Hugh, to his credit, takes this admission in stride. That's all he's ever done, really. Take odd things in stride. Let them roll off of him like water off a duck's back. Not dwell too deeply on the fact that yes, the man-shaped creature in front of him is in fact entirely other. He steps forward, a hand settled easy on his chest.
"No worry there. I have enough heart for the both of us, I'm afraid."
A double-pulse. He's still not certain he's just got the one heart, these days. Won't let that Sesame Street prick Singh get anywhere near him with his - devices, and his scans, and his stupid doctorate. Why should he? Submit himself to such tawdry, useless investigation like that. Pointless. A waste of his precious time, and his is far more precious than anyone else's by far.
(Because he might not have very much of it left. Because he's terrified of what he'll see on those scans.)
Closer, now. Two paces at most. Still out of arm's reach, but close enough that it's nearly conversational. Faux-comfortable. As if they were friends, catching up after a long day. Hugh leans his hip against the counter as if they really were, arms crossed loose over his chest, and rakes his dark hair back out of the spots it's fallen into his face. Product doesn't keep it styled so much as sweat and machine oil off his hands these days, it's prone to going loose and hanging in his face like this. The mother of pearl chunk on his hair glistens wet under fluorescent light.
"So. Cassius. You know--" A deep breath in, pushed out through his teeth. Past them, really. His teeth are one solid entity now, steely absolute. No room between them for air to pass as he exhales, smiles. "I'm not human either, actually. Bit of a mixed breed. Two of a kind, us. Three of a kind with your hunter, I assume? Are they anything like you and I?"
He may not be needling, but he still wants to know. And Cassius, polite as he is, seems eager to talk about this hunter of his. Eager to talk in general.
(He's eerie up close. Moreso than before. Mottled fingertips and lips, and that sound - that sound is not a hum, it's a squirm. A wet, gristly noise. Like - like something familiar--)
There is a delighted squirm to Cassius at that (like a heartbeat, maybe, like a simple thrum) as he watches Hugh the Doctor settle in across from him with familiarity not unlike his Hunter.
(Cassius doesn’t realize it, but he mirrors Hugh the Doctor’s body language just a little. Just enough to be off-putting. Just enough to feel a little closer to his newfound companion.)
He can see it now, he thinks. The monster. He had not noticed Hugh the Doctor’s teeth when he was so far, the unworldly, silvery sheen of them. Had thought the shimmering white upon the dark of his hair to be something more human than what it is.
Monsters here, it seems, are far more subtle than where he is from.
(Because despite all of his study of people, there is something he lacks, something obvious to observers that he cannot pinpoint, cannot replicate. Because despite how human his Hunter looks, how human they act, prey know a predator when they see one.)
Still, knowing that Hugh the Doctor is also a monster eases something in Cassius he had not known was tight to begin with. Means that he does not have to worry about scaring Hugh the Doctor anymore because Hugh the Doctor is no longer something to be scared.
“It is nice to meet a fellow monster,” he says, before shaking his head. “But… no, Hugh the Doctor, my Hunter is so much more than you and I.” For the first time in their conversation, Cassius slides his eyes shut. Tilts his head back as if reliving a fond memory, recalling dark features and a smile filled with too many teeth. “My Hunter is stronger. Faster. Sharper in ways that humans were not meant to be. They are a force of nature, birthed from blood by a song far older, far more primal than anything crafted by human hands. “
The squirming hum under his shell becomes tighter, his movements a touch jerkier when he reopens his eyes and once more gives Hugh the Doctor the full weight of his attention. His feet stammer across the floor as the energy writhing inside of him forces him into movement a few steps away.
“The Hunter is an inevitability, Hugh the Doctor,” Cassius continues, rocking back to face his fellow monster, skin rolling with the movement (with his fondness, with his eagerness to speak). “Teeth and claws in the dark. Blooming, tearing meat and fractured bones. Grooves in stone and metal alike.” He makes a gesture that ends up a little too wide, a little too stuttered with his enthusiasm. “My Hunter is a monster without limit.”
He pauses then. Drops his gaze to a buzzing, rippling palm before looking away entirely.
(Even the sudden sadness falls flat on his features.)
“Without my Hunter, I would not be here.” Would have surely slept away in his Garden and emerged into something… terrible. Something cruel. Something that would not have known just how wonderful humanity could be. A place deep within himself aches at the thought. “They have made me who I am, Hugh the Doctor. Shaped me just as their Song has shaped them.”
If there's a flicker in Hugh's eyes - in that pale right one, a milky spiral of pupils behind his gold half-frames, flickering and focusing on too little and too much all at once - he tries to keep it from being too terribly obvious. A monster. He supposes it's accurate enough, considering he is what he is. Some creature meant to terraform the minds around it, create a hive. To turn into some horrible, unnatural aberration of space and time and reason if he doesn't. Monster is apt. Hugh supposes that yes, he is very much so a monster too. There's a surprising amount of depth in being able to freely call oneself such, he thinks. Is impressed by Cassius' candid approach.
(Monster, yes. He's a monster. What else would he call himself these days? They call him that more than enough when they think he isn't around, can't hear through the pipes or from the walls.
Should probably start owning it, soon.)
But nevermind him. Nevermind that. Better to focus on - on how Cassius suddenly comes to life, or as close as he ever gets to it. How the excitement of talking about his hunter has him literally jittering across the floor, whatever makes him up - and Hugh is realizing now that he was right, there is something inside him that is moving and roiling and writing excitedly, that he really is just talking to the equivalent of a paper sack - thrilled at the opportunity to talk about this hunter.
And oh, what Hugh hears.
Stronger, faster, sharper. Birthed from blood by something older than humanity itself. Teeth, claws. Tearing meat and fractured bone. A monster without limit.
His mind grabs at the pertinents, at these details. Puts together a whirling mass of teeth and tearing claws, inky dark and primal and hungry. Nothing needs fangs and claws without the necessity for them. A monster without limit. There's a cool, sick pit in Hugh's stomach as he listens with a smile that becomes increasingly fixed in place, increasingly brittle. A polite little rictus with panic behind the eyes, maybe. His hand is flexing in and out of a fist at his side, palms bitten by machinery and scarred pale with spilled chemicals curling in and out and in and out and--
Is what he says instead of letting that anxiety spill out of anything except his unconscious body language. How jerky his hand on his hip is now, how edgy his smile. He takes in the roil of something beneath Cassius' shell as something intriguing, not something terrifying the way any other human might, and tries not to gnaw a worse raw hole in the lining of his cheek than he already has. Steel teeth are a bit unforgiving that way.
"They've made you quite the conversationalist, at least. I'll have to thank them for that." A sharp little inhale, hand shaking itself out a bit, as if burned. As if to discard the slight quake of his fingers at the idea of this fucking thing crawling around his ship, doing - god knows what. He steels himself instead, offers Cassius a hand to shake. Maybe he'll shake it, maybe he won't. Unimportant either way. "Well-met, Cassius. You'll have to tell me all about them. Would you like to come somewhere more comfortable with me? I'll get you set up with a room, if you'd like. A space of your own."
With a lock on the door. The outside, not the inside.
If Cassius had not found something to like about Hugh the Doctor before (had not liked him for his kindness, for his familiarity, for those qualities so reminiscent of his Hunter), then this is what cements Hugh the Doctor in Cassius’ good graces. That he had heard of his Hunter, of their strength and their edges, and found them just as admirable as he does.
It makes the worms in his shell squirm (pleased, content, happy to have found a friend) almost warmly, almost as if dancing.
(The tone, of course, is lost to Cassius. It has always been lost to Cassius.)
Hugh the Doctor is still smiling at him, even. Holds out to him a hand to shake like Cassius has seen so many humans do with each other, but not with him. Never with him. Could never even get close enough to a person to offer.
(He had asked his Hunter, once, what it meant. The answer had been slow to come and drawled out with thought. A handshake’s a greeting, Cas. To show you’re both on equal ground, or something. It’s just a thing humans do.)
And here Hugh the Doctor offers him one.
Cassius is all too eager with deadened eyes and jittery limbs to close the distance between them and slot his hand in Hugh the Doctor’s. His shell molds around Hugh the Doctor’s just a little, just enough to soak up more of that -
Warmth. He is so very warm, Hugh the Doctor. So much so that it takes conscious effort on Cassius’ part to keep his worms from breaking free from his husk and wrapping around Hugh the Doctor’s arm like they belong there. He does, though. He does. Even tames back the squirming just enough that he can give Hugh the Doctor what he thinks is a proper squeeze.
(And holds it. The thought of letting go does not occur to Cassius.)
“I would be happy to tell you about my Hunter, Hugh the Doctor,” Cassius says, words accompanied by the low hum of pleased squirming. “And… yes. A room would be appreciated, since I am unable to access my Garden.”
(Something to worry about later, that. After he has been reunited with his Hunter.)
He tilts his head as a thought strikes him. “Will I need to… ‘pay rent’ for this room, Hugh the Doctor? I am afraid that I have no human money kept on this shell of mine.”
During this handshake, it occurs to Hugh what Cassius reminds him so closely of. That memory, that sour association that's been dogging him for this entire encounter.
When he had been younger, doing the drudgery for Argyros Cryonics, his mother had spitefully assigned him to what the workers often called dog duty. Handling dead pets, prepping them for cryonic preservation. It wasn't always dogs, no - there were plenty of cats too, as well as a smattering of other creatures both spectacularly exotic (numerous macaws gone dull and ashen with age or death, and a sloth, once) and entirely mundane (children's guinea pigs, cockatoos, frogs and lizards and all manner of critters) - but more often than not, it was dogs. People seemed to get the most attached to their dogs. Man's best friend type shit. Most often, they would come in little more than an hour or so after death, sometimes even still a bit warm. Dead weight in his hands, but peaceful enough that he could pretend they were only sleeping while he loaded them into their tubes. Sometimes they were a bit further along, legs cocked at unnatural, stiff angles that he had to work around. Curl their dead legs around himself in a nightmarish hug to keep from breaking bits off.
