the many hooks bored into the surface of the asteroid. He let the rest of the line run slack and, carefully closing the airlock door behind him, prepared to jump. 

The gravitational pull of asteroids was minimal, which is why basically everything he owned was made for zero g. There was some pull, enough that it might eventually drag him back down, but if he jumped far enough it would be as if there was none at all, at least long enough for him to find Sally. He jumped, and felt the tether spool out behind him. 100 meters, 200 meters, 350 meters… and it caught him with a jolt at the end of the line.

Then a knot somewhere along the tether, tied with not nearly enough care by excited fingers, pulled loose. The reassuring tug of the tether back down to the asteroid was released and, with a feeling of horror, Wilbur felt himself float a little further than the 350 meters he’d been allotted. He couldn’t even turn around to grab the rope again - the knot was another 30 meters down. 

He flailed and thrashed for a moment like it was his first day in space. “No!” He cried out, seeing his end of the tether whip around and curl in circles around his kicking legs in languid spirals. No air in space meant his movements resulted in no change to his trajectory, which appeared to be up and out. 

So caught up in his terror, it took him a moment to hear Sally.

Wilbur! I am here. Please do not be afraid. I will help you.

Sally. Sally. That’s right. Sally who did not live inside of the asteroid. Who could help him. What amazing luck that there would be someone on the other side of the airlock who could help him right when he needed it most. 

He turned himself around, automatically pointing himself towards the asteroid he had first seen Sally at and.

She was there. So many wings that burned like liquid light and soaked up the sun’s rays so completely that she became a star herself. A fish-like tail that flicked in slow strokes in the empty space, covered in scales that gleamed as bright red as the great jovian storms. A face with all of the love and kindness and power that he had grown to know of her in all of this time. 

His love, Sally. He burst out crying at the sight of it.

Wilbur, Wilbur, Wilbur… She crooned in her head. You came out for me. You came to me. Thank you my love, thank you my heart.

He couldn’t stop the tears that messily wet the inside of his helmet for even a moment as he stared in awe and adoration at her perfect face. She reached forward with hands the size of ships to cup around him gently, plucking him out from the open space so easily. 

I have so much to show you. 

She opened her mouth, exposing teeth the size of moon landers and a darkness as absolute as a black hole, and he let himself be consumed totally.

…

Wilbur, take my hand. I want to show you something. 

They were sitting on a boat, floating in the ocean. It bobbed gently under his feet, the scent of salt was sharp in the air. The sun was just hitting the 

He looked over at Sally. She was (blonde-haired black-haired tall short dimpled freckled) beautiful and exactly as he had always imagined her. She was smiling to him, feet kicking beneath her as she rocked on the boat’s bench. Her hand was outstretched.

He took a moment to soak in the sunlight, the beautiful sea air, her beaming face, and he took her hand. She stood up, pulling him with him, and they walked over to the edge of the boat.

Look down, Wilbur. Take a look at the sea.

He looked down. The sea was dark as wine, endlessly deep, and yet he couldn’t focus on the dark depths. His gaze was caught on the tiny sediments that glittered in the setting sun’s light, the tiny silvery fish that nipped at the craggy side of the rocking boat. Tiny sparkles of light against an unfathomable void.

He pointed it out to Sally. Look at the little fish, look at the sand and tiny floating plankton. Isn’t it beautiful? She laughed so beautifully, and nudged him.

Aren’t you so silly? Those are so small and close. Do you always see the little close things as the most beautiful? I have so much more to show you.

She pulled on his hand. Encouraging him to lean forward more. The ocean was so close now -

Wilbur tumbled forward into the ocean, which leaped forward to catch him in a warm and gentle embrace. It wrapped him up and held him so closely and he rejoiced in the sheer physicality of it all. So different from the quiet, the cold, the dead feeling of space -

Space? Why is he thinking about space? He’s in the ocean.

Beside him, Sally splashed down into the water with a flurry of bubbles, and through the inherent murkiness of the sea water he could see her smile gleam brighter. She tugged him down a little more, pulling on his billowing clothes. 

We need to go further down, Wilbur. I want to show you so much more than you know. 

So he followed her. He kicked feebly against the sea water, pulled further down by the weight of his sodden clothes, but he wasn’t able to keep up with the strong and confident kicks of his love.

Please help me, Sally. I don’t want to fall behind. He called with a voice that shouldn’t exist underwater, watching her disappear into the darkness underneath him. Panicking, he thrashed harder, trying to overcome a lack of ability in the water with pure stubbornness.

Come here Wilbur. I’ll show you.

