Chapter Text
Thankfully, the next couple weeks are relatively uneventful. Ryley mostly stays in the habitat- boring, but he doesn’t know this area as well as Bart does and they don’t have a Cyclops yet.
Speaking of Bart, he also almost never sees him. Whenever he tries, he disappears into his lab, or his room, or just straight up leaves the base.
After another relatively sleepless night, Ryley gets up, unable to take the tossing and turning for much longer. He wanders out to the kitchen to grab a (not very good, but what can he do about it) coffee from the coffee machine. After that, he decides to check the other rooms to see where Bart is, because he wants to say hello. Noticing that the door to his lab is ajar- which never happens- he peeks in to see him sitting at a desk, furiously writing in a notebook. As he walks over, he sees what he’s scribbling. Something about Crashfish nests?
“Oh- um, hello,” Bart says with a little jolt of surprise. “Why are you in here? No, wait, how are you in here? I locked the door.”
“You didn’t, it was open. Also, when’s the last time you slept? I always see you awake.”
He looks away, slightly guiltily. “Sleep schedules are a social construct. I sleep when I need to.”
Ryley looks at him, sighs, and returns his gaze to the papers on the desk, narrowing his eyes. “I can’t even read this. Seriously, when’s the last time you slept?” It’s mostly true- he can decipher some of the words, but the handwriting is uncharacteristically bad and there’s a good amount that just looks like scribbling.
“Well…” Bart, once again, glances down sheepishly and shoves the notebook out of view. “What about you? That coffee looks like the only thing keeping you up.”
“Oh, you are not changing the subject. And… I don’t really like sleeping alone. On the Aurora we had multiple people in a room, we were a bit crowded actually, and being alone just kind of makes me miss it. It’s nothing really, I can deal with it.” Ryley says, taking another sip of the aforementioned coffee.
Bart glances at him, with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Okay, if you say so. Bit hypocritical of you to tell me to go to bed when you can’t even sleep, but fine.” He gets up, and the two head out of the lab together, Bart slipping away into his bedroom and closing the door.
“Oh, before you go: I’m taking the Seamoth to my old base. There’s some stuff there I want to grab.” Ryley calls to him. “Is there a beacon here?”
“No, not yet-” His friend‘s voice is interrupted with a yawn. “You should make one, though.”
“Probably will.” He glances at his bag, noting the repair tool, scanner, and knife, and sets off down the hallway to the Moonpool, stopping at the fabricator and storage room to make a beacon.
The journey is relatively uneventful, and he clunks into his own base in only minutes. Looking around, he gets a few things: his “Keep Calm” poster, his plushie, his Aurora poster (all of which he got from the Aurora wreck), some enameled glass, and some ores.
He looks around, giving it one final glance.
He’d been so alone here. And now he isn’t.
It’s kind of weird to be standing here, knowing without a doubt that another person exists on this planet.
Shaking his head to clear it, he gets back into the Seamoth with his goodies and drives back.
When he gets there, the two still are wary, but… something’s warmed up between them, and Ryley finds himself and Bart talking more. Not necessarily about things they need to do, or survival stuff. Just random conversations.
It’s nice.
A few days later, they begin sharing a room. Bart, when he suggests it, gives logical and practical upsides; extra storage, convenience, less wasteful base structure, etc. Ryley suspects that he also doesn’t want to be alone anymore, which is fine by him.
One morning, he wakes to find Bart already up. Unexpected; they don’t really have a set schedule, but Ryley’s usually the early riser out of the two now. Tentatively heading out the door, he’s greeted with the smell of what seems to be food, and he pokes his head into the kitchen to see Bart standing at the counter, presumably cooking something.
“Morning. What are you making?” Ryley goes up to his friend, trying to see the food in question.
“Hey, don’t do that. You’ll get sprayed in the face with creepvine oil, which I can say, from personal experience, sucks. And I’m cooking Chinese potatoes.” He catches Ryley’s confused look. “I was hungry, and it tastes better than fabricated food anyway.”
