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It takes a moment before you recognize the blurred man in front of you, sitting on a cot he's turned into a couch. Several emptied aluminum cans, which may or may have been filled with a PROHIBITED SUBSTANCE per the Pony Express EMPLOYEE GUIDELINES HANDBOOK, lie crushed at his feet. His leg jitters restlessly.
"Morning."
Jimmy's voice, softer than you've ever heard it. A low crooning emanates from the radio, its playback fuzzed and distorted. Interference; heavy metals in passing space debris outside.
"Still a lightweight," Jimmy says, smirking at you.
"Shit," you groan in agreement. "Ffffuck was in that stuff?"
"You drank the same shit I did. You tell me." Jimmy glances dismissively at the cans crumpled on the floor. You go to rub your eyes and your shoulder sockets protest — your hands are tied behind your chair. You flex your wrists, testing your bindings — a leather belt, maybe? There's no give.
"Field drill, Curly." You see one of his canines flash in the dark.
All sound muted in the foam the foam foam foam foam foe-mm ocean Earth small pudgy hands as if through a camera yellowing whipped cream your mouth something salty rotten momdad pulling you hurts Don't eat that Curly oily in your mouth coughing pennies charred hot pennies in your mouth Don't eat that Curly yes you hear voices from the vents you hear her voice and you hear his footsteps
Never be the first one to fall asleep around Jimmy. Not that you've ever listened. You glance around, half-expecting to see a discarded bowl of warm water somewhere on the floor.
Jimmy shrugs, humming absently along to the radio. (He knows the lyrics as well as you do, but you've never gotten him drunk enough to sing along with you.) He's looking at you. "You'd think," he says after a while, "a captain would hold his liquor better than a — subordinate."
"Didn't know it was a competition," you say, lightly, not quite annoyed. A dull clay pain somewhere in your temple. It feels like your head is one giant cyst.
Jimmy sighs. He sounds disappointed. "Well, maybe not for you. Not anymore."
You don't know what to say in response to that. Maybe this is the moment you should pull rank on him — tell him enough is enough, you can't afford to be fucking around like you used to. But you can't bring yourself to. "You said 'field drill.'"
Jimmy stretches elaborately. When he gets up he looks like something familiar stuffed into that Pony Express uniform. He stumbles to the gasping radio, turns it off.
"Yep." He takes a step towards you. His eyes are lightless pits. "Here's the scenario. You do what I say, and I don't kill everyone on this fucking ship."
All at once he is a hijacker, and you are the only one between him and your crew. Jimmy has always been brutally convincing; he would make a good actor. You bite back the fear. It's just Jimmy.
"If you want to hijack this ship, you'll have to get through Swansea."
"Wow." Jimmy lets out a low, sarcastic whistle. "A sixty year old man with a beer gut. How am I ever going to take care of him."
You adjust yourself on the chair performatively and find a smile for him, changing tack. You wiggle your fingers. His eyes track to the movement with animal keenness. The belt is soft and worn on the inside from decades of daily use; against your wrists it almost feels like the old friend you're used to. "Not even gonna buy me dinner first?"
"Ha." Jimmy's smile is thin and sharp, like a scalpel between the ribs. He gets closer.
Keep him talking. "You used my belt? Left your handcuffs at home?"
His smile for a second a little more real. He takes a long pull from the can in his hand, teetering. "Yeah."
"Damn." You sigh. "I liked those ones with the red fur. Those really got me going." You're stalling, trying to figure out Jimmy's angle here, and if it involves some newfound interest in improv comedy. All you know is not to hesitate. Jimmy can smell the blood in the water, and once he has his teeth in something he doesn't let go.
The handshakes; the accolades for 'leadership'; the promotion; you owe all these to Jimmy, the way he's trained you out of the visible flinch. You don't know how to tell him. So you don't.
Jimmy rocks back on his heels and catches himself. He paces back and forth in front of you, suddenly seeming agitated. He reaches for a series of cans on the cot, weighing each one until he finds one with enough fluid inside it to take a pull. "Focus," he mutters, though not to you exactly.
"Jim?"
Jimmy looks at you like he's seeing you for the first time. More recently he's been looking at you with this expression, which doesn't correspond to any emotion you know. Sometimes, when he doesn't think you're watching, the shuttered little scowl his face is set in disappears, and he stares into nothing with the blank, unseeing eyes of a wax animatronic. But those moments pass quickly, and so does this one.
"Captain?" he parrots back, sneering.