All around him tendrils of glowing ghostly light, like trails of phosphorescent salps, reached out of the void to wrap around him. In the heart of them was Sally, smiling ever so beautifully. 

I’ll help you. Come and see.

And he was pulled down into the dark, leaving behind the boat and the bright surface and the setting sun for the endless void. 

The dark was beautiful. A crystal depth that was so unlike the endless vacuum of space. He could feel that press of water around him and, even more present, that of Sally. He had drawn closer to her and her self-assured swimming rhythm, knotted in the glowing tendrils like he was caught in a jellyfish’s tangle. 

She pointed off into the encroaching darkness. Look, Wilbur. Please look.

He saw.

Civilizations living and dying like sparkling plankton. Solar winds blasting out in bellows that reflect across wings leagues across. Asteroids, hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart, and yet each one like a friend and neighbor to her.

Ships passing her by like fretful silvery fish, too blind to her to hear her call, her curiosity. Drills breaking into asteroids, so different, so small… 

Her, perched in her asteroid, her nest in this oceanic astral life of hers, reaching forward to see if she could catch the tiny krill that live and die in those tiny glass and metal bubbles… 

A small creature, barely a copepod, planktonic in his powerless tumble through the tides of the universe, reaching back. He sings so sweetly in his tiny tones, finding a fraction of the beauty in the universe that she experiences every day. And yet, those tiny reedy tones, things that only she could hear and which would never echo unending across the galaxy in gravity-distorting tones, were precious gifts in of themselves. 

She reached out and plucked him from his metal habitat, careful of his fragile body not meant for such depths as what she lives in. He sees her, and she carefully takes her little gift back with her to her asteroid. 

Something just for her. A song with notes that are so very small.

A song that can only feel the edges of her own tones without being drowned out entirely, for she does not want him to have to yell in order to be heard at all. 

Wilbur, little ballad-maker, will you sing me another song?

He spun in the reassuring pull of tentacles around him, and in the voice of one untethered from simple vocal chords, Wilbur sang of the majesty of the stars.

...

Wilbur awoke with tears crusted thickly on his cheeks. All around him was a tight and dark warmth, not in the darkness of space but of something comforting and living. The darkness of an overturned log, lush with life, rather than that of an endless cave system. 

“Sally?” He managed, croaking out through a voice that had splintered in every direction. The pressing warmth around him held tighter, like a crushing hug that he had so dearly desired for so long. He let himself melt under the sensation, the warmth that sank into his bones for the first time since he had left Earth, the softness that he had been so devoid of in the sharp grey walls of the asteroid mine.

His body apparently still had tears to give, as when he leaned back into the softness even more he could feel his vision slip out of focus behind a film of tears in the warm orange light.

Wait. Light?

He blinked furiously and, with enormous willpower, leaned up and out of the cozy comfort that cradled him. Held in his hands, pressed against his chest in a dense hot ball that was dampened only slightly by the EVA suit he was still wearing, was what looked to be a tiny star. It shined and glimmered with vermillion, and even as he watched it the glowing ball shifted. 

It was alive.

Carefully he held it closer and could feel, beneath the obscuring bright light, limbs press against the suit and a head tuck into the side of his suit’s life support control panel. He didn’t realize he was holding on so tightly to it until that moment, and he didn’t have the willpower to let go.

Wilbur? Her voice almost... echoed, like it was bouncing off of the endless cavern that resided within her.

His head popped up automatically, and he smiled on instinct. Sally! 

Do you trust me?

With my life, my love. Where are you? What’s going on?

Remove your helmet.

But… wouldn’t that, y’know, kill him? Last he checked he was on the wrong side of the airlock, the endless void of space. Though, it was warm and soft and oh so comforting, so different from the death that had always been promised by its endless expanse.

You said you trusted me. I will keep you safe.

His grip loosened on the star held against his chest, and drifted up to his helmet. With barely a thought he broke the seal on it and the air rushed out in one fatal blast. He should’ve been unconscious in less than fifteen seconds, oxygen starvation quickly turning his brain off and sending him into a downward spiral towards a cold and lonely death. 

He couldn’t breathe, there was no air but the wispy remains of what was in his suit’s tanks, and yet… wherever he was, it didn’t matter.

I told you so. 

Yes, she did. Why did he even doubt for a second? He tried his best to wiggle out of the EVA suit, which was definitely not built to be wiggled out of. He made do with awkwardly freeing his arms so he could better cradle the star that was now lying more comfortably against his chest. It seemed to solidify further with the skin contact, and he could see a muzzle of a soft earth animal, a swishing tail, large eyes that shined like quasars. 

He hugged it close as much as he could. “Sally?” He called again.

Do you like them? I made them for you. A child. 