Ryley nods. “Ugh, yeah. How’d you learn to cook? We don’t really learn how in Alterra space, but I do know some stuff. I’m not very good at it, though.”
“Why am I not surprised Alterra didn’t teach you. To answer your question, I mostly taught myself. Pretty sure I’d have gone insane if the fabricator was all I had, though I do remember having some classes that involved simple recipes. Luckily, sticking things in a pan and putting it on a stove doesn’t take that much knowledge.”
“Speak for yourself. I set nachos on fire once.”
Bart looks at him in consternation, “Those are like… the easiest things to cook. You put the ingredients in a pan and you melt the cheese on them, how did you-“
“Forgot they were cooking. There was also the time I set candy on fire. I was trying to melt them in the microwave and I accidentally left the fork in the bowl,” Ryley says, laughing at the memory. “To be fair, I was like ten years old, but still a stupid decision.”
“I should never let you cook, understandable.” While they were talking, the potatoes have begun to smoke dangerously. Bart grabs the pan off the stove and places it on the counter. “Shit- oh, good. Not that burned.”
“Who was talking about not letting me cook again?”
The tease makes the other man smile a bit before rolling his eyes. “They aren’t on fire, are they?”
“Okay, fair enough.” Ryley leans around him and picks up a potato. “Yum.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Bart walks over to the table with the food, Ryley following. They sit down across from each other.
“Hey, I thought of something. I’ve known you for a few weeks now, and I still don’t know that much about you. Like… hm, what’s your favorite color?” Ryley asks.
“I don’t know…” Bart munches on a potato, thinking. “Maybe green? Boring answer, but I like it.”
“Mine’s blue, so I can’t really talk about boring answers.”
He grins. “You must love this place, then.“
“I do like some of it- the safe shallows are beautiful, and the floating island. The grand reef, too.”
“They are. Most of the places here are beautiful in some capacity.”
The two are silent for a while.
“So. Hm… where are you from?” Ryley asks curiously.
Bart looks confused. “The Mongolian States. Why?”
“No, no, I mean more, where were you raised? Like did you grow up on a planet, space stations, did you move around a lot?”
“Oh. Yeah, I moved around. Mostly on space stations.”
Ryley nods. “Same. Always wished I could live on an actual planet. Did you ever wish anything like that?”
“Sometimes, yes. My parents aren’t -weren’t- together, so my father mostly raised me, and since he was pretty important, we moved around a lot. Staying in one place would’ve been easier.”
“Yeah. That makes sense.” Ryley stares at the table for a few seconds. “I grew up on a station on the west side of Andromeda. Kind of small, but it was okay.”
”Seems it. Oh, before I forget, could you help me harvest some lantern fruit? It goes faster with two people,” Bart says.
“Okay, but I’ve been in your garden. There’s almost no space to actually walk in there.” Still, Ryley follows him. It’s something to do that will net him actual time to get to know him, after all.
Bart goes slightly red. “They’re useful, and besides, what else am I supposed to do?”
Ryley sighs dramatically, laughing a bit. “You and your plant obsession.”
“Oh shut up.” He smiles, though. Success.
They head to the greenhouse, teasingly bickering the whole way.
When the two get there, Bart opens the door, welcoming Ryley in. “Here is my “plant obsession” as you call it. This happens to be where most of our food comes from, so you better be nice.”
”Okay, okay. What tree were you talking about again? Never mind, I see it.” The lantern tree in question is right in the middle of the garden, and looks as if it’s been growing here for years- which, Ryley thinks, it probably has.
“So basically, you cut the lantern fruit off the tree with a knife. Not much else to it.”
”Are you sure you can’t just pull it off the branch?”