But one time. There had been the one time.
The summer had been unusually hot. Global warming and all, of course, but this one had been sweltering. A miserable sweatfest as soon as you stepped outdoors in Greece, nevermind hotter climes. Some princess from the Hamptons had had a maid let their dog out by accident one morning when the owner and her family had been away on vacation, and it had sat out in the blazing sun.
For a week.
What had been carried into the lobby had hardly been a dog at all at that point. A mess of fur and slime packed into a Louis Vuitton duffel, dumped into Hugh's arms because the was the only one around to handle it. Had had no choice. He remembers to this day how the bag had sloshed when he'd jostled it, how the smell had leaked through the teeth of the zipper like a living, malevolent thing as he'd laid it out next to the tube, his stomach roiling at the thought of opening it. How he nearly hadn't.
But he had. He'd seen nothing but motion, some poor little thing warped beyond recognition by bloated purple and soppy green and pale, soft bodies wriggling over each other in the hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds. That wet, sour smell. That sweet-hot stink of putrefaction. And all
those
maggots.
Hugh grips Cassius' hand and realizes that he is full of something like what that dog had been full of, all those years ago. That the roiling wet motion of him is - is many small, soft bodies wriggling over each other. In the thousands. The millions.
The shape of Cassius, this body of his? He realizes that it isn't leading the motion. Not with the roiling, jerky movements of his, no. Whatever is inside him, filling him up - that.
The hand in his is roiling. Squirming beneath his touch. It does not pull away immediately after the handshake - he does not think that this Cassius knows to do that, maybe has never been allowed close enough to a human being to do it at all with the way he looks and acts - and neither does Hugh, pushing that phantom of putrefaction to the very back of his mind.
It will be dealt with. Or not dealt with, likely. But it will have to wait.
"Oh no, we don't use money anymore. No point up here, hm?" Hugh gives a firm shake and then loosens his grip from Cassius', gently. Coaxes his hand back, ignoring what it feels like to feel all those little bodies piling into the warmth of his hand, humming. He resists the urge to wipe that hand on his thigh. It would be rude. "I keep this sack - hunk of bolts running at this point, you won't have to pay anything. No need. You're a guest of the esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros now, you know, nothing to worry about. Only follow me, I'll find you a room myself."
Upstairs. Near Hugh's little nook of Engineering, where he can stay close by and keep things monitored. One of the secure containers, likely. Those rooms they use to quarantine and observe on the odd chance illness comes through. (The ones they used to keep all of YS' dead-eyed hulls in, poor bastards. Before they'd airlocked them. Some of the families had insisted on going with them, and that had been the hardest part - deciding whether or not to let them. They'd let them.) Safer for everyone involved. The rest of the ship won't be thrilled to have Cassius on board, and even less thrilled with Hugh for having him.
Hugh lets on to absolutely none of this. His smile is a bit fixed in place, but charming enough. He can play a role when he cares enough to. It's just so rare that he cares enough to, is all. He only steps back, arms spread theatrically as he backs to the door.
"Now, tell me about yourself, my friend. Did you come from another ship? Another world, maybe? Unless you've been mixing it up down on Earth with all those--"
Hugh the Doctor – no, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. Cassius will not give his new companion any less than he is due – is careful as he removes his hand from Cassius’ own, as if afraid of damaging the skin of Cassius’ shell. The appreciation of Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ consideration, of his kindness and enthusiasm, falls a little to the way side when his words finally settle in.
No point up here, hm? and Down on Earth. Hunk of bolts and did you come from another ship?
(He says it like they are - )
The worms slow in their squirming, so much that the drone of them tapers out into something soft. Barely there. A whisper of a hum instead of a choir.
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros -” he pauses, a small furrow to his brow. It takes him a moment to follow Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, but he does so with slow, stiff movements “- this place, these walls, this... ship. Is this not on Earth?”
(it would explain some things, he thinks. Why there is a hum to the steel here, why his Garden does not come when he calls. He is not sure how to feel about it. About any of it.)
Another question bubbles up unbidden. “'Creatures'? Are you perhaps referring to humans, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros? We have many on Earth, yes, though they are not fond of the Hunter and I.”
Well, that raises as many questions as it answers. Raises more, actually. If he didn't come from outside the ship, and he didn't come from Earth, then where--
No, no. Don't focus on that. Focus on stopping in his tracks, fitting Cassius with a look of unveiled surprise that only fades off a bit as he answers. Slow, thoughtful.
"You're not going to freak out when I tell you this, I hope, but--" Mm. His mouth sets in a line, eyes flickering from steel wall to steel wall. Lifeless, sharp halogen. Steel and metal that ranges from ice cold to off-warm, but never the sort you'd have from the sun, from living sources. He'd mentioned something about a garden. They have a viviarium, maybe he'll take him there sometime. When it feels safer. When the dirt settles. "--you're in orbit right now."
A beat. Maybe break it down a bit more. Hugh spreads his hands, fingers curling around some invisible, meaningful something. To him, it's the planet. The space around it as his hands expand.
"You know. Space. The space just around the planet, in fact."
The creatures bit he'll address in a moment. Hopefully. Hopefully his new friend doesn't go berserk and live up to that monster title they now share. He'd worn it so casually.
Cassius does not stop immediately when Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros stops, merely closes the distance between them until he is close enough to touch (and even then, he teeters dangerously close to invading Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ personal bubble, the heat of the man drawing him in so).
His attention on Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros does not waver in the slightest, even as Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ mismatched eyes do.
You’re in orbit right now.
Cassius opens his mouth, a question on the tip of his tongue -
You know. Space. The space just around the planet, in fact.
- and closes his mouth immediately after, new questions sprouting forth even as the weight of Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros sinks in.
Cassius is no longer on Earth. No longer upon familiar soil. Instead he is above it. In… space. In that blackened curtain his Garden’s sky is a poor imitation of, where the moon hangs bright and the sun warms his skin and the stars -
The drone returns in twofold now, Cassius’ expression lighting up as much as his otherness will allow (which is, of course, not a lot).
“We are in the sky?” he asks, pushing a little more into Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ personal bubble. “How is this possible, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, when we are in a ship? Are they not meant for sailing through the ocean?”
"Well, sort of. A bit above the sky you'd see from Earth, if you're going to get technical. I'd rather not. Never much of a cosmonaut, myself." Not until circumstance made one of him, anyway. He still doesn't necessarily understand much outside of the basics - what one needs to keep a spaceship afloat and alive and not drifting mindlessly through space full of corpses. Hugh teeters back on his heels a bit, not entirely willing to be the one to take a step back for fresh air and admit defeat. He can practically feel that humming in his bones. "
God he's really close. Hugh makes a grand sweeping gesture with his arm that ever so coincidentally carries him back a step, gesturing at the air around him. The room, the ship itself. Space.
"And this - different sort of ship, although they're both very much for sailing. Star sailing, you might call it. It's a spaceship." He sounds downright proud now, practically beaming. "The Protogonos is her name. Roughly, I don't know - twenty five thousand people in her belly, give or take a few hundred every time new ships come around. There's a good twenty others out there, but don't let them fool you - the Protogonos is by far the best."
It is most certainly not. But he's not about to admit that.
"Would you like to stop by the viewport before we head to your room? Get a look at open space? You wouldn't believe the view up here, without light pollution. More lights than you could ever count."
Cassius watches as Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros steps away, gesturing in a way that Cassius could ever only hope to imitate (and even then, it would not be the same, would not be so lively). His gaze follows Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ hand and then beyond it, trying to imagine what, exactly, a ship made for sailing between stars would look like.
The thought squirms out of his grasp not long after, because -
Because Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros speaks of this "spaceship”, of this Protogonos, in the same tone of voice Cassius feels when speaking of his Hunter. He can understand this, he thinks, even if he cannot understand, cannot imagine, the things that Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros can. Things like how does one sail through space without water? Or how can a ship be a ship, but also a woman?
Cassius does not know, does not ask to know, because Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros brings up something much more important.
Twenty five thousand people in her belly, give or take a few hundred.
“Oh,” Cassius says, once more closing in to feel Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ body heat. “That is good, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. The Hunter will not go hungry then.”
He doesn’t linger this time, instead opting to move passed Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros towards the door. He pauses to look over his shoulder (neck twisting just a little more than a person’s would, head bending at a little more awkward of an angle), worms shifting in anticipation.
“I would love to stop by this ‘viewport’, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. I am eager to see the stars without your... 'light pollution'.”
Now, he should've assumed a hunter would be hunting people, probably. But fuck, maybe Hugh wanted to hope for once. Imagine this thing of Cassius' was hunting - self-fulfillment or some bullshit like that. That maybe it was metaphorical. No, no. Silly him.
The hunter is here. The hunter is hunting his twenty-five thousand or so, give or take.
The hunter is in his ship.
Anxiety is thrumming behind his tightened jaw, the ache of teeth that do not give under insistent, nervous clenching traveling in white hot threads up to his worn jaw. His double-time heart picks up to a treble. There is ice in his stomach, now.
And yet--
"Of - of course, Cassius." Hugh's expression may be a bit more drawn than before, but the smile is there nonetheless. Weakened, but there. Ignore the quiet shake of his hand in the moment before he shakes it out himself, an absent flicker of his wrist that turns into rubbing at one of them as he walks, makes a point of not looking directly at Cassius until they're at an angle where that head and neck look halfway normal. Cassius is calm, polite. Friendly. It wouldn't do to let his unease show, and coping with that squirming, aberrant build of his is adding stress onto his already simmering unease. "After me."