“A child? Ours? They are… They’re beautiful.” It was ridiculous, and some part of his brain seemed to slip out of the elated state it was caught up in. “Wait. A child? Like, one of your kind?”

Not quite. Almost, though. I want them to be able to live with you, not out in the stars like I must. I want something from me to always be with you, even when we are apart.

A thing made of star-stuff and scales and human flesh, something that could only have hatched in the close warmth and suffocating darkness, rather than the endless depths of space. A planet-creature, not a void-creature

Wilbur names him Fundy. As he gives him a name and continues to cuddle him close, his shape becomes more and more solid, more and more a creature of the earth.

Sally’s stomach is, as he begins to adjust more and more to the soft light, more like an entire crater, an endless expanse so large that he nestled quite comfortably within one fold. As he watches he can see dust and rock disintegrate in the far sides, lumps of metal and plastic that are all that remain of 9-Metis mining station, having been carved from the asteroid and chewed up for having deprived Wilbur so much, knowing to the depths of his heart that he is in no similar danger. 

He knows he could live here forever, safe and protected and so very close to Sally’s heart.

Sally starts to feel unsure of herself as a result, realizing that what Wilbur needed far more than her love, her coveting of him as a most precious jewel, was his own people. His mind had splintered in a way, becoming reliant on her own to keep its shape, and even as it leaked song and light for her to enjoy she knew that if she truly loved him she needed to bring him home.

She asks for one last song from him, dancing with him in a dream. He is far enough gone that he cannot tell just how bittersweet the dream had become around him, wrapping him up in pain and love in equal measures.

We are almost there.

Sally seemed sad. Why was she sad? Where were they going? He didn’t know if he said it aloud or not but Sally seemed to hear it nonetheless.

I need to bring you home. You miss your family.

But what about you? Sally, I cannot miss them when I am with you. 

And that is why.

What is going on? Wilbur pulled Fundy closer, quietly shushing the small child as they nipped at the loose fabric of his EVA suit. Did he do something wrong?

I’ll miss you Wilbur. Thank you for letting me 

No… no… Sally was leaving? No no no this cannot be happening. He didn’t want to leave. Please don’t make him leave he doesn’t want to leave he refuses to leave -

The warm cradle of muscle around him flexed and hardened into steel, and the comforting press turned claustrophobic. What was once endless and magnificent closed around him like a cave-in, and he yelled into Fundy’s fur and curled into a tight ball that Sally forced him into. There was a terrific yank feeling as the tether cord that he had long forgotten went taught and dragged him upwards, tangling and knotting around him.

He felt the frigid cold first, less from a temperature and more from a lack thereof as the warmth and protection Sally gave him dissipated, then the crackle of drying spit that held him in a tightening shell. He blinked open eyes and uncurled as he was tangled in the tether cable and caught in Sally’s outstretched hands. Without the protection of a shaded helmet he could see her even clearer, the tiny scales larger than his outstretched palm dappling her face, the hundreds of lacey wings that were thicker than the toughest skyhook cable spiralling out from her in long strands into the enormity of space. Compared to her, the 320 meter cable that had seemed so sturdy was like a strand of spider silk.

He’d never felt so small, not even when he had been all alone in the void. Somehow, it seemed so much larger when he got to see someone who truly belonged out here, someone for whom these endless pelagic open seas were home.

He didn’t belong out here. That’s why Sally was making him go.

Fundy whined inaudibly in his arms, the sound echoing on the inside of his head, and pushed their snout under his head into the crook of his neck. He held them closer to hide his shivering, the despair that had burst inside of him and threatened to swallow him whole more absolutely than Sally had. 

I will miss you. I won’t forget you. But you cannot stay with me.

Don’t go! He wanted to scream it, to try and pry open Sally’s mouth and find somewhere to curl up in within her, where it was dark and he knew a glimpse of the true universe, but whatever was allowing him to stay unaffected by the vacuum of space didn’t seem to extend to allowing him speech in the void.  Please don’t let me go, please don’t leave me out here, I need you.

Sally looked sad, in a quiet way that shivered up through her wings. 

You need to be with your people again. Please take care of Fundy. Raise them well.

She oh-so-delicately untangled the cable from her hand, pinching the loose folds of his EVA suit gently and letting him drift in zero-g. He kicked as much as he could, but he couldn’t truly flail and try to keep a grip on her hand without letting go of Fundy, which he couldn’t risk.

Sally’s gaze finally left his, and she looked around her. Her vast dark eyes gleamed with distant stars, and her trailing light-filled fins flicked. 

They are almost here. You are going to go home. I hope you live well, little Wilbur.

