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Mickey Miller has been owned and raised by the McKenna crime family since he was six years old. Tonight he's on duty, watching what happens to enemies of the family. A lesson in loyalty and obedience.
This is a one-shot from the universe of my WIP novel Blackmere Rising.
Mickey's masterpost: https://www.tumblr.com/jigglycrow/815401392918380544/mickey-masterpost-name?source=share
AO3 version:
Par for the Course
Mickey is fourteen and he’s wondering if tonight is the night he’s finally going to kill someone. He knows that the particular warehouse he’s standing in is the one where the McKennas carry out most of their executions. He knows that, for a few months now, Murphy McKenna has been telling Mickey he needs to get a notch on his belt. And when two men emerge from the shadows at the back of the warehouse, dragging a barely conscious third man between them, Mickey knows that man is not going to survive the night. He just doesn’t know if he’ll be the one to end it.
The man is a dock-worker whose been skimming off the top of McKenna shipments for months now. For his first warning they’d been reasonable and set his car alight. His second warning had involved a visit to the docks where his hand had been broken by the very specific application of a hammer to his knuckles (directed by Paddy, wielded by Mickey).
Nobody gets a third warning when they cross the McKennas.
So now the man is kneeling on the floor while Aiden McKenna, nineteen years old and heir to the McKenna crime family dynasty, is pacing in front of him and monologuing each and every injury he’s going to inflict. Mickey tunes out because Aiden McKenna is a stupid twat and his voice makes Mickey want to punch him.
Aiden’s wielding his gaudy, gold-plated knife with the snakeskin handle and scorpion themed pommel. Every now and then he’ll jab it towards the kneeling man and laugh when he flinches and sobs. Mickey’s own switchblade is tucked in his sleeve, combat knife in his boot, he feels the press of them against skin more than usual.
Mickey tunes back in when he hears Aiden’s voice change, louder, faster, excited.
“And then I’m going to send all the bits of you back your daughters, piece by piece...”
The man is begging for mercy, already bleeding from shallow cuts where Aiden’s blade has nicked him because Aiden’s knifework is sloppy and he doesn’t fight often enough to know his own range.
Well...Aiden doesn’t fight at all. Not really.
Aiden takes the jobs like this one where the men have already been beaten and he has an audience to play to. The jobs that happen in McKenna turf in McKenna warehouses with McKenna back up. Jobs that men like Murphy arrange and boys like Mickey clean up afterwards. This month the warehouse is housing sports equipment and the man is being tortured at the end of an aisle of golf supplies. Mickey wishes it was football stuff - he might at least have been able to nick some.
Mickey’s eyes snap back to the man as he screams, guttural and raw. Aiden is slicing through the man’s ear, cursing as the blood is making everything slippery and hard to see. Once done laughs and shouts a terrible joke down the hole that remains at the side of the man’s skull.
Mickey doesn’t look away. He hasn’t looked away since he was eight years old and Paddy brought him to see a man being killed and told him to watch. And Mickey had watched, unblinking as Patrick Cole shot the man in the head and afterwards called Mickey a ‘good lad’ for not closing his eyes and Murphy had called him a ‘proper little soldier’.
Fingers next, one by one, Aiden swearing and grunting because he doesn’t understand the difference between a knife made for cutting and a knife made for stabbing or that his custom-made piece of shit isn’t good for either. The man’s screams have turned into one continuous, moaning wail that just goes up and down in volume depending on what the blade is doing at that particular moment.
Right now the blade is sat on the shelf next to a tub of golf balls and ball cloths and Mickey sniggers internally because he’s a fourteen-year-old boy and jokes about ‘rubbing balls’ are always funny.
Aiden barks orders and the two men either side of the prisoner move and lay him down flat on the cold concrete warehouse floor. Aiden is strolling lazily back and forth, his brown eyes scanning the aisles like a bored shopper. He stops when finds the golf clubs, picks one up, and tests his swing.
“Have you ever played golf, Miller?” he asks Mickey, though he already knows the answer.
“No Sir,” Mickey answers flatly.
“Of course you haven’t,” Aiden scoffs at the idea of it. “I’d let you be my caddy next time I play but...” He puts down the iron and picks out a driver. “They don’t let your sort in the golf club.”
“Aiden...” Murphy’s voice interrupts in a tone that’s both a warning and a chastisement.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Murphy, nearly done.”
Aiden takes the driver and pockets a ball from the shelf. On his way back to the victim, he carefully picks up his blade from the metal shelving and then crouches down.
“This bit...” he whispers to the man who’s now clearly going into shock, the mangled stumps of his hands twitching on the blood-covered concrete.
“This bit I’m going to send to your widow.”
And then he slices; a squelching, hacking cut across the fleshy nub at the bottom of the man’s nose until the whole tip comes free. Aiden drops it into a small plastic bag and hands it off to a goon behind him. The place where the man’s nose used to be is now a grisly crater of blood and cartilage. Aiden admires his work briefly and then, produces the golf ball from his pocket and drops it in the newly created hole.