He takes point, walks ahead by a few paces because he needs to lead the way, of course. Needs to make sure the people that see Cassius will see that he's in tow behind their very favorite head of engineering, that everything is under control. Ish. That everything is fine.
(Because this way, he can let the anxiety gnaw into his expression without worrying about communicating that to his company.)
"Stay close, now. Place is a bit of a maze. We'll take the elevator here in a few turns - more privacy that way, you know."
Place is a fucking mess of a maze. Plenty of places for a hunter to wait.
“Do not worry, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros,” Cassius says, a small, confident tone to his voice as he stays close (very close, as close as Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ quicker legs will allow). “I am familiar with mazes. I will not get lost.”
(But not for a lack of trying, because Cassius certainly seems like he is trying to. Hugh cannot go ten feet without him trailing behind to a stop due to observing a piece of furniture, one of the many notices hung up on the walls, or even just a particularly funky looking piece of machinery.
If Hugh had been wondering at all why Cassius’ reported sightings weren’t that far apart, well, he knows now. Cassius likes to look.
It makes the trip to the elevator take so much longer than it is supposed to, and that’s not even taking into account the questions.)
“If we are not on Earth, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros," he says, "then where is your water sourced from? Do you not need to drink?”
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, this notice on the board – it is requesting to ‘call’ for a ‘good time’ -” emphasized by a curling of fingers “- is it possible to call in for such a thing?”
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros," he says, hands cupped before him with care, "I have found a cockroach. Please, look -”
(Cassius has never felt so lively outside of his Hunter's company. It is... nice. Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros is nice.
He wonders if this is what it means to have 'fun'.)
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros,” Cassius starts once more, just as they reach the metal doors of the elevator. If there is tension to Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ shoulders by this point, Cassius misses it. His tone is a little more subdued now, a little more thoughtful. “...before, you asked me about my Hunter.” A hopeful drone underneath paper-thin skin. “Does this mean you will help me find them?”
To Hugh's credit, he is exceedingly patient. Mainly because he has no choice. It is a sheer act of God to get him stopping every ten or so feet and turning back with a tone that is becoming increasingly clipped, hands that dig further and further into his hips whenever he hears the tell-tale slowing of those steps at his back. He's learned to listen for it, now.
Congratulations are in order for Cassius. He'd be screaming at anyone else by this point.
All of our water is recycled after use. Traded between ships when evaporation gets to it, you know. And believe me, I absolutely need a drink.
(He does not mention that the fleet is largely running out. That they have to buy it from the one ship that found a monopoly in piecing out their vast hoards from the Before Times, the Earthside times.)
Trust me, there's no good time to be had with that particular board. It's usually a set-up to rob someone. Or a set-up for disappointing sex.
(He does not bother asking whether or not Cassius is familiar with sex. By God, he has and will continue to give plenty of explanations tonight, and that will not be one of them.)
Oh good. More cockroaches. I'm sure people are hoarding food in their rooms again, making more little friends for me to find in the walls.
(He does not step on said cockroach, and it is a Herculean show of will that he does not do so. The offending bug waggles its antennae impertinently before scurrying off underneath a piece of furniture, never to be seen again.)
By the time they make it to the elevator, Hugh's never known he could be so exhausted from so few steps. So little effort in the physical. The doors hitch just a moment before they slide open - wonderful, something else for him to fix - and he glances at Cassius over his shoulder, brows rising a bit. Paints on a smile. Cassius seems hopeful, eager. Hugh gnaws away the parts of him that might seem conspiratorial.
(Cassius wouldn't notice them anyway, he wagers.)
"Oh, absolutely. Had designs to find them on my own at any rate, might as well get you two... reunited, no?" He steps inside, the dingy interior worn by feet and hands and all manner of greasy, nasty human things. There's gum on the button pad that Hugh nonchalantly digs a screwdriver from his back pocket to pry off, then uses his knuckles to hit the button for the top floor. Wipes them on his shirt afterwards. "You'll have to help me, though. I'll need your expertise to track them down. Would you help me do that, Cassius?"
Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros had already begun making plans to find his Hunter.
Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros is going to help Cassius reunite with them.
Cassius is practically vibrating in his skin at the news, his worms writhing almost violently in their excitement (he does not notice how loud he has become, how the drone of him bounces off of the tighter confines of the elevator. Doesn’t even realize he’s loosening in places until he feels himself wobble. It takes effort to control himself, but he does. He does). He almost takes a step forward, before the elevator jerking to life keeps him in place.
“Yes, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, it would be my pleasure to help you,” he says, almost blurting out the words for all that a monster can. There’s a hint of pride in his tone as he folds his hands together (squeezes the popping seams closed so they may heal). “My Hunter is difficult to track without my Garden, but you seem to be very capable, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. I am fortunate to have found you.”
And he is, is he not? There are so little monsters in the world, even less that are kind. Cassius feels… lucky, he thinks is the word. Lucky to have found such a companion so far from his home.
(Grateful, even, to the force that had put him here in the first place.)
Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros is not the Hunter, no, could never be the Hunter, but Cassius enjoys his company all the same. As the numbers above the elevator doors change and change and change, Cassius settles in just a little bit closer to his fellow monster.
(Away from the elevator, floors and floors and halls away where the shadows are thicker, the machinery louder, a man goes missing. No one is around to hear him scream.
Cassius was right, of course. His Hunter does not leave a trace.)
A normal, human human would likely feel some sort of gut-deep, primal discontent at that wet drone bouncing all around them. Indeed, some of the people that have encountered him at a closer distance than others - an accidental turn around a corner right into him, in one particularly distraught eyewitness account - have seemed downright disturbed by that aspect. The sound. It panics them in a way they don't fully comprehend. Lizard hindbrain acting up, perhaps. Telling them that this thing is strange, dangerous, bad.
As is, Hugh only has to raise his voice a bit. He is not human human anymore, and it only registers as noise. Another detail to take in. Like Cassius' dogged eagerness, the way he squeezes his hands together like wet craft paper to seal the slick, writhing mass back inside of himself.
(He'll spend tonight divided neatly between setting up new ways to track down this hunter and trying to puzzle out how Cassius works, exactly. Neither will be fruitful.)
For now, though, he smiles. Friendly, if a bit bland. More than a bit calculating behind his odd, mismatched eyes.
"And I you. I think we're going to be very good friends, Cassius."
Ding.
The viewport isn't very far, really. Maybe they spend a bit more time on Cassius' distractions, but for the most part, Hugh ushers them to the grand steel double doors and punches in his passcode (nine digits, lightning quick like he has the sequence carved behind his eyes) with his knuckles, gestures for Cassius to go on ahead when the doors slide open with a soft whirr.
"Had to lock it down after... mm. Some trouble." Hugh falters only for a moment on that explanation, careful to close the doors after them. Doesn't mention YS. The great, pale shape of it so close it nearly pressed itself to the glass - how it still comes around, sometimes. Tries to communicate with anyone it sees inside, to usually traumatized or disastrous effect. Doesn't seem to be here right now, at least. "Just you and I. As it should be."
It's at least six full-length panes of something akin to glass, although far colder to the touch. A sprawling view of the stretch of space to Earth's right, at the moment. Up here, there is no light and there are no clouds - nothing to diminish the infinite sprawl of the universe all around them. Stars and galaxies and oh, there's Mars, that pale red shape of it hovering far, far out. Easier to see out here. There are telescopes, too, positioned in a line along the glass - Cassius might see further celestial bodies if he looks.
(Hugh has, often. In the beginning, when space was still wonderful and new. Now he just comes here to bask in the soft celestial glow and drink.)
I think we're going to be very good friends, Cassius.
His seams nearly split open again at that as he follows Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros along, because – because Cassius has never had a friend before. He has the Hunter, yes, but the Hunter – they are so much more to Cassius. Fill so much more.
(They were there when he woke up to a squirming sky, woke up to the feeling of leaves under his back and the rawness of being New. It had been so much. So much.
His seams had cracked with the Newness, had sagged and sloshed with inexperience like a newborn learning to walk. Learning to be.
And they - they had understood.)
He opens his mouth to answer (I would very much like that, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros), but -
The doors open, and the words break away from him like loose soil.
Cassius lurches to the panes in his excitement, in his awe, hands squishing against the window as he leans in to the glass close enough that his nose barely brushes against it. His squirming has slowed to a stop as he takes in the view, the black stretch of Not Sky and the beautiful, twinkling things scattered in it like suspended, frozen fireflies. His eyes stretch wide, so wide, as if that will help him take in the splashes of soft colors, the -
Oh.
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros,” Cassius says, voice soft, hollowed of its hum. “Is that… the Earth?”
It is so... blue. So round. So full of vibrancy, even from all the way up here, in the Not Sky. Space. He drags a hand over the glass, almost caressing the image of the thing full of a species he has learned to love. Has hoped to imitate. Has craved to know with every living body that powers him.
And Cassius -
Cassius only wishes his Hunter were here to see it, too.
His hand curls against the glass. It takes effort to pull his hollowed eyes away from the window, from his second home, to fix his gaze upon Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros as if he holds all the answers. The hum under his skin stutters to a start, as if remembering that they, too, are alive.
“Thank you for this, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros." He turns away from the window completely, then, once more folding his hands before him, elbows bent. "If at all possible, when we find my Hunter, I would like for them to see this as well.”
"Yes, it is." Hugh takes his place at Cassius' side, hands folded at the small of his back. Shoulder to shoulder, now, unbothered by that soft murmur of motion at his side, just barely not touching. He stands straight, as if there were an iron rod in his spine. Old habit. His mother was always so strict on posture. Chest out, chin up - well. Head tilted a bit in Cassius' direction, maybe. He was never the best student. "I forget how stunning it is to see for the very first time. Spend long enough up here and it becomes... almost mundane, you know."