Before he could try to shout out something, anything to beg her to stay or at least say goodbye in return, all of the enormous wings on her bag expanded, and she flicked her tail and sank into the darkness again. He tried so hard to follow her form as it moved quicker than any ship he had ever seen, but his panicked flailing had left him in a rotating drift that made him unable to keep his eyes on her.

    And then, like an unwary fly on a long highway, he smacked bodily against the front of a cargo spacecraft.

Hes brought aboard, seemingly miraculously still alive despite being hundreds of thousands of miles from Metis, and to his surprise its his family. Sally had brought him close enough to them that he is reunited immediately.

He can’t stop holding close to fundy as hes asked how exactly he was there, what happened, they heard something happened to the station, is he ok? 

A bell rang below, just behind him. If Quackity were a stupid hunter, a foolish novice, he would’ve turned to capture the human who had stayed behind to ring it. But to an expert it was the sound of a clock starting, his time running out rapidly. With that bell all others would scatter and he would only have so long to catch them all. He pressed forward, towards the blip on the radio tracker, net at the ready, and was rewarded with a louder clash of hammer on metal immediately in front of him. Transmitting the signal of his arrival and distracting him all at once. 

He ignored the bell. And the next one. As they got more desperate, attempting more loudly to announce the humans presence and draw him away from the nest. Like a bird feigning a broken wing to lead predators away from defenseless chicks.

He had only ever fallen for that one once. At least the sacrificial human that stayed behind while it’s hive abandoned it was sweet and young tasting.  

He crashed out into the colony, foot smashing down into a fragile habitat, and the swarm of humans scattered in all directions. He could see a pattern to the mob movements, and cast a weighted net that took down more tiny buildings with it, trapping humans beneath the debris and tightly corded rope. It seems they only had barely begun running for the underbrush around him when he had arrived. Good, that meant he would get the lions share of this nest.

It was hard making sure he got every one of them. The first couple of times he tried this trick there were some that scattered and made even thinking about hunting in that direction worthless. 

He taught Charlie how to count afterward, and he would proudly tell him the population of the human settlement just before he got to work.

He didn’t care for alive humans in his meals, to be honest. After the first attempt with a mesh cage he stuck to an airtight plastic tupperware so they could quietly suffocate for him. By the time he got home from such excursions it was hardly an issue handling them. They were all floppy and weird a lot of the time but. Well. Their meat was just as good. 

Sometimes one of them survived long enough to revive just as he stuck them in his mouth. It definitely was a curious sensation, feeling it’s weak little kicks and gasps, but he wouldn’t say it was as intoxicating as Wilbur always described it. Really, he preferred the crunch to the useless begging. Plus, it reminded him too much of Charlie’s little voice, and he didn’t want to have to imagine his pet in among the limp bodies, no matter how weird nightmares he had about biting down hard on the defenseless little creature.

Quackity strung up the first net, twisting it neatly so it scooped up all of the humans caught beneath, before throwing it over his shoulder. He could hear the screams and cries and whines of anger and fear, some of it strange and warblingly close to Charlie’s own voice but wrong in such particular ways. They all kicked and thrashed like a net full of fish, but only succeeded in injuring one another. Bruises didn’t taste the best but it was a minor setback all things considered. He took a second to mentally count them - 14, not bad. He’d have to check how many there were in total when he found Charlie.

Now for the second net. No way in hell will they clump together like this group was, and traps won’t work when they already know he’s here, so he’ll just have to grab for it.

Using the other net he had as a bag, he quickly started grabbing any human within reach, breaking the remaining settlements to weed out the stragglers hiding in there. A few smaller ones fled, and he considered briefly letting them run off to grow larger for his next hunts, before deciding he probably wouldn’t ever be able to find them again and scooping them up. 

It almost got mindless, combing the remains of the human colony for those frozen in terror or trapped by the debris of their home. He eventually stopped and recounted, happy with the amount he’d gotten. 21 in all - well, 22 if he counted the squalling infant one of them clung to, but they barely were even a bite-full so he didn’t. 

He shook the second bag a bit to hear the collective wail go up for a moment, before pulling the airtight box out of his bag. It would be just big enough to fit both bags if he shimmied it around and the humans didn’t flail too much. 

As it were, he had overestimated the box size a little bit. Cursing, he pulled the second bag back out again and fished through it for the human carrying a child. He could easily just crunch into them now, but he liked to be hygienic with his food and, plus, he didn’t care much for the scared and angry noises all the others would go into a flurry about as soon as he did. 

So he dropped the two onto the remaining building that hadn’t toppled from his poking and probing, and finally got the bags packed properly. The yelling and whining from the humans was greatly muffled as soon as the seal clicked. 

