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Sleep, Jonny is painfully aware, was as crucial a thing to have as it was hard to come by. With the combined nightmares and general restlessness of a body kept long past it's expiration date, it was near impossible to fall asleep in a way that wasn't passing out from pure exhaustion.
He'd tried shooting himself in the head to get some rest, at first, but apparently "rehealing just makes you more tired" and "the rest of us are trying to sleep, Jonny, fucking stop it". So, he simply had no choice but to let it come to him naturally.
Despite his exhaustion, his mind ran frenzied in panicked anticipation of the coming nightmares, and his limbs and body had burned alight and agitated in a way that demanded movement, so after several fruitless hours of lying in his bed and waiting for sleep to claim him, he'd decided to leave his room to pace the Aurora.
Jonny doesn't know how long he's been awake at this point- it could be just a few minutes, or it might be hours, days, weeks. Time passes in a muddied and indecipherable jumble of shifting light from the artificial day cycle, meaningless numbers on terminal clocks, blurred faces, and reloaded pistol chambers.
He circles the Aurora's halls and rooms in loops that feel simultaneously too short, yet eternally drawn out. Has he passed this vent already? This room, this corridor? How many times? Maybe he's never seen it before. He hardly knows where he is at any given time, let alone whether he knows the place or not. Everything is familiar yet new all at once, and it blends and churns as the world seems to rewrite itself in his mind, either in fresh ink on a new page, or etched for the millionth time into a worn stone.
He finds himself in the structural depths of the Aurora at one point, recognizing it in a brief moment of clarity, and he stops as he hears voices sound from above him- a Cyberian accent edged with annoyance, and the other sounding strained, as if holding something heavy.
Jonny looks up and, squinting through his blurred vision, spots Raphaella and Nastya in mid air, high up near of the structural girders. Nastya braces herself with a foot against the side of a girder beam, while Raphaella holds her upright, arms wrapped around Nastya's middle, and wings flapping quickly to keep them both hovering.
"Can't you be any more still, Raphaella?" Nastya complains, her voice muffled through her welding helmet as she balances a heat torch in her hands.
"And what do you think would happen if I stopped moving, hm? We'd both fall."
"It is not my fault that you can't fly any smoother without dropping us."
"I could just drop you, you know." Raphaella threatens. "We're about 35 feet up. I could let you fall, and I'd be fine."
"Aurora wouldn't let you out of here alive, if you did."
"And I'd be glad! It's late, and holding you for this long is tiring. I could do with a rest, even if it's by death."
"Yes, yes, well- I'm done, either way," Nastya says, and Jonny hears the closing zipper of a tool bag, and the thunk-thunk of a hand patting metal.
"In that case-" Raphaella lets go of Nastya, allowing her split second of free-fall, before dipping and catching her again.
"Cognizi!" Nastya huffs, affronted, her voice shaky from the momentary panic. Raphaella laughs joyously.
"Oh, that never gets old," Raphaella sighs happily, and she lowers them both to the ground.
Nastya straightens herself, brushing cobwebs off of her coat and out of her hair. Then she notices Jonny, and acknowledges him with a stiff "Need something?"
"No," Jonny snarls. He'd very much like to storm away right now, but he's also pretty certain that the only thing keeping him standing is his current casual lean against Aurora's wall.
"Ooh, someone's grumpy," Raphaella teases. Jonny tries to fix her with a glare, but with the way his vision swims, he might not be looking at her at all.
Nastya stares at him for a moment, taking in his appearence, then, "You look terrible," she says bluntly. "Go to bed."
Jonny frowns at her. "Are... those two statements related, or...?"
"Yes, they are," Nastya replies, and Jonny can just makes out Raphaella's retreating shout of "Good luck Nastya! Wouldn't want to be you!" over the words.
"Psh. 'Go to bed'," Jonny echoes mockingly, "As if it's that easy."
"Is it not easy, for you?"
