Obsessing over my ocs so bad I need to do a writing exercise.
On our way home
[A Project Hail Mary oc drabble]
Summary: Chrys and Captain spend a peaceful moment together on the long trip back to Erid, helping each other come to terms with their guilt about their missions' failure.
There are 350 bolts in this patch of ceiling. Riveting.
"Why are you being pathetic, question?" Came an ambiguous voice over the loudspeakers, proceeded by melodic chirping and a tap-tap from their left. They turn their head.
Past the iridescent gleam of a transparent barrier, a crystalline creature sat with its legs tucked underneath its jagged thorax. One of five limbs poked a sharp claw into a slate of firm putty, lazily drawing an approximate portrait of the very bored human laying on the floor.
"I'm not." They denied passively. "It's only boredom. I find myself short of things to do."
And it was true. Though they were three years out to Erid yet, they had ran out of entertainment some time ago. It was a long, long 6 years to Tau Ceti.
"Careless." Accused the spider-esqe rock. "What were you meant to do had you gone home? Count bolts for 16 Earth-years, question?"
That's the return trip their remaining fuel would have allowed, had they not met their friend. Admittedly not a great possibly to think about.
"I hardly had a choice. There wasn't much cargo space left for recreational material with two and a half decades worth of rations."
"Human design flaw. Should eat less often."
The human ā Captain, their name is now ā scoffs, though the heat is absent. They prop themself on their elbows and glare at their alien comrade.
"Some doctor you are. You're so cruel to me, Chrys. Have I not done right by you?"
The Eridian chirps what amounts to a chuckle.
"You broke one of my hull robots trying to dock to my ship. You are a net loss to me."
"Unbelievable." They glance off to the side in mock offense. "I'm so unappreciated here. My own computer AI treats me better than my best friend. Isn't that right? You love me, don't you, Icarus?"
The ship does not respond. The prompt wasn't clear enough.
"Wow."
"Again. Pathetic."
Shaking their head with a slight smile, they lay back down and roll onto their side, observing their companion. They would watch it draw, but studying what sat beneath its transparent green shell always demanded more attention. They hope it won't notice. It hates when they do that.
"What about you?" They prompt, cheek in arm. "What would you have done on the way home by yourself?"
It stills for a moment, but continues drawing. It was no longer them- it was some...odd seven legged creature.
"I would not have gone home alone." Chrys sings, the monotone drawl of the translation overhead not doing its somber tone justice. "Would have kept looking for lost crew. Would have died like my crew, without finding you."
Captain sat up, slow like the approach of a sore subject demanded.
"...You know that wasn't your fault, right?" They assure quietly.
The drawing pauses. Captain furrows their brows.
"...Chrys?"
"I know." It warbles. "We didn't know. We couldn't have."
Cosmic radiation. Eridians never had a chance to discover it, with their impenetrable atmosphere. Chrys's crew... and most certainly the Astrophage research ship they were sent to bring home, was all lost to it.
Chrys, their medic... has to return alone and empty handed.
"But do you believe it?" They prod, touching the tips of their fingers to the warm surface of the xenonite barrier.
Chrys does not reply immediately. Instead, it takes the small offer of comfort and shuffles closer to click its claws against the wall as well.
"I will." It sounds tired. "You will keep bothering me until I do."
"I absolutely will."
The silence is welcome after that. Chrys smooths over its tablet to erase the lines while Captain rolls prone and closes their eyes. The combined hum of the two ships, attached precariously by their airlocks as they were, was a pleasant constant.
It was unprompted, when the Eridian decided speak again.
"Do you need to be reminded, question?"
"Of what?" They mutter, disengaged.
"Of it not being your fault."
Their single heart stutters in their chest. They were sure it heard.
"...Mine are very, very different circumstances, Chrys." They say carefully, not really wanting to have this conversation again.
"Irrelevant. You only did what you had to."
It was so incredibly, painfully insistent on that. Even though it knew exactly what they did. They had to explain, when asked what their constellation of small tattoos meant. Building a spaceship was expensive, especially alone. There was good money in taking hits.
They remembered all their names.
"I really didn't, Chrys." They really, really would like to talk about anything else. "That...that all wasn't worth bringing three corpses back to bury on a dead planet. I didn't even find them."
They rolled over, as if that would help, their back to the barrier.
"...It was for nothing."