He half-turned and pulled out his whistle before noticing the released human was staring at him, apparently frozen. With a frown, he poked at it, shoving it in the other direction. “What are you waiting for, an invitation?” For gods sake, how had they even survived this long in the first place? No wonder they’re endangered in the wild now.

He carefully retrieves charlie at this point, and the people trapped in the box start yelling and screaming. from quackity’s pov its just a bunch of panicking, and he puts the bag away carefully at that point. to charlie, its the screams of betrayal, the horror that someone they tried to help betrayed them like that. he seems entirely unaffected by the muffled hatred spat at him.

quackity pats him gently on the head, and returns him to his travel cage, already thinking about recipes he will have to try with this batch.

After that whole debacle with Tommy, Quackity was… torn. Because on the one hand he wanted to be a supportive friend, wanted to change his ways (he could go vegan right? Right?) in solidarity, but on the other… 

There was Charlie, who he had been caring for for years at this point, who had started as this fun little project to see if he could train a tracker human and had become a comfort to him, a pet. 

Tommy is a person and yet, despite him trying his best to convince himself otherwise, Charlie would always be a pet to him. After all, Tommy wouldn’t ever come to him wanting cuddles, or so blindly trust him when he lifted him up to a dark cupboard to ‘please please please smash that horrible bug I found in there I can’t do it myself’ or march proudly into a human settlement with the knowledge that he would end it. 

Right? Right. That’s a pet thing.

He was sitting on the couch, scrolling unhappily through his phone as he tried to think. Under his cupped hand against his chest was Charlie, breathing softly. So small and fragile, yet so undeniably trustingly his.

(That possessiveness, that’s probably what stopped him from ever seeing Charlie as anything but a pet. The human was his and had been his for so long, and nothing could change that. )

What would happen if someone came over to his house one day and saw all of the little things he had added over the years for Charlie? The enclosure that had grown from that pathetic first attempt and now was the envy of human-keeper forums? Would they understand? Or would he be judged for it now that Tommy’s out? 

Wait shit - had he ever talked about Charlie on stream? Quackity wracked his brain for a moment before remembering that no, he hasn’t, because he had decided early on he didn’t want to be seen as the kind of ‘crazy human guy’ to own a battalion of humans and only eat ‘home grown food’ with all of the euphemisms attached. So Charlie’s still a secret.

It would be so incredibly easy to make Charlie stay a secret. Take down the enclosures today and ‘accidentally’ crush Charlie underfoot. Or maybe even finally eat him, have one final taste of human before giving it up and taking the evidence with him. It would be so easy, he was literally within Quackity’s grasp.

… no. He could never do that. Not only does the idea make him absolutely sick to his stomach, he couldn’t imagine ever looking Tommy in his little eyes and saying that he was trustworthy with a clear conscience after doing something like that. Charlie was so small and trusted him so much, he couldn’t do something like that to him.

He let out a long breath, shifting his feathers, and Charlie groggily lifted a head in attention. Quackity hurriedly muttered out quiet nonsense words, assurances and purrs and Charlie tucked his head in again next to his heart. 

Yea. He could never just kill Charlie in cold blood. He was about ten years too late for that to ever happen. 

So what could he do? Continue hiding Charlie, consolidating all of the little additions to his house to a single room that he could lock when guests were over? It would be a fix, but the part of him that has now spent far too long moderating and commenting on human husbandry forums screamed at him about confinement. Stupid morals and good pet-care values.

In hindsight, there was only ever one solution to this issue. He would have to let Charlie go. 

…

His hands fumbled on Charlie’s bright green collar like an idiot as he gingerly unclasped it. Charlie was sitting up straight, not moving at all like he was always trained to when Quackity was preparing him for an ‘excursion.’ He hesitated for a long moment, before handing the collar over to Charlie. 

The human frowned at it and looked up. “Why are you giving me this?”

Quackity shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, I just want you to keep it safe.” And, like a good pet, Charlie appeared satisfied by that answer. He carefully folded the fabric up and put it into an inside pocket of the custom-tailored jacket he had gotten a couple of years back. Quackity poked at the backpack, always too small for him to do anything more than fumble with the straps, but he made sure he could feel the little food packs and container of food pellets in case he was out too long and everything else was used up.

Maybe I should get him some more. He won’t be coming back after all, he’ll need it. 

But then… he might get suspicious. 

Why should I worry about him getting suspicious now? He’s leaving and he can’t do anything about it.

Still, it would break his heart to see Charlie get all sad about this before it was strictly necessary. He continued fussing with the backpack as the human laced his little boots confidently. 