And it's true. After long enough, the beauty of open space becomes nothing more than a backdrop to the mundane drudgery of life. His life, in particular. Easy to forget about the painted cosmos outside his walls when he's too busy crawling around in them fixing things, burning himself on pipes. Battling the roaches.
Cassius' wonder reminds him that it is wondrous. Is beautiful. Hugh breathes in a chestful of over-sterilized, dry spaceship air and lets it out in a gentle lull against the glass. Only bothers to glance over when he sees motion in the corner of his eye, tilting his head to watch Cassius turn, hands brought in and folded politely. Turns to face him halfway, a hand on his cocked hip.
A monster, he calls himself. But he's hardly anything monstrous. The build and shape of him may be strange, but the rest? That demeanor of his, the way he carries himself? It's so... normal. So very quiet, so contained. Certainly not the black-eyed beast fit to devour them all that terrified crew were crowing about left and right. They didn't bother to give him a moment, to listen to him. To understand. Didn't want to.
(Hugh knows the feeling.)
"Of course, Cassius. Everyone should see it at least once, hm?" A little laugh, warm and faint. "Including your Hunter. Once we find them, we'll bring them here to take a look themselves. Do you think they'll appreciate it the way you do?"
Cassius stares at Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros for a moment, worms thrumming under his skin (in contentment, in happiness. When has anyone else besides his Hunter laughed in his presence? He likes it, he thinks. Likes how it is warm, just like its owner is), before he returns his attention back to the window. Back to the curtain of black speckled by stars.
Would his Hunter appreciate it?
He contemplates the question for a moment, two, three. Contemplates the vast space before him even longer.
“...my Hunter would appreciate it more, I think,” he says finally, a thoughtful tilt to his head. “Their senses are far greater than mine are, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. They often think it a curse, but – perhaps here it could be a blessing.”
(Could be more than just smelling blood under fingernails and week-old tears soaked into shirts. Could be more than hearing hammering heartbeats and hitching breaths and the quiet pleas of hiding prey.
Could be more than just an anchor to the Song.
Maybe his Hunter would find some semblance of peace, then.)
He looks back to Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, something softer in his stiff, dead features. “I believe I am ready to move on, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. The sooner I am roomed, the sooner we may start our search, correct?” A pause, and then, “I wish to reunite with my Hunter as soon as possible. They will… miss me, I think, as I do them.”
Their senses are far greater than mine are, Cassius says, and takes it like a charming detail. A blessed thing about someone he so clearly adores.
Hugh takes a mental note.
(Sharper senses. Might need to figure out some way around that.)
"Of course. Whenever you're ready." Hugh makes sure to lock up behind them. Throws one last lingering look out at the stars after Cassius has left the room, something pensive across his features. "We'll be on the..."
He misses them, sometimes. YS. The mental connection is weakened through no small effort of his own, worn down to a thread, but that thread persists - reminds him of their presence. He's not sure he could cut it if he tried. He has not tried.
There is no sound out there, but there's a gentle ripple in the stars. Reality softening like melted plastic. That thread between them vibrating gently, like a spider tracing its web. Hugh turns halfway and lets the doors shut, punches the lock back into place without looking and ignores that desperate little tug at the back of his mind.
(He's given enough to them. Will give more, with time, whether he likes it or not. Let them wait.)
"...Mm." Hadn't finished that thought, had he? Hugh pushes on as if there were no pause at all, his steps a bit slower on the walk out. He pops his knuckles absently, working each finger loose into the curl of his other hand. "On the third deck, near me. We'll have some decontamination procedures to put you through, of course. Can't risk any unnatural viruses you might've inadvertently brought on board getting the rest of them ill. Lucky you that I'm mostly immune these days."
Entirely immune, in fact. They have colds, flus, a bevy of the usual Earth illnesses. In the years he's been up here, he's caught more than a few himself.
Until YS.
"But it involves staying in the room for a bit. Until we can clear you to walk around. I hope you don't mind, terribly sorry for the inconvenience." He adds on a bit more with a lilt, glancing at Cassius over his shoulder. "Wouldn't want to hurt anyone."
He's curious. Cassius seems to hold no active ill intent, but would he care if he were to hurt someone inadvertently? Would he value his freedom and will more than everyone else?
Cassius... is not the most in tune to people’s emotions. He is all too aware of it, of that disconnect between him and the creatures he tries to imitate. Of the complex spectrum of human emotions and how saturated they can become when compared with his paltry own. And yet, even with so little understanding, Cassius knows some emotions better than others, thanks to his Hunter.
Like the look upon Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ face when he lingers by the door.
Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros must have heavy thoughts like his Hunter does. The ones that -
( - carved itself into me, Cas. You don’t… forget something like that. Can’t forget.
It’s become just as much a part of me as your maggots are a part of you.)
He doesn’t point out the pause (his Hunter appreciates when he does not, and something tells him that Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros would appreciate it as well), merely watches as Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros comes back to the moment and acts as if it had not happened instead. For all his curiosity, Cassius is all too aware how it can pry open wounds for the flies to infest.
“’Decontamination procedures’?” he echoes eventually, following Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, grateful for his consideration of Cassius’ slower shell even as his low drone abruptly shifts (his Hunter would have named it unease). “Will such a thing not harm my worms, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros? Despite being clean, I am aware that the very nature of my being is not as… sanitary, I believe, as the humans would like.”
And if Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros wishes for his whole shell, his whole self to be cleansed, it would not – he would not be able to reach his Garden for more of himself, if the worst were to pass. He does not know what would happen to him if he had no worms left to control, to be. Would he – die, then? Fade into nothing?
He does not know. Does not wish to know. Does not wish to even entertain the idea, because without him -
“If I were to be harmed during the process, I am afraid that my Hunter -” he pauses, the gap in his words punctuated by loud, wet bodies squirming over and over each other almost painfully so. The force of it halts him in place. Pressing his hands together does nothing for his seams. “...my Hunter needs me, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. For their sake and the people aboard this vessel.”
Ah. Right. Decontamination was fluff, mindless filler for what really amounts to isolation and observation. Containment. But Hugh realizes how it must sound, now. Realizes how upsetting it must be when that uneven pace at his back halts abruptly in favor of a noisy wet anxious squirm, confirmed when he glances back and sees Cassius held in place, clutching at himself to keep the seams of himself together. Something in his chest that may not even be a nameable organ at this point clenches near painfully at the sight of him, so small and downcast. Scared, maybe.
So Hugh becomes the opposite. Turns on his heel primly and reaches down to clasp Cassius' writhing hands in his own, coaxing those seams shut for him. Wears a smile that glitters, warm and balmy the way Cassius' anxiety won't let him be. The way his nature prevents.
"Oh no, no. It's only a bit of time in isolation, Cassius, decontamination is - the Captain likes his official terminology is all. Makes him feel important, I wager. No one is going to hurt you or your--"
A pause. The wet squirm under his hands. The handshake had been brief, but now he can tell for certain that - yes, those are. Little bodies. Worms. The sort of things that fill up sunbaked dogs and come at him in nightmares, from time to time, only the ones where they take his shape instead. Some worm-bitten, noxious rotten strange thing that he's becoming. Sometimes he looks down and he's full of those horrible alien worms and they're inside him and eating him up and--
No, no. A smile.
"--friends. I won't allow anyone to hurt you, Cassius, you have my word. And believe me, my word is golden."
For their sake and the people aboard this vessel.
He caught that. Is trying not to visibly chew at it. Cassius is - keeping him safe is paramount. This Hunter might kill them all for the loss of him.
(If it were only him, he might not be so worried. But no, no - Cassius doesn't deserve that either. Not as far as Hugh's seen.)
"I'll lend you some of my books, how does that sound? The room has a television and everything. I've got every episode of Gatstronauts downloaded, you'll adore it."
It is the only real thought that drifts to Cassius as Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ heat soaks through his shell and holds him together where he himself cannot. As Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros reassures him in butterfly tones behind silverfish teeth.
I won’t allow anyone to hurt you, Cassius, you have my word.
It takes everything in him to drag his eyes up from their joined hands, takes even more to hold back his insides from piling into Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, from molding his shell against him like he has done so many times with his Hunter, because -
Because that is two times now. Two times that Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros has initiated contact with him. Two times that he has given Cassius the warmth of his hands, the warmth of his care. The warmth of his glittering, easy smile.
(And it is warm, so warm. Warm in a way that his Hunter finds difficult most days. Warm in a way that eases the squirming under his shell, that eases his unease just enough he can pull himself together again.
Cassius does not realize it, but he is smiling, too. A small, timid, ghost of a thing curling at his lips, yes, but still there all the same. Still mattering in all the ways that count.)
Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros says he will not allow anyone to hurt him.
Well, Cassius will not let anyone hurt Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, either.
(Monsters stick together.)
“I would like that, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros,” he finally says, once the storm inside of him settles enough to speak without undulating lips, a vibrating tongue. His worms are a soft movement under his papery shell now, pressed against Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ palms, yes, but not taking more than they should. “Unfortunately, I do not know what a Gastronauts is, but if you are sure that I will like it, then I look forward to the experience.”
"Please, call me Hugh. Bit quicker, isn't it?" A tilt of his head. Hugh gives Cassius' hands one last gentle squeeze before he pulls his own loose, sets them prim at his hips instead. "Doctor Argyros, if you'd rather stay formal. And you'll love it, I'm sure. Most of us do. Bit of the only real entertainment we get these days, if I'm being honest. Catastrophes and aliens aside."
Cassius' small smile warms him, honestly. Looks better on his face than that corpsey blankness, save those big, curious eyes of his. Not alive, no, but certainly lively, aren't they?
