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Chapter Text

I got into 'humans are deathworlders'/'human are space orks'✨✨✨ and I would really like it if the only human was Virgil and at first they are against him but then they realize that he is just a misunderstood sweetheart🤔 I don't mind if he was put on the ship by someone as a crew member or if he was rescued or something alse🙂but it would be cute if Virgil was short for a human🤭 and things like flexibility to get into small spaces and other things that are in the community about deathworlders'🤩 – anon

"Have you seen them yet?"

" Xerxus— don't do that, Re," Roman grumbles, his mandible clicking against the glass, "you almost made me spill!"

Remus shuffles into the seat next to him, eyestalks roaming around the cafeteria. Roman sighs and pats his spawn mate on the shoulder. "They managed to get into the engine ducts yesterday and now nowhere feels safe."

Roman sighs. "Just because they were poking around the engine ducts doesn't mean they didn't have a reason for it. They're not you, they don't just do things—"

"No, no, no, I don't mean they were in the area of the engine ducts, I mean they were inside them."

Roman blinks with all seven eyes. "You're telling me the human managed to fit inside there? But the ducts aren't even wide enough to accommodate a new hatch, what do you mean—"

"Look, all I know is that one ribec I'm looking at a human standing in front of a vent, and the next, their little shoe is disappearing into that hunk of metal and they're scrambling out the other side mumbling about filtration issues." Remus chitters as he grabs a plate of standard rations. "I'm telling you, I thought the whole death world thing was overhyped at first, but now—"

"Shh!" Roman's eyestalks dart around the room. "You know we're not supposed to say that!"

"What the krik else are we supposed to say? Their planet isn't tidally locked, it's fucking tilted, and their axis precesses? No, Ro, that's a death world."

"I know that, but we can't say that!"

"Are you talking about the human?"

Both of them jerk when Logan comes to sit next to them. He sighs, pressing a button on his control suit to decrease the pressure around his torso as he sits. His gloves whirr in response and he's able to pick up the spoon without much difficulty.

"Hey, Lo. Did the updates go well?"

"Yes, thankfully the spaceport had a non-Newtonian section for their replacement parts and I was able to find the proper regulator. But Roman, I presume Remus has informed you about the…experience in the engine room?"

"So it's true, then?"

Remus smacks him. "Hey! I'm not Janus, I wouldn't lie to you!"

"My antennae are vibrating," Janus announces, popping out of nowhere to sit next to Remus, who chirps in alarm, "what are we talking about?"

"The human's ability to crawl inside the engine ducts."

Janus's antennae turn a vibrant shade of blue. "The human did what now?"

"It's true!" Logan nods along as Remus chitters. "They were just there one moment and then they just went inside like it was nothing. I don't know how they're still alive, the lack of air flow alone would put any of us out of commission, how did they—"

"You're assuming any of us could even fit. My suit won't let me enter a space less that the diameter of my torso, and Janus—"

"Oh, you wouldn't catch me in there in stasis or movement." Janus sips through a proboscis. "Not that I'm eager to test it out."

Roman sighs. "Regardless of how impressed we are with the human's abilities—"

"Impressed is a strong word."

"Who's impressed by something that terrifying?"

"I'm not sure I'd go that far."

" Regardless of how impressed we are," he repeats, eyestalks glaring at the three of them, "it's not our place to call their planet a death world. That's not fair to them, they didn't have a choice as to what they were born as."

"No, they just took all the freaky adaptations and evolutions that come from said death world and make them our problem." Janus shudders and his carapace clicks. "I still remember the time I saw them in the lab with the lights off. It was like looking into the maw of a Rashan Giant and having it tell you it wasn't going to eat you. Since when do they have night vision too?"

"There was probably enough light for them to see by—"

"That's worse! You get how that's worse, right? If they can just see in the dark, then they can see in the dark, but if there's an ambiguous amount of light that they can see by, then how are we supposed to know what it is?"

"And don't get me started on their memory. The Captain said two things in their whole orientation tour about the quark spin reader and they remembered it last cycle when it needed to be recalibrated. I don't even want to know what else they remember from all of the scuttlebutt that they hear."

"Alright, that's a little ridiculous." Logan's face shield lowers so he can take a slurp. "It's not like they're plotting to use all of the information they're gathering about the crew's personal lives to plan some nefarious scheme."

