It
Was a time for Jake English like many other times
In that he had problems, and also others had problems that seemed to dwarf his own.
About a week ago, he had come across a cache of outfits that seemed very much intended for the four humans currently available on the ship. The outfits could not, by his surmise, be created by anyone other than Her Imperious Condescension; however, when they were created was a completely unknown quantity.
The five of them had, for a while, been indisputably in cahoots. In which case, these could have been eventual gifts. But they had also been at odds previously, in which case these might have been some sort of muzzle of a black with colored stripe – full body wetsuit sort.
He was leaning towards the latter option at this moment. Because he had foolishly put the one with a green stripe on, and had been unable to get out of it since doing so.
In fact, since he had put it on, it only had seem to have gotten tighter. It had gone from what might be seen as accentuating curves, to what might be seen as trying to destroy them outright. At least he felt somewhat skeletal in his current entombment.
But then Meenah – their young charge, if that was fair – had gone overboard, if THAT was fair terminology for a spaceship. And Roxy had gone out to rescue the troll and the tiny space-dingy – and failed. According to Dirk.
The two were found trying to announce their return, emerging from one of the few verboten sections of the ship perhaps an hour later. Verboten, as in apparently Roxy and the Condesce had been the only ones to enter it even before full-grown Condesce was out of the picture.
Both were… recognizably shell-shocked over the ordeal.
Jake had set aside his problem and tried to help Jane help the other two as he could. Even her father, mostly a recluse these days, had gotten out of his cabin to sit with the two.
Dirk’s only thought of damage control had been to try and recover the dinghy.
~
Now Jake’s clothing issues were riding up the list of priority. Jane had been the first he approached. She quickly admitted she was hesitant to do anything that might require god-tier powers – something about what would power it – which Jake had not even suggested, but figured that had more to do with where her mind was at the moment. Instead, she had brought him to Dirk – who had, preoccupied with some sort of calculations, pulled a blade to cut off his head.
Jake had somehow managed to dodge the attempt – which by his estimation, showed just how preoccupied Dirk was. Jane had made him swear he’d not do such things unbidden again – though, twice today Dirk had asked if Jake wanted it done.
Jake was quite ready to seek what other options there were.
~
The cabin was dark – but Mr Crocker was there – starting to nod off. It… no. There was no better time than the present.
Jake tapped him on the shoulder and the man woke up with a start, to stare at the teen that always seemed uncomfortable in his own skin. And that yellow and red outfit.
“I’ll take over for the while, old chap.”
The man nodded, and wordlessly stood up and left for his own cabin.
Meenah, it seem, slept softly in the top bunk. Which was good, because she was allowing at least some distance to be put between herself and Roxy.
And Roxy – well, she was flopped on the lower bunk, while being somehow flopped over herself as seemed to be her wont. Her face was lit up by an eerie glow of some hand-held video game and Jake could barely hear it’s tune form the headphones she wore – which in itself was an odd choice, because as far as he knew, she had no ears to fit under the headphones’ cups.
Jake tried to squat. The first sensation of a wedgie stopped him immediately. Things were already
bad enough.
He wondered how long he should wait to speak. Roxy did seem absorbed in her gaming, and-
“wassup jakie. yr acting funny.”
“Oh – you can -“
“yu wer squeaking in the hall. yor not breatin right. somtin somtin spagetti. out with it,” she was still staring at the screen, hands on whatever controls the device had.
“Are-” Jake paused, waiting to see if he’d be interrupted again. He was not. “Are you letting me tell you or do you not actually know?”
“srry. its just – harder to ignore it al. i try and focus in on one thin and its all still ther,” she forced herself to turn off – or pause, or something – the game, “yr concerned and it aint about me, fer the first tim this week.”
“Uh. Yes. It’s this outfit I found… just before. It seems designed to cling,” his god-tier layer dissipated – mostly – the girl’s eyes need not be exposed to what his crotch currently looked like.
“a wetsuit?” Roxy rose from the bed – Jake hoped she’d stand up, but was trying not show how disturbed he was when she didn’t. Her butt remained firmly planed on her shoulders as she floated to eye level. The only adjustment she thought to make was stowing her game in the space between the back of her head and crotch, letting the headset cord lazily dangle alongside her legs as she floated closer.
She sniffed the fabric, to Jake’s extreme discomfort – knees pressing into him as she pulled herself close did the opposite of help, “condy. in storage fer a while.”
“Yes…” Jake knew, theoretically, that she had grown up even more isolated from human contact than he had – but that wasn’t what this was. This was an animal checking marked territory. He’s seen it before.
There was a rumble from elsewhere in the ship. The engines. Not the light-speed ones – the tiny course-adjustment ones. He tried to think about that instead, “Has Dirk let you know how many more adjustments are needed to get that ‘lifeboat’ back? I can’t say any of the figures he’s been working on make any s-“
He felt a nip. And jumped back despite himself.