Murphy’s muttering something, Paddy cursing quietly in the background but Aiden? Aiden is laughing so hard he can hardly hold the club. He swings once, twice, then drives and the ball goes soaring, blood dripping as it flies up and out of sight, landing with a CRASH in the far end of the warehouse.
Aiden nods as though he’s just scored a hole-in-one.
“Shot!” He congratulates himself and then turns to Mickey.
“Go and fetch that,” he orders and Mickey does. He walks to the sound of the crash and away from the new sound of metal meeting flesh.
When he comes back, the man will be dead. Tonight wasn’t his turn after all but one day it will be. One day. Just not today.
1. Ensure every member of the opposing team receives at least 1 gift.
2. Total points score is higher than the other team.
Phases
1. Battle: participants will earn points by gifting to members of the opposing team.
2. Diplomacy: participants will earn points by commenting on the gifts their team has received.
Timeline
Fight Begins: June 20th
Battle Phase ends: August 10th
Diplomacy Phase begins: August 11th
Fight Ends: August 31st
Setup
—Each participant receives a list of people they might like to create for based on their preferences
—There’s also a filtering system to help you find participants to create for
—Works will be posted to ao3 collection
—Each team has own private channel for strategizing
—Updating scoreboards to show progress
—Pay attention to Battle periods!
Attacking
The first time you “attack” (post a gift), you will earn 1 point for your team. Every time you attack after that, you will earn +0.2 points more than the last time you attacked. You can attack up to 20 times.
Battle
Throughout this phase of the Fight, there will be 36-84 hour time slots during which your Gift can earn bonus points (+0.5, etc.), but only if you post it during that period of time. These are called Battle Periods. The times of the next Battle Period will be announced as the last one ends. NOTE: the bonus amount will not be revealed until after the Battle Period is over.
BP Server Vote
After each Battle Period, every gift sent during that Battle Period will be presented for the server to vote on.
Diplomacy
All comments made before the end of the Fight will count for points; this includes comments made before the Diplomacy phase started. Only comments made on gifts created by the opposing team can count for points, and you can only submit 1 comment per gift. You will receive 0.3 points per comment.
Final Bonuses
—Your team will receive a 15% bonus if the team creates 2 gifts for every member of the opposing team. That is 15% of your final score.
—Your team will receive a 5% bonus if every member of your team comments on each gift they have received. That is 5% of your final score.
Further minor details can be found in the announcements channel!
Whumper keeps Whumpee in an excessive amount of restraints (can’t move an inch for chains, collared, muzzled) to ensure that they won’t break out - even if Whumpee is completely cooperative
Whumpee who does fight back, who bites, claws, scratches, does everything they can to cause as much damage to Whumper as possible
Whumper who “has to” keep Whumpee constantly sedated
Whumpee is a danger to themself, intentionally or not, so Whumper has to protect them before they fatally injure themselves
Nonhuman Whumpee is percieved as dangerous and muzzled/shock collared before they can plead their case, if they even can
Caretaker who is scared of Whumpee!
Stranger Caretaker arriving to rescue Whumpee after defeating Whumper but hesitating when they realise who or what Whumpee is
Whumpee’s hope turning to dread as they see this, and silently begging for mercy
Whumpee who lashes out at Caretaker, who hurts then one day, and guilt hits them at full force
Whumpee who believes they’re a danger to Caretaker and takes it upon themself to remove themself from the equation
Caretsker who flinches when Whumpee moves suddenly
Whumpee wakes up after being rescued, filled with relief - only when they try to move they notice the chains, and the muzzle
Or Whumpee wakes up in a hospital but is restrained to the bed “for their own safety”
Whumpee is a living weapon or villain and everyone is scared of them - except Caretaker’s child
Whumpee who tries to be gentle and unassuming to win the favour of those around them
Make your whumpees fail (and then hurt them for it)
Whumpees being set up to fail and then being punished for it
Whumpees being given impossible tasks (but trying anyway)
Whumpees being promised rewards/reprieves under ridiculous conditions which will never occur.
Whumpees finally reaching milestones/targets where they were promised something good would happen, only to have whumper move the goalposts
Cold is an Earth Problem
Ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84543791/chapters/223053676#workskin
Chapter 2 here: https://www.tumblr.com/jigglycrow/817146459891908608/cold-is-an-earth-problem-2
Summary:
A failure in the Hail Mary's environmental controls traps the ship in a catastrophic cooling cycle. Grace has to fight failing systems, failing coordination and his own failing body. Rocky is trying to help solve a problem he doesn't understand.
Notes:
This is my first time posting anything fandom related for a long time! I haven't read the book but I loved the movie and definitely felt like there are lots of fun stories to be written in this universe. This story is set early on after Rocky comes aboard. I am not a scientist but I've tried my best to be accurate with maybe a touch of artistic licence...
Please let me know what you think!
