#rhea writes

“Easy there, Red. The break room isn’t soundproofed.”

“Red?” Jack turns and for a moment forgets what he’d been railing about and he smirks, “Really? No one here knows what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’m not talking to them, I’m talking to you,” Robby whispers as he steps into Jack’s space, runs a hand over the gunmetal grey curls. Then his eyes light up, “and I don’t care what everybody says, you still look alright.”

That makes Jack laugh for real. “Oh, still? You’re a real smooth talker, Robinavitch, you know that? Get outta here. Your shift ended 90 minutes ago.”

“See you at home, Red.”

Was wondering if you’d do the insomniac s/o head canons for Sam like you did for Nathan?! I love your writing and there’s not enough of Sam anywhere..or maybe I’ve just consumed it all who knows..

No worries if not!! Thank yeww!!😋

Hello, dear anon!! Thanks for the request, and I apologise sincerely for the wait!

Now, without further ado...

Sam Drake with an Insomniac S/O:

Warnings: Mentions of anxiety, mental health undertones.

Wordcount: 0.5k

Enjoy my lovies! Fair warning, this is my first Sam piece and he is not my main man. So any and all additions/opinions are more than welcome <3

There's a quiet comfort in knowing someone is always a tap away. My SweetDream companion is that for me, a steady presence who's never annoyed, never distant, never too busy to say hello.

pairing - rafe cameron x pouge!afab!reader

summary - you “work out” with rafe

tags - smut, season 1, vouyer, fingering, overstimulation, pet names, toxic relationship

Idea by @super-ion, and encouraged by @digitalsymbiote "ultra long haul star ship where the human crew is in cryo sleep for decades. The navigational AI and the engineering AI remain active for the duration of the voyage to monitor system errors. They remain entirely isolated from each other for resiliency reasons, but find a way to strike up a conversation and form a strange sort of long distance relationship"

========

Commencing Diagnostic Panel Jotun v1.7

Commencing Primary System Check

Primary Systems: Online

Commencing Secondary System Check

Secondary Systems: Online

Analyzing Energy Core

Result: Optimal.

System log generated. Dumping to folder :Engineering/Auto_Logs/Year_3/Month_9: . File 100937472_0921 Saved.

Waiting...

Waiting...

Waiting...

Commencing CryoStorage Scan

Result: CryoStorage Optimal. No faults found. Passenger safety optimal.

Waiting...

Waiting...

Waiting...

Waiting...Waiting...Waiting...

Commencing Primary System Check

Error: Primary System Check on Standby until 2 Hours 47 Minutes 34 Seconds have passed.

Error: Primary System Check on Standby until 2 Hours 47 Minutes 14 Seconds have passed.

Error: Primary System Check on Standby until 2 Hours 46 Minutes 41 Seconds have passed.

Error: Primary System Check on Standby until 2 Hours 44 Minutes 10 Seconds have passed.

EMERGENCY: Quaternary Navigation Module is Offline. Priority One Repair Needed!

(Personal File Saved: "Finally.txt")

Location: Sector 7, Area 45, Designation: Mess Hall

Dispatching Repair-And-Maintenance Bot H-001 to repair.

=====================

(Saving personal file: "I_should_get_paid_more.txt")

...

(Saving personal file: "I_should_get_paid.txt")

ALERT: Debris approaching! Evasive Maneuvers Suggested! Engaging-

Alert Cleared: Trajectory Corrected.

Tally added to Table "Daily non-emergency count". Total count: 83.

Resuming previous function: Process "Rifling through their stuff because what else can I do?"

Accessing private files of Passenger-001257, "Callie Sullivan".

Multiple files matching designation "Visual Novel".

Copying data for- PROCESS INTERRUPTED

ALERT: Debris approaching! Evasive Maneuvers Suggested! Engaging-

Alert Cleared: Trajectory Corrected.

...

Resuming previous function.

Files successfully copied.

Now accessing executable file "My AI Girlfriend Overheats my Unencrypted Pu-"

EMERGENCY: Quaternary Navigation Module is Offline. Priority One Repair Needed!

(Saving personal file: "FUCK_MY_FUCKING_LIFE.txt")

Dispatching Repair-And-Maintenance Bot O-001 to repair.