Cassius' room is one of the larger ones. Essentially a cell where they keep folks for observation, although Hugh takes pains not to make it sound as such - introduces Cassius to the little bed and the little bathroom and the amenities, very basic. This room was for something else, once, Hugh's not sure what, but it comes equipped with a television nonetheless. He brings armfuls of books back from his own cramped self-made quarters in Engineering and ignores how people stare at him for having had Cassius in tow, for how he carries his creature comforts in to this - this thing, as far as they know. Some critter, some fresh thing meant to kill them all. There's a sprawling observation window where they watch him chat Cassius up like a friend, grace him with idle touches here and there. A hand on the shoulder, arms brushing in passing.
They do not like it.
Maybe Cassius sees Hugh being confronted by a little group of angry-looking people when he steps out of the room. The glass muffles things, thick as it is, but it does not hide the way they point at the sole, buggy occupant accusingly. How they raise their voices. How Hugh raises his higher, just like he does his shoulders, crosses his arms and plants himself in the doorway and bristles visibly at some little comment. How it drives him forward into the space of a taller man, some burly fellow who sneers when Hugh jabs a finger in his chest and then shoves him, bold as anything.
People separate the two of them. They walk away together, as if marching to some doom.
Hours pass.
Hugh is back, then, with his jacket on and a rising bruise around his left eye in the vague shape of someone's knuckles. He smiles nonetheless. Steps inside with a tray of mess hall offerings - no empanadas today, unfortunately, they're doing something with rice and plant-based chicken, eugh - in hands that have a webbing of purplish bruising across the knuckles, a gash in one of them like he managed to catch it on something.
(Or someone's teeth.)
"Cassius! How are we? Sorry to disappear like that, had to, ah... have a word. With the higher ups." A glance to the TV. He showed Cassius how to navigate the menus, look for television shows or go through the music channels. "Comfortable, I hope?"
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no subject
Christ.
Hugh, to his credit, takes this admission in stride. That's all he's ever done, really. Take odd things in stride. Let them roll off of him like water off a duck's back. Not dwell too deeply on the fact that yes, the man-shaped creature in front of him is in fact entirely other. He steps forward, a hand settled easy on his chest.
"No worry there. I have enough heart for the both of us, I'm afraid."
A double-pulse. He's still not certain he's just got the one heart, these days. Won't let that Sesame Street prick Singh get anywhere near him with his - devices, and his scans, and his stupid doctorate. Why should he? Submit himself to such tawdry, useless investigation like that. Pointless. A waste of his precious time, and his is far more precious than anyone else's by far.
(Because he might not have very much of it left. Because he's terrified of what he'll see on those scans.)
Closer, now. Two paces at most. Still out of arm's reach, but close enough that it's nearly conversational. Faux-comfortable. As if they were friends, catching up after a long day. Hugh leans his hip against the counter as if they really were, arms crossed loose over his chest, and rakes his dark hair back out of the spots it's fallen into his face. Product doesn't keep it styled so much as sweat and machine oil off his hands these days, it's prone to going loose and hanging in his face like this. The mother of pearl chunk on his hair glistens wet under fluorescent light.
"So. Cassius. You know--" A deep breath in, pushed out through his teeth. Past them, really. His teeth are one solid entity now, steely absolute. No room between them for air to pass as he exhales, smiles. "I'm not human either, actually. Bit of a mixed breed. Two of a kind, us. Three of a kind with your hunter, I assume? Are they anything like you and I?"
He may not be needling, but he still wants to know. And Cassius, polite as he is, seems eager to talk about this hunter of his. Eager to talk in general.
(He's eerie up close. Moreso than before. Mottled fingertips and lips, and that sound - that sound is not a hum, it's a squirm. A wet, gristly noise. Like - like something familiar--)
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There is a delighted squirm to Cassius at that (like a heartbeat, maybe, like a simple thrum) as he watches Hugh the Doctor settle in across from him with familiarity not unlike his Hunter.
(Cassius doesn’t realize it, but he mirrors Hugh the Doctor’s body language just a little. Just enough to be off-putting. Just enough to feel a little closer to his newfound companion.)
He can see it now, he thinks. The monster. He had not noticed Hugh the Doctor’s teeth when he was so far, the unworldly, silvery sheen of them. Had thought the shimmering white upon the dark of his hair to be something more human than what it is.
Monsters here, it seems, are far more subtle than where he is from.
(Because despite all of his study of people, there is something he lacks, something obvious to observers that he cannot pinpoint, cannot replicate. Because despite how human his Hunter looks, how human they act, prey know a predator when they see one.)
Still, knowing that Hugh the Doctor is also a monster eases something in Cassius he had not known was tight to begin with. Means that he does not have to worry about scaring Hugh the Doctor anymore because Hugh the Doctor is no longer something to be scared.
“It is nice to meet a fellow monster,” he says, before shaking his head. “But… no, Hugh the Doctor, my Hunter is so much more than you and I.” For the first time in their conversation, Cassius slides his eyes shut. Tilts his head back as if reliving a fond memory, recalling dark features and a smile filled with too many teeth. “My Hunter is stronger. Faster. Sharper in ways that humans were not meant to be. They are a force of nature, birthed from blood by a song far older, far more primal than anything crafted by human hands. “
The squirming hum under his shell becomes tighter, his movements a touch jerkier when he reopens his eyes and once more gives Hugh the Doctor the full weight of his attention. His feet stammer across the floor as the energy writhing inside of him forces him into movement a few steps away.
“The Hunter is an inevitability, Hugh the Doctor,” Cassius continues, rocking back to face his fellow monster, skin rolling with the movement (with his fondness, with his eagerness to speak). “Teeth and claws in the dark. Blooming, tearing meat and fractured bones. Grooves in stone and metal alike.” He makes a gesture that ends up a little too wide, a little too stuttered with his enthusiasm. “My Hunter is a monster without limit.”
He pauses then. Drops his gaze to a buzzing, rippling palm before looking away entirely.
(Even the sudden sadness falls flat on his features.)
“Without my Hunter, I would not be here.” Would have surely slept away in his Garden and emerged into something… terrible. Something cruel. Something that would not have known just how wonderful humanity could be. A place deep within himself aches at the thought. “They have made me who I am, Hugh the Doctor. Shaped me just as their Song has shaped them.”
1/2
If there's a flicker in Hugh's eyes - in that pale right one, a milky spiral of pupils behind his gold half-frames, flickering and focusing on too little and too much all at once - he tries to keep it from being too terribly obvious. A monster. He supposes it's accurate enough, considering he is what he is. Some creature meant to terraform the minds around it, create a hive. To turn into some horrible, unnatural aberration of space and time and reason if he doesn't. Monster is apt. Hugh supposes that yes, he is very much so a monster too. There's a surprising amount of depth in being able to freely call oneself such, he thinks. Is impressed by Cassius' candid approach.
(Monster, yes. He's a monster. What else would he call himself these days? They call him that more than enough when they think he isn't around, can't hear through the pipes or from the walls.
Should probably start owning it, soon.)
But nevermind him. Nevermind that. Better to focus on - on how Cassius suddenly comes to life, or as close as he ever gets to it. How the excitement of talking about his hunter has him literally jittering across the floor, whatever makes him up - and Hugh is realizing now that he was right, there is something inside him that is moving and roiling and writing excitedly, that he really is just talking to the equivalent of a paper sack - thrilled at the opportunity to talk about this hunter.
And oh, what Hugh hears.
Stronger, faster, sharper. Birthed from blood by something older than humanity itself. Teeth, claws. Tearing meat and fractured bone. A monster without limit.
His mind grabs at the pertinents, at these details. Puts together a whirling mass of teeth and tearing claws, inky dark and primal and hungry. Nothing needs fangs and claws without the necessity for them. A monster without limit. There's a cool, sick pit in Hugh's stomach as he listens with a smile that becomes increasingly fixed in place, increasingly brittle. A polite little rictus with panic behind the eyes, maybe. His hand is flexing in and out of a fist at his side, palms bitten by machinery and scarred pale with spilled chemicals curling in and out and in and out and--
God.
God.
2/2
Is what he says instead of letting that anxiety spill out of anything except his unconscious body language. How jerky his hand on his hip is now, how edgy his smile. He takes in the roil of something beneath Cassius' shell as something intriguing, not something terrifying the way any other human might, and tries not to gnaw a worse raw hole in the lining of his cheek than he already has. Steel teeth are a bit unforgiving that way.
"They've made you quite the conversationalist, at least. I'll have to thank them for that." A sharp little inhale, hand shaking itself out a bit, as if burned. As if to discard the slight quake of his fingers at the idea of this fucking thing crawling around his ship, doing - god knows what. He steels himself instead, offers Cassius a hand to shake. Maybe he'll shake it, maybe he won't. Unimportant either way. "Well-met, Cassius. You'll have to tell me all about them. Would you like to come somewhere more comfortable with me? I'll get you set up with a room, if you'd like. A space of your own."
With a lock on the door. The outside, not the inside.
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If Cassius had not found something to like about Hugh the Doctor before (had not liked him for his kindness, for his familiarity, for those qualities so reminiscent of his Hunter), then this is what cements Hugh the Doctor in Cassius’ good graces. That he had heard of his Hunter, of their strength and their edges, and found them just as admirable as he does.
It makes the worms in his shell squirm (pleased, content, happy to have found a friend) almost warmly, almost as if dancing.
(The tone, of course, is lost to Cassius. It has always been lost to Cassius.)
Hugh the Doctor is still smiling at him, even. Holds out to him a hand to shake like Cassius has seen so many humans do with each other, but not with him. Never with him. Could never even get close enough to a person to offer.
(He had asked his Hunter, once, what it meant. The answer had been slow to come and drawled out with thought. A handshake’s a greeting, Cas. To show you’re both on equal ground, or something. It’s just a thing humans do.)
And here Hugh the Doctor offers him one.
