Summary: "We'll get out of here. I'll make sure of it." Nasty little futurefic; T/R preslash (1/3)
Disclaimer: Have you noticed that the average Entslash fanwriter could produce better, not to mention more canonically-accurate scripts than the people at Paramount apparently can? And yet, it all belongs to them, and they get lots of money from it. The buggers.
Author's Notes: This is what I did instead of schoolwork today. A random brain fart writ large; it also turns out I can't even write something this small without there being even a tiny smidgen of slashiness. Don't worry, it's very general and inoffensive. Unlike the rest of this fic. Enjoy!
Faith
"Never mind," says Cauley, and goes back to shredding her blanket. Trip can't even remember what they were talking about.
It's been a long time. Long enough for Trip to start forgetting things, like what happened today and where he is and even his own name sometimes, and he's come to actually prefer those days; long enough for Malcolm's fingernails to grow back and the weals to scar over (though there's plenty of other marks, symmetrically arranged on his arms and back and feet, that must be more recent); long enough for Crewman Jasper to starve himself to death and Ensign Cauley to go insane.
A few months, maybe.
"Trip," Malcolm whispers from the bunk above. Weird, that they have bunks. Very human things. Shaving gear, too, and soap, and adequate food rations. They keep them in such clean, white, brightly-lit rooms, with all the things a human being could need. Whoever they are, they've really done their homework. That, or… but no, that always slips away from him before he can think it. Never mind.
"Trip," Malcolm says again, because Trip didn't answer the first time. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate, recently. Sometimes he just gets distracted by a thought, like the last piece of conjectural Warp theory he heard, or a really great recipe for steak, or, like now, just how funny Malcolm looks when he's trying to stay calm and reasonable even though he really wants to bite someone's head off.
Trip realises that this isn't normal, that this isn't how his brain used to be, but it's all slipping away from him, like a dream he's trying to hold on to; he's only just better than Cauley, sometimes. The only one of them who makes sense any more is Malcolm, and that's because he still fights them. Hard to be distracted by anything with spikes through the palms of your hands.
Trip gets up, and helps him stand; Malcolm's having trouble moving these days. Trip's afraid there's something wrong inside, and it's worse because he knows they won't help if something is wrong, just like they wouldn't help Jasper (the last time you fought them). He can feel Malcolm's ribs under the thin, anonymous clothing that they wear.
He's seen the same clothing on everyone here: aliens of all shapes and sizes, humanoid, ones they've seen and ones they haven't. It's like a zoo; they're herded to the breakfast hall (and Trip can never remember breakfast, either), poked and prodded in the right directions by imposing figures in some kind of armour that obscures their form and features; they never speak, he's never heard them speak. Clean, white, brightly-lit corridors, full of docile, shuffling figures, blearily watching their guards subduing anyone with fight left and dragging them away to clean, white, brightly-lit rooms where shitty red things happen.
Cauley's messed herself again, and hasn't even noticed. The cell's so clean and pristine in the mornings, he feels almost guilty when they get the white tiles dirty; but they can't help it, what with Cauley's fits and Malcolm being thrown back inside with wounds reopened every few days – God knows, the blood gets everywhere. They've fallen into a pattern of cleaning up Cauley and putting her to bed, since she won't do it herself; they do it now, taking away the strips of filthy blanket she's tying together ("No windows to climb out of," Malcolm tells her, and she seems to take his word for it), tucking her into the bottom bunk. There's only two beds since Jasper died, and it doesn't seem gentlemanly otherwise. Maybe they expected one of them to sleep with her.
Like a Goddamned zoo.
They're hurrying now, trying to clean up the mess and get into bed before lights-out, when anyone who isn't asleep or faking it gets knocked out with stick-weapons like tazers – or cattle prods, that fits better – by the guard who prowls the low-lit corridor after shutdown. Malcolm calls him the Matron, and thinks this is very funny. Trip doesn't really get the joke, but Malcolm doesn't seem to mind.
They lie together on the top bunk, perfectly used to their positions in the cramped space by now, tensing in time as the guard walks past their cell and dims the lights. Malcolm sighs and folds him hands against his chest: They've been stabbed through the palms again. Trip can barely remember the scuffle in the breakfast line; he hates that, and he hates Malcolm for fighting and Jasper for dying and Cauley for being crazy. He feels like he's been in this fucking facility all his life, and he can't remember what he used to do or how they came to be here. He hates that more than anything.
Malcolm is curled up with his back to him, and in this small bunk that means that his dark head is pretty much tucked right under Trip's chin. Trip's eyes adjust to the darkness, and he stares at the angry, inflamed wounds on those pale hands. He wishes Malcolm would stop fighting.
Malcolm feels his stare, and, as if reading his mind, whispers, "I have to fight them, Trip. We have to remember."
Trip is silent for a moment. Then he whispers back, in a voice thick from disuse, "Mal? Do you remember how we got here?"
A long pause. Then, "…No. No, I don't remember."
Trip reaches arms around him, and cradles the mutilated hands very carefully in his own. "You're always getting hurt," he says sadly.
"We'll get out of here, Trip. Someone will come for us, or… We'll get out of here. I'll make sure of it."
And somehow, Trip believes him.
"Promise?" he says.
Malcolm's eyes glitter in the dim light.
"Yes."
And they sleep.
1/3