thinking about the period of time between the mechanisms performing DTTM and their deaths actually occurring...
thinking about how the mechanisms know how they die but they might not know when they die or in what order.
thinking about them trying to prevent each other's deaths. none of them wants to be the last to go.
raphaella begs the others not to leave marius alone on the ship. tim refuses to leave ashes's side in the hopes he can stop the accident from happening. brian pilots them around pockets of temporal instability and away from backwater asteroids. marius pleads with ivy not to retire. nobody talks about how they die in front of the toy soldier. they don't want to make it sad.
jonny selfishly seeks out bar fights, hoping this time it will finally be the one, and he won't have to watch his friends disappear one by one until a milllenia has passed since the last time he laughed. even if the others mourn him, he doesn't want to still be alive when the rest of his crew are all gone.
none of them know for sure who dies first, but they all know who they don't want it to be, and they all hope it's themselves instead.