Cassius is all too eager with deadened eyes and jittery limbs to close the distance between them and slot his hand in Hugh the Doctor’s. His shell molds around Hugh the Doctor’s just a little, just enough to soak up more of that -
Warmth. He is so very warm, Hugh the Doctor. So much so that it takes conscious effort on Cassius’ part to keep his worms from breaking free from his husk and wrapping around Hugh the Doctor’s arm like they belong there. He does, though. He does. Even tames back the squirming just enough that he can give Hugh the Doctor what he thinks is a proper squeeze.
(And holds it. The thought of letting go does not occur to Cassius.)
“I would be happy to tell you about my Hunter, Hugh the Doctor,” Cassius says, words accompanied by the low hum of pleased squirming. “And… yes. A room would be appreciated, since I am unable to access my Garden.”
(Something to worry about later, that. After he has been reunited with his Hunter.)
He tilts his head as a thought strikes him. “Will I need to… ‘pay rent’ for this room, Hugh the Doctor? I am afraid that I have no human money kept on this shell of mine.”
1/2 hhhhhhhhhhh
When he had been younger, doing the drudgery for Argyros Cryonics, his mother had spitefully assigned him to what the workers often called dog duty. Handling dead pets, prepping them for cryonic preservation. It wasn't always dogs, no - there were plenty of cats too, as well as a smattering of other creatures both spectacularly exotic (numerous macaws gone dull and ashen with age or death, and a sloth, once) and entirely mundane (children's guinea pigs, cockatoos, frogs and lizards and all manner of critters) - but more often than not, it was dogs. People seemed to get the most attached to their dogs. Man's best friend type shit. Most often, they would come in little more than an hour or so after death, sometimes even still a bit warm. Dead weight in his hands, but peaceful enough that he could pretend they were only sleeping while he loaded them into their tubes. Sometimes they were a bit further along, legs cocked at unnatural, stiff angles that he had to work around. Curl their dead legs around himself in a nightmarish hug to keep from breaking bits off.
But one time. There had been the one time.
The summer had been unusually hot. Global warming and all, of course, but this one had been sweltering. A miserable sweatfest as soon as you stepped outdoors in Greece, nevermind hotter climes. Some princess from the Hamptons had had a maid let their dog out by accident one morning when the owner and her family had been away on vacation, and it had sat out in the blazing sun.
For a week.
What had been carried into the lobby had hardly been a dog at all at that point. A mess of fur and slime packed into a Louis Vuitton duffel, dumped into Hugh's arms because the was the only one around to handle it. Had had no choice. He remembers to this day how the bag had sloshed when he'd jostled it, how the smell had leaked through the teeth of the zipper like a living, malevolent thing as he'd laid it out next to the tube, his stomach roiling at the thought of opening it. How he nearly hadn't.
But he had. He'd seen nothing but motion, some poor little thing warped beyond recognition by bloated purple and soppy green and pale, soft bodies wriggling over each other in the hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds. That wet, sour smell. That sweet-hot stink of putrefaction. And all
those
maggots.
Hugh grips Cassius' hand and realizes that he is full of something like what that dog had been full of, all those years ago. That the roiling wet motion of him is - is many small, soft bodies wriggling over each other. In the thousands. The millions.
The shape of Cassius, this body of his? He realizes that it isn't leading the motion. Not with the roiling, jerky movements of his, no. Whatever is inside him, filling him up - that.
That's Cassius.
no subject
It will be dealt with. Or not dealt with, likely. But it will have to wait.
"Oh no, we don't use money anymore. No point up here, hm?" Hugh gives a firm shake and then loosens his grip from Cassius', gently. Coaxes his hand back, ignoring what it feels like to feel all those little bodies piling into the warmth of his hand, humming. He resists the urge to wipe that hand on his thigh. It would be rude. "I keep this sack - hunk of bolts running at this point, you won't have to pay anything. No need. You're a guest of the esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros now, you know, nothing to worry about. Only follow me, I'll find you a room myself."
Upstairs. Near Hugh's little nook of Engineering, where he can stay close by and keep things monitored. One of the secure containers, likely. Those rooms they use to quarantine and observe on the odd chance illness comes through. (The ones they used to keep all of YS' dead-eyed hulls in, poor bastards. Before they'd airlocked them. Some of the families had insisted on going with them, and that had been the hardest part - deciding whether or not to let them. They'd let them.) Safer for everyone involved. The rest of the ship won't be thrilled to have Cassius on board, and even less thrilled with Hugh for having him.
Hugh lets on to absolutely none of this. His smile is a bit fixed in place, but charming enough. He can play a role when he cares enough to. It's just so rare that he cares enough to, is all. He only steps back, arms spread theatrically as he backs to the door.
"Now, tell me about yourself, my friend. Did you come from another ship? Another world, maybe? Unless you've been mixing it up down on Earth with all those--"
An offhanded wave of his hand.
"--you know. Creatures."
Don't say zombies. Don't say zombies.
no subject
No point up here, hm? and Down on Earth.
Hunk of bolts and did you come from another ship?
(He says it like they are - )
The worms slow in their squirming, so much that the drone of them tapers out into something soft. Barely there. A whisper of a hum instead of a choir.
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros -” he pauses, a small furrow to his brow. It takes him a moment to follow Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, but he does so with slow, stiff movements “- this place, these walls, this... ship. Is this not on Earth?”
(it would explain some things, he thinks. Why there is a hum to the steel here, why his Garden does not come when he calls. He is not sure how to feel about it. About any of it.)
Another question bubbles up unbidden. “'Creatures'? Are you perhaps referring to humans, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros? We have many on Earth, yes, though they are not fond of the Hunter and I.”
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Well, that raises as many questions as it answers. Raises more, actually. If he didn't come from outside the ship, and he didn't come from Earth, then where--
No, no. Don't focus on that. Focus on stopping in his tracks, fitting Cassius with a look of unveiled surprise that only fades off a bit as he answers. Slow, thoughtful.
"You're not going to freak out when I tell you this, I hope, but--" Mm. His mouth sets in a line, eyes flickering from steel wall to steel wall. Lifeless, sharp halogen. Steel and metal that ranges from ice cold to off-warm, but never the sort you'd have from the sun, from living sources. He'd mentioned something about a garden. They have a viviarium, maybe he'll take him there sometime. When it feels safer. When the dirt settles. "--you're in orbit right now."
A beat. Maybe break it down a bit more. Hugh spreads his hands, fingers curling around some invisible, meaningful something. To him, it's the planet. The space around it as his hands expand.
"You know. Space. The space just around the planet, in fact."
The creatures bit he'll address in a moment. Hopefully. Hopefully his new friend doesn't go berserk and live up to that monster title they now share. He'd worn it so casually.
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His attention on Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros does not waver in the slightest, even as Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ mismatched eyes do.
You’re in orbit right now.
Cassius opens his mouth, a question on the tip of his tongue -
You know. Space. The space just around the planet, in fact.
- and closes his mouth immediately after, new questions sprouting forth even as the weight of Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros sinks in.
Cassius is no longer on Earth. No longer upon familiar soil. Instead he is above it. In… space. In that blackened curtain his Garden’s sky is a poor imitation of, where the moon hangs bright and the sun warms his skin and the stars -
The drone returns in twofold now, Cassius’ expression lighting up as much as his otherness will allow (which is, of course, not a lot).
“We are in the sky?” he asks, pushing a little more into Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ personal bubble. “How is this possible, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, when we are in a ship? Are they not meant for sailing through the ocean?”
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"Well, sort of. A bit above the sky you'd see from Earth, if you're going to get technical. I'd rather not. Never much of a cosmonaut, myself." Not until circumstance made one of him, anyway. He still doesn't necessarily understand much outside of the basics - what one needs to keep a spaceship afloat and alive and not drifting mindlessly through space full of corpses. Hugh teeters back on his heels a bit, not entirely willing to be the one to take a step back for fresh air and admit defeat. He can practically feel that humming in his bones. "
God he's really close. Hugh makes a grand sweeping gesture with his arm that ever so coincidentally carries him back a step, gesturing at the air around him. The room, the ship itself. Space.
"And this - different sort of ship, although they're both very much for sailing. Star sailing, you might call it. It's a spaceship." He sounds downright proud now, practically beaming. "The Protogonos is her name. Roughly, I don't know - twenty five thousand people in her belly, give or take a few hundred every time new ships come around. There's a good twenty others out there, but don't let them fool you - the Protogonos is by far the best."
It is most certainly not. But he's not about to admit that.
"Would you like to stop by the viewport before we head to your room? Get a look at open space? You wouldn't believe the view up here, without light pollution. More lights than you could ever count."
Alright, shit. Maybe Hugh likes space too.
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The thought squirms out of his grasp not long after, because -
Because Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros speaks of this "spaceship”, of this Protogonos, in the same tone of voice Cassius feels when speaking of his Hunter. He can understand this, he thinks, even if he cannot understand, cannot imagine, the things that Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros can. Things like how does one sail through space without water? Or how can a ship be a ship, but also a woman?
Cassius does not know, does not ask to know, because Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros brings up something much more important.
Twenty five thousand people in her belly, give or take a few hundred.
“Oh,” Cassius says, once more closing in to feel Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ body heat. “That is good, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. The Hunter will not go hungry then.”
He doesn’t linger this time, instead opting to move passed Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros towards the door. He pauses to look over his shoulder (neck twisting just a little more than a person’s would, head bending at a little more awkward of an angle), worms shifting in anticipation.
“I would love to stop by this ‘viewport’, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. I am eager to see the stars without your... 'light pollution'.”
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Now, he should've assumed a hunter would be hunting people, probably. But fuck, maybe Hugh wanted to hope for once. Imagine this thing of Cassius' was hunting - self-fulfillment or some bullshit like that. That maybe it was metaphorical. No, no. Silly him.
The hunter is here. The hunter is hunting his twenty-five thousand or so, give or take.
The hunter is in his ship.
Anxiety is thrumming behind his tightened jaw, the ache of teeth that do not give under insistent, nervous clenching traveling in white hot threads up to his worn jaw. His double-time heart picks up to a treble. There is ice in his stomach, now.