"Oh, so you'd feel comfortable with them knowing what the settings on your regulator are? You're fine with them knowing things about your brood?"

"Okay, wait, more species than humans have good memories, Janny. Are you—" Remus's eyestalks flutter around Janus's face— "is there something you're not telling us about how you feel about humans?"

Janus's carapace rattles. He turns and glances around. Luckily the cafeteria is still mostly empty and none of the other tables are close enough to hear them. He sighs. "Look, you know how I am about predator species. It's—I'm not—I'm trying to be better, but humans—humans just really freak me out."

"That's not a reason to be a bigot about it."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry, I just—" he rubs his antennae as they turn yellow again— "it just freaks me out and I don't know what to do about it."

One of Roman's eyestalks catches movement and he swivels it to see the human walking in. He elbows Remus, who looks too, and promptly holds up a hand.

"Virgil! Come eat with us!"

"What is wrong with you," Janus hisses under his breath as the human tilts their head, shrugs, and carries a ration tray over. "Uh—hi. Virgil, right?"

"Mhm." The human sits next to Logan—well, a chair over from Logan, right in front of Roman. "Hi. Uh, I don't know if we've met."

"Janus. And you know—"

"Logan, Roman, Remus, yeah." He picks up the cup of caf and sips it. "Thanks for, uh, letting me sit."

"We're all crew," Logan says diplomatically.

They eat in silence for a few ribecs. Then Virgil coughs. "Um, don't let me interrupt whatever was going on. I'm just—I'm not really good at conversation."

"Really?" Remus chitters. "Aren't humans social species?"

"Remus," Roman chides, but Virgil's already huffing a laugh.

"Yeah, we are by and large, but some of us aren't as good at that as everyone else." He lifts two fingers and taps them against his head. "Me? Not one of the good ones."

"Is that why you volunteered to go in the ducts?"

"Remus!" Roman smacks his brother with an eyestalk. "I'm sorry, Virgil, he's not normally this pushy."

"Yes, I am!"

"Yeah, he is," Janus mumbles under his breath.

"No, it's cool, I, uh—I noticed how everyone was looking at me when I got out of there. It's a, uh, I'm sure you've heard stories about human impatience, yeah?"

"I think everyone in the Coalition heard about the species that flung themselves to the stars before they had FTL capabilities," Janus says, a bit sharp. Virgil just chuckles.

"Yeah, well—the chief said there was something wrong inside the ducts and that we had to wait a few cycles to calibrate the probe properly, and I asked if I could just go in instead since the sector had to be isolated anyway, and they said sure, if I could fit." He takes another sip. "In hindsight, I'm like, pretty sure that was a hyperbolic thing? Or at the very least sarcastic, like they didn't think I was gonna fit, but then I did it and…"

He shrugs.

"Now I think I have a new thing added to my maintenance roster, but that's fine."

"Impressive." Logan's glove whirrs as he picks up the spoon. "Have you done similar things on other ships?"

"Oh, no, this is my first deployment."

All of them pause. Virgil notices, his cup halfway to his mouth.

"…is there something wrong?"

"This is your first deployment?" Roman's eyestalks rustle. "But you're—you've already reached third rank, how did you—"

"I mean, I've worked on space ports before, but not a like, traveling ship. And I didn't—the manifest specifically requested a human, so I got the job that they needed a human for."

"Forgive us our surprise," Logan says, "we only meant that to see a member of the crew with such acumen, we expected this to be your second or third deployment."

"At least."

"Really?" Virgil huffs. "I, uh, wow. It's, uh, really good to hear you say that. My anxiety's been trying to tell me I'm doing a really bad job, so that makes me feel better."

Janus's antennae switch. "Anxiety? Is that a parasite of some sort?"

Logan shoots him a warning look but Virgil laughs again. "Honestly, sometimes it feels like that. But no, it's not—it's not a parasite. It's a, uh, oh, God, I'm not a medical professional. It's—it's a specific mental illness that humans can have where it—okay, basically it takes your fight-or-flight survival instinct, your gut keep-me-alive feeling, and makes it go haywire."

The tips of Janus's antennae turn blue. "How does it do that?"