“Who said you were making the decisions?” Bart grabs one of the fruits, cutting it at the very top with a knife. “Shit, I’m bleeding, do you have a spare medkit?“
”Did you cut yourself with the knife or something? Here.” Ryley hands him a medkit. “Hold on, is that the light in here, or is your blood-”
Bart looks up from where he’s wiping his cut hand. “Weird and glittery? No, it’s not the light, or you. It just looks like that.”
Ryley, thoroughly confused, asks why.
“I’m not fully sure, to be honest; when I first noticed I did some tests and attributed it to the infection, but it could easily be excess consumption of Enzyme 42, though both are also possible-“ Bart stops, looking sheepish. “You don’t need to know all my theories, sorry.”
”Okay, sparkles.”
”Shut up.“ The two begin to leave the garden after filling a container with fruit, but as they head through the door, Ryley stumbles, a sudden dizziness overtaking him and causing him to hit his shoulder on the wall.
“Are you okay?” Bart looks at him quizzically as he leans heavily against the doorframe.
“Yeah, sorry, just-” Ryley gets up, breathing hard.
Bart snaps his fingers. “I know. Hold on a second, I’ll be right back,” and begins to jog towards the alien containment. Ryley follows and sees him kneeling down on the floor, fiddling with some sort of thrown-together mix between a fabricator and a water filter.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s- well, I’ll show you. It collects the enzyme from the peepers, and condenses it into pills. Took me an annoyingly long time to make, but it’s better than just scooping it off the ground and purifying it, and especially better than nothing.” He holds up a small gold tablet. “Here, if you take that, the effects of the infection should decrease.”
Ryley takes the pill gratefully. “Thanks. And… are you okay?”
Bart looks oddly worried, more than he has before. “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s fine.”
“Doesn’t look like it. Seriously, are you okay?”
“Yes. The enzyme fabricator just reminded me of something I need to figure out. Told you, don’t worry about it.”
“If you tell me, I can help.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course.”
Bart’s voice comes out in a rush. “The enzyme isn’t working as well as it used to. I’ve tested it- a lot- and it isn’t just me. I don’t know why or how, but it’s not as potent as it was. I think whatever produces it is dying.”
“Then we need to go deeper.” Ryley surprises himself by saying that, but he feels in his gut that it’s true. “We need to go find out what’s producing it, and we need to fix it. There was a location for a disease research facility on one of those alien computer things-“
“We can’t. I’ve been to that cave; there was nothing there. And it made me sicker. If we go too deep, it’ll probably get worse.”
“Then we need to figure out a way to stop it! I know there’s more facilities deeper than that, maybe there’s something down there!”
“Do you really want to put all that basis on “maybe”? We can figure out something on the surface. We can try to synthesize the enzyme, and in the meantime we can ration the tablets.”
“And what happens when we run out of rations, and we finally realize it can’t be synthesized? Do we just waste away?”
“No-“
“We have to go, don’t you hear me?”
“It’s too dangerous. I- I can’t lose another person, Ryley.”
Bart looks desperate for him to stop this conversation, but Ryley doesn’t, a fierce anger boiling through him. It’s so simple that they should go deeper; why doesn’t he listen?!
”You think I CAN?!”
”No, of course not- I just think we shouldn’t do this-“
“156 people! That’s how many died on the Aurora! How many did your ship have, eight? And if we don’t go, more will join them. Probably us!”
“If you’re so dead set on dying, then go! Drown yourself for all I care, just don’t expect any help from me after you crash and burn! And- don’t bring them into this. Please.”
“You think just because I haven’t been here as long as you, you can make all of the decisions? Aren’t you kind of the reason I’m here in the first place?!”
The anger ebbs, and Ryley knows he’s gone too far. Immediately guilt and shame begins to burn his face.
Bart stumbles back, face paling and looking like he’s been physically hit. “If that’s what you think, okay. I’ll be outside. Don’t follow me.” His voice is measured and mostly steady as he turns and leaves the room, but it betrays him by shaking slightly.