And yet--
"Of - of course, Cassius." Hugh's expression may be a bit more drawn than before, but the smile is there nonetheless. Weakened, but there. Ignore the quiet shake of his hand in the moment before he shakes it out himself, an absent flicker of his wrist that turns into rubbing at one of them as he walks, makes a point of not looking directly at Cassius until they're at an angle where that head and neck look halfway normal. Cassius is calm, polite. Friendly. It wouldn't do to let his unease show, and coping with that squirming, aberrant build of his is adding stress onto his already simmering unease. "After me."
He takes point, walks ahead by a few paces because he needs to lead the way, of course. Needs to make sure the people that see Cassius will see that he's in tow behind their very favorite head of engineering, that everything is under control. Ish. That everything is fine.
(Because this way, he can let the anxiety gnaw into his expression without worrying about communicating that to his company.)
"Stay close, now. Place is a bit of a maze. We'll take the elevator here in a few turns - more privacy that way, you know."
Place is a fucking mess of a maze. Plenty of places for a hunter to wait.
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(But not for a lack of trying, because Cassius certainly seems like he is trying to. Hugh cannot go ten feet without him trailing behind to a stop due to observing a piece of furniture, one of the many notices hung up on the walls, or even just a particularly funky looking piece of machinery.
If Hugh had been wondering at all why Cassius’ reported sightings weren’t that far apart, well, he knows now. Cassius likes to look.
It makes the trip to the elevator take so much longer than it is supposed to, and that’s not even taking into account the questions.)
“If we are not on Earth, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros," he says, "then where is your water sourced from? Do you not need to drink?”
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, this notice on the board – it is requesting to ‘call’ for a ‘good time’ -” emphasized by a curling of fingers “- is it possible to call in for such a thing?”
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros," he says, hands cupped before him with care, "I have found a cockroach. Please, look -”
(Cassius has never felt so lively outside of his Hunter's company. It is... nice. Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros is nice.
He wonders if this is what it means to have 'fun'.)
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros,” Cassius starts once more, just as they reach the metal doors of the elevator. If there is tension to Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ shoulders by this point, Cassius misses it. His tone is a little more subdued now, a little more thoughtful. “...before, you asked me about my Hunter.” A hopeful drone underneath paper-thin skin. “Does this mean you will help me find them?”
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Congratulations are in order for Cassius. He'd be screaming at anyone else by this point.
All of our water is recycled after use. Traded between ships when evaporation gets to it, you know. And believe me, I absolutely need a drink.
(He does not mention that the fleet is largely running out. That they have to buy it from the one ship that found a monopoly in piecing out their vast hoards from the Before Times, the Earthside times.)
Trust me, there's no good time to be had with that particular board. It's usually a set-up to rob someone. Or a set-up for disappointing sex.
(He does not bother asking whether or not Cassius is familiar with sex. By God, he has and will continue to give plenty of explanations tonight, and that will not be one of them.)
Oh good. More cockroaches. I'm sure people are hoarding food in their rooms again, making more little friends for me to find in the walls.
(He does not step on said cockroach, and it is a Herculean show of will that he does not do so. The offending bug waggles its antennae impertinently before scurrying off underneath a piece of furniture, never to be seen again.)
By the time they make it to the elevator, Hugh's never known he could be so exhausted from so few steps. So little effort in the physical. The doors hitch just a moment before they slide open - wonderful, something else for him to fix - and he glances at Cassius over his shoulder, brows rising a bit. Paints on a smile. Cassius seems hopeful, eager. Hugh gnaws away the parts of him that might seem conspiratorial.
(Cassius wouldn't notice them anyway, he wagers.)
"Oh, absolutely. Had designs to find them on my own at any rate, might as well get you two... reunited, no?" He steps inside, the dingy interior worn by feet and hands and all manner of greasy, nasty human things. There's gum on the button pad that Hugh nonchalantly digs a screwdriver from his back pocket to pry off, then uses his knuckles to hit the button for the top floor. Wipes them on his shirt afterwards. "You'll have to help me, though. I'll need your expertise to track them down. Would you help me do that, Cassius?"
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Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros is going to help Cassius reunite with them.
Cassius is practically vibrating in his skin at the news, his worms writhing almost violently in their excitement (he does not notice how loud he has become, how the drone of him bounces off of the tighter confines of the elevator. Doesn’t even realize he’s loosening in places until he feels himself wobble. It takes effort to control himself, but he does. He does). He almost takes a step forward, before the elevator jerking to life keeps him in place.
“Yes, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, it would be my pleasure to help you,” he says, almost blurting out the words for all that a monster can. There’s a hint of pride in his tone as he folds his hands together (squeezes the popping seams closed so they may heal). “My Hunter is difficult to track without my Garden, but you seem to be very capable, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. I am fortunate to have found you.”
And he is, is he not? There are so little monsters in the world, even less that are kind. Cassius feels… lucky, he thinks is the word. Lucky to have found such a companion so far from his home.
(Grateful, even, to the force that had put him here in the first place.)
Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros is not the Hunter, no, could never be the Hunter, but Cassius enjoys his company all the same. As the numbers above the elevator doors change and change and change, Cassius settles in just a little bit closer to his fellow monster.
(Away from the elevator, floors and floors and halls away where the shadows are thicker, the machinery louder, a man goes missing. No one is around to hear him scream.
Cassius was right, of course. His Hunter does not leave a trace.)
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As is, Hugh only has to raise his voice a bit. He is not human human anymore, and it only registers as noise. Another detail to take in. Like Cassius' dogged eagerness, the way he squeezes his hands together like wet craft paper to seal the slick, writhing mass back inside of himself.
(He'll spend tonight divided neatly between setting up new ways to track down this hunter and trying to puzzle out how Cassius works, exactly. Neither will be fruitful.)
For now, though, he smiles. Friendly, if a bit bland. More than a bit calculating behind his odd, mismatched eyes.
"And I you. I think we're going to be very good friends, Cassius."
Ding.
The viewport isn't very far, really. Maybe they spend a bit more time on Cassius' distractions, but for the most part, Hugh ushers them to the grand steel double doors and punches in his passcode (nine digits, lightning quick like he has the sequence carved behind his eyes) with his knuckles, gestures for Cassius to go on ahead when the doors slide open with a soft whirr.
"Had to lock it down after... mm. Some trouble." Hugh falters only for a moment on that explanation, careful to close the doors after them. Doesn't mention YS. The great, pale shape of it so close it nearly pressed itself to the glass - how it still comes around, sometimes. Tries to communicate with anyone it sees inside, to usually traumatized or disastrous effect. Doesn't seem to be here right now, at least. "Just you and I. As it should be."
It's at least six full-length panes of something akin to glass, although far colder to the touch. A sprawling view of the stretch of space to Earth's right, at the moment. Up here, there is no light and there are no clouds - nothing to diminish the infinite sprawl of the universe all around them. Stars and galaxies and oh, there's Mars, that pale red shape of it hovering far, far out. Easier to see out here. There are telescopes, too, positioned in a line along the glass - Cassius might see further celestial bodies if he looks.
(Hugh has, often. In the beginning, when space was still wonderful and new. Now he just comes here to bask in the soft celestial glow and drink.)
"Enjoy."
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His seams nearly split open again at that as he follows Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros along, because – because Cassius has never had a friend before. He has the Hunter, yes, but the Hunter – they are so much more to Cassius. Fill so much more.
(They were there when he woke up to a squirming sky, woke up to the feeling of leaves under his back and the rawness of being New. It had been so much. So much.
His seams had cracked with the Newness, had sagged and sloshed with inexperience like a newborn learning to walk. Learning to be.
And they - they had understood.)
He opens his mouth to answer (I would very much like that, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros), but -
The doors open, and the words break away from him like loose soil.
Cassius lurches to the panes in his excitement, in his awe, hands squishing against the window as he leans in to the glass close enough that his nose barely brushes against it. His squirming has slowed to a stop as he takes in the view, the black stretch of Not Sky and the beautiful, twinkling things scattered in it like suspended, frozen fireflies. His eyes stretch wide, so wide, as if that will help him take in the splashes of soft colors, the -
Oh.
“Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros,” Cassius says, voice soft, hollowed of its hum. “Is that… the Earth?”
It is so... blue. So round. So full of vibrancy, even from all the way up here, in the Not Sky. Space. He drags a hand over the glass, almost caressing the image of the thing full of a species he has learned to love. Has hoped to imitate. Has craved to know with every living body that powers him.
And Cassius -
Cassius only wishes his Hunter were here to see it, too.
His hand curls against the glass. It takes effort to pull his hollowed eyes away from the window, from his second home, to fix his gaze upon Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros as if he holds all the answers. The hum under his skin stutters to a start, as if remembering that they, too, are alive.
“Thank you for this, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros." He turns away from the window completely, then, once more folding his hands before him, elbows bent. "If at all possible, when we find my Hunter, I would like for them to see this as well.”
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And it's true. After long enough, the beauty of open space becomes nothing more than a backdrop to the mundane drudgery of life. His life, in particular. Easy to forget about the painted cosmos outside his walls when he's too busy crawling around in them fixing things, burning himself on pipes. Battling the roaches.
Cassius' wonder reminds him that it is wondrous. Is beautiful. Hugh breathes in a chestful of over-sterilized, dry spaceship air and lets it out in a gentle lull against the glass. Only bothers to glance over when he sees motion in the corner of his eye, tilting his head to watch Cassius turn, hands brought in and folded politely. Turns to face him halfway, a hand on his cocked hip.
A monster, he calls himself. But he's hardly anything monstrous. The build and shape of him may be strange, but the rest? That demeanor of his, the way he carries himself? It's so... normal. So very quiet, so contained. Certainly not the black-eyed beast fit to devour them all that terrified crew were crowing about left and right. They didn't bother to give him a moment, to listen to him. To understand. Didn't want to.
