#miraengineer

[mirafirstmate]

he doesn’t know what he expected of alien planets, but this? this is definitely not it. a shrill screech of feedback in his ear has red tearing out his comms with a colourful stream of expletives to let you know exactly what he thinks about their situation.   

       ❝ this is bullshit, kane, ❞   he growls, frustration written across his brow as plainly as he’d made his opinion known. they’ve been on the ground for hours dealing with the shoddy comms and, last they’d heard, the skeld weren’t fairing any better than half its number on the ground. something something, the atmosphere is full of fuck knows what and it’s causing one hell of an interference. then again, max hasn’t ever been nelson’s biggest fan and half of him’s keen to chalk it up to shoddy workmanship and corners cut — not that he has any proof beyond the little things going to pot aboard the ship ( he’s keeping a mental list : the oxygen cutting out, their comms on the fritz, a myriad of electrical issues too numerous to list... ) — shit, isn’t that enough?   ❝ i’ve had it – i’ve had it. ❞   he’s been fighting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach since they’d last heard from blue and the rest but this latest loss of contact is the final nail in the coffin.   ❝ we’re packing it in, finding hero and the lot, and heading home. we can try again after we recoup. ❞   ...and after he restrains himself from wringing po’s neck. it’d probably be at least a little counterproductive to figuring out the issue, y’know?

@miraengineer​ //

[mirafirstmate]

@miraengineer said :  ❝ how do i know you’re real? ❞

wrists bound together with industrial zip ties, red has his hands curled into fists, short nails digging into palms. anger, hurt, coursing through him as he struggles violently against the idea that this family that he’d fallen into turned on him so quickly. he’s just trying to protect them, why can’t they see? his job is to protect them and now he’s awaiting a goddamn death sentence for doing just that.

head hanging, eyes closed as he fights the overwhelming wave of nausea intent on rising in his throat.   ❝ you don’t, ❞   comes a beleaguered reply, voice breaking despite his every effort to keep it from doing exactly that. not helping your case, here, max. blinking, his usually strong gaze wavers, awash with the emotion roiling in his stomach, as it rises to meet kane’s.   ❝ please, kane, please don’t let them do this to me. ❞   begging. it’s a new look for him, this survived prisoner of war who has steeled himself against death more times than one man should have to in a lifetime.        --- perhaps this change comes about because it feels more real now. here. in the quiet loneliness of space. fitting, he thinks ( but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to give up this life, this family found amongst the stars for which he’d searched all his life ).

[mirafirstmate]

@miraengineer said :  “ i’ve been alone for so long i’m afraid i don’t know what it’s like not to be. ”

he’s leaning casually against a console as if he belongs there. as if kane isn’t busy scrubbing away at the gore of a terrible scene. as if he hadn’t been unceremoniously shot out of the airlock. there may be a bluish tint to his lips, if you were to look close enough... then again, it might just be the way the light shines from the monitors. 

a hum, arms cross as red looks around the empty room but for kane,   ❝ might have to get used to it a whole lot faster than you’d like. ❞ he looks sad, then, lips pursing as though there were something more he wants to ask but he’s hesitating to say what he really wants, settling instead on something more general. ❝ how’re the rest holding up? ❞

[mirafirstmate]

@miraengineer​ / kane asked :  "Whose idea of a fun time is this?"  movie night when hero picks the movie

in all honesty, he’d never in his life watched a romcom back on earth. maybe that’s why he’s being punished like this, now, two years into a six year mission where he’s seen more in the last week than he’d ever care to have seen in his forty years. 

       red turns with a snort as kane sidles up beside him with the commentary, hand running roughly through his own hair before arms are stretched out across the back of the sofa.   ❝ fuck if i know. ❞   his lips betray him as they twist upward into a grin he’d much rather stifle,   ❝ -- please tell me you’ve better options when they, ❞   here he pauses to throw a kind-hearted glare at hero and blue who are too busy deciding which film they’re about to rewatch for the fifth time this month to pay any real attention to red’s teasing,   ❝ relinquish their iron-clad control over movie night. ❞ 

[mirafirstmate]

alright. this is it. he’s finally going to tell jay everything. lay it all out on the table, consequences — duty be damned. they’ve got years left of this mission, still, and he’s not gonna make it to the end if they keep dancing around each other the way they’ve been.

admittedly, he’s nervous – and that’s the state in which kane catches him. hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he hovers outside of admin, second-guessing the entire pep talk he’d been muttering to himself since breakfast. 