“The weather looks good for the rest of the week so take your time,” he said, trying to keep his voice from wobbling. “See the sights and all that shit, y’know.”

Charlie hummed, tugging without much effort at the bag in his grasp. Quackity gave it up easily, checking nervously that his claws didn’t leave scratches on the fabric. Humans were just so fragile right when he didn’t want them to be. 

“You’ve been sad for a while,” Charlie said suddenly, not looking up from the backpack. “I’ll do a good enough job to help you out, and it’ll be ok. Promise.”

Quackity’s heart almost broke right then and there. Don’t think about it.

“Radio,” Quackity commanded, pushing through the hiccup in his throat, finally putting aside the bedding he was ineffectively tying for Charlie’s smaller and more nimble hands, and trying to absorb himself in the checklist for a little bit longer. Charlie turned his back to him, raising his shirt and exposing the radio transmitter sewn into a dark undershirt which, with the shirt and coat, would be entirely invisible. 

Quackity carefully checked the battery life, that it was still transmitting, and nodded. While it wouldn’t be necessary this time… he would like to keep an eye on his pet for as long as he can. “You’re good, alright come on now.” 

He held out a hand and once again like a proper and obedient pet, Charlie hopped on with little complaint. Quackity hoisted up the bag with his other hand, transferring it into Charlie’s grasp and bending down to pick up the travel enclosure. 

Seeing Charlie holding his bag, sitting behind the bars of the travel enclosure with a hand half held onto one of the metal rods, Quackity steeled himself. This was the best option. This was the only option.

Then he grabbed his keys and got in his car. 

He tried to make himself promise that he wouldn’t look back after letting Charlie out in the woods, knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep it.

...

Quackity never made mistakes ever but… taking in these humans so soon after losing (leaving behind) Charlie definitely didn’t help that feeling of useless loss. It was just a favor for Technoblade (who absolutely TERRIFIED him so he would do whatever he said) to help out with a couple of rather discombobulated humans that had passed him by. Karl was sweet in many of the ways that Charlie is (was), and frankly distressing in a number of other ways. Begging to be killed? To be eaten and completely forgotten about?

(He spent way too many nights staring at the ceiling of his room, wondering if what he did to Charlie was any better than what the people did to Karl. He definitely didn’t check the radio tracker to see if Charlie’s signal was still active, definitely not.) 

As would be expected of any farmed human, Karl took well to the remaining stock of human-grade pellet food that Quackity still had around, though he experimented with some of the weirder sauces in his collection and created rather disgusting concoctions as a result. It seemed that the variety of taste, rather than the quality of it, was what intrigued Karl the most. 

God he missed Charlie. He could feel himself slipping back into that day-to-day existence that owning a pet human created. He almost wanted to pull out one of the old enclosures from the garage, except that would entirely defeat the purpose of leaving behind his pet. 

He could get some of Charlie’s old clothes out though, couldn’t he? That wouldn’t seem weird, plenty of people had human clothes lying around, even if just for the novelty. 

Karl took to the soft worn fleece jacket like it was made for him, even if it was slightly oversized-looking. Tailored for a larger frame, a more active lifestyle.

Quackity tries to come to terms with caring for Karl without immediately coddling him like he had for charlie. he finds it so very hard to solve the problem of owning and caring for someone that he needs to also think of as a sentient being who could be self sufficient without him if he so tried.

one day, further into the future, he logs on to check his old accounts, the ones he had when he had kept charlie, where he talked to other misguided giants who did the same thing. and there’s a message directed to him

its from charlie.

The Warden is busy. The Warden cannot take visitors to the Vault.

The Warden has much work to catch up on. He cannot entertain guests, and the prisoners will not be seen at this time. He is the authority in this prison, and will not be undermined.

The Warden had… made a mistake. And is working diligently to fix it. Please do not worry, the safety and containment of the prisoners is not at risk due to this mistake. But there will be no visitors.

The Warden will not divulge as to the increase in orders of regeneration potions and will thank you for honoring his privacy in this manner. The Warden will thank you for not inquiring as to the parenteral medical structures that have been ordered and shipped into the depths of the Vault. 

Thank you.

...

He is so heavy-feeling these days. It’s so hard to focus on the paperwork in front of him, to focus on the tiny threading needles that he’s been trying so hard to figure out properly, to feel anything except the flailing inside of him that would just not stop moving.

Sam leaned heavily on his desk, front hooves arranged as comfortably as he could make them under him, and pressed his forehead against the platform with a groan. His hind-stomach whined in agreement, and he clenched it tightly. One of the prisoners stopped moving, and jabbed him in the side where it was quickly growing tender. 

