#codependent characters

When reverence becomes fanaticism, loyalty turns to obsession, when love is no longer the altar you pray at but the one you’re willing to sacrifice the world on, when nothing will ever, ever be enough.

epilogue in which Zeke and Tommy come back from college for the holidays and Zeke’s mom begins noticing. (college era Zeke has Tommy collared and clicker trained lmao. that’s his emotional support yucky wet chew toy/security blanket, do Not separate!!! they r soul bonded 4 life.)

the end product is meant to be a webcomic so the prose isn’t the greatest :3

ummm also bonus scene: repressed traumatized sadistic weirdo finally goes to therapy but he brings his ugly little lapdog along

Tommy kinda gets off on reminding Zeke of the fact they’ve seen/touched each other’s entrails lmao

plaintext below cut

           The Seeking Horizons approached the beacon at the edge of the Inorith system, with its two escorts fully reloaded on every weapon system their Sabers carried. The fighters had already exited the ship, prepared to fend off just about anything as the exploration craft came closer. It was all the more vital that they did, now that the chief of shipboard security had been transferred to other duties.

           The planetoid the beacon was coming from was small, and scanners indicated that it likely didn’t contain any life. Which was now rather unsurprising. We were no longer really anticipating finding life. Captain Killint had already communicated to both his own people and the rest of the Alliance that there were serious concerns about those beacons, and Star Marshall Maria Gonzalez had promised to look into it when the Assembly allowed her to spare forces from a developing crisis involving a disastrous increase in piracy coupled with a very dangerous political coup from a sector mostly held by corporate interests, on the border with the Vulpexi Remnant.

           Given that the secessionist areas were mostly mining systems worked by drones and we were looking at a potential existential threat, I wasn’t wholly sure that that was an intelligent dispersal of our forces but money talks in politics.

           The beacon itself wasn’t the problem. We scanned it and found none of the Synthor, as we’d come to call the beings who’d transferred their consciousness to machines to escape the ongoing galactic holocaust-by-sapient-plague, but that didn’t mean much. There was a huge structure in this system, and absolutely every shred of everything Jake and I had learned during the Vulpexi war was screaming for us to turn back. Jake hailed the ship and voiced as much. “Captain, I think whatever that is, we need to pull back and let Lion Fleet take care of it with some nova bombs or something. That’s pretty close in mass to a Dembra Megastructure and we have exactly nothing strong enough to destroy it.”

           “I understand your concern, Ensign. However, given the current situation, I’m afraid we have little choice but to investigate further. Our own communications officer will be attempting to penetrate the encryptions on that signal to see if anything can be determined about the Synthor, or indeed perhaps a way to defuse the situation with them.”

           “Captain, with all do respect I strongly recommend that we retreat. According to Adisa they opened fire the instant they saw organic life. Not seeing much benefit to probing it.”

           Killint had been less and less interested in taking our advice of late, ever since we’d sat him down and asked a fair few pointed questions about whether or not the Ivari had neglected to mention anything else to races they seemed to believe were less advanced. He’d not reacted well to our accusation, but after you find out that the race that mapped the galaxy were also hiding from an interstellar omnicidal sapient plague, you get to start asking fairly harsh ones.

           “I appreciate that you’ve seen more than your share of wars. Truly I do. But this is a situation that does not require force, and as your species gets more and more militant it might be positive to attempt to defuse conflicts going forward than to force that development further.” His tone was clipped, as though forcing himself to say the words, as though afraid.

           So that’s what his reluctance was about. In the aftermath of the war, and in the pirate problems that had followed while Jake and I recovered on our adoptive homeworld of Entri, humanity had accepted its role as the main military force of the Alliance with gusto, but in so doing had been causing a good deal of fright for many of the more peaceful races. This, coupled with the pacifistic and once-hegemonic Ivari’s realization that humans would not be easily ruled over had led to increased tensions, something we’d only begun picking up on since we’d come back.

           He was worried, understandably, about our species’ increasing militance and similarly worried that finding ourselves in a full blown war, even one with a power that only controlled four systems, would only worsen the problem. The trouble was that these things seemed to truly despise and distrust organic life.

           Jake hailed me over a private channel. “That idiot’s going to get the entire crew killed.”

           “Maybe not. They’ve got a good code splicer aboard, it could be that they’ll be able to learn something useful…”

           Almost as if the universe had been waiting for me to say that in hopes of getting to indulge its fetish for contradicting every optimistic statement Jake or I ever make, projectiles, faster than we could react, began spraying towards the Horizons from hidden weapon emplacements. “TIGER SQUADRON, FANGS OUT!”

           We primed weapons and began hammering away at the gun positions, finding all but our most impressive weapons inadequate, our lancer missiles barely getting through. The massive structure shuddered and to our horror, sensors indicated warp drives activating. The massive ship began moving towards the outer reaches of the system, slowly, so slowly.

The captain hailed us. “Tiger Squadron, you are hereby ordered to retreat at once. The Horizons is hit. Worse, the missiles we were hit with…they had payloads of biomatter. We cannot be certain yet, but we will be within minutes. That ship will not be out of the system by then, however you need to be. We’ll continue to transmit data to you about the analysis as we make it, but if it’s what we think it is…we can’t go back. You need to leave and get into personal contact with every human official you respect and tell them to get ready for the worst fight of their existence. You were right. Stars help me, you were right…”

“Captain…what do you think was on those missiles?”

“Kyrrion.” A noise came through then, one that we’d come to associate with Ivari experiencing the purest terror. We sat in silence for a moment, then he spoke, “You two…blessings of the stars and wanderers’ luck go with you. Analysis just came back. This ship is now dead. But…we can slow that monster down. Pilot, prime hyperdrives. We’re going to make a jump to lightspeed straight into that monstrosity. It might not stop it but it’ll buy the galaxy time.”

I was shocked. Jake was silent. “Captain…sorry we doubted you. Good luck. And find peace among the stars.” It was a blessing the Nathians had adopted from Ivari traders for those who died in space.

“Thank you. Go. Warn them now.”

We primed warp drives, and the stars spiraled away around us as we punched into hyperspace…just as the most cataclysmic impact ever recorded happened in the system behind us.  The Ivari weren’t warriors. But they, like the Dembra, could still die like heroes.

Flying through hyperspace, I finally spoke. “How does this keep happening? Our parents, Tony, Alicia, the Squadron…now the Seeking Horizons. When will it be our turn? Why do we keep being the ones to dodge the scythe?”

Jake’s voice on the other end sounded strange. “I don’t know. Hopefully not soon. I just…keep flying the way you do, Callie. I’ll fly into a star if I ever have to get into this cockpit and face the stars alone.”

           I wanted to tell him that that was absolutely forbidden, that I ordered him to keep living even if I bought it, but…honestly, after everything, I knew that he’d never obey that. And what’s more, that if he went first, I wouldn’t be long in following. Just…too much had happened. All our expectations betrayed, our years of shared trauma, being the only two humans who felt more Nathian most days…

           “Same. But we’re still ahead of the scythe for now. Let’s keep it that way. We have to warn everyone, so this doesn’t get any worse.”

           We flew the rest of the way in silence.

 [Giant bioweapon deploying megastructure. Yay. Also, IDK how clear it is but I have played a Stellaris game or two. As to Jake and Callie, if their dynamic seems unhealthy…it should, but it’s also realistic to being the sole survivors of their unit, their biological families, and having the ongoing identity crisis that they do, which, teaser, is going to come to a head in the aftermath of the current crisis. Stay tuned!]