anon said : someone kidnapped blue and kane. // @miracaptain & @miraengineer
there’s a quiet fury that’s overcome him — the rest of the crew has been avoiding him as best they can, but it’s fallen on poor moni and jaz to act as the go-between as navigator and pilot to his, now, first-in-command. the two pass glances that they think he doesn’t notice, but they only serve to frustrate him further. teeth grit together so hard he’s surprised none of them have cracked.
someone once asked how his stress manifests. the reality is that it depends. in this moment? where two of the people he’s grown closest to have been taken? here it is sharp words and sleepless stretches that would otherwise waylay him. it’s an overabundance of caffeine. not enough food until he notices the plate that hero had left on the corner of his station in admin. dark eyes staring at the scanners until they are burning, begging him to blink – but he can’t. he’s too busy searching for any sign of a blip that might indicate where his people were taken.
when they’re located, he leads the rescue mission despite the warnings when ari, doc, and po corner him insistent that, maybe, he had done enough and should let the rest of the crew take this one. that he deserves to rest. but, as much as he trusts them all with his life, he can’t sit this out. ( he’d’ve paced holes into the floor ). and, besides, the anger that had been simmering, roiling around in his stomach alongside the anxiety, it’s ready to boil over. if he doesn’t use it, what use is he?
he is dangerous in this state and he is certain to make the kidnappers very aware of that fact. the warm, safe red that the crew had come to know and love has been doused with accelerant and in his place is left someone so hot he’s gone cold. there’s a difference between a fire in the hearth and one set loose upon the world — but either way? their kindlings becomes little more than piles of ash.
the relief that floods him when they run into blue and kane would bring him to his knees if he let it. what with kane having managed to rewire the doors to their holding cells, both teams of the skeld crew meet far easier than either side was expecting. they don’t have cause to celebrate just yet but his inhibitors had long since left him and from one moment to the next red finds his lips crashing into blue’s much to kane’s chagrin and, judging by the squeal, hero’s absolute delight.
the rescue team is still on high alert as they forge their way back to their ship, though the shift in red’s attitude is very nearly palpable in the way the weight seems to have lifted from the group. they make it back only mildly worse for the wear and it’s only when jaz has piloted them away and into a sparely used jump to ftl that red finally acquiesces as doc orders him to his bunk.