Chapter One
Grace should have realised there was a problem two hours ago. He’d felt a little chill, buttoned up his cardigan and carried on working.
But a ‘chill’ could not and should not exist on a ship where the temperature was regulated to a constant, unwavering twenty-one degrees Celsius (or the less catchy two hundred and ninety-one point one five Kelvin).
Grace had always been switched off to his body’s signals when he was working – Hunger, thirst, exhaustion, bladder... They all faded to background noise when he was absorbed in his research.
But cold? Cold was an Earth problem. A ‘chill’ was not something he’d felt since he’d woken from his coma and he should have fucking realised two hours ago.
As usual it was Rocky who was the smarter of the two of them...
An hour after fastening his cardigan, Grace was rubbing his hands together, blowing into them as he squinted at the monitor.
“Why Grace do? Question.”
Grace frowned and looked sideways to where Rocky was perched in his xenotube, irritatingly close to Grace’s face as usual.
“What?”
Rocky brought up his front two appendages, running them against each other close to his flat, front-facing edge. He made one of those sounds like a small, metallic, wet fart, twice.
“Why Grace do this? Question.”
Grace frowned deeper.
“Okay, first of all, I do not sound like that. And second of all I’m cold so...”
“What is ‘cold’? Question.”
“Cold...” Grace repeated softly.
“Yes. Cold. Rocky not know ‘cold’...”
Rocky’s voice had faded into background noise as Grace stood to navigate to the environmental controls.
“Graaace? Hello? What is cold? Question. Rocky would like to know please.”
“Uh cold!” Grace snapped as he rubbed his hands again, dimly aware of Rocky mimicking the motion beside him. “Cold...it means reduced temperature. Lack of heat. And it shouldn’t...shouldn’t be happening.”
Grace pulled up the climate controls. The display read eighteen degrees. Not awful, but cold enough for a man who hadn’t experienced a degree lower than twenty-one in months. He separated his hands and gave the small plus sign three quick taps - remarkably the spaceship thermostat was much easier to operate than his AC back home. He stood back and waited for the heating systems to whirr to life.
Nothing.
“Hey, Mary! Adjust the heat.”
“Environmental controls are automated for crew safety,” Mary responded. She sounded smug. How the hell did a computerised voice sound smug? Well, Rocky was also technically a robotic voice and he managed it well enough.
“Have you been giving her lessons?” Grace muttered, giving Rocky a side-eyed glare as he jabbed at the control panel.
“No. Rocky no have time. Too much to teach Grace. No time teach Mary.”
Grace huffed and watched the figure on the display drop to seventeen.
“Mary override,” he demanded, jabbing at the panel again.
“Override of environmental controls requires authorisation of two crew members,” Mary informed Grace.
Grace pressed his lips together and exhaled slowly through his nose. “I don’t have two crew members...” he said through gritted teeth.
“Affirmative,” Mary agreed.
“So...”
“Override of environmental controls requires authorisation of two crew members.”
“Rocky is crew,” Rocky declared in response.
“No such designation on crew manifest.”
Grace pinched the bridge of his nose. The argument was bringing on a headache which was not helped by the temperature which had now dropped to sixteen and was becoming uncomfortable.
“Rocky is Captain.”
“Negative.”
“You are not the Captain,” Grace grumbled as he moved to a larger, more detailed terminal.
Rocky scuttled through the xenotube to peer over Grace’s shoulder with his crystal camera.
“Cold is bad? Question.”
“Too much cold is bad,” Grace agreed although the scientist within him died a little inside at his wording.
Grace skimmed through the menus – Oxygen levels, water filtration, humidity, air pressure, temperature. He skim-read the system operations manual, aware of the temperature dropping another degree.
“Okay...okay...” he bounced on his toes, hands tucked under his armpits as he read aloud. “The thermostat takes readings from four separate internal temperature probes to work out the average temperature...blah blah blah, okay, so why is it freezing?”
Grace shivered slightly, the tops of his ears and the end of his nose starting to prickle.
“Hey, Rocky, can you bring me my hat?”
“Yes. Rocky will bring hat.” Rocky replied enthusiastically before pausing mid-scuttle and half-turning around. “What is hat?”
Grace rolled his eyes. “Uhh, small fabric thing. Hole in the bottom, round on top. Goes on my head.”
Rocky mimicked the motion, raising and lowering his front two appendages in sync.
“Rocky will find Grace hat. Grace fix cold. Yes,” the Eridian declared confidently as he moved towards Grace’s bedroom.
“Yeah...” Grace repeated quietly to himself. “Grace fix cold...”
With fingers that were starting to tingle and turn red at the ends, Grace pulled up the ship schematics showing the four temperature probes. Three of them were indicated in a healthy green and reading a pleasant twenty-one degrees.
The fourth...
Grace looked at the fourth, glowing bright red and registering eighty-seven degrees Celsius.
“What the fuck?”
Grace was jolted from his musings by the unmistakable clunking of Rocky’s ball trundling along the metal floor.