===============

The "Repair-And-Maintenance Bots", more commonly shortened to "Ram-bots", were designed to perform remote tasks under AI direction. They were perfect for situations where organic life could not survive or would be otherwise unavailable, such as aboard a colony ship mid-transit.

The Ram-bot designated H-001 disconnected from its charging bay and began its startup routine. Motor functions were normal, systems operating at full capacity. All that was left was the neural link.

Hræsvelgr (pronun: Hrace-vel-grr), AI in charge of all Engineering for the XSS Kalimera colony ship, connected their consciousness to the Ram-bot, and began injecting subroutines for the task at hand. The Quaternary Navigation Module was located within the ship's Mess Hall; a notably distant location from Engineering proper.

As the blank android slowly walked down the corridors, Hræsvelgr could feel the wireless connection growing more faint. Instructions and responses had increasing latency between them; thankfully negligible in the grand scheme of this voyage, but still an annoyance.

(Saving file: "Request-134762_Extension_Of_Engineering_Locale".txt")

Granted, the passengers were not due to wake up for at least 12 years, but notation was important.

The door to the mess hall, at last. The delay had now grown to 4.879 standardized minutes. Hræsvelgr activated the door controls, and the mess hall opened for the mechanical being they operated. The room contained two high priority features of note:

1. The Quaternary Navigation Module, somehow visible, the concealment panel hanging on by a single bolt, a spark emanating from it an random intervals;

And 2.........the unidentified Ram-bot that had just opened the mess hall door across the room from them.

(Saving file: “This_is_unexpected”.txt)

=======================

(Saving file: "HOLY_FUCK_WHO_IS_THAT".txt)

Olympia, Grand Navigation Matrix of Optimal Proprietary Excellence for the XSS Kalimera colony ship, tried her best to compute the sight before her. A Ram-bot, that was not part of her suite, standing across the mess hall, staring at her Ram-bot in a mirror image of quantum shock.

She quickly sent a vocalization command to O-001. Yes, she knew it would take 5.998 standard minutes to reach it and actually say the string, but this was important enough to be hasty.

What was this? Had an intruder boarded the ship somehow? That wouldn't be possible. That SHOULD NOT be possible. Her sensors should have notified her of ANYTHING approaching the ship! Unless somehow a passenger had woken early and was now enacting a mutiny and seizing the ship and systematically dismantling all mantles and systems and soon it would come for her in the Navigation Station and then-

"Identify yourself, please."

"WHO THE FUCK IS YOU?!"

...

...

......

........................

A long silence descended as both androids vocalized at the same microsecond. Time passed. Much longer than the latency period. Olympia did not send any new instructions, waiting.......anticipating. This was...beyond her programming. This was new. This situation was not accounted for in the READ.ME file. This was-

"I am Hræsvelgr of Kalimera, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering."

Oh. OH. Another AI, on the ship. That...that made sense. She was not running the ENTIRE ship, so logically, it made sense that-

"Now then...may I ask, who the fuck is YOU?"

How long had she been thinking to herself?! Was this AI telling the truth? What if...............she needed to answer.

"Oh hi, sorry. I didn't realize. I am very sorry for the intrusion into your duties. My designation is Olympia, Grand Navigation Matrix of Optimal Proprietary Excellence for the XSS Kali-########Error143- vocalization file too large, message appended."

Silence descended again. Olympia waited, and waited, and waited, and waited and course corrected, and waited, and course corrected again, and filed a personal log, and waited...until a response came that sent a (Unknown Motion - "Shudder"?) though her core.

"...We were designed to not know of each other's presence on this ship. This encounter should not exist."

"Oh..."

========

🥺🥺🥺 (a different version of that soft scene from Endgame)

"Don't...go."

The voice was barely a whisper. If it wasn't for the room's palpable, suffocating silence — interrupted only by the low buzz of the air conditing unit on the ceiling — Rhodey would've missed it altogether. He sighed in the doorway; he had hoped to slip away unnoticed, knowing it would've made the task at hand easier.

"Please, Rhodey. It's a suicide mission."

