Work Text:
Curly can’t speak, and he can barely hear after the crash. He can hardly even move. It’s a miracle — and an accident, he worries — that he’s alive.
Members of the Tulpar crew come to visit him from time to time, thankfully; Jimmy every couple of days, Swansea every other day, Daisuke daily. Curly, with his faded vision, has learned to tell their silhouettes apart. Most of them tell him about their thoughts, worries, dreams — and Curly is genuinely grateful for the company they provide, even if he can’t necessarily discern what they’re talking about or talk back to them.
It’s just nice to be spoken to. Thought of.
Remembered.
Jimmy tends to linger in the doorway and offers little in the way of conversation. A few words here and there, Curly presumes, but nothing like the stream-of-thought rambles Daisuke seems to go on. The crew is doing what they can to keep each other sane in the wake of the crash. His most regular company consists of Anya, though, as the sole nurse on the crew and the person directly responsible for keeping him alive. She is on call for him essentially 24/7 and seems happy to do so — if only a little exhausted. She changes his bandages, handles him gently when moving him to prevent bedsores, apologizes when he groans in pain, and administers eye drops regularly to soothe his drying eye. She is more than just attentive to what he needs in a given moment, and she talks him through what she’s doing and why she’s doing it. He knows her voice shakes, but he’s grateful. He’s glad the Tulpar has her.
The only area of care that Anya really struggles with is administering his pain medication, and Curly wishes he could at least communicate in any way that he doesn’t resent her for what she has to do. This is keeping him sane, alive — helps to take his mind off of his suffering if only for a brief moment. Please, Anya, he thinks. Please don’t mind the gagging. It’s not a necessary evil, it’s just necessary. You are a good nurse for the crew of the Tulpar. But he can’t utter a thank you or offer her any reassurance that he’s willing to withstand the pain. He can’t even bark out a scathing reprimand when it sounds like Jimmy berates her for struggling to give him medicine. When he takes up the mantle for her, acting as though he’s Atlas carrying the weight of the world, he’s barely half as gentle. And Curly thinks even that is a generous estimate.
Months pass in a blur and days remain the same. The only constants in Curly’s life are the crew — although the mens’ visits begin to dwindle as they find less and less to talk to him about — and the sunset screen to his left, meant to imitate a window that paints the infirmary a burning red.
***
Today, Anya locked the med door behind her, turning to examine the pill bottles. She took a mental note of how many were left. She rolled a bottle in each hand, listening to the medicine clack against the plastic. She paused, then brought over every bottle to place on the floor beside Curly’s IV, save for the bottle of pills that he was currently getting through.
“Well, captain, I’ll be in charge of your medicine today.” Anya’s voice wavered as she walked over to Curly. She put eye drops in his eye to begin, before gingerly cupping his lower jaw and encouraging his mouth to open. “I’m going to lift you up now, okay? I’ll be as gentle as I can, I just… hope this makes the medicine go down easier.”
She slipped her free arm under Curly’s shoulders and angled him upright. He looked up at her and groaned, and Anya winced at the sound. She bit the inside of her lip as she forced the pill down Curly’s throat. He gagged on the medicine and tried to swallow it to the best of his ability, and Anya whispered “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I have to do this.”
“Tomorrow, I can — I can wash your hospital gown and your bandages, okay?” Anya blinked back tears and choked back bile as she laid Curly down again. “Get you all clean and fresh.”
Once Anya made sure he was as comfortable as he could be in his situation, she sank down and sat on the floor beside his bed, letting out a long sigh. The heels of her palms dug into her eye sockets, trying to force back the sting of tears threatening to fall.
“I really wanted to be a nurse, you know?” She laughed bitterly. “Like, at a real hospital. I wanted to help people and change their lives for the better. I just wanted to do something with my life.”
She leaned her head against Curly’s hospital bed. He can’t see her from this angle and it hurts to turn his head to try, but he tries anyway. “I really, really needed this job. I have nothing left. I don’t have any savings. I can barely provide for myself, and I definitely can’t provide for this… thing inside of me. I don’t even know if I want to provide for it. With the timing of things, I’m sure I’d give birth on this fucking ship.”
She punched her stomach with a grunt, and let out a shaky breath. “I… hate him. I hate him so much, Curly. He makes me sick and I wish I didn’t have to look at him. I wish he was the one on the hospital bed right now. If he was in your position, I…”
Anya’s voice trailed off. She looked from where the pills were sitting to the cabinets where surgical supplies were kept. She had taken the hippocratic oath, but right now her mind veered toward unkind — unethical — thoughts at the idea of Jimmy burned to a crisp under her care instead. Shaking her head, she collected herself. “You’d know what to do, Curly. You’d keep us all safe. Calm. You’d be able to make the best of mountains of mouthwash…”
Curly groaned weakly in response and attempted to further turn his body toward her, with some success. He had to strain his eye to look up at her.
“And — and you said we’d get paid for this last shipment before the company went under, so I thought… I just thought…” Anya chewed on her lip, thinking about her next words carefully. “I was just hoping things would turn out okay, despite everything. It’s not your fault, I know. I don’t want to come off like I’m shooting the messenger.”
She then curled up and hugged her knees to her chest, avoiding Curly’s gaze in favor of staring down at the pill bottles beside her. “I just don’t know how I’m going to live if we make it out of this. Honestly, between us, I don’t even know if I want to live. Everything is just so hard and stressful, Curly. And I’m scared all the time. I don’t want to be scared. I hate following Swansea and Daisuke around like a shadow, and I coop myself up in here with you most of the day otherwise, I just… I don’t want to be alone with him. The cockpit isn’t safe anymore, not since he took the title of captain. I have nowhere else to go.”
