#miraengineer

       ❝ this is bullshit, kane, ❞   he growls, frustration written across his brow as plainly as he’d made his opinion known. they’ve been on the ground for hours dealing with the shoddy comms and, last they’d heard, the skeld weren’t fairing any better than half its number on the ground. something something, the atmosphere is full of fuck knows what and it’s causing one hell of an interference. then again, max hasn’t ever been nelson’s biggest fan and half of him’s keen to chalk it up to shoddy workmanship and corners cut — not that he has any proof beyond the little things going to pot aboard the ship ( he’s keeping a mental list : the oxygen cutting out, their comms on the fritz, a myriad of electrical issues too numerous to list... ) — shit, isn’t that enough?   ❝ i’ve had it – i’ve had it. ❞   he’s been fighting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach since they’d last heard from blue and the rest but this latest loss of contact is the final nail in the coffin.   ❝ we’re packing it in, finding hero and the lot, and heading home. we can try again after we recoup. ❞   ...and after he restrains himself from wringing po’s neck. it’d probably be at least a little counterproductive to figuring out the issue, y’know?

wrists bound together with industrial zip ties, red has his hands curled into fists, short nails digging into palms. anger, hurt, coursing through him as he struggles violently against the idea that this family that he’d fallen into turned on him so quickly. he’s just trying to protect them, why can’t they see? his job is to protect them and now he’s awaiting a goddamn death sentence for doing just that.

he’s leaning casually against a console as if he belongs there. as if kane isn’t busy scrubbing away at the gore of a terrible scene. as if he hadn’t been unceremoniously shot out of the airlock. there may be a bluish tint to his lips, if you were to look close enough... then again, it might just be the way the light shines from the monitors. 

in all honesty, he’d never in his life watched a romcom back on earth. maybe that’s why he’s being punished like this, now, two years into a six year mission where he’s seen more in the last week than he’d ever care to have seen in his forty years. 

admittedly, he’s nervous – and that’s the state in which kane catches him. hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he hovers outside of admin, second-guessing the entire pep talk he’d been muttering to himself since breakfast. 

@miraengineer said :  ‘ i need you. ’

@miraengineer​ said :  “ you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. ”

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.

@dubovoye​ said :  how your muse responds to being helped / taken care of !

he doesn’t like to rely on others and will play down how hurt / sick / etc. he is so as not to attract unwanted attentions. you’ll probably have to hurt him more to get him to admit to it, i.e. kicking him in the leg with the limp he’s been trying to hide all day, glaring down at him as he crumples with a string of expletives erupting from his lips. 

that said, once he’s hit that acceptance stage, be it injury or illness, he is grateful to whoever is taking care of him. if begrudgingly so.