“Rocky bring hat!” the Eridian announced proudly. His claw-like hand was just managing to hold onto the fabric through the xenomesh panel and-
“That is a *sock,” Grace gave a shuddering sigh, his teeth clenched.
Rocky leaned to one side, still holding the sock at the front of the ball.
“No...is hat. Small, round on top, hole in one end.”
Grace snatched the sock, his hands protesting as they were deprived of the warmth of his armpits.
“D-does th-this look like...i-it would fit on m-my h-head?” he demanded, his breath shuddering in his chest.
“Maybe stretch?” Rocky suggested and then paused for a moment. “Why Grace vibrating? Question.”
“Because I’m c-cold!” Grace snapped back and thumped his fist against the console. It didn’t relieve his frustration at all - his hand was so numb he barely felt it. He managed a quick glance over to the thermostat and saw the temperature reading was dropping rapidly and now read ten degrees.
His trembling finger jabbed at the console, trying to take the defective temperature probe offline.
“Override of environmental controls requires authorisation of two crew members,” Mary reminded him.
Grace cursed and resorted to Plan B. He moved, quickly - or tried to. The cold was a presence now, seeking out every patch of exposed skin and settling there, leeching away heat in a painful, prickling onslaught. The astronaut clenched and unclenched his fists as he walked. His fingers curled and uncurled slowly. He shoved one of his hands inside the not-hat-sock that Rocky had brought. It took away some of the bite but by now the cold felt bone-deep.
He walked, slightly hunched, towards the med bay, picking up every stray item of clothing he found scattered across the floor and clumsily tugging it on.
“S-see?” he glared at Rocky trundling beside him. “Not m-m-messy. T-tactical.”
“Grace get big to fight cold? Question?”
“Layers, R-Rocky. L-layers t-trap heat.”
Grace could see his breath misting the air as he entered the med bay. Small puffs of carbon dioxide formed damp clouds in the icy air. Undeniable proof of how incredibly screwed he was.
“Grace is evaporating? Question?”
“N-not...vap...f-fuck!”
Grace stumbled to the cabinet, supplies clattered to the floor as he fumbled in the cupboard. Amidst the clatter of plastic and metal, he could hear Rocky’s quiet panic.
“Oh no. Bad. Bad. Bad...”
And then, finally, Grace found the little plastic packets containing the insulating foil blankets. He tried to pinch the top to tear open the packaging but his fingers twitched uselessly, the packet fluttering in his trembling grip.
“Fuck...”
Grace cursed and felt tears spring to his eyes. It was the closest he’d come to feeling any sort of warmth in hours.
He tried again. Tried to squash the packet between the palms of his hands and bite the wrapper with his teeth but they were chattering too much for any kind of control.
The noise of his teeth chattering together was a constant, staccato rattle that made it hard to concentrate on anything else. Grace’s tears were freezing on his face, eyelashes crusting together. For a moment the med-bay was a misty, fractalised blur. It was almost...beautiful*...
“Grace!”
Rocky’s voice jolted Grace back to reality. He scrubbed his forearm across his eyes and the world came back into focus.
“Grace?”
“C-can’t... N-n-need t-to...”
Grace lurched from the med bay, the square packets of emergency blankets crinkling under his shambling footsteps. He didn’t remember dropping them.
“Grace!”
“Need...”
Grace stumbled to his sleeping quarters on instinct more than logic. He grabbed the colourful patchwork blanket and wrapped it around himself. He’d expected to feel warmth but he felt nothing. There was no body heat to trap.
“Grace!”
“W-w-what?!” Grace snapped at Rocky who was still in his ball, sitting at Grace’s ankles.
“Grace spacesuit own atmosphere. Own temperature! Grace wear. Grace be warm. Grace go fix temperature probe.”
It took a frighteningly long time for Grace’s sluggish mind to process the suggestion. Of course. Of course.
But...
Grace looked down at his hands, pale white and tinged with blue. His fingers were curled towards his palm and it took every ounce of strength and concentration he had to unfurl them even for a few seconds. He’d never manage the intricate movements needed to prep and dress in the suit.
He shivered again, his body struggling like a misfiring engine.
“I c-can’t, Rocky...” he mumbled, tears forming and freezing on his cheeks before they even had a chance to fall.
“I’m too cold.”
Thank you for reading!
I love reading and writing whump as a genre. If you do too, please consider joining the Whump Lovers' Collaborate Discord: https://discord.gg/A8wCWnGuH
I mostly write OC fiction and am working on my original novel Blackmere Rising. It's a forbidden mxm romance between the son of a crime lord and his bodyguard. If you're interested in that sort of thing then please give me a follow or drop me a message
love whumpees who are like...feral alley cats. little bastards. scared, touch-starved gremlins who had their trust in humanity broken one too many times. absolute menaces to society who bite and promptly flinch back, expecting to be hit.