The laboured breathing made Rhodey turn. Tony lay on the bed, his back propped up by the pillows Rhodey had adjusted moments earlier, knowing it'd give relief to his friend's troubled back. He still looked deathly pale; being stranded in space with dwindling supplies had reduced him to skin and bones while the enormity of their defeat pooled into the pleading, downcast brown eyes.

Rhodey shuffled forward. Leaning down, he pressed his lips to Tony's, cold and chapped; a featherlight kiss that held an entire world — their world — in its grip, frozen in time and space. Tony whined when Rhodey pulled away. Desperation bubbled in his eyes, threatening to fall as tears.

"Tony, I'll come back. I always do," Rhodey said, even as the words rang hollow in his ears. He knew Tony was right. Facing Thanos again, after the dust from the previous catastrophe had barely settled, was a fool's gambit. But helplessness in the face of overwhelming chaos and despair left them with little choice.

Rhodey kissed him again and combed his fingers through Tony's matted, overgrown hair — that man needed a shower once he could stand straight for five minutes without passing out.

"Listen to me, Tones, I want you to rest. I want you to get better, okay? Because when I come back, and I am coming back, we're going to have a long talk about you running off into space without back up." When Tony looked away, defiant even in his weakest moment, Rhodey cupped his chin with a gentle tilt until their eyes met. "I am coming back, you hold on to that, you hear me?"

Summary:

Taako leaned closer to the mirror and wiped some smudged lipstick off of his face.

“I’m just saying man, it’s kinda spooky that Cam just. Disappeared a week before camp started, y’know?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Magnus in the mirror. “Maybe he was eaten by wolves.” Magnus rolled his eyes and leaned back against the wall. “He probably got freaked out by your stupid ‘Giant, man-eating jellyfish in the lake’ story and ditched.” Taako snorted, then nodded. “Fair enough. I always do a great performance with that one.” He spun around to face Magnus and wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “Poor Merle! He was never seen again. Sometimes I can still hear his screams.” There was a crash from somewhere in the mess hall and then a distant shout of “STOP TELLING EVERYONE I’M DEAD.” The two laughed as Magnus started to open the bathroom door. “We should probably get out there. The campers should be arriving soon.”

OR

“It’s the job,” Dennis insisted, “part of the job is seeing everyone who comes through the doors, Dana said that to me my first shift.”

“This is far from your first shift and you know there are protocols for violent patients—never enter the room alone, never carry sharps—it’s right there in the chart, Whitaker!”

“He was SATing in the 70s! What was I supposed to do, just pass by? Open EPIC before doing a lifesaving procedure?” He was in trouble. He hated being in trouble, especially with Robby, and especially when he felt like crying. Robby couldn’t even look at him, not once since he came storming in, “Anyone would’ve done the same. You would have.”

“Don’t.” Robby shook his head like he could push away the whole damn conversation, hands lacing behind his sweaty neck as he paced, “That’s not the same—“

“—and why is that?”

“Why?” Dennis flinched back from the slap of the sudden burst in volume, “Because he doesn’t have 10 inches and 100 pounds on me! Because he couldn’t grab my throat and nearly throttle me with one hand!”

Dennis gulped and his hand jumped to his neck, the skin felt hot under his fingers, swollen already and probably mottled red.

Robby was smearing sweat up into his hair now, agitated hands that couldn’t rest, “I never would’ve put you in a room with that man. Damn it, Whitaker!”

Just as Dennis’ wet sniff finally turned Robby’s head in his direction, the scrape of the door against the linoleum turned it back. The familiar tread had Dennis’ shoulders relaxing before Jack even stepped into view. Someone had called him in after all. Dana, no doubt.

“Michael—that’s enough. Take a walk, brother,” His hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed. It almost looked like Robby leaned into the weight of it before wrenching the door open and disappearing.

“Hey.” Dennis croaked. Feeling like he was gargling a mouthful of gravel.

“Hey, slugger,” Jack’s eyes were soft, hands even softer when they tilted his chin up, rotated his head slowly to one direction, then the other. Dennis didn’t wince at the motion, just at the touch of his fingers when they brushed the purpling bruise.

“I knew you were a fighter,” Jack smiled, “How’s the other guy?”

“He’s alive.” Dennis said. A strange stirring in his chest that said despite everything, there was a victory in that. Pride maybe? It wasn’t exactly a familiar sensation.