(Hugh knows the feeling.)
"Of course, Cassius. Everyone should see it at least once, hm?" A little laugh, warm and faint. "Including your Hunter. Once we find them, we'll bring them here to take a look themselves. Do you think they'll appreciate it the way you do?"
(They have to hunt the Hunter first, of course.)
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Would his Hunter appreciate it?
He contemplates the question for a moment, two, three. Contemplates the vast space before him even longer.
“...my Hunter would appreciate it more, I think,” he says finally, a thoughtful tilt to his head. “Their senses are far greater than mine are, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. They often think it a curse, but – perhaps here it could be a blessing.”
(Could be more than just smelling blood under fingernails and week-old tears soaked into shirts. Could be more than hearing hammering heartbeats and hitching breaths and the quiet pleas of hiding prey.
Could be more than just an anchor to the Song.
Maybe his Hunter would find some semblance of peace, then.)
He looks back to Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, something softer in his stiff, dead features. “I believe I am ready to move on, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. The sooner I am roomed, the sooner we may start our search, correct?” A pause, and then, “I wish to reunite with my Hunter as soon as possible. They will… miss me, I think, as I do them.”
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Hugh takes a mental note.
(Sharper senses. Might need to figure out some way around that.)
"Of course. Whenever you're ready." Hugh makes sure to lock up behind them. Throws one last lingering look out at the stars after Cassius has left the room, something pensive across his features. "We'll be on the..."
He misses them, sometimes. YS. The mental connection is weakened through no small effort of his own, worn down to a thread, but that thread persists - reminds him of their presence. He's not sure he could cut it if he tried. He has not tried.
There is no sound out there, but there's a gentle ripple in the stars. Reality softening like melted plastic. That thread between them vibrating gently, like a spider tracing its web. Hugh turns halfway and lets the doors shut, punches the lock back into place without looking and ignores that desperate little tug at the back of his mind.
(He's given enough to them. Will give more, with time, whether he likes it or not. Let them wait.)
"...Mm." Hadn't finished that thought, had he? Hugh pushes on as if there were no pause at all, his steps a bit slower on the walk out. He pops his knuckles absently, working each finger loose into the curl of his other hand. "On the third deck, near me. We'll have some decontamination procedures to put you through, of course. Can't risk any unnatural viruses you might've inadvertently brought on board getting the rest of them ill. Lucky you that I'm mostly immune these days."
Entirely immune, in fact. They have colds, flus, a bevy of the usual Earth illnesses. In the years he's been up here, he's caught more than a few himself.
Until YS.
"But it involves staying in the room for a bit. Until we can clear you to walk around. I hope you don't mind, terribly sorry for the inconvenience." He adds on a bit more with a lilt, glancing at Cassius over his shoulder. "Wouldn't want to hurt anyone."
He's curious. Cassius seems to hold no active ill intent, but would he care if he were to hurt someone inadvertently? Would he value his freedom and will more than everyone else?
(Would he be a Hugh?)
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Like the look upon Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ face when he lingers by the door.
Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros must have heavy thoughts like his Hunter does. The ones that -
( - carved itself into me, Cas. You don’t… forget something like that. Can’t forget.
It’s become just as much a part of me as your maggots are a part of you.)
He doesn’t point out the pause (his Hunter appreciates when he does not, and something tells him that Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros would appreciate it as well), merely watches as Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros comes back to the moment and acts as if it had not happened instead. For all his curiosity, Cassius is all too aware how it can pry open wounds for the flies to infest.
“’Decontamination procedures’?” he echoes eventually, following Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, grateful for his consideration of Cassius’ slower shell even as his low drone abruptly shifts (his Hunter would have named it unease). “Will such a thing not harm my worms, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros? Despite being clean, I am aware that the very nature of my being is not as… sanitary, I believe, as the humans would like.”
And if Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros wishes for his whole shell, his whole self to be cleansed, it would not – he would not be able to reach his Garden for more of himself, if the worst were to pass. He does not know what would happen to him if he had no worms left to control, to be. Would he – die, then? Fade into nothing?
He does not know. Does not wish to know. Does not wish to even entertain the idea, because without him -
“If I were to be harmed during the process, I am afraid that my Hunter -” he pauses, the gap in his words punctuated by loud, wet bodies squirming over and over each other almost painfully so. The force of it halts him in place. Pressing his hands together does nothing for his seams. “...my Hunter needs me, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros. For their sake and the people aboard this vessel.”
He lowers his eyes. “I am sorry.”
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Ah. Right. Decontamination was fluff, mindless filler for what really amounts to isolation and observation. Containment. But Hugh realizes how it must sound, now. Realizes how upsetting it must be when that uneven pace at his back halts abruptly in favor of a noisy wet anxious squirm, confirmed when he glances back and sees Cassius held in place, clutching at himself to keep the seams of himself together. Something in his chest that may not even be a nameable organ at this point clenches near painfully at the sight of him, so small and downcast. Scared, maybe.
So Hugh becomes the opposite. Turns on his heel primly and reaches down to clasp Cassius' writhing hands in his own, coaxing those seams shut for him. Wears a smile that glitters, warm and balmy the way Cassius' anxiety won't let him be. The way his nature prevents.
"Oh no, no. It's only a bit of time in isolation, Cassius, decontamination is - the Captain likes his official terminology is all. Makes him feel important, I wager. No one is going to hurt you or your--"
A pause. The wet squirm under his hands. The handshake had been brief, but now he can tell for certain that - yes, those are. Little bodies. Worms. The sort of things that fill up sunbaked dogs and come at him in nightmares, from time to time, only the ones where they take his shape instead. Some worm-bitten, noxious rotten strange thing that he's becoming. Sometimes he looks down and he's full of those horrible alien worms and they're inside him and eating him up and--
No, no. A smile.
"--friends. I won't allow anyone to hurt you, Cassius, you have my word. And believe me, my word is golden."
For their sake and the people aboard this vessel.
He caught that. Is trying not to visibly chew at it. Cassius is - keeping him safe is paramount. This Hunter might kill them all for the loss of him.
(If it were only him, he might not be so worried. But no, no - Cassius doesn't deserve that either. Not as far as Hugh's seen.)
"I'll lend you some of my books, how does that sound? The room has a television and everything. I've got every episode of Gatstronauts downloaded, you'll adore it."
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It is the only real thought that drifts to Cassius as Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ heat soaks through his shell and holds him together where he himself cannot. As Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros reassures him in butterfly tones behind silverfish teeth.
I won’t allow anyone to hurt you, Cassius, you have my word.
It takes everything in him to drag his eyes up from their joined hands, takes even more to hold back his insides from piling into Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, from molding his shell against him like he has done so many times with his Hunter, because -
Because that is two times now. Two times that Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros has initiated contact with him. Two times that he has given Cassius the warmth of his hands, the warmth of his care. The warmth of his glittering, easy smile.
(And it is warm, so warm. Warm in a way that his Hunter finds difficult most days. Warm in a way that eases the squirming under his shell, that eases his unease just enough he can pull himself together again.
Cassius does not realize it, but he is smiling, too. A small, timid, ghost of a thing curling at his lips, yes, but still there all the same. Still mattering in all the ways that count.)
Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros says he will not allow anyone to hurt him.
Well, Cassius will not let anyone hurt Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros, either.
(Monsters stick together.)
“I would like that, Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros,” he finally says, once the storm inside of him settles enough to speak without undulating lips, a vibrating tongue. His worms are a soft movement under his papery shell now, pressed against Esteemed Senior Engineer Argyros’ palms, yes, but not taking more than they should. “Unfortunately, I do not know what a Gastronauts is, but if you are sure that I will like it, then I look forward to the experience.”
INSERT TINY LIL TIMESKIP
Cassius' small smile warms him, honestly. Looks better on his face than that corpsey blankness, save those big, curious eyes of his. Not alive, no, but certainly lively, aren't they?
Cassius' room is one of the larger ones. Essentially a cell where they keep folks for observation, although Hugh takes pains not to make it sound as such - introduces Cassius to the little bed and the little bathroom and the amenities, very basic. This room was for something else, once, Hugh's not sure what, but it comes equipped with a television nonetheless. He brings armfuls of books back from his own cramped self-made quarters in Engineering and ignores how people stare at him for having had Cassius in tow, for how he carries his creature comforts in to this - this thing, as far as they know. Some critter, some fresh thing meant to kill them all. There's a sprawling observation window where they watch him chat Cassius up like a friend, grace him with idle touches here and there. A hand on the shoulder, arms brushing in passing.
They do not like it.
Maybe Cassius sees Hugh being confronted by a little group of angry-looking people when he steps out of the room. The glass muffles things, thick as it is, but it does not hide the way they point at the sole, buggy occupant accusingly. How they raise their voices. How Hugh raises his higher, just like he does his shoulders, crosses his arms and plants himself in the doorway and bristles visibly at some little comment. How it drives him forward into the space of a taller man, some burly fellow who sneers when Hugh jabs a finger in his chest and then shoves him, bold as anything.
People separate the two of them. They walk away together, as if marching to some doom.
Hours pass.
Hugh is back, then, with his jacket on and a rising bruise around his left eye in the vague shape of someone's knuckles. He smiles nonetheless. Steps inside with a tray of mess hall offerings - no empanadas today, unfortunately, they're doing something with rice and plant-based chicken, eugh - in hands that have a webbing of purplish bruising across the knuckles, a gash in one of them like he managed to catch it on something.
(Or someone's teeth.)
"Cassius! How are we? Sorry to disappear like that, had to, ah... have a word. With the higher ups." A glance to the TV. He showed Cassius how to navigate the menus, look for television shows or go through the music channels. "Comfortable, I hope?"
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1/2 hhhhhh
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