You breathe out, lean back in your chair as best you can, and fight to keep the easy smile on your face. Your shoulder blades are starting to ache. Field drill, sure: "I am required by law to inform you that the minimum penalty for piracy in a controlled Commercial Zone is fifteen years imprisonment. I can provide you a direct line of communication with the Pony Express ARION Division to negotiate the safe passage of this vessel and her cargo." (Every word seared into your fucking brain.)
"I'm sure they'll send a rescue crew."
Your mouth pulls reflexively into a mirthless smile to match Jimmy's. "Oh, good. They'll make sure the cargo makes it. Wouldn't want our customers to go without their — 'oral solutions.'"
You hear the bitter edge in your voice, the frustration you've only ever allowed to creep in around Jimmy. For a moment the two of you are back in some shitty rig's cockpit, smoke heavy in the air, passing a cigarette across the ocean expanse of the center console.
Jimmy's lips twitch. You can see him weighing whether to take the easy bait. His thumbs settle in his belt loops; he shifts his weight, tilts his head to regard you. That same blankness, again.
"Yeah?" Something in his eyes as he stares down at you. "Oral solutions?" You search his expression for anything you aren't afraid to recognize. The only sound is the hum of the engine around you.
"Have to check the manifest..." It's hard to breathe like this. Just a few inches of airless space between you and him. You — you have no idea what he's thinking. There's no way you could've known.
Hello Jimmy Hello Jim Hello
You're the first to look away. Jimmy huffs through his nose, frustrated, his lip curling like the thinnest slab of starving meat.
You hate disappointing him.
Jimmy casts around the cot, looking for an unopened can. There's one on the ground, which he nudges with his foot, glancing down at it, then back at you.
"Think we have some toothpaste back there. You know. Floss," you say, as Jimmy — somehow — finds a can with enough 'beer' in it to take another swig. (How much did he even drink? How much did you drink? Must've been a lot, the way your head throbs. Though you don't remember drinking that much.) "We keep the mouthwash right above the pallets of nubile virgins."
That startles a laugh out of him — he chokes on the fluid, and you wish you were untied so you could slap him on the back. When you make him laugh, it almost feels like how it was. Before.
"I knew you were hiding something," he says, grinning down into his can, taking another swig to wash the cough down.
"Wanted them all to myself," you say, but the smile is already fading from his face. You've learned, post-promotion, that your jokes aren't the currency they used to be. The old bits are showing their age. Your back-and-forths used to be longhand for I'm here, like touching his shoulder as you pass in the halls. He doesn't reach for you now. Not anymore. His eyes are two dark marbles. You've said the wrong thing. You don't know what you said.
"But then again," Jimmy speaking slowly, crushing the can deliberately in his hand, "why go all the way down to the cargo hold?"
Your brain still feels leaden and dull. You don't understand. Something is proceeding without you. There are more of these uncanny moments now, where you almost feel like Jimmy isn't talking to you at all. You wish you weren't drunk. "What?"
"I mean, come on, Curly, it—she knew what she was getting into when she signed on. One girl, three men — four now, I guess. If we're counting Daisuke as a man." He laughs. "'Pony Express is committed to ensuring team members will have all of their basic needs met during the voyage.'"
"Jim—"
"Getting late, Curly." He's looking at the door now. "Everyone else has gone to sleep by now. Swansea can sleep through a god damn nuke. And Daisuke — he wouldn't talk. Not if we gave him a shot at her after."
"C'mon, Jim," you say, chuckling. You feel your own belt biting into your wrists. "Don't say anything that'll get you in trouble."
"I'm not." Jimmy smiles down at you, all teeth, and for the first time you feel real fear, adrenaline a lightning-crack through you. "She's off-limits, huh?"
"What?" You say, again, stupidly. He sees you hesitate. He knows you know what he's actually saying. You open your mouth to say something else but there is nothing. You close it.
"Captain's pet." He scoffs. "Can't even make a fucking joke about her without everyone losing their shit."
"Jim—"
"I was just fucking joking, Captain, if you want me to sign a waiver or something—"
"—Jimmy, come on, that's not—I just—she's the only woman, and you know she gets — you know she feels weird about it sometimes. I know it's just the two of us," before Jimmy can cut in, "I'm just, you know. I'm just trying to make sure everyone's comfortable," you finish, lamely.
"No, no, I get it. Nobody can say anything about her because she's this sacred pristine saint, nobody can make a god damn joke because it would be a mark on your fucking record."
