"Psst, Red?" Yellow whispers, barely louder than the low humming of The Skeld. She turns her head sideways, just enough to get a hazy view of the bed across from hers. "Red, are you still awake?"
At first, all there is to respond to her voice is the quiet rustling of sheets, and yellow worries that she may have woken her vent buddy. But then they speak, and their voice is clear of sleep.
"Yes," They say simply. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." The girl says quickly to ease the impostor's worry. "But, I can't sleep. I know that I really should, but I just can't!"
More rustling. Yellow can't be sure since it's so dark (it tends to be that way in space without lights on) but she's pretty sure they're rolling over to face her. They can probably see me just fine, she muses. However similar their species might look or act like humans, they're not, and they're stronger in many ways.
"I can't sleep either." This is a surprise for Yellow; usually they're up late into the night, fiddling around with their stolen iMira. Unless they weren't choosing to do so and were staying up because of insomnia, but Red would tell her if that's the case, right? They hadn't been doing this friendship thing [for real] for very long, but seeing as they'd spilled their entire sad backstory to her days earlier, she was relatively certain that they knew they could confide in her.
When it became evident that the impostor wasn't going to keep the conversation going, Yellow decided to take it on herself to do so. A crewmate's work is never done, so it seems. "Are you nervous? I know I am, I mean I've been concentrating on well, stuff and wasn't really thinking about the mission. Now that it's done, I'm not sure what comes next. We'll be stopping by one of MIRA's space stations tomorrow for them to check up on us and maybe get a new mission, but I don't know what it'll be, and neither does White. Moreover, I don't know if MIRA'll keep our crew together."
Silence reins in the duo's shared quarters for a second, but it's not the semi-relaxed sort of silence of before. Nope, definitely more like the 'in space, no one can hear you scream' type of silence. Yellow joked to herself.
Did she ramble too much? She did tend to do that sort of thing when she was overtired…
"I was afraid… that… that might be a possibility." Red's voice, thin and wavering in the dark, like the last ray the sun would ever emit. With their words, a terrifying truth began worming its way into Yellow's heart, and it was all she could do not to gasp like the oxygen had been sabotaged.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!
If MIRA decided, for whatever reason, that Red should go to another crew… Even if they were always on their best behavior, Red didn't know diddly squat about performing tasks. They'd get caught as an impostor, for sure. And then… Well, needless to say, there was a lot more than social anxiety at play here for the poor alien.
She'd barely registered that she'd started moving when she was almost at Red's bedside. Axie and Lottie swam towards her in their tank as if to say, "Clingy much?" But she wouldn't let her pets' perceived judgement stop her. It was her job to complete tasks, and complete tasks, she would! Even if said tasks weren't assigned by MIRA or Captain White; that was a mere formality!
Basically, her sleep-deprived brain had decided that this scary situation caused for some cuddles, and she agreed with that. Furthermore, she tended to be paranoid when overtired, and thus thought her axolotls to be judging her. When she woke up the next morning, she would think back on this and realize: that's totally out of character for those two! More than likely, they wished to join in on the love. Which they couldn't do as they were unable to stay out of the water for long and would probably get crushed. And their jealousy because of this would result in their slightly spiteful aura as she was making her way over to Red's bed.
But presently, Yellow wasn't thinking about any of this; she just wanted some cuddles. And judging by how Red scooted over and lifted a corner of the covers, they agreed with the sentiment.
And so, she found herself lying down on her left side on Red's bed, curling up against the warmth of the impostor's stomach. They draped their arm around her waist, gently pulling her even closer with a contented little sigh.
"I don't know why," they begin softly so as not to hurt Yellow's ear. "But I didn't expect you to be so soft without your suit. I mean, I can feel your—ribs? Is that what they're called?"
Yellow's about to answer in the affirmative, when Red moves their arm! Yellow lets out a whine of disappointment before the alien's hand is gently prodding at her side, probably feeling her ribs. It felt somewhat like a massage, so she decided to let it slide for now. They'd better start spooning me again soon, though, or we might have a problem.
"They're hard, but so thin! If you fell wrong, they'd snap. Not to mention the gaps in between, you could just slip a knife right through and—wait, wait!" Red stops abruptly, catching themself doing something. Yellow's brain is too much in need of sleep [and oxytocin] to really know what this was about.
"Crap," They say, a word learned from her no doubt. 'Crap' was her favorite semi-swear.
Wait, are they rolling away from me? Oh this won't do, no this won't do at all! Yellow quickly rolls as fast as someone in her state could, grasping onto her vent buddy's middle before they have an unpleasant encounter with the floor. Apparently, they had forgotten how small the bed was. "Mmh!"
"S'okay, Red." She murmurs as she hugs them close. 'It's okay' is a good phrase to use when someone's upset, Yellow knows. And it'd be good if Red wasn't upset anymore; that meant they could go back to snuggling properly. Proper cuddles could only happen if both parties were enjoying themselves, after all.
Red shutters slightly in her grasp, gently clasping her hand in theirs. Yellow notes that there's not any bone or vein under their skin that she can feel' more like this unidentifiable rubbery sort of mass stuff holding their shape together. She liked the feel of it.
"Yellow," they say, voice small. "You know that I would never hurt you, right?"
Red didn't know that?! It would seem that the middle of the night wasn't the best time to have a conversation like this one, as Yellow found herself clinging to Red tighter and trying to blink away the burning in her eyes. "Of course!" She says, almost a bit too loudly. "We're friends, of course I know that you wouldn't hurt me!"
Red must've heard the tears about to come, for their grip on her hand tightens.
"I believe you." They say, with a tone of finality. They seemed to also pick up that this was a conversation best left til morning.
"ALRIGHT EVERYONE, LET'S GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD!"
"GAH!" Red and yellow both jolted into wakefulness at the sound of Green's yelling. He had barged into their room, shouting at the top of his lungs for a reason neither could fathom.
"Er, what are you two up to?" The crewman asks, thankfully at a much more reasonable volume.
"We could ask you the same," The impostor grumbled, trying to disentangle themself from the blanket burrito they and Yellow had accidentally wrapped themselves in during the night.
Yellow lets out a massive yawn as she rubs her eyes, displaying the abyss of her throat for all to see. "Well, we were sleeping before you barged in here. That was super rude, by the way."
Green gets a skeptical look. "Together?"
Yellow looks baffled and a little disgusted, while Red is just confused. "Yes?"
Yellow manages to untangle herself at that moment, standing up to be at eye-level with Green. "Look, man, we kinda had a rough night and you're not helping. Would you mind leaving? … Please? We need to get ready, anyway."
Ah, wonderful Yellow. Red muses. Never afraid to say it how it is.
Green sighs. "Fine. Get your suit on. Captain White wants to talk to us over breakfast."
"What's his problem?" The impostor grumbles once the crewman has left. Green had always been the most hostile towards them, and impostors in general. On one hand they couldn't blame him for that, but on the other, hadn't they proved themself to not be a threat (or at least not as much of a threat) by now? They supposed they would just have to be patient, but it was hard.
"Beats me." Yellow says as she begins pulling out her suit and other things she'll need to start her day from the storage unit. "I understand why he'd want to wake us up, but did he really have to do it like that?"
Red sighs. They had just remembered what day it was, and nervousness was beginning to bubble up from deep inside of them. They hoped that if anyone was watching from above, they'd be on their side.