He didn’t remember sitting down. He didn’t remember leaving his bedroom. But somehow Grace came to realise that he was sat on the laboratory floor. The sheet metal was painfully cold, the walls too. Even the air itself was made of ice. Breathing felt like needles in his throat.
Chapter Two
He’d been going somewhere. Somewhere important. But he was cold and tired and it felt so much better just to sit for a while and close his eyes...
“Grace!”
A voice. Sharp. Loud. A thump against his thigh made it hard to fall asleep.
“Grace!”
Grace forced his eyes open, squinted through the blur to look at...who? What?
“Rocky?...”
“Grace need to get up. Statement. Grace need to fix probe.”
*Probe... Fix...*
The words floated somewhere out of meaning - somewhere in a world beyond cold metal and frozen air. Somewhere a woman with green eyes and strawberry blonde hair was sitting across the table and telling him ’You are my solution.’
Grace forced his eyes open again. He turned his head slowly and stared down the hallway. The broken temperature sensor was down there, somewhere near the reactor.
“Long way....”
“Not long way. Short way. Grace go fix probe. Now. Statement.”
*‘You’re smart, you’ll figure it out.’*
Grace looked again, the hallway a disorientating blur of metal and light. His leg twitched once, heavy and useless.
“Some of us...” it took Grace a moment to drag another shivering puff of air into his frozen, exhausted lungs so he could speak again. “...Are failures.”
Another thump at his thigh and then a jab, firm and insistent.
“Grace get up.”
“I can’t.”
“Can. Must. Grace fix temperature or Grace die.”
Die. He didn’t want to die....
He was on his stomach. Pressure on his back, bodies piling on top of him. The needle in his neck. Grace thrashed weakly. He pushed off the grass where they had him pinned and felt cold sheet metal under his palms.
“Up Grace.”
Grace heaved himself to his feet. The impact of Rocky’s habitat ball bumping constantly and deliberately against his ankles kept him stumbling forward; small steps, hand braced against the wall.
“Yes Grace walk. Grace fix probe now. No sit.”
Grace tried to count his steps. He felt heavy and sluggish, his limbs stiff and unresponsive. Hard to move. Hard to breathe. He was swamped in the layers of clothes he’d wrapped himself up in. Surely he’d move easier if he...took...them off?
There’d be less weight in his chest.
Yeah. He should probably...
He slipped out of the cardigan with relative ease but his hands struggled with the hem of the NASA sweatshirt he didn’t remember putting on underneath it. He leaned forward, stumbling a few paces as he dragged it up and over his head.
“Grace, no. Why Grace get naked? No. Grace keep clothes on. Grace keep layers. Layers trap heat.”
Rocky was circling around Grace’s feet, his voice fretful and insistent. He just didn’t understand but Grace could explain it...
“It’s alright, Rocky...” Grace mumbled as he pulled off another tee shirt. Already it was easier to move and he managed another few stumbled paces forward towards the panel that housed the reactor room’s temperature probe.
“See..s’better...” Grace tried to explain. It was still hard to breathe, even now he was down to just a thin cotton tee shirt. His arms looked a strange white-ish blue, like they belonged to someone else. Maybe something else.
“Rocky...am I an alien too?” Grace wondered aloud. It was a big thought. A thought that he needed to sit down and think about properly. His knees buckled as if even the thinking of the idea was permission enough for them to give up.
“Yes. Grace alien. Grace human. Humans get cold. Too much cold bad. Grace tell Rocky this. No. No. No. No. No sit.”
He was almost within reaching distance of the temperature sensor now. He could see it, a small metal probe that was dangling down the ship’s wall instead of sitting snug in its casing. The wire was frayed and almost severed from where it had been rubbing against one of the bulkheads.
“Fuck...” Grace whispered quietly as he knelt and stared at the issue. It felt impossible. More than impossible. It felt beyond his comprehension. His weary, sluggish brain could recognise the problem but finding a solution... that sounded hard. He was too tired.
“There! Yes! Grace see probe? Grace unplug from broken cable. Statement. Now. Do now.”
“Unplug?” Grace reached out weakly, the back of his hand brushing the probe. His limbs were spasmed, curled things that seemed to jerk and move of their own accord. He let out a quiet shuddering sigh. “Can’t.”
“Again.” Rocky demanded.
“I just...I need to sleep...and then...”
“No. No sleep. Grace no sleep.” Rocky stamped inside his ball and the noise reverberated through the floor and through Grace’s frozen body. “Again. Grace unplug probe. Now. Do now.”
“Fuck,” Grace cursed again and reached out, inch by agonising inch. His hand uncurled briefly and then closed again. He felt nothing, like he’d snatched only air, but Rocky trilled, loud and delighted.
“Now Grace pull. Pull hard. Now. Now. Now.”
Grace stared down at his hand and tried to process the instruction.
“Grace pull. Arm. Pull. Now. Now!”
Grace yanked his arm backwards in one jerking, rapid movement. The probe separated from the cable with ease and the momentum sent Grace sprawling the rest of the way to the floor. He lay, shivering, the broken probe still clutched in his fist as Mary began to whir to life around him.