"It messes with your ability to regulate your emotional response to stuff, sort of. Like—it makes you freak out way more than normal about stuff that you really don't need to be freaking out over. Like—for me, I'm always worrying did I lock my cabin door, did I turn off the interface properly, did I just say something really stupid and ignorant, are the airlocks going to fail, basically I'm worrying about stuff all the time and I can't really control it. At all."

All of Remus's eyestalks turn to stare at Janus, who clicks. "That…sounds really frustrating."

"It's hard, yeah, but I've had some time to learn to manage it." His gaze flicks up to the antennae. "Uh, if you're curious about it, I can send you some of the stuff I have about it?"

"That would be…great, thank you."

Virgil smiles. "No problem. I gotta say, though, I'm gonna start thinking about it like a parasite now that you've said it."

"Why?"

"'Cause if you feed into it, it gets way worse. Like—right now it's trying to tell me that I'm messing something up really bad by sitting with you guys, like I'm gonna say something really stupid that's gonna make you all hate me or get me kicked off the ship, and me saying that out loud is—" he takes a deep breath— "feeding it. But if I just…ignore it, or try and push past it, then I'm not feeding it and eventually it gets quieter."

"We don't hate you," Roman says quietly, "we're not gonna get you kicked off the ship."

"Oh, I figured, that's why it's irrational, but—thanks."

"That is fascinating. If you're willing, I would also like to read more about this."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll send it to you too." The end of shift alarm chirps and Virgil sighs, getting up. "That's my cue. It was nice sitting with you."

"I'm on next shift too," Janus says, quickly standing, "I'll walk with you?"

"Oh! Yeah, sure, let's go."

Logan, Roman, and Remus watch the two of them walk off. After the door slides shut, Logan laughs.

"That's what they don't tell you about death worlds, they make you very, very good at surviving."

"What do you mean?"

Logan gestures after the two of them. "In the face of irrational fear, predator and prey have found something to bond over. What's more death world than that?"

"…can't argue there."

Chapter Text

Okay, so, I just read Survival, and. yus. (/pos) All I keep thinking about is what if the Others encounter (their) human Virgil having an anxiety attack or feeling very overwhelmed & panicked? Like...how would they handle that? Would they have help from someone who knows a bit more about humans' nervous system? Would they also kinda freak out because they don't know how to help Virgil calm down? – anon

"Roman? Remus, report to Engineering Main Hub."

"What did you do," Roman mutters as they leave their stations, eyestalks flicking back and forth, "what didn't you do?"

"It wasn't me! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"You know that just makes you sound more suspicious, right?"

"Look, all I'm saying is that it wasn't my fault that the quantum field generator was out of alignment this morning because I spent four matrons aligning it last shift and when I left, everyone including Lieutenant Alvarez signed off on it saying it was fine, so if it's messed up again, it's not on me!"

"That's a lot of words for 'I don't know what I did this time.'"

Remus shoves him as his mandible chitters and the two of them manage to make it the rest of the way to the reporting station without breaking anything. It's a close thing, but they manage it. The supervising officer looks up and sighs, gesturing toward the ducts.

"You two are close with Human Virgil, aren't you?"

"We're friendly," Roman says, "but I wouldn't say close."

"That's good enough."

"What's happened with Virgil?"

The officer sighs again—that's probably not good. "I don't know exactly what's going on. Medical Officer Patton is over there, he's got a better grasp of humans than the rest of us on staff here, ask him."

"With all due respect," Remus points out, "we're not exactly experts on humans either, I'm not sure we're qualified to—"

"Well, the human's the one asking for you, so when they're in a state where they can talk coherently again, you can ask them."

Three things occur to both of them at rather alarming speeds.

One: Virgil is asking for them specifically.

Two: Virgil is not currently in a state where they can explain why they've asked for the two of them specifically.

Three: Virgil is so much in a state where they cannot speak coherently that a medical officer has been summoned.

"Where are they?"

The officer jabs a tentacle toward the ducts and they're off, dodging other crew members and murmuring apologies for their brusque journey across the floor, mandibles chittering rapidly. Sure enough, by the time they round the corner to reach the stairs leading up to the overlooking platform, they can hear the soft voice of the medical officer murmuring something.

"That's it, you're doing very well. Keep trying to take deep breaths, okay? That will help stabilize the oxygen levels in your body, which will help bring about the end of this."

"I know that— it's just— I can't—I— I—"

"You can. I know it seems hard right now—"

"No shit!"