"No, it isn't," Jonny grates out, his patience wearing thin.
"How long have you been awake, then?"
"Look, can- can you stop with the fucking interrogation?" Jonny snaps. "I don't know how long! Your guess would be as good as mine!"
Nastya pauses then, and Jonny can practically hear the calculations running through her head. Scratch that- he can literally hear them, as the light electrical thrumming from Nastya's augmented reality interface gets louder with her thinking.
"Aurora?" Nastya calls out, "What time is it?"
The idle humming and hissing from the ship's many components suddenly contort themselves into a careful melody, seemingly in reply to Nastya's question.
"1:22 A.M.," Nastya translates.
"And what am I supposed to do with that information?" Jonny asks bitterly.
"Well," Nastya starts slowly, "if having some company would help you fall asleep-"
"-It wouldn't," Jonny tries to interrupt, but Nastya pointedly talks over him.
"-You'd be welcome to come to my room."
"I won't."
"Good," Nastya says airily, "Then, you won't have to worry about stepping away from the doorway after knocking, as I tend to shoot at sounds outside my room."
"Right. But that's not a concern, since I'm not coming."
"Fine."
"Good."
"Great," Nastya says with finality, and she turns on her heel, marching out of the hall with a cold determination.
***
Jonny stands to the side of Nastya's door, pressing a hand to his aching head as the resounding blast of a Keplan 0831 pistol echoes from Nastya's room. A bullet easily tears a hole through her closed door, lodging itself in the opposite wall.
"Nastya?" Jonny calls. "Awake yet?"
"Mmm. Wha?" Nastya mumbles sleepily, then with slightly more awareness, "Oh. Jonny?"
"Yup."
"What's- hold on-" Nastya stiffles a yawn. "What's up? The door is unlocked, by the way."
Jonny moves back to the door and opens it. Nastya sits on her bed, her hair tousled and her pajamas scrunched and wrinkled. She lowers her gun and places it on the ground beside her bed, then looks back up at Jonny, blinking tiredly. "Do you want to come in?"
Jonny hovers hesitantly in the doorway, already uncertain of his decision. "I mean, I don't- if you don't want me to-"
Nastya shakes her head, and raises her arms to do grabby hands at him- apparently her sleep-addled brain's version of a "come here" gesture.
"Oh," Jonny says, almost surprised, and he further enters the room, closing the door behind him.
Nastya moves to one side of of her bed, and pats the empty space beside her. "Here. Shoes off before you lay."
Jonny rolls his eyes, but obliges the request anyway, untying his boots with infuriatingly uncooperstive hands, and kicking them off in his subsequent anger. After that, he practically collapses onto the bed beside Nastya, laying still and gazing blankly at the ceiling.
About a minute later, he becomes aware of Nastya staring at him, and so he turns to face her, biting out a cold "What. Why are you staring at me."
"...You're going to fall asleep with your five different belts on?" She says, confused. "And your holster? And goggles?"
"Yeah, I always sleep with them on. What about it?"
Nastya lets out a sharp, startled laugh. "Fucker sleeps with his belts on? Fucker sleeps with his belts on?" She repeats, disbelieving. "No wonder you can't sleep! Come on-"
"What? I- Hey, wait-!"
"No, let me-" Nastya unbuckles the belt around Jonny's arm, then the two around his middle, and the one over his shoulder- "Why do you have so many!?"
"It's for the look, Nastya!"
"Nobody needs five belts!" Nastya whips the goggles off of Jonny's head, holding them accusatory in front of his face. "You never even use goggles!"
"Yes I do!"
"When? When have you ever used goggles, Jonny?"
"I- When I, um- Well, they're multipurpose-"
"Why do I even bother?" Nastya tosses the belts, holster, and goggles onto a nearby chair. "There. You'll be more comfortable, without all of that."
"I was fine with all of it, too."
