Keeping guard is surprisingly boring. Hizashi stretches his limbs as much as Shinsou's embrace allows him until his articulations pop satisfyingly. The Human had slung a heavy upper limb over his tail, and despite it potentially hindering him if the Feczoits come again, the warmth radiating from that point of contact helps him stay grounded.
Except for the water dish slid through the food hatch—he can't help but groan when nothing else is given to them—the Feczoits haven't come back to bother them, probably too scared to try getting past Shinsou just to capture him.
That's something he doesn't understand. They placed him specifically in this cell so he could get killed—why do they want him alive now?
A shiver that has nothing to do with the cold runs down his spine. He doesn't know what could have brought this, doesn't know what could make him more valuable than the Feczoits that risked their lives to get him—as expendable as they are compared to their sovereign.
From what Shouta and he have discovered about this organization, they have no care for life, sentient or not. If it brought money, they were kept around. If not…
(There was a reason they left what the locals affectionately called bone trails.)
Shinsou's sleep looks anything but restful. His face twitches at an invisible threat, and his limbs move in small jerky movements, almost knocking him over when his upper limb shoots out. Hizashi thinks about sitting farther away for his own safety, but as he tries to stand up and disentangle the fingers clenched around the hoodie, Shinsou's breath stutters out. He opens his glassy eyes for a split moment, muttering something in his human dialect, and then falls right back to sleep before Hizashi can say anything.
He settles with petting the top of Shinsou's head. He wants to believe it helps.
Biting his tongue distracts him from the sting of his wings when he forgets to avoid getting his wounds caught in the fur. The fluorescent lights make him long for the warming lamps Shouta had bought him when he noticed he missed the hot beating rays of his home planet. The unnatural white hadn't given him reprieve either; the lights haven't been shut off despite the human cycle being over. He wonders if it's petty vengeance or if the Feczoits are trying to confuse them by messing with their circadian rhythm.
The greasy fur is thin and soft on the front where the hair meets his brow, growing rougher with thick irregular strands the further his wing moves to the back.
His free hand drums a beat against his ribs to distract himself. For about half a cycle, he has been forced to spend time alone with his thoughts, and he has come to the conclusion that he should send a care package to the Weq•itq journalist that got ridiculed for writing about Humans and their needs for packbonds. It had been such a ridiculous notion, even he had shaken his head in disbelief when he read their article.
It's a lot less ridiculous when he considers his position—clothed in the human's garments and plastered to Shinsou's side after he guarded him from the Feczoits.
He's been Shinsou's pack member since the day he accepted the hoodie, and there's nothing he could do about it now.
It feels like an entire waking cycle passes before Shinsou stirs.
Hizashi can already tell he's too strung up to talk. He's pretty sure he even saw him flinch away from his shadow when he got up too quickly.
Shinsou's feet almost make no sound as he paces around the cell, looking for any forgotten weapon or object left behind. When he passes the water dish for the fifth time, he gingerly picks it up like it's going to bite him—and Hizashi can't help but notice the plastic bowl that replaced the usual metal dish, too flimsy to use as a weapon— bringing it close to his face. His warning squawk dies in his throat when Shinsou recoils from the water with a grimace, nose wrinkled in disgust as he methodically wipes his tongue with his clothings.
When Shouta told him he would burn all his taste buds eating too many egraks, he didn't think he would actually be unable to notice if he was being poisoned. At least Shinsou didn't initially catch on either, he reassures himself, smoothing out his neck in habit even though there's no puffed out feathers. He can continue eating egraks without any worries.
They end up using the water to rinse their respective wounds. Hizashi tries his best to dry himself with the hoodie, as the small amount of warmth he can produce gets leached into the water.
He rearranges the hoodie so it falls more like a cloak. Owning garnments is unusual for See'krtsh, making him unused to the shifting weight on his shoulders, now a constant reminder that he was part of a human's pack, whatishesupposedtodo—
It makes him less likely to die from hypothermia, but it's hard to appreciate that when the fabric won't stop rubbing his sensitive skin in an almost painful way. It's just so unnatural being unable to feel the breeze and vibration in the air, and it hinders his every move, somehow pulling and being too loose at the same time, constantly snagging on his scales.
A hiss almost climbs out of his throat when he spots metal gleaming in Shinsou's hands. He hadn't noticed him picking the muzzle up from where it layed near the door.