“Warning. Temperature levels critically low. Temperature adjustment in progress.”
Grace might have laughed, if he had the strength. Instead he lay, curled on the floor of the reactor room, Rocky rolling himself until he was pressed against Grace’s torso.
“Grace fix...” the Eridian said almost softly and knocked, hard, on the side of the ball, painfully close to Grace’s head. “No sleep. Stay awake.”
“Still no sleep?” Grace frowned. “You said I fix...”
“No sleep.”
“Alright...” Grace mumbled, curling tighter around Rocky’s ball. “No sleep.”
They stayed that way for a while, Grace pale and still, curled around Rocky who made a racket every time Grace even blinked for too long. Grace couldn’t say how long they stayed that way, time was stretched and distorted and didn’t seem to matter. Nothing touched him any more except the noise of Rocky keeping him semi-awake.
The shivering started in Grace’s teeth this time. The feel and sound of them clattering together woke him from his almost stupor. He’d stopped shaking a while ago, his body having had the sense to give up its futile attempts to generate heat and put all its focus into keeping him alive. Now, as the air temperature in the ship slowly warmed up, his body was trying again.
Rocky startled at the noise, turning in his ball in a panic.
“Why Grace vibrating again? Grace worse? Grace unplug probe. Mary fix temperature. Why not better? Question.”
“S-s-still c-cold...” Grace stammered out. He stared down at his shaking hands, looking at the goose-pimpled flesh on his bare arms and-
Bare arms?
“C-clothes?” he stammered. Where were his clothes? Grace lifted his chin from his chest enough to look down the corridor where Rocky was pointing.
“Rocky say no take off clothes. Grace do anyway.”
Grace shot Rocky the fiercest glare he could muster which was utterly pathetic.
“Grace wrong.” Rocky said as he stood up a little taller in his ball.
Grace groaned and closed his eyes. *Not the time, Rocky...*
“Rocky correct,” the Eridian continued, preening in his ball. That smug tone was back again.
Grace groaned again, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to look at the discarded clothes or Rocky.
“No sleep!” Rocky reminded him with a singular, loud BANG on his ball. “Grace need to get up. Grace need to get off floor. Grace need to put on clothes. Grace need-“
“A-alright!” Grace tried to snap. His voice still came out as a stuttering whisper despite his best efforts.
Grace was just starting to think about moving when he felt it for the first time – a piercing, needle-like pain at the tip of his index finger. He winced and inhaled a sharp hiss of air through his teeth. The pain faded after a few seconds, then struck again. His ring finger this time. Then his big toe. Ring finger. Tip of nose. Little toe. Littlefingerbottomofheelrightindexfingertipofleftear-
“Ow!”
Grace screwed his eyes shut as his nerve endings reignited in a cacophony of pain fireworking through his extremities. Sensation returned in a stinging, prickling, speckled agony. There was no escape from it, the pain was in him, a fierce torrent of inescapable sensory overwhelm spreading from his hands and feet to his whole body.
He keened, a high whine from the back of his throat. His breath hissed in and out though his clenched teeth in rapid, shallow pants, punctuated only by a quiet curse or yelp of pain when the agony spiked.
“Grace? What happening?”
Grace wanted to tell Rocky that this was actually a good thing. Somewhere beyond the pain, the scientist within him was reminding him that this was a good thing, that his body was warming up and blood flow was returning to his extremities.
What he actually managed was something that sounded like “Hrrrnnnggghhhhhh.”
Rocky trilled something that matched the length and pitch of Grace’s exclamation. “What is ‘hrnnnnnnggghhhh’? Question. Don’t know that word. Is bad?”
“N-no...” Grace managed to grind out through clenched teeth. “Is....it’s g-good. Just fucking hurts.”
“Is good?” Rocky checked, scuttling in his ball, running laps around Grace as he lay on the floor.
“Grace be okay? Question.” he asked, manoeuvring himself next to Grace’s head.
Notes:
“Yeah...” Grace answered quietly, resting his forehead against the smooth xenonite of Rocky’s habitat ball. “Grace be okay.”
END
Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you liked it!
I love reading and writing whump as a genre. If you do too, please consider joining the Whump Lovers' Collaborate Discord: https://discord.gg/A8wCWnGuH
I mostly write OC fiction and am working on my original novel Blackmere Rising. It's a forbidden mxm romance between the son of a crime lord and his bodyguard. If you're interested in that sort of thing then please give me a follow or drop me a message!
Cold is an Earth Problem
Ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84543791/chapters/223053676#workskin
Chapter 2 here: https://www.tumblr.com/jigglycrow/817146459891908608/cold-is-an-earth-problem-2
Summary:
A failure in the Hail Mary's environmental controls traps the ship in a catastrophic cooling cycle. Grace has to fight failing systems, failing coordination and his own failing body. Rocky is trying to help solve a problem he doesn't understand.