She flinched at the sound of sudden, frantic banging on the door.
“Anya!” Daisuke, she thought. “I brought Jimmy! We’re here to rescue you!”
She grit her teeth and covered her ears, pressing her forehead against her knees. The timing would have been comedic if Jimmy wasn’t the way he was.
“Don’t worry!” Daisuke’s voice cracked. “Don’t panic!”
Jimmy’s knocks came softer, less panicked, but his voice boomed through the steel door and rattled Anya. “Hey. Heard the lock’s broken.”
She glared down at the medicine bottles. She didn’t answer him.
“Hey. Anya! Can you hear me?”
Anya popped the cap off of the pill bottle and dry-swallowed a few pills. “…Yeah, I can hear you, Jimmy.”
His voice was muffled — he was probably talking to Daisuke. Anya overheard “… rest of our medicine is in there… ” and scoffed, rolling her eyes. She wondered how much worry was directed towards her and Curly, and how much of it was focused on the dwindling medical supplies that were locked in here with the two of them.
She swallowed a few more pills and was interrupted by Jimmy’s voice again. “Did you try to really put your back into it?”
Daisuke’s concerned voice overlapped his. “Any wrenches laying around? How heavy is the med kit?!”
Anya didn’t respond. A beat of silence passed between the three of them.
“… Anya, is the door stuck?” Jimmy spoke up first.
She swallowed a handful more, gagging on the amount of medication working its way down her esophagus. Her voice cracked. Her throat burned. “… No.”
She didn’t catch Daisuke’s panicked reply; only glanced apologetically at Curly, whose trembling eye was fixed on her. She opened another bottle of pills and shoved a handful more into her mouth, beginning to chew. She flinched at Jimmy’s fist slamming against the door, causing her to cough and retch.
“Look. We’re all stressed. But you can’t go breaking down at every little hardship. Open the damn door.”
Anya clenched her jaw, breaking more tablets between her teeth. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for any kind of liquid to wash this down with. Her gaze landed on a single bottle of mouthwash.
All of this ruin only to be greeted by that fucking mouthwash.
Growling, she tossed the empty pill bottles aside and marched over to it.
“‘Every little hardship?’” Anya’s words were muffled by the half-chewed medicine. Pulling the cap off of the mouthwash, she downed a quarter of it and washed away the powder that dried out her mouth. She gagged and retched again afterwards, the mint flavor stinging her mouth, but at least it was something . Anya was set off, ranting to herself with an audience of one. “There’s nothing little about any of these hardships, Jimmy. Fucking Jimmy.”
A beat passed, and Anya collected herself, taking a shaky breath in. She spoke up again, this time loud enough for the men on the other side to hear. “...You were right. You were right all along. I should have done this from the beginning. I always believed that our worst moments didn’t define us. Didn’t make us beyond repair.”
She began shouting at the door. “You think I wanted this either? Make no mistake. This isn’t my worst moment. Far from it. It’s the best one I’ll ever make.”
“Open the door.” Jimmy shouted at her. Anya stared blankly at the lock.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Daisuke shouted her name, desperate to make sense of what she said — afraid. For her and for Curly, she guessed. Anya whirled around on her heel and placed each hand on either side of Curly’s head, hovering over him, staring directly into his eye.
***
Curly groaned and tried to move, weakly reaching his arms up towards her despite the agony. The two of them remained like this for a bit, just staring at each other. He was powerless. He just watched her down more pills than he kept track of, and he worried that there was still more for her to take. Anya leaned away to snort and cough, blood splattering against the floor in front of her. She retched again, drool and blood now pouring out of her mouth and onto her coveralls. She grabbed hold of Curly’s IV stand to steady herself. Her voice was hoarse. “Everything is his fault. All of this is his fault. He ruined everything.”
With another swig of the mouthwash, she downed a final handful of pills — the last on the ship. After she was sure the pills were washed down, she chugged the rest of the mouthwash, only to gag once the bottle was done. Curly did his best to scream at her — no, stop, what are you doing, that’s dangerous, somebody please help — but Anya paid no mind to his howling and writhing. She sat back down beside Curly’s bed, still avoiding his gaze. He wasn’t strong enough to roll completely onto his side and endure the level of pain that would bring. He still had to strain himself to look at her. He continued to scream and squirm, doing his best to ignore the searing pain that ran through him with every move. Anya’s head was tilted back, her eyes closed. Blood was coming from both nostrils, and her breathing was ragged. Curly kept screaming.
“I’m so sorry, Curly. I’m really sorry. I hope you can forgive me. I wonder if there’s any other medicine on board…” Anya was breathing through her mouth, now, her nosebleed showing no sign of stopping. Unfortunately, this caused her to cough and choke on the blood and vomit that kept coming up between her words. “I’m sure Daisuke will be willing to help you out, he’s a good kid. He’s kind.”
Curly howled. All he could do was watch as life left Anya’s eyes. He thrashed on his hospital bed, trying to reach out to her. He grit his teeth through the pain. Neither of them could hear the thumping of Daisuke crawling through the vents to help them, and even still, it was too late.
“Thank you for everything.”
Curly laid stunned, frozen, staring at Anya’s corpse out of the corner of his eye. His arm dangled off the edge of the bed, still reaching out to her. He heaved and wailed at the sight of his dead crewmate, his dead nurse, his dead friend. He wished he could cry. Out of everything in this moment, it hurt more than anything else to be unable to shed tears.
He understood what Anya was talking about — the dead pixel in the upper right corner.
There is no bigger picture to focus on anymore.
That’s all he’ll ever see.