He wants nothing more than to throw it as far as he can, even having it in the same room is making it a little hard to keep his breathing steady. It's a reminder of how powerless he was when the Feczoits came, of how powerless he still is . He has to change that.
"Do you think you can use that to cut the collar?"
Shinsou looks at him with wide eyes, slowly looking from the muzzle to his neck. His quivers slightly, but he doesn't react otherwise, keeping his wings loose and casual while internally, his heart races and he can feel himself try to flare his nonexistent feathers.
"We have to do it now," he pleads. "If we wait too long, we won't have enough strength."
Shinsou doesn't respond, choosing to play with the muzzle instead, turning and twisting the straps.
"Let's just try, okay? Please, listener?"
He can't—cant die . Can't have Shouta find another body he recognizes.
(Or worse, be damned to look in every corner of the universe for any signs of his life.)
He'd taken Ob—Oboro's death the hardest, his body almost giving up from the mind numbing grief Nemuri and he couldn't completely understand. They had barely been able to pull him out of the cesspool of misery and self-condemnation. He knows his bondmate; if he got himself killed, Shouta would blame himself for the rest of his life, until he cuts it short to join him in their next lives. He can't do that to Shouta.
"I thought the UA" —his hands hold contempt—"are come here."
Hizashi exhales loudly. He gets why Shinsou does it so often, the Human gesture is very effective at diffusing irritation.
"And they will! But I don't know when, and I don't know if you've noticed, but we're on a time crunch here."
The metal creaks under the Human's grip. His pained expression proves he knows Hizashi's time is limited.
"Come on, what do you say? You just have to break this stupid thing, we run to an escape pod, and we're out of here!" At Shinsou's blanching face, he adds, "Shouta, Nemuri or Tensei will pick us up—they should be on their way—and then we'll blow this baby up." He mines an explosion going off, with sound effects and all. Humans are supposed to like stuff like that, right?
(Everything he thought he knew about Humans turned out to be false, and 'live for explosions and destruction' is added to the pile of falsified information at Shinsou's unimpressed look. Who even came up with this bullshit?)
"Other aliens? It is your bondmate?"
It was a clumsy attempt at deflecting his attention to another subject. Hizashi takes the bait. He'll get nowhere with ruffled feathers.
He nods, and oh maybe that was Shinsou's hangup. He didn't know he was THE Present Mic. Without his feathers, he's almost unrecognizable, and even if he was, Humans haven't reached warp speed yet. It was unlikely they were on the intergalactic news server.
He strikes a pose, chirping his signature jingle—it was recognizable and cool , and absolutely not a waste of time and energy, Shouta .
"My friends and I are part of a group called UA." He rushed through an explanation at Shinsou's blank look. "We fight bad people"—more like looted everything they had—"and expose shaddy organizations"—anonymously dropped their coords to the closest Interplanetary Safety Commission center—"so you could say we're kind of like heroes"—if one was generous, they were vigilante at best.
It isn't lying per say, more like… blurring the truth a little. It's necessary, he tells himself. He doesn't think admitting he's a criminal would work out well to gain Shinsou's trust.
Shinsou is staring intensely at him in a way that still makes him shiver, but he knows it actually means the Human is paying attention and concentrating on his words.
"Fight bad people…" Shinsou slides down the wall he's slouched on, crossing his front limbs over each other.
"Yeah! Like the Feczoits. Sometimes serial murderers, if we're on the same quadrant."
Shinsou doesn't seem reassured at all. Hizashi doesn't think he's imagining the way he curls up to make himself smaller. Hizashi doesn't understand what he said wrong. This isn't going in the direction he wants.
"I know you won't hurt me. I trust you." He's surprised he finds more truth in the statement than intended.
A weird expression crosses Shinsou's face for a heartbeat, too fast for the See'krtsh to decipher. Hizashi doesn't know what he said to upset him, but it's clear Shinsou isn't going to give in to his request now that he's in a bad mood.
Hizashi scours his mind for anything he could use to salvage the conversation. He's about to make a last ditch attempt at reassuring Shinsou when he feels a low tremor going through the entire ship, rattling his bones unpleasantly. Before he can even go farther than what the fuck, the entire world flips over itself.
The ship shudders, the only warning before they're sent crashing into a wall. A loud crack rings through the cell at the same time as his head and shoulder cushion his impact, sending stabbing needles into his brain and the upper left side of his torso. He clutches the side of his face, eyes shut to ride out the dizzy spell.