"Forgive me if I doubt you," Nastya says, not sounding sorry in the least, and she turns her back to Jonny, laying on her side. "Now, go to sleep."
"Alright, alright," Jonny sighs, and he returns to laying on his back, watching as darkness creeps in to blot out his view, then feeling as heaviness seeps into his limbs, and sleep finally takes him under.
***
They're screaming, beyond the locked door in front of him. They're all trapped there, and they're shouting and crying out in horrid a mix of fear and pain. It's not often that Jonny hears his crew genuinely scared, but when he does, he's ready and willing to fight whatever it is that threatens them.
Except, he can't fight for them this time. He pounds his fists on the door, grabs at his side for his holster, but it's not there. He has no weapons, nothing to give him a chance at breaking in.
They're calling his name. They know he's out here, doing nothing to help.
"Why Is This Happening?" He can hear the Toy Soldier ask, its usually chipper tone giving way to confusion. "This Is Very Unpleas-" There's a dry cracking of wood, reminiscent of a bough breaking from a tree, and the Toy Soldier is silent.
"What are you- no, no, get that away from me- get it AWAY- JONNY, HEL-" Tim's yell is cut off by the loud roaring of a drill. The drill's sound seems to drag on forever, and just when Jonny is convinced that it'll never end, it stops, and Tim's weak, fading cries of "Fuck! Fuck!" can now be heard.
His eyes, Jonny realizes with horror. His eyes must be gone.
They're getting their mechanisms removed.
His crew is getting killed.
And he can't stop it.
Raphaella, Ashes, and Marius all go silent in a similar way- words choked off with the wet ripping of flesh, of the solid snap of bones, of metal being extracted from a body.
Ivy's last words are drowned out by the whirring of a bone saw.
Brian's brass plates screech and scrape against each other as the metal surrounding his heart is pulled away, and he can't even speak past his grunts and shouts of agony. Why, Jonny hopelessly wonders then, did Carmilla give have to give Brian nerves?
With a sickening, sinking sensation in the pit of his chest, Jonny realizes that Nastya will be the last one to go.
"Jonny!" Nastya shouts.
He can already imagine it- wires and veins being grasped and torn out from muscle and flesh-
"Jonny! Come on!" Nastya shouts again.
A floor drenched and slick with quicksilver, mingling with the blood and gore of his crew, his crew, his family-
"JONNY! Wake up!" Nastya shouts a final time, and in a sudden flash, the real world starts to bleed back in.
He's been pulled into sitting upright on the bed, and Nastya has her hands clasped onto his shoulders, shaking him and frowning.
"Are you awake, now?" Nastya asks. Jonny doesn't reply, so she continues. "You were having a nightmare, I believe? Unless shouting and throwing punches is a normal part of your restful sleep."
Jonny still doesn't respond. He just sits there, staring down at his trembling hands. His face is damp with what he doesn't want to believe are tears, but the burning of his eyes tells him otherwise.
"Jonny?" Nastya takes her hands off of his shoulders. "Are you with me?"
Yes, Jonny wants to say, but he finds that he can't will himself to speak. He can't will himself to move at all, in fact- he feels frozen, stuck in some place outside of his body. He stares at the hands that can't be his, and tries to form words with a mouth that doesn't belong to him.
He can't. He can't. If he's here, then he definitely isn't in a place of control. Time is distorted again, and stretches on for ages, yet stays contained within the same unchanging second. He thinks he opens his mouth at some point, an intention to say something, but still, no sounds are produced.
"Oh. It's one of those times, isn't it?" Nastya says, her tone carrying recognition. "Um- Can you move?"
No. No, he cannot.
"I'll take that as a no, then. I... ah," Nastya takes Jonny's hands in hers, and he involuntarily startles at the coldness of her skin. She holds them tightly, in what he registers as an attempt at grounding him through contact.