He also felt a rapidly progressing wave of what could be described as explosive decompression – his organs jostling around as the wetsuit unraveled in whatever way it chose to. The process left him wearing almost but not quite a black, stringy, grass skirt, and nauseous. He immediately lay down.
“ya wanted out of it, rite?”
“Yes,” why did he have to have so many organs, “thank you.”
Roxy hesitated for a moment, then floated back towards the bed, “id hate ta be trapped in onna thos things. texturs horrible.”
“Did-” he was feeling more himself again, lying on his back, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, did you have any impulse to, um, mark your territory just then?”
“to what?”
“To urinate. On my person. It’s something cats do. Uh. Platonically.”
Roxy was about to settle back down on the bed, and stopped, “ummmmmm…. no?”
“Have you been drinking an water?” Jake was paying attention not to her, but to what remained of his previous enclosure. He first tried to pull the sting from his waistline, then slowly standing, his boyshorts were replaced with a cloak. The string fell to the ground. He quickly gathered it up and captchalogued it.
“also no.”
“Will you join me in getting some, then?”
Roxy sighed, “shur.”
~
He wish she’d sit at the table, like a human or a carpacian would, but no. She had somehow managed to cross her legs – now both off to one side of her head – while sipping water. Jake was hoping he could convince her to eat something as well, but either she had been voiding in her own food into existence as required, or was back to her not-eating issue.
Carapaces continued to queue up behind them, in a line to synthesize something to eat via Alchemiter. Jake glanced around, trying to be discrete – it was the worst feeling when one of those guys jumped to attention and you had to just tell them “at ease” or something.
“They- Uh. They did make themselves new clothes, right? They didn’t tear the yellow and purple stuff up and bleach it or something.”
Roxy shrugged, “iz allway what they wore back at home.” She took a sip, started at the bottle clasped between her toes. She glanced over at Jake. He was watching intently. She sipped again.
“Is it that you’re afraid you’ll pass gas on your head?”
Jake sit astride a bench – while Roxy rested at the edge of the table – so when Roxy spat water in response, it was the floor that received it.
“imma tell you straight, jakie – thers pretty much no part of me i havent farted on at this point.”
“Ah.”
“if ya aren’t careful in this biz an eat at the wrong tim the experienc can get pritty shitty, evn.”
There was a moment of silence, carapaces shuffling through line, trying to look non-nonchalant. The gods weren’t desiring their attention, so it had better not be given.
“That … Why am I thinking of toothpaste tubes now.”
“im not that tallented. yet.”
The ship rumbled with the engines again.
“Has Dirk… talked to you? At all?”
“nah. iv been thinking bcak to… then. he tol me to go affer her. i think… i don’t think he ment meenah even then.”
“That. It makes enough sense,” Ships were called ‘her’, right? Jake didn’t try to hard to remember. Zoning out was bad for conversation, “We aren’t going to miss Earth now, are we?”
“i doubt it? but the full stelth plans blown, if shes ther.” That Her was the Condesce. Or at least this offshoot universe’s version of her. They had defeated one, but with what they had deciphered about the nature of the outer ring, there could be others – or even a slightly younger version of the one they’d handled in the form of Meenah – on the Earth they were drifting towards.
“He got one of the flight bay doors working. I guess it’s some sort of parallel parking situation.”
“nah, in zero g hes prolly just gonna let it float on in an turn the gravity back on.”
“Roxy. I am going to insist you not be put in a position to pilot that ship again, if he can even get it to work properly.”
“i… he propbbaly thinks id just mess it up nyways,” She fidgeted, twitched. So hard her game turned back on. Roxy concentrated, and, twitching again without reaching up, turned it back off.
“You don’t have to worry about what Dirk thinks.”
She snorted in response, cruelly, “lik any one of us doesnt. did… did you know. way back when. d man was like. im gay rox. and i was like. well i dunno if im a girl. an he just.”
She… was losing her composure alarmingly quickly, “this waas before either of us knu yall. he was like, yr a man, huh. prove it. and there was all this stupid stuff. like, we played rockets, and viddy games, and watched movies before, an that was fun. but then he was just a jerk for a while. everything was man an bro and even when we first chatted, he was like, hey look, xy in his name, if he says hes a girl hes lyin. and like, who else was ther? even when we knu you two online, you were in th passt. i… i was gonna be his no matter….”
Roxy was shuddering. And Jake… the impulse was to hug. but how are you supposed to hug someone folded in half like that?
He opted for a side-hug of sorts. he tried not tho think about what bit of anatomy his arm was rubbing against.
Something needed to be said. About how it’s be better when they got to Earth. But that was….
That she need not worry about what Dirk thought ever again. But…
Why they broke up. He shuttered. He opened his mouth to speak. And nothing…
“We’ll be ok.”
That. That might be enough.
___
Jake is uncomfortable with MOST of what has been going on.
Illustrations by L1CH3N ( https://www.instagram.com/_l1ch3n_/ ).
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