When he opens them, panic stutters his breath, and he starts reaching out blindly in front of him, calling out from Hizashi in fear. His voice comes out shakier than he intends it, the innate unease of the dark taking hold of him. He lets out a startled scream when something touches his back and almost swats the thing behind him before he realizes it's Hizashi. Thankfully, he stops himself before his arm makes contact with the lizard-bird alien, moving to touch him lightly as if that was what he wanted to do all along.
The thin skin under his palm staves off his mounting panic at his loss of vision enough that he can will his body to do more than gasp for air.
Wings move under his palm, and it's only on the third try that he realizes Hizashi is signing.
"Are you hurt?"
"I am fine." He feels the weighted stare even without seeing it, the disappointment exuding from Hizashi pulling out a confession from him. "Hit head, and I ca—cannot see."
He doesn't mention the ache in his shoulder. It doesn't hurt that much if he keeps it still.
He's impressed that Hizashi can understand what he's saying under the trembling. Immediately, Hizashi starts signing in a flurry to reassure him that the light is gone, his eyes are okay.
Hitoshi's whole body slumps over, the relief coursing through him too overpowering for him to care about having embarrassed himself in front of Hizashi. He lets the alien's wings move to his head without fuss, giving no protest when he starts inspecting his injury. Hizashi cradles his uninjured side to keep his head slightly turned while his other wing touches his scalp. Hizashi hums in apology when he presses in a sensitive spot and Hitoshi can't help the small jolt.
After about half a minute, Hizashi leans back, seemingly satisfied he isn't going to die. Hitoshi catches himself following the comforting touch and he's incredibly glad there aren't any lights—even though it gave him the scare of his life—for the other to witness all of his blunders.
"Hizashi hurt?" he asks, a little bit flustered.
"I banged my head a little bit too." Hitoshi immediately starts reaching for where he thinks his head is to brush against his skin to find any injuries, swallowing his wince when the movement pulls at his injured shoulder. To his relief, he doesn't feel any blood or weird bone poking out.
The sudden realization hits him, and he almost smacks himself before the sudden movement reminds him of his injuries.
"Hizashi, your collar—!" The constant light is gone. The metal feels bent under the light touch of his fingers, but it doesn't seem to cut into Hizashi's skin or block his airways when he slides them around, in search of blood. That must have been what he heard earlier.
"It's broken," he says after pulling Hitoshi's hands away from his neck. "Wait, I think—"
Hitoshi doesn't get to know the end of the sentence because Hizashi insistently starts pulling him, and he doesn't realize they're out of the cell until he bumps into the frame of the door—with his uninjured shoulder fortunately. There's barely time to register what's happening before he's dragged by Hizashi through a corridor, having to navigate blindly until red floods his vision—he hadn't realized his eyes were open—the low buzzing coming from the cell doors starting up again. He doesn't see anyone near them.
He has to squeeze his eyes shut when a high pitched alarm starts blaring through his skull. He instinctively presses his hands over his ears. It barely helps him block the painful sound and the pulsing in his head increases.
He squints through the pain so he can continue following Hizashi, shooting him a quick tight lipped smile to make him continue.
The alien had been reading a sign before Hitoshi distracted him. "There's an escape - on the twenty-seventh floor."
They were really doing this. Hizashi's collar looked broken, there was an emergency to occupy the guards, they were out of their cell . This was the perfect opportunity.
For once in his life, the Universe is smiling down on Hitoshi.
The Universe is not smiling down on him.
Hitoshi is stuck in an elevator with two squirrel guards, a deliriously injured Hizashi and a half-empty syringe. Gratefully, Hizashi managed to knock them out before they could do worse than break his wing, although the combined effect of whatever was in the syringe and the low silent vibrations that Hizashi let out was making him really nauseous. He has to brace himself on a wall to take deep breaths so he won't hurl right then and there. The enclosed space of the futuristic lift made the almost imperceptible scream reverberate right through his body, and he really hopes his insides didn't actually vibrate like he felt them do. At least he had the mind to cover his ears. Aside from the fact that everything sounds like he's underwater, he can hear just fine.
Once the pressure in his throat abates, the cold numbness spreading from his thigh becomes a lot more noticeable and worrying, seeping into his body to blur his thrashing thoughts.