There's nothing nice about this kind of vulnerability, Jonny thinks. It's forced, and it's cruel, and a Captain can't allow himself to be in such a state-
"Like whiskey laced with gasoline, we're deadly when we're drunk," Nastya starts singing, soft and low. "So shut your face and settle down, you sneering little punks..." she trails off, leaving it open for Jonny to pick up.
He doesn't, so she starts up again. "For space is vast, you are small, it's black and bitter cold..."
"The book is lying open, there are tales to be told," Jonny completes the lyric on instinct, voice quiet and stuttering and he tries to regain control over it.
"The fire is burning lower, and the stars are shining bright-"
"We've stories grim as pistol lead to tell to you tonight-"
"So grab yourself a mug of beer, gin or vodka, hold it near-"
"The book is lying open, there are tales to be told," They finish the line together, and Nastya looks at Jonny hopefully.
"Back, yet?" She asks.
"Yeah, yeah-" Jonny pulls his hands out of Nastya's grasp, and crosses his arms over his chest. "Mostly."
They fall into silence for a moment, and Nastya moves to lean her back against the headboard, then idly begins straightening the twisted and tossed bedspread.
"Was the nightmare about Carmilla?" She asks eventually.
"No, not- not quite? It was just..." Jonny swings his hand in an arc, a noncommittal gesture in place of an explanation.
"Just what?"
"Just all of you getting killed. No big deal."
"It certainly seemed like a big deal, the way you were shouting," Nastya puts her hands up and takes on an lighter voice, in a vague impersonation of Jonny. "No, stop, don't hurt them- aah- no, Tim-" Nastya lets her hands drop to her knees. "Something like that."
Jonny looks away, and absentmindedly wrings his hands together. They're still slightly cold from when Nastya had held them. "Fine. You want the truth?" He says bitterly. "You want all the gruesome detail?"
"Well, not rea-"
"You were all getting your mechanisms removed in horrid, grotesque ways, and all I could do was stand behind a lousy fucking door and listen." A snarl takes it's place on Jonny's face. "Do you want to know what it sounded like when Tim got his eyes drilled out? When Ivy got her skull cut open? When your veins-"
"No! I do not!" Nastya interrupts. "I am- I'm-" she sighs tiredly, and Jonny looks back at her.
She has a lost and distant look in her eyes, the expression of someone clearly operating out of their depth. Then, she seems to steel herself, squaring her shoulders and focusing on Jonny with a determined gaze.
"Is that why you haven't been going to sleep?" She asks, "Because of nightmares?"
"That," Jonny says, "And just, general body-being-weird reasons. Probably the belts, too, even though they- well, I thought having my holster on me would make the dreams easier. But it makes no difference, really."
Nastya frowns, thinking. "Nightmares can't be avoided, but- you fell asleep quickly, once you were in my company, correct?"
"I mean... yes."
The electrical humming of Nastya's augmented interface starts up again. "Well, the offer to stay here overnight still stands, for whenever you may need it."
"But- I- The dreams, I'll wake you up-"
"And I haven't woken up screaming beside you enough times, when we used to hide together?" Nastya shrugs. "It will set us even. Besides, I can wake you up before it gets worse."
"Oh," Is all Jonny can say, along with a nod.
Nastya yawns again, covering her face with her hand. "Aurora? Time, please?"
Another melodious series of sounds resonates from the ship.
"7:35 A.M.," Nastya conveys, and she immediately slides back under the bedspread, pulling it up to her chin. "Too early. I am sleeping in- you should try to fall back asleep, too, Jonny. You are more fun when you're not a confused and sleep-deprived mess."
Jonny lets out an offended "Hmph," and purposefully falls back onto the bed as hard as he can, causing it to bounce annoyingly.
Nastya glares at him. "You think you're hilarious, don't you?"
Jonny grins, wide and teeth-baring. "I do."
Nastya snatches the pillow from under Jonny's head to place it over him, blocking his face from her view. "Fucker. Go to sleep."