“Gonna have to spit me out sometime, Warden! Looks like you can’t go on much longer like this!” he called mockingly, clear in Sam’s ears from the vibration sent up his bones. He grit his teeth. 

“I’m working on it,” he eventually said, hissing out a breath as the other prisoner twitched and pressed an elbow up against his diaphragm.

“Like you’re working on getting me out, right?” he asked. His voice was high and reedy, but at least he had stopped screaming from the experience. Was that a good thing? He decided it was a good thing.

“Yes, Tommy, I’m getting to it.” He didn’t want to really go into much detail about it, given the fact that by the very nature of all of this, he cannot keep a secret from the prisoner that he wanted to stay in. 

He tried to go back to fiddling with the Y-connector valve that was supposed to be attached into his vein. How he would be able to do that single-handed, he didn’t know yet. But that’s what he needed to figure out. Maybe he could do it along one of his front legs, so he could have access with both hands. It would be much preferable if it was closer to his heart, but he couldn’t afford to accidentally injure himself so severely. And like hell was he going to suck up his pride and ask Ponk to lend a medically-trained hand with this.

No. Best to find ways that never ever involve him again. He’ll figure this out himself.

He shifted slightly to lean some weight forward more, feeling the nauseous sensation of two bodies leaning forward as well, throwing him off-balance.

His stomach rumbled again, slow and angry now. He sent it a silent curse, and told himself that all he had to do was finish setting up the intravenous drip and it would be all fine. Keep himself tense enough to not let the prisoners slip into his hind stomach, get the drip flowing, and he won’t need to deal with the hunger any longer. It’ll be fine.

Then at long last he’ll be able to focus long enough to figure out how to get Tommy out. Nothing surgical, he can’t do that while still awake and the other prisoner could get out during the incision. Could he drop one of the prisoners into his hind stomach and attempt to regurgitate the other? No, he cannot guarantee the safety of the other, he wasn’t that good. 

He was idly thinking about maybe using a line of thread or drinking something that would only affect one of the prisoners as he pushed himself onto four feet, leaning backwards with the extra weight. What would work? 

Tommy yelped and the other prisoner thrashed and pushed himself away in that movement, snarling animalistically. He hissed low under his breath in half-hearted retaliation, but to be honest he barely listened to half the things the prisoners said. Even with their words vibrating directly into his inner ear, his head was too full of other things. He needed to work better. 

He adjusted the hanging stand of nutrient solution slash regeneration potion where it stood near his desk, and paused for a second. Would it be ok if he just… 

In a moment of weakness, he took a bottle of the excess slurry and sipped from it, and his mouth positively shouted with delight for something, anything, to salivate over. It tasted horrible, but that didn’t matter.

Then he heard twin shrieks of horror and disgust, and realized why he shouldn’t have done that. Not only was it unsanitary, it would probably mostly soak into their skins and clothes, and now he would get so little from it.

For the first couple of hours he had considered quite seriously the possibility of installing some gastric tube to transport some golden carrot mush or something that could feed the prisoners, though eventually vetoed that idea when he remembered that he had done this in the first place to ensure he was still fully functional, while able to keep an eye on the prisoners every moment. A gastric tube would definitely prevent that.

Well. It had been intended to be prisoner, singular. He wasn’t happy with what had happened - the prisoner’s desperate grab for Tommy, his distraction at just the wrong moment, and now they were stuck together and he couldn’t figure out how to get them apart from one another! His bruised organs could barely tell the difference between the two shapes anymore at this point - there was no way he could even choose which one to spit up.

He was positively drooling, holding the bottle of unappetizing pink gunk, and with a sigh he put it down and focused his attention towards the prisoners in his fore-gut. Tommy was screeching and, he could feel, desperately wiping himself down. The prisoner was hissing and trying to push himself further away. “What even was that!” He exclaimed with fury.

Abruptly, like a weight crashing down over him, Sam was just so tired of all of this. He needed to fix his hunger situation, then he needed to fix the Tommy situation, then he needed to fix the situation with the maximum security vault that required this in the first place, and then he needed to… he needed to… 

He was back down on his haunches again, blinking blearily. “Potion. Nutrients. ‘S for me.” He said. Belatedly, way too late to be any good, he remembered that some potions had a mild sedative effect, and that he had been up almost a day and a half now. He’ll have to remem’er that for when he installs the drip, prolly add some caffeine or som’n…

Sam stretched out on the dark floor, carefully adjusting his fore-gut so he wouldn’t be leaning on it , fluffed up his fur in a yawn, and fell immediately into a sleep. Not even the desperate thrashing of the prisoners could rouse him.