”No, it’s- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry! Come back!”
imsorryimsorryimsorryididntmeanitimsosorrycomebackpleasepleasecomeback-
”Bart Torgal has disembarked the habitat.” The base’s automated message cuts through Ryley’s thoughts and he looks out the window to see a Seamoth driving away. He presses his hands to the cool glass and, not for the first time, wishes he could turn back the clock.
It’s all my fault, isn’t it?
——-
In the Seamoth, far away from their base, Bart puts his head in his hands and tries to stop thinking, stop remembering- because Ryley had finally had the courage to say what had been lingering on both of their minds.
The Aurora’s crash was, in a way, all his fault.
If I’d been smarter and figured out a way to turn the enforcement platform off- if I’d died and hadn’t shown up on long range scans- if I’d been able to convince my father not to make the detour here-
There were so many possibilities to make sure this didn’t happen, yet it did.
156 lives lost. All because of him.
He doesn’t bother returning; pilots the Seamoth to an area in the sparse reef where he won’t be disturbed and sleeps there. Or tries to sleep, at least. The infection has seemingly progressed in both him and Ryley, and since he doesn’t have the mental stamina to go back to the base and face him, he decides to just tough it out. After an indeterminate amount of time, a voice speaks from Bart’s radio; Ryley’s voice. He groans and turns his head slightly, as to better listen.
“Okay, this has gone too far. Where even are you? Hello? Did something happen?”
Bart sighs and shares his location on his PDA. He sits up higher and begins to drive his Seamoth back towards the base.
Ryley sounds annoyed and a bit nervous- no, worried. “Hello? 4546b to Bart? Anyone home?”
“Oh- I’m here. Sparse Reef, you should see my Seamoth’s beacon on your HUD now.” He sits and continues steering, resigning himself to having to see Ryley again soon.
Sooner than he thinks, the base comes back into view.
“Hey.” The clunk of the Seamoth into the moonpool alerts him to his surroundings. Bart gets out of the sub and gives Ryley a wave, still avoiding his eyes.
“Hello.”
The tension is palpable, and they can both clearly tell that they’re avoiding a subject.
Ryley seemingly decides to take the lead plunge. “So… about what happened last night, I wanted to say I’m sorry. You didn’t cause any of this- you didn’t even know about the Aurora’s mission until I told you.”
Bart looks at the floor, pressing his lips together and blinking hard in an effort not to start crying. Like hell he’s letting his tears show to the person who caused them in the first place.
”No, look at me. None of this was your fault. I was being shitty back there, I didn’t mean it.”
”I know. It’s just...” He trails off, not wanting to voice it- not wanting to give the feelings eating him alive any more ammunition. “I know you probably have plenty of your own problems, and I don’t want to burden you with mine- just…” His voice quivers faintly, and he hopes Ryley doesn’t notice, as childish as it is.
“Are you okay?”
“…No.”
Ryley’s face is full of something Bart can’t quite identify. Concern, maybe. “Do you want a hug or something?”
He nods, and suddenly the two are in each other’s arms.
Oh.
Oh, so that’s what it felt like.
He’d almost forgotten.
They practically melt into each other, clinging as if there’s no one else in the world.
Oh, wait.
It’s overwhelming.
For years he’s made do with the loneliness by raising creatures that barely understand that he exists, or talking to himself to ease the suffocating silence, or, on the worst nights, when guilt and grief threatened to overcome him, crying himself to sleep while his hands clutch for anything that could give him some semblance of comfort.
This, though… He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed another’s touch, for another real, human life.
When they reluctantly pull away from each other, tear stained and shocked, a small smile creeps across Ryley’s face- maybe, Bart thinks, he was just as desperate as I was for this.
Bart takes a breath, and speaks. “Thank you. And I never apologized for what I said. I don’t want you to drown, and even if you did decide to ignore my very clear warnings to not leave without preparation, I wouldn’t just leave you out there.”
Ryley looks slightly sheepish. “Thanks. I think.”
They begin moving towards the ladder, still holding hands. Not willing to let go just yet.
Maybe never.