Something flashes in the corner of his eye, making him stumble toward it before he can overthink it. It's an earpiece that he has to take out of the guard's ear. He almost drops it when it crackles, but manages to catch it before it connects with the ground. His fingers accidentally press a button and the thing falls silent.
They were the only ones who saw them. Hitoshi isn't delusional, the guards must know they're trying to escape. At least, their position was probably unknown to them until now. He should keep it that way. Thank god he broke the panel that calls for the elevator before getting in it.
The glowing numbers climb steadily as they make their ascend toward their escape.
Crackly chirps and whistles come out from the earpiece, a small lilt toward the end. Hizashi's pained crow falls silent when his hand moves without any input from his brain, like he's seeing himself through glass, and brings it next to his face. There's a pause where a tiny inner voice screams at him, trying to shake him out of his trance, but it's drowned out by his oddly calm voice, mouth forming around sounds he doesn't understand but has heard often enough while crumbled on a floor. As soon as he releases his death grip on the earpiece, the silence grows tense, stretches into hours and his anxiety starts building up, before finally, finally, it lights up again, and a tiny confirmation chirp comes out of the machine, just as the doors ding open.
He lifts his head and is greeted by an empty corridor.
Air he hadn't even noticed he was holding rushes out from his lungs. His legs tremble under his weight, he feels like he could laugh and never stop, this was the stupidest thing he has ever done and it worked.
He can't let himself rejoice yet, although he lets himself a second to savor his small victory. He goes to kneel next to Hizashi, who shuts his eyes in pain when he tries to sign something. It's obvious he won't be able to walk by himself, one of his bone jutting out so much it stretches his skin.
He can't feel his hands and he has to untie the hoodie around Hizashi's neck by vision only. It's a lot more difficult than he expects, mostly because he has to guess how much pressure he's applying. Hizashi tries to say something, but Hitoshi doesn't understand how he expects him to do two things at the same time right now. His head is really spinning.
Hizashi finally realizes that he can't really multitask in his state and starts following his silent instructions. He gets what Hitoshi's trying to do after some careful nudging and rolls onto the spread out hoodie.
Hitoshi knows for sure the drug is affecting him when he can only watch in fascination when the bone shifts, Hizashi's agonizing yell sounding far away. He zips the hoodie around the shaking alien.
"I'm going to pick you up." He can hear his voice, flat and emotionless, but it's detached from himself. It reminds him of lukewarm baths, water the same temperature as his skin, matching it so well he couldn't feel it slide around him. Everything fading around him until he becomes unaware of his own body.
He knots the sleeves around himself, rearranging them so it supports some of Hizashi's weight. He only has to hold up his tail, leaving him with a free hand.
He's about to reassure Hizashi again, remembering at the last second to use sign. His fingers move too clumsily for anything he says to be understandable.
Hitoshi murmurs an apology while getting up; he has to lean on the wall for a second while blood rushes to his head, and something pulls his muscles, but there's no pain, so he shrugs it off easily and heads toward the end of the hallway.
He barely manages to dodge a white flat thing thrown at his head, his hip knocking on the side of the console in his attempt to sidestep away. It hits the shuttle hatch where his head had been a second before, and to his horror, it retracts with a shudder, slithering away to one of the corners of the escape shuttle room hidden in the darkness, where the overhead emergency light couldn't reach.
Two red eyes reflect light, giving them an eerie glow in the overcast shadow.
Without taking his gaze off the unknown alien, he reaches behind him, fumbling until he manages to activate the shuttle hatch. The doors behind him hiss open, but before he can step into the shuttle, the unknown alien takes a step into the light.
It's a black furred quadruped—no, wait, that's two more arms, one held up protectively over their face while the other twirls the long white thing in between their fingers.
The white thing is half wrapped around their neck while the rest writhes along their shoulders and back.
It looks awfully like those tapeworms that could grow up to twenty-five meters long in someone's intestines.
Hitoshi tries to step into the escape shuttle but has to stop to duck when the worm is thrown at him again. He hisses—he doesn't know why so many aliens were scared of that sound, but he's glad for his warrior cat phase— to try to make them back off.
Instead of running away, they fix their heavy stare on Hizashi.
He covers the injured alien's face, cutting off their view of his friend, and he's stupidly comforted when they can't look at Hizashi with that hungry gaze anymore.