...

 Dream was bored and miserable and angry. No amount of fighting and pushing on Sam’s stomach all around him could dispel the angry energy, the springiness just made him even more riled up. It was dark and dank and too warm and smelled vaguely of something rotten and Tommy was shoving a knee too close to him AGAIN.

The muscles around them had gone slack. It wasn't rigid under his palms anymore, and there was a slow rise and fall of breathing near him that meant the Warden was asleep. Which meant this was his best chance of getting out of here. Or at least, getting some revenge for being shoved up again Tommy Innit for a whole day at this point.

Tommy had curled up against one of the sides at this point, leaning his head on the pinched closed portion of the stomach, where it led to… wherever else in Sam’s body. Dream didn’t know nor care about creeper anatomy. Though, if he were to guess, since he and Tommy weren’t rotting in a pool of acid here, that was probably where it actually all happened.

A thought occurred to Dream, in a flash of insight. He still had the book stashed in the depths of his inventory, and if he played his cards right he might get a little more comfort in here and an easy way to make sure he could get Tommy where he wanted him. 

He thought for a moment, then jabbed an elbow as hard as he could into Sam’s side. The creeper’s breathing barely shifted. Good. He was well and truly asleep. 

It wasn’t premeditated first-degree murder if you plan on bringing him back afterward? It’s more like… safekeeping. That sounded better. Tommy put up a fierce fight when he sprang for him, screaming and pounding on the walls around him like Sam would even be able to do anything to help him in this scenario awake, though that quickly died off when Dream’s hands were firmly around his neck. It was almost disappointingly easy, though he supposed that he had desperation on his side, and weakness from hunger on Tommy’s.

And then Tommy Innit was dead. Dream… Was a little surprised he got this far. Now he just had to… Ah, yes. 

(It turns out it is a lot harder to remove body parts when your only weapons are your hands, and your only surface for leverage is the soft smooth muscle of a stomach. It was messy, and definitely more than a little traumatizing, but well. Dream had absolutely nothing better to do with his time than try to figure out how to break open a man’s chest and pull out their heart bare-handed.

I spare ye the details.)

With the heart placed reverently in his inventory (it needed to stay safe. This was the entirety of Tommy that he had left, that he could use to bring him back. He may be unto a god, but he wasn’t about to go throwing away his guaranteed form of resurrection with something so precious as Tommy’s life. Better to be safe.) he scooted uncomfortably around the body towards the sphincter. In the blood that had dripped into the floor and Sam’s continued sleep, it had relaxed a lot. With a shove, he pushed a hand through, and could feel even hotter air on the other side. A whiff of bile hit him, and he coughed. Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to get Tommy through, it was made for this after all. 

At the low angle that Sam had rested his stomach at, it was easy to leverage the corpse up and through the sphincter, where he heard a distant splash. He turned away. Au revoir, third-life body. But not forever. 

The space now felt almost mansion-like in its expansiveness. All of this, all for him. At last. 

Dream stretched out, cracking his back as he went, and tried not to imagine the rending of flesh from bone happening inches from him. 

The eager growl of the warden’s second stomach didn’t let him forget for a moment what he did. Despite this, he fell asleep satisfied. 

…

Maybe the rest was a better idea than he thought. When Sam awoke, he felt a second wind. Things always seemed a little better in the morning, with a little caffeine - no wait, never mind, no caffeine. Not yet at least. 

He even didn't feel as ruthlessly hungry as before, which was a relief. Maybe his body would finally stop reminding him of it every five seconds now, so he could get back to working on what he needed to get done.

As he pushed himself to his feet and clenched up his gut to check on the prisoners, he wondered idly if he had gotten used to the weight of the two of them. He felt that his center of gravity had shifted backwards again a little bit, so maybe he’s just adjusted to it now. That would be handy. 

His brain, still waking up, almost didn’t catch what the muscles in his stomach did. Something was wrong. Something was different from when he went to sleep. 

He wasn’t ‘getting used to’ the weight. There was less weight. He could only feel one prisoner now. 

A growl turned into a hiss deep in his throat, and he could feel the spines on the back of his neck standing up on end where the patches of gunpowder should have been. “Prisoner!” He barked, and was rewarded with a jump from whoever was still in him. (He had a - ha - gut feeling. But please let it not be.) “Identify yourself!” 

There was a long moment of silence, then two, then. “Surprised you couldn’t tell, Warden. Can’t even keep an eye on your prisoners when they are quite literally right under your nose.”

It was the prisoner. “Where is Tommy.” He hissed, reaching for a weapon that he knows he can’t use. 

The prisoner laughed, and Sam was definitely seeing red now.