Notes:
This is my first time posting anything fandom related for a long time! I haven't read the book but I loved the movie and definitely felt like there are lots of fun stories to be written in this universe. This story is set early on after Rocky comes aboard. I am not a scientist but I've tried my best to be accurate with maybe a touch of artistic licence...
Please let me know what you think!
Chapter One
Grace should have realised there was a problem two hours ago. He’d felt a little chill, buttoned up his cardigan and carried on working.
But a ‘chill’ could not and should not exist on a ship where the temperature was regulated to a constant, unwavering twenty-one degrees Celsius (or the less catchy two hundred and ninety-one point one five Kelvin).
Grace had always been switched off to his body’s signals when he was working – Hunger, thirst, exhaustion, bladder... They all faded to background noise when he was absorbed in his research.
But cold? Cold was an Earth problem. A ‘chill’ was not something he’d felt since he’d woken from his coma and he should have fucking realised two hours ago.
As usual it was Rocky who was the smarter of the two of them...
An hour after fastening his cardigan, Grace was rubbing his hands together, blowing into them as he squinted at the monitor.
“Why Grace do? Question.”
Grace frowned and looked sideways to where Rocky was perched in his xenotube, irritatingly close to Grace’s face as usual.
“What?”
Rocky brought up his front two appendages, running them against each other close to his flat, front-facing edge. He made one of those sounds like a small, metallic, wet fart, twice.
“Why Grace do this? Question.”
Grace frowned deeper.
“Okay, first of all, I do not sound like that. And second of all I’m cold so...”
“What is ‘cold’? Question.”
“Cold...” Grace repeated softly.
“Yes. Cold. Rocky not know ‘cold’...”
Rocky’s voice had faded into background noise as Grace stood to navigate to the environmental controls.
“Graaace? Hello? What is cold? Question. Rocky would like to know please.”
“Uh cold!” Grace snapped as he rubbed his hands again, dimly aware of Rocky mimicking the motion beside him. “Cold...it means reduced temperature. Lack of heat. And it shouldn’t...shouldn’t be happening.”
Grace pulled up the climate controls. The display read eighteen degrees. Not awful, but cold enough for a man who hadn’t experienced a degree lower than twenty-one in months. He separated his hands and gave the small plus sign three quick taps - remarkably the spaceship thermostat was much easier to operate than his AC back home. He stood back and waited for the heating systems to whirr to life.
Nothing.
“Hey, Mary! Adjust the heat.”
“Environmental controls are automated for crew safety,” Mary responded. She sounded smug. How the hell did a computerised voice sound smug? Well, Rocky was also technically a robotic voice and he managed it well enough.
“Have you been giving her lessons?” Grace muttered, giving Rocky a side-eyed glare as he jabbed at the control panel.
“No. Rocky no have time. Too much to teach Grace. No time teach Mary.”
Grace huffed and watched the figure on the display drop to seventeen.
“Mary override,” he demanded, jabbing at the panel again.
“Override of environmental controls requires authorisation of two crew members,” Mary informed Grace.
Grace pressed his lips together and exhaled slowly through his nose. “I don’t have two crew members...” he said through gritted teeth.
“Affirmative,” Mary agreed.
“So...”
“Override of environmental controls requires authorisation of two crew members.”
“Rocky is crew,” Rocky declared in response.
“No such designation on crew manifest.”
Grace pinched the bridge of his nose. The argument was bringing on a headache which was not helped by the temperature which had now dropped to sixteen and was becoming uncomfortable.
“Rocky is Captain.”
“Negative.”
“You are not the Captain,” Grace grumbled as he moved to a larger, more detailed terminal.
Rocky scuttled through the xenotube to peer over Grace’s shoulder with his crystal camera.
“Cold is bad? Question.”
“Too much cold is bad,” Grace agreed although the scientist within him died a little inside at his wording.
Grace skimmed through the menus – Oxygen levels, water filtration, humidity, air pressure, temperature. He skim-read the system operations manual, aware of the temperature dropping another degree.
“Okay...okay...” he bounced on his toes, hands tucked under his armpits as he read aloud. “The thermostat takes readings from four separate internal temperature probes to work out the average temperature...blah blah blah, okay, so why is it freezing?”
Grace shivered slightly, the tops of his ears and the end of his nose starting to prickle.
“Hey, Rocky, can you bring me my hat?”
“Yes. Rocky will bring hat.” Rocky replied enthusiastically before pausing mid-scuttle and half-turning around. “What is hat?”
Grace rolled his eyes. “Uhh, small fabric thing. Hole in the bottom, round on top. Goes on my head.”
Rocky mimicked the motion, raising and lowering his front two appendages in sync.
“Rocky will find Grace hat. Grace fix cold. Yes,” the Eridian declared confidently as he moved towards Grace’s bedroom.
“Yeah...” Grace repeated quietly to himself. “Grace fix cold...”
With fingers that were starting to tingle and turn red at the ends, Grace pulled up the ship schematics showing the four temperature probes. Three of them were indicated in a healthy green and reading a pleasant twenty-one degrees.