@miraengineer said :  ‘ i need you. ’

if his reaction is delayed, it’s because he’s still trying to psych himself up, but he catches a glimpse of white hair in his periphery and the words filter through.   ❝ you — ? ❞   he starts, gaze dragging from the closed doors down to the engineer. the disappointment that sourly twists at his lips is quickly tucked away as he nods. ( duty calls ).   ❝ yeah, of course. you need another lift? ❞

[mirafirstmate]

@miraengineer​ said :  “ you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. ”

max’s brow crumples in consternation as his brain frantically flips through five and a half separate translators in the space it takes to blink, swallow, and then shake his head to redouble his insistence.   ❝ no, ❞   he pulls in a breath to follow up his disagreement but kane’s confidence is starting to make him doubt himself.   ❝ it’s... it is french, isn’t it? ❞   max speaks french. as fluent as he is in english and half a step more so than his italian and portuguese. the frown twists at his lips. it’s the ones like german and any that didn’t use the latin alphabet as its primary that had always given him trouble, not the romance languages. he huffs, arms crossing.   ❝ i know it’s well above grade school learning but i’m certain i’m correct. ❞

[mirafirstmate]

anon said :  someone kidnapped blue and kane. // @miracaptain​ & @miraengineer

there’s a quiet fury that’s overcome him — the rest of the crew has been avoiding him as best they can, but it’s fallen on poor moni and jaz to act as the go-between as navigator and pilot to his, now, first-in-command. the two pass glances that they think he doesn’t notice, but they only serve to frustrate him further. teeth grit together so hard he’s surprised none of them have cracked.  

someone once asked how his stress manifests. the reality is that it depends. in this moment? where two of the people he’s grown closest to have been taken? here it is sharp words and sleepless stretches that would otherwise waylay him. it’s an overabundance of caffeine. not enough food until he notices the plate that hero had left on the corner of his station in admin. dark eyes staring at the scanners until they are burning, begging him to blink – but he can’t. he’s too busy searching for any sign of a blip that might indicate where his people were taken. 

when they’re located, he leads the rescue mission despite the warnings when ari, doc, and po corner him insistent that, maybe, he had done enough and should let the rest of the crew take this one. that he deserves to rest. but, as much as he trusts them all with his life, he can’t sit this out. ( he’d’ve paced holes into the floor ). and, besides, the anger that had been simmering, roiling around in his stomach alongside the anxiety, it’s ready to boil over. if he doesn’t use it, what use is he?

he is dangerous in this state and he is certain to make the kidnappers very aware of that fact. the warm, safe red that the crew had come to know and love has been doused with accelerant and in his place is left someone so hot he’s gone cold. there’s a difference between a fire in the hearth and one set loose upon the world — but either way? their kindlings becomes little more than piles of ash. 

the relief that floods him when they run into blue and kane would bring him to his knees if he let it. what with kane having managed to rewire the doors to their holding cells, both teams of the skeld crew meet far easier than either side was expecting. they don’t have cause to celebrate just yet but his inhibitors had long since left him and from one moment to the next red finds his lips crashing into blue’s much to kane’s chagrin and, judging by the squeal, hero’s absolute delight.

the rescue team is still on high alert as they forge their way back to their ship, though the shift in red’s attitude is very nearly palpable in the way the weight seems to have lifted from the group. they make it back only mildly worse for the wear and it’s only when jaz has piloted them away and into a sparely used jump to ftl that red finally acquiesces as doc orders him to his bunk.

[mirafirstmate]

@dubovoye​ said :  how your muse responds to being helped / taken care of !

he doesn’t like to rely on others and will play down how hurt / sick / etc. he is so as not to attract unwanted attentions. you’ll probably have to hurt him more to get him to admit to it, i.e. kicking him in the leg with the limp he’s been trying to hide all day, glaring down at him as he crumples with a string of expletives erupting from his lips. 

that said, once he’s hit that acceptance stage, be it injury or illness, he is grateful to whoever is taking care of him. if begrudgingly so.