He breathes out hard through his nose, starts pacing again. "Eight months," he murmurs. You blink at the non-sequitur. "Eight months," he repeats, louder now, "no onboard entertainment, no nothing, just your own god damn fist and you can't even fuck that without some dumb cunt moaning about how it makes her uncomfortable."
"Come on, Jim. I'll—I'll talk to her, we'll figure something out. I'm not saying—"
"Sure." He grins. You don't dare to close your eyes. You time your breathing — in three out three.
You're scared to ask him to let you go. That's it. You're scared. You're scared of what he might say. You're scared he might say no.
...Fuck it. Bull through your own pulse, beating through you like waves. "Can you untie me?"
Jimmy's so close to you now that you're forced to look up at him. There are slivers of dark scabbed blood under his chin where he cut himself shaving. "Not finished with my scenario yet. Tell me, Captain," an odd sudden clarity in his eyes, "what you'd do for m—us. The crew."
"Anything," you answer, immediately. "You're my crew. My responsibility."
"Bullshit," he sneers. "You'd leave us all to die in a second. You're the perfect fucking golden boy. As long as it looks good for Corporate, right?"
"Is that what this is about?" A laugh bubbles out of your throat. It's—unbelievable. Is that it? "Jimmy — the captain goes down with the ship. I'd lay my fucking life down for anyone here, especially you. You know that. If it meant saving you, I'd do anything."
"Anything," Jimmy repeats.
thudthudthud blue ʏᴜᴍ blue what kind cakeblue of course Hooray all sugar and gelatin so blue so tired bruised blood under his eyes why do you notice why do you care why why why why why
You roll your wrists, shifting uncomfortably.
"Does it hurt?" Jimmy asks softly. Smiling down at you almost tenderly.
"Nothing I can't handle," you tell him. His smile disappears.
His thumb worms in his belt loop. "Another drink, Curly?"
"I'm good," you mumble. You feel nauseous.
Jimmy kicks away the full can of 'beer', which goes rolling across the floor. He tries every can in sight, crushing each can with an insufficient amount of liquid. You see his knuckles flush white in the dark. Finally he's forced to pick up the last full can, which has skittered down to your feet.
"Falling behind, Captain." He shakes the can. "It's only fair if you have one."
You open your mouth but nothing comes out. Jimmy cracks the can open. Foam dribbles out of it, dripping heavily to the floor. What the fuck is in those things. You don't know. He walks over, holds the can at: mouth-level for you, crotch-level for him. You feel the fabric of your uniform shift under the dripping foam, which quickly seeps into you. These uniforms are made of the cheapest polyurethane.
"Come on, Curly," Jimmy prompts. His hips twitch forward. The dark opening of the can in front of your face.
You have no fucking idea what I've had to deal with every little fucking thing I don't know how you did it Curly I really well no okay it's like say you're a cake and people keep taking pieces and pieces and pieces out of you and there's — soon there's going to be nothing left and there was never nothing left for you [ripping sound] he's
doing something
You lick up the foam, feeling your face pull into a grimace. You can barely swallow it down. 'Beer'-foam is all the bitter gluteny taste without any of the drunkenness, which might be for the best actually, but you lick it up anyways. You will never know why. You see—or you think you see—something shift in Jimmy's eyes, but in the dim light you can't quite make it out.
fuck Curly you know it's funny I [pause] I always thought well I guess it doesn't matter but the way Pony Express® sucked your dick and Anya too I bet she was well anyways who fucking cares I won—thrumming around you the fleshheart of the engine its funny both of you hear Jimmy running around inside you with that echo did you know that echo was inside you all along
"Come on," Jimmy says, and all at once carbonated lukewarm fluid into your mouth down your chin, you try to swallow the way you were taught to, shotgunning some shitty beer back on Earth probably with Jim, holding the coppery coldfish tin against your mouth opening your mouth trying to swallow trying trying trying at last you cough but he doesn't pull the can away and it keeps pouring out soaking cold down your shirt as you cough stop Jimmy STOP (his pupils dark and huge like he's high or something) and instinctively you reach for Jim enough I'm tapping out but you can't reach for him your shoulder protesting with a deep magma pain and the foam keeps coming
come on can't with Daisuke and Swansea sleeping in the same room shit [sound of zipper unzipping] [disbelief despite everything DESPITE EVERYTHING YOU DON'T KNOW HIM AT ALL YOU DON'T KNOW]
holding himself over you pearly beading at the flushed and angry head lazily dripping his hand tight around himself over you bitter milky salt like snot down your throat
Jimmy—
and you keep swallowing