The fourth...
Grace looked at the fourth, glowing bright red and registering eighty-seven degrees Celsius.
“What the fuck?”
Grace was jolted from his musings by the unmistakable clunking of Rocky’s ball trundling along the metal floor.
“Rocky bring hat!” the Eridian announced proudly. His claw-like hand was just managing to hold onto the fabric through the xenomesh panel and-
“That is a *sock,” Grace gave a shuddering sigh, his teeth clenched.
Rocky leaned to one side, still holding the sock at the front of the ball.
“No...is hat. Small, round on top, hole in one end.”
Grace snatched the sock, his hands protesting as they were deprived of the warmth of his armpits.
“D-does th-this look like...i-it would fit on m-my h-head?” he demanded, his breath shuddering in his chest.
“Maybe stretch?” Rocky suggested and then paused for a moment. “Why Grace vibrating? Question.”
“Because I’m c-cold!” Grace snapped back and thumped his fist against the console. It didn’t relieve his frustration at all - his hand was so numb he barely felt it. He managed a quick glance over to the thermostat and saw the temperature reading was dropping rapidly and now read ten degrees.
His trembling finger jabbed at the console, trying to take the defective temperature probe offline.
“Override of environmental controls requires authorisation of two crew members,” Mary reminded him.
Grace cursed and resorted to Plan B. He moved, quickly - or tried to. The cold was a presence now, seeking out every patch of exposed skin and settling there, leeching away heat in a painful, prickling onslaught. The astronaut clenched and unclenched his fists as he walked. His fingers curled and uncurled slowly. He shoved one of his hands inside the not-hat-sock that Rocky had brought. It took away some of the bite but by now the cold felt bone-deep.
He walked, slightly hunched, towards the med bay, picking up every stray item of clothing he found scattered across the floor and clumsily tugging it on.
“S-see?” he glared at Rocky trundling beside him. “Not m-m-messy. T-tactical.”
“Grace get big to fight cold? Question?”
“Layers, R-Rocky. L-layers t-trap heat.”
Grace could see his breath misting the air as he entered the med bay. Small puffs of carbon dioxide formed damp clouds in the icy air. Undeniable proof of how incredibly screwed he was.
“Grace is evaporating? Question?”
“N-not...vap...f-fuck!”
Grace stumbled to the cabinet, supplies clattered to the floor as he fumbled in the cupboard. Amidst the clatter of plastic and metal, he could hear Rocky’s quiet panic.
“Oh no. Bad. Bad. Bad...”
And then, finally, Grace found the little plastic packets containing the insulating foil blankets. He tried to pinch the top to tear open the packaging but his fingers twitched uselessly, the packet fluttering in his trembling grip.
“Fuck...”
Grace cursed and felt tears spring to his eyes. It was the closest he’d come to feeling any sort of warmth in hours.
He tried again. Tried to squash the packet between the palms of his hands and bite the wrapper with his teeth but they were chattering too much for any kind of control.
The noise of his teeth chattering together was a constant, staccato rattle that made it hard to concentrate on anything else. Grace’s tears were freezing on his face, eyelashes crusting together. For a moment the med-bay was a misty, fractalised blur. It was almost...beautiful*...
“Grace!”
Rocky’s voice jolted Grace back to reality. He scrubbed his forearm across his eyes and the world came back into focus.
“Grace?”
“C-can’t... N-n-need t-to...”
Grace lurched from the med bay, the square packets of emergency blankets crinkling under his shambling footsteps. He didn’t remember dropping them.
“Grace!”
“Need...”
Grace stumbled to his sleeping quarters on instinct more than logic. He grabbed the colourful patchwork blanket and wrapped it around himself. He’d expected to feel warmth but he felt nothing. There was no body heat to trap.
“Grace!”
“W-w-what?!” Grace snapped at Rocky who was still in his ball, sitting at Grace’s ankles.
“Grace spacesuit own atmosphere. Own temperature! Grace wear. Grace be warm. Grace go fix temperature probe.”
It took a frighteningly long time for Grace’s sluggish mind to process the suggestion. Of course. Of course.
But...
Grace looked down at his hands, pale white and tinged with blue. His fingers were curled towards his palm and it took every ounce of strength and concentration he had to unfurl them even for a few seconds. He’d never manage the intricate movements needed to prep and dress in the suit.
He shivered again, his body struggling like a misfiring engine.
“I c-can’t, Rocky...” he mumbled, tears forming and freezing on his cheeks before they even had a chance to fall.
“I’m too cold.”
Thank you for reading!
I love reading and writing whump as a genre. If you do too, please consider joining the Whump Lovers' Collaborate Discord: https://discord.gg/A8wCWnGuH
I mostly write OC fiction and am working on my original novel Blackmere Rising. It's a forbidden mxm romance between the son of a crime lord and his bodyguard. If you're interested in that sort of thing then please give me a follow or drop me a message
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