Pointed clicks rattle off in a short sequence behind them. Chrys was watching closely, sensing their very lungs struggle to expand evenly. They tried not to shiver.
"It was for him." It corrected.
They freeze.
"You wanted to bring your parent home." It chirped, low as if mourning the loss of the man they never met. "There was only one way. Only ways are not always good ones."
"Dr. Grace wasn't really my father, Chrys..."
"He was to you. That's all the justification you should need."
Insane. Absolutely mind boggling, they way this walking snow globe of organs wanted them to justify serial murder.
"And-" it continued, tone lighter, "-if it helps. You found me."
That got them to pause.
"You can't regret me, can you, question?"
"Cheeky. I suppose I can't."
With a grunt, Captain sits up and leans back against the barrier. They feel Chrys do the same.
"We'll just have to make a mutual agreement." They concede, letting their head fall back with a dull thunk, "No feeling guilty allowed on-board the 'Daedalus-Icarus'."
Daedalus is what they named its ship, since Eridians apparently didn't do names for vessels. It had to match with theirs, if they were gonna be merged into one like this for half a decade.
"What about after we land on Erid, question?" Chrys countered, amused.
"Then we'll find a good therapist, Chrys."
The chirping laughter brought the easy smile back to their face in an instant.
Mind Cap's scuba gear. Their ship has an entire room that's just full of water that they hang out in most of the flight time to Tau Ceti. It lets them accelerate faster.
"Why is this room full of liquid, question?"
"Anti-G. I sleep in there."
"For this speed? This is barely anything! You're soft. Pity pity pity."
"...I want you to know that your organs are angled slightly engine-side as we speak. I hope that makes you uncomfortable."
Their ship's name is Icarus, loosely modeled after an F-22 Raptor. Icarus' software is a much looser AI than Mary, more of a learning model than an automated system. He codes the translation between his passangers himself rather than them having to do it manually like Grace and Rocky did.
"You're not like...radioactive, are you? You look radioactive."
"The fuck is that, question-"
"...oh boy."
"Captain" is not actually their name. Chrys assumed it was, because Icarus calls them that when they exit and enter the ship again.
"Welcome aboard, Captain."
"Thank you, Icarus."
"WHERE IS IT COMING FROM-"
Chrys is short for Chrysoberyl, which is also not their name but the human translation demanded one. Their carapace is made entirely of crystal and is thus see through- though they never knew, until they met Cap. It was very distressing information!
Chrys did not come to space alone, but their 4 crewmates died on the way there. Their ship is about the size of the Blip-A, as it was built with the intention of bringing the 23 lost sailors home.
Icarus was not a state funded project whatsoever. Captain built him in secret on an abandoned ranch in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
Each of their star tattoos represent a person they had to kill for bloodmoney. They put one of them halfway onto the back of their hand specifically so standard long sleeves will never be able to cover it fully. They are painful reminders, but necessary ones.
Chrys volunteered for their mission because their mate was a pilot aboard the Blip-A. Cap is there specifically to lay Grace, their once-teacher and sole father figure to rest, though they would also have taken YƔo and Ilyukhina as courtesy. They bond over their loss.
Project Icarus acronyms to PI, so Cap uses the pi symbol as their mission patch. They felt like the late Dr. Grace would appreciate the humour of it when they met again.
With Captain expecting only a dead world for them return to, them and Chrys never actually seperate, and head back to Erid together once their missions deem obsolete. They return 4-5 years after Mary, and find their targets already home. They can't even be mad about it. They got to find eachother, after all.
...wow this AU is a lot more oc x oc(techincally reader) than I was planning it to be. Grace mostly just haunts the narrative-- These two are happily sailing home while the man is dying of scurvy on Erid.
Granted I can go more into the canon characters in the Erid Arc but the first Arc is mostly just these two. And I am very okay with it-
Platonic Ryland Grace & Reader fanfiction but instead of a fellow astronaut reader is an abused student of his that saw him as a father and fell into a complete obsession over rescuing him
They throw themselves into scientific study and turn to less than legal (or moral) methods to gather the parts and supplies necessary to build a spaceship and fly after the Hail Mary. Because he's still there. He may already be dead but they'd bring him home anyway. Because they want to be the one to see him last. Because even if their ship breaks down before they ever get there, dying amongst the stars light-years away would still feel closer to him than dying on the freezing battlefield earth would become. Because that man is the closest thing to family they ever had and they will relieve him of his duty by hand
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