Chapter Text
His life had become a dreamless sleep.
Night was no longer differentiated by day, nor did it need to be. The moon and sun that once governed the sky were long gone, left back home to preside over the rest of their charges.
Tommy remembered distant parables of lost sheep and coins but it soon faded back into the static. A murmur began somewhere in the room, maybe. It might have sounded like someone he knew, however it was lost when the screaming started again.
Ironically, the inhuman sounds of torture were now the only thing keeping Tommy anchored to reality in any way.
The endless constraint of white metal walls sure wasn’t doing it.
Time slipped too fast to be slow and too slow to be fast and the screaming disappeared. Though Tommy could recall exactly what it sounded like, he couldn’t tell you when it ended.
Everyday for the past however long had passed like this.
He turned over, an effort he rarely made anymore, vaguely concerned about a sore that had appeared on his other hip at some point.
The screaming did not return for a long while. He pressed his face to the textureless blanket that was loosely bunched under his head, still even now knowing what too long without screaming meant. Back, long ago, Tommy used to fight. Screaming like a wild animal and trying to throw off his captors. But that was then. They still armored up to grab him, as if he still fought, though he couldn’t remember exactly when he’d given up.
…
The lights flickered and a jolt ran through the ship. Must be docking to another ship. That's unfortunate.
It was a long time coming though. These pieces of shit don’t like being without new test subjects for long.
There was an uncomfortable sounding rattle from the ventilation, sounding eerily similar to what he’d always imagined a “death rattle,” sounded like, and finally the ship was quiet. For about five minutes.
…
The distant screaming that came next was not the typical sort of screaming. Rather than the monotonous agony that had decided to make itself comfortable with everyone and everything here, excluding the Green Fucks probably, it sounded like a war cry.
If Tommy could sink any further into his two featureless white blankets, he would. God, he would, but unfortunately the rage that once greeted his hormonal and poorly socialized teen psyche like an old friend could no longer care about whatever new soul had found a place to die. With no further to sink away from this, he laid in his cell, as responsive as ever.
If he closed his eyes the screaming almost sounded human. Not that it was any different than having his eyes open.
The screams were getting closer to his little dead end without any concern for Tommy’s strange semblance of peace.
Then the words set in.
Confusing, indecipherable at first, then finally bits of peices of humanity.
Tommy went still, tensed like something hiding.
A loud girlish voice, which became more clear when he finally realized that it was an American South accent, was yelling so loudly that after so much quiet buzzing for so long, he felt he should cover his ears. But the bits and pieces of threats and insults that were hammering into his skull with all the consideration of a chimpanzee with a grudge were still the most amazing thing he had heard in so long.
Slowly, consciously, agonizingly untensing his fingers and neck and jaw, forcing a deep breath, Tommy got his arms under him and sat up. Thin fabric fell off of his frame and the cold air rushed onto his too-pale skin.
The voice approached, under it, the sounds of scraping, clicking, hissing, and heavy boots hitting the floor sporadically.
The door next to him whooshed open, and the yelling cut mid-word, that word being, “liver,” which ended up being more, “liv-aowf,” then a gasp, “out your anus!”
Tommy waited until the yelling dulled down to a few half-thought through vague threats before he attempted to speak.
Fighting back a cough and failing, Tommy finally spoke.
“So… how’s life?”
“You- are you stupid?”
“Eh, just a little bit.”
“Stupid and British? Don’t you have enough issues?”
“Hey now, what the hell, man?”
“Who are you, what are those things and where the fuck are we and why?”
“I - uh-”
“What happened to your voice? Do you smoke?”
“What? Ok, wait, ok. I’m Tommy, those are probably aliens, I call ‘em Green Fucks, and we’re on a space ship probably, we’re here to be lab rats and no, I don’t smoke.”
“I didn’t ask if you smoked?”
“Wha - yes? You did?”
“Mmm… nope. No I didn’t.”
“You did!”
“Nope! Anyways! My name is Drista, I’m going to kill those guys, and I also don’t smoke.”
“Well now that’s grea-”
“Lab rats? You said we’re lab rats.”
“Can I finish a fucking sentence?”
“You just did, now move on! The future waits for no one. What do you mean by lab rats.”
Tommy had rediscovered the anger that had fallen into dormancy through the single best way to inflict rage, an (even more) annoying teenager.
“What do you think? We’re here to dick around? Frolic maybe?”
Drista’s one-ha laugh was more of a cough and suddenly Tommy knew what a ‘scoff’ probably was.
“Well maybe I’d like to know what those literal bone-heads are gonna do to me, ya ever thought of that? Maybe I’d like to know what these guys are about, scope out the competition, hm?”
“What, you thinking of dissecting everyone next?”
“Pfa- no?!”
“‘Cause I don’t think you’ve got the -uh- mental capabilities -”
“Hey!”
“For any of your research to be helpful.”
“Ok, kebab boy, just because you don’t care about being cut open like a piece of meat does not mean I’m as nih- nihilistit- ic as you! I’’m not a-”
Tommy however was preoccupied with an old image that resurfaced as a thought with so much force that it was out of his mouth before he had a single moment to process what it was - “More like under new management…” he muttered in a tone that was somewhat humored and wistful.
Drista stopped her tirade immediately. Tommy then heard a choking sound which turned into loud cackling. Between her sputtering breaths, she managed a strained, “And there is no queen of England!”
Tommy was chuckling now, weak, but it was there. All the previous tension had drained out of both rooms.
After a little more deranged cackles, Drista caught her breath. “I haven’t watched that in so long! Sorry about your queen by the way.”
“What? Why? What happened?”
Suddenly the tension was back.
“Uhm..." She sucked a breath through her teeth, "Tommy? When exactly did you end up, uh, here?”
“January 2020, why? What happened? Drista?!”
…
Three years. Tommy had been in space for three years, or a month less than three years.
It wasn’t as hard to wrap his head around as it should have been. It had been too long to even pretend years weren’t a possibility.
…
It was just kinda overwhelming and disorienting and too long and too little short and he kind of felt like he was suffocating but didn’t have the energy to care or even freak out properly, like, even if he wanted to he couldn’t pull at his hair or pick at his acne that was probably there; it was like every single ounce of fight he had just gotten back had dissipated back into the fog. A cold, white, silent emptiness.
He sank back into the corner, knowing that, even with Drista in the adjacent corner, he no longer could say a single word.
In a way that Tommy had already ruled out as uncharacteristic, Drista respected his peace and fell silent.
At some point, tommy fell into a fitful sleep, which was something he hadn't had in a long time.
When he woke up hours later, he realized he had.
Again, unusual. Which raised the question, why had his sleep been fitful? What happened to- DRISTA. He gasped his way to full wakefulness and choked on his spit as he surfaced.
“Dang, don’t die yet, I just metchya’.”
“You -” he sputtered, “u’re real?”
“Yeah?”
“I wasn’t, mrmph, expecting that.”
…
Maybe if he was braver he would say something. As it was, he was not brave. That was all that had kept him alive so long, blending into the deafening silence and only ever talking to himself when he was deep in the woodworks of some desolate suburb.
So, as he listened to voices that were so so human in their fluctuations and breathy laughs and yet so so incredibly alien, he controlled his breathing and, for the first time in a long time, tried not to cry.
Drista and Tommy, Drista and Tommy. The other two other people in space… Drista and Tommy.
They talked endlessly and he listened closely.
…