Chapter Text
#1 What if the One-Shot didn't end when it did?
"Okay, now I feel like you are shitting me."
"I am not!" protested half-heartedly Doctor Nomen L. Frenno. Her long, webbed fingers reached inside the bowl at the center of the table and took chips to add to her pile. "Chemoheterotroph is a real word."
"Confirmed." came through the speakers the soothing voice of Mother, the ship's AI. "It is a term utilised to describe an organism which obtains its energy to survive from the consuming of other organisms."
"So yeah, basically, we all are chemoheterotrophs too! Isn't it cool, to learn even at times like this?"
"Sure..." said Sergeant Garrett. He nodded off in the direction of the other woman on board, the brunette who likewise had a confused expression on her face. "Cap'n, I can't help but feel we're out of our league here."
"Agreed, Sarge."
"Oh come on, tomorrow we'll make sure to play a game more to your liking, okay?" The doctor placed his cup of hot coffee on the table and positioned 6 tiles on the game board, composing the word mesencephalon.
"Besides, look how happy Forest is right now. You really wanna ruin his fun?"
"Yeah, yeah." grumbled Garrett, before placing two tiles down, composing the word rat.
A static sound was heard and Forrest Coreman found himself yanked out of his daydream. If he still had a neck, he would be now shaking his head in the vain attempt of easing the feeling of drowsiness he was feeling. But, unfortunately, he was just a bodiless head drifting through space at the moment. The familiar voice of Mother came into his head, broadcasting an error. "Connection with the main server is lost. The oneiric simulation cannot proceed past this point. Do you wish to rewind it?"
"Yes." replied the binary code inside what remained of Coreman's head. And as he felt his mind being pulled into the illusion, he found himself once again wishing he had died within the explosion of the engine room.
#2 What if the Gunnery Sergeant and the Mechanical Engineer got closer?
"Hey Sarge, little help?"
"Mmh-Oh shit!" swore the man, after turning and coming face to face with his colleague drifting freely in space. Garrett grasped the rope that tethered them together and slowly hauled the other back onto the surface. A sigh of relief escaped his mouth, briefly obscuring his visor, when he heard the magnetic boots click and stick on the metal platform.
"Careful, Forrest. We wouldn't want your smarty ass hurling off in space."
"Yeah, all right." replied the man, his expression stoic as always, if only slightly colored around the cheeks. At least he feels bad about it. thought Garrett. Coreman pressed his left ear, activating the comms. "No anomalies here, captain."
"Understood. Come back in."
"Roger that."
They made their way towards the airlock, then as usual the Sarge opened the hatch, let the engineer in, checked once more the horizon for anything outside of the ordinary, and came back when he was satisfied. It had become routine since one week ago, when they were awakened by Mother's voice. There had been a critical failure in her programming, and safety measures kicked in, which meant she was now nothing more than a glorified Alexa, and the crew had to man the ship the old fashioned way. Since they had no way to check for the shields' integrity, nor they could be sure alarms would flare up the moment the outer shells were breached, the captain had issued the order for daily check-ups of the external surface, at least until the old Doctor Wiser managed to get Mother up and running again, which was taking more than expected.
To Wiser's benefit, it wasn't for the lack of motivation on his part. The man had spent the first two days of this week working non stop on the programming, fueled by nothing but caffeine and stress. But at some point, during the third day with no sleep, Doctor Nomen and Captain Glass had put their feet down and sent him to sleep, and forced him to follow a somewhat regular sleeping schedule thereafter.
So here they were, awaiting pressuration like any other day. Cameron turned to watch Forrest and clicked his tongue, like he had just remembered something.
"You know, you should really check your boots."
Forrest frowned. "Why?"
"What do you mean, why? This is what, the third time you tripped during an ordinary check-up. Didn't Wiser say something with magnetic field or something? Perhaps it's affecting your boots too?"
"I... hadn't thought of that. Okay, I'll check if they are malfunctioning as soon as we are in."
"Otherwise I might just start to believe you just want to be held in my arms, you know."
And silence befall the duo. Cameron slowly wondered if he had overstepped any boundaries with that last joke. Then he reasoned that society was now composed of 5 humans, a disembodied voice and a snake, so he was allowed to be rusty when dealing with people. He waited in silence for the doors to open up, but before they could, Forrest spoke again.
"Would that be so wrong?"
"What?"
"Wanting to be held in your arms, I mean."
Shit. Was the engineer coming onto him? Or was he reading too much into this? Perhaps the kid was just trying to figure things out. Or perhaps he was getting twitchy, without anyone to spend the nights with, and just shot his shot.
What should he answer to this? Should he flirt back? But was this even flirting to begin with? Oh boy. What did either of them want to accomplish? Companionship for the night? Camaraderie? Or something more?
"Well, I'd say that if you wanted to, you just needed to ask."
"Mh." was the only thing Forrest replied, before stepping out of the pressurization chamber.
"What happened? Where are Garrett and Coreman?" asked Captain Glass a rather distressed looking doctor Frenno.
"They're fine, they are just- mh, how to say, otherwise occupied, I think? They're fine, just... exercising."
"Oh." said in unison Wiser and Glass.
"Ah, yeah. Walked right on them. I thought I was gonna die the moment Sarge pulled out a gun. A gun, gun, not you know, that."
"Okay, I'm gonna stop you there-"