Their tangled and unkempt hair makes them look haggard. Their long fur hangs over their face, but Hitoshi doesn't fall for the trap of underestimating them. He shouldn't count on it impeding their vision; they wouldn't have survived—or be kept alive—if they didn't win matches, if they weren't a good fighter. Hitoshi isn't scared.
He's a good fighter too.
The other fighter must have taken advantage of the distraction power outage to escape. While he feels for them, he won't let them hurt Hizashi. Cold sweat drips down his spine, ice cubes against his too warm skin, while he tries to hold their gaze, red glares pulsing and growing blurry even when he tries to blink the haze away. He tightens his hold on Hizashi when they try to come closer while he's distracted, snapping his teeth at them in warning. They stop, even taking a step back, their extra arms waving around to intimidate him.
He waits for them to make their move. The tension mounts slowly when none of them attack, until he can't take it anymore, his heart is going to give out before they kill him.
He jumps backward into the shuttle, hastily scanning around him to find out how to close the doors. He opens a panel and starts button mashing randomly, alternating between trying to find a way to close those stupid doors and monitoring the other alien rapidly approaching him in long leaps. Just when they pounce, the hatch finally starts closing. The last thing he hears from them is their enraged yowl that worsens his headache.
The loud thump and following yelp when the set of doors closes in their face makes him feel vindictive. Take that for trying to thwart his escape!
He peers into the porthole to see what they're going to do, only to startle back when their face suddenly appears, angry snarling silenced by the barrier between them. In a very mature, not at all impulsive move, he pulls out his tongue to mock them.
His amusement melts as soon as they start slamming their body against the hatch to get to him and Hizashi.
He scrambles toward the screens attached over a blinking panel where an animated video of a scaled alien pressing buttons and pulling levers plays out. After realizing it's instructions on how to launch the shuttle, he tries to follow the animated alien, too numb to get frustrated when he has to wait for the video to loop for the fifth time when he takes too much time to perform a step. The other alien banging on the escape shuttle doesn't help him concentrate on his task.
His stomach drops when the screen goes black, only realizing the shuttle isn't irreparably broken when the ground under his feet rumbles to life.
Stars start to overtake the screens as an overhead door is lifted. He stumbles onto the seat back when the round metal sheets in the walls start sliding backwards—or rather, the escape shuttle starts going forward—revealing what were in fact reinforced windows pressed flushed against a wall.
Hizashi's eyes flutter under his fingertips with a pained exhale from the harsh jolt. Hitoshi hums at him to go back to sleep, but his tail hits his leg in protest.
Before he can say anything else to Hizashi, the whirring grows louder around him, and he barely has the wisdom to sit in the pilot chair when he's thrown back into his seat by the sudden acceleration. He clutches the armrest like his life depends on it, one hand thrown over Hizashi to keep him from sliding away.
The escape shuttle seems to have an autopilot function, because when Hitoshi presses the big button flashing insistently, the shuttle rights itself and the rumbling dies down to a smoother buzz.
He takes a few seconds for himself, the adrenaline drop leaving him more exhausted than he ever thought he could be. He still can't feel his leg where he was injected with the syringe, but the fog it had induced is mostly gone now. The pulsing in his head is worse though—it seems to reach right behind his eyes, thumping at the back of his vision. Now that the threat to their lives is gone, he can't bring himself to lift his arm through the sharp pain either.
All his other injuries aren't severe, or at least they don't hurt as much, so he doesn't pay attention to them.
When Hitoshi is almost certain he isn't going to keel over and die in the next hour, he brings his attention to Hizashi, who's trying to wiggle out of the improvised swaddle.
Hitoshi unties the hoodie and gently lays him on the ground. Hizashi actually looks aware of his surroundings.
"Are we in an escape -?" he looks around in confusion. Hitoshi guesses that to him, it might have seemed like falling unconscious in the elevator and suddenly waking up here.
Hitoshi can't help puffing his chest when he nods, a little bit proud of himself. Hizashi looks at him like he can't believe it, before he lets out a triumphant whistle, his tail whipping around in his excitement. "You did it! You actually did it!"
"We escape." To Hitoshi's bewilderment, a small giggle escapes his mouth, the overwhelming relief almost unbearable as tears gather in the corner of his eyes. "We escape!"
He can't hold it back any longer—he smiles at the alien, wide and unashamed until his gums show a little.
Hizashi doesn't flinch back.