"Medical Officer Patton?" Remus calls as they reach the top of the stairs. "We were called, is everything…?"

Roman shoves Remus aside as he too makes it to the platform, trying to see what's caused Remus to stop so suddenly. He then slams to a halt when he sees the bright blue of the medical officer's uniform nearly covering a small, curled-up ball of dark fabric that appears to be shuddering. Before he can ask if this is another stage of human development they're unaware of, part of the blob lifts and he lets out a soothing rumble before he realizes it.

Virgil, their human, is curled up so tightly in a little ball that it must be painful, and his face is all red and blotchy and—leaking?

"Virgil?" Remus's voice drops to the low register they use to communicate with fresh hatchlings, crouching down to make his silhouette smaller. "What's going on?"

"You—you came— you actually—actually—"

"Easy," Patton says gently as another horrible noise leaves Virgil's lips, "don't try and speak too much, you'll over stress your system. Here, let me—"

He reaches into the small toolkit on his belt and retrieves a comfort canister. A light hissing fills the air as it decompresses, the blanket within growing larger and larger until he can drape it over Virgil's shaking shoulders. The human lets out another thorax-wrenching noise as he huddles under the soft blue fabric, taking a fistful and bringing it to cover his mouth.

"What's happening?" Roman asks, crouching down too. "How long has this been going on?"

"I was called a few malton units ago," Patton explains, his eyes still on Virgil curled up under the blanket, "about a crew member in distress. He appears to be otherwise uninjured. I believe this is an exacerbated response from his nervous system."

"Is this related to his parasite?"

Patton's head whips around. "Parasite?"

"Not a literal parasite, uh, Roman, help me out—"

"I think he calls it anxiety? It's not actually a parasite, he just described it like that to us once—"

"Ah, yes, anxiety, I'm familiar with the term in humans. Yes, I think this is part of it. It's not uncommon for humans with anxiety to experience periods of time where their systems is overloaded with instincts that are not applicable to their current situation."

"Their system attacks itself?"

"In a manner of speaking. I believe human experts refer to them as 'panic attacks.'"

Roman blinks with both eyestalks. "Well, that sounds…unpleasant."

"No shit," comes Virgil's voice through the blanket, "it's a bitch and a half."

"Do you normally measure inconveniences in female dog lengths?"

"Figure of speech." The rattling breaths haven't stopped yet, and they can hear a few more drops of liquid hit the grating. " Shit."

"How can we help?"

"Protocol suggests surrounding the crew member with those familiar to them," Patton explains, "who may be able to offer comfort and security."

"O-oh."

The human thinks they're…safe? They've not had more than half a dozen conversations and they're nowhere near approaching brood mate status, they've not even seen each other that many times off shift. But Virgil is extremely distressed and if they can help, well, what are they supposed to do, refuse?

"What do we do?"

"Virgil?" Patton rests a hand carefully on the top of the blanket-human pile. "Roman and Remus would like to help. What would you like them to do?"

"Can—can you come closer?"

Both of them skitter along the platform and bracket the pile on either side. Patton removes his hand and shuffles back to give them space. Roman bumps an eyestalk against Remus as Remus lies flat, making it easier for Virgil to see him without having to move his head so much.

"Hi," he chirps, some of his feelers playing gently with the edge of the blanket. "We're right here. You look like a hatchling all curled up in the blanket."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Do you know a lot about how our species nests?"

"No."

"We make these really big colonies that are just devoted to rearing the young. We gather supplies from everywhere we can to make the environment as safe for them as possible."

"Which in Remus's case, means getting rid of all the dangerous things he hoards like a ravenous purple worm."

"Hey!"

"It's true," Roman says, stroking the blanket, "but once that's all done, we get these big bunches of fluff from the canyon lands and make nests out of them, kind of like this. Then we wrap the young in them so their limbs can get used to having ambient pressure and sensation in a safe way before they're big enough to try moving on their own."

"That's why I said you look kind of like a new hatchling, all bundled up."

Virgil sniffles, wiping at his face. "That sounds nice."

"Why are you leaking," Roman asks gently, "is there something we can patch?"

"'M not leaking, 'm just crying."

"Crying is something humans do to cope with overwhelming emotions in their systems," Patton adds quietly when they still look confused, "it helps with the release of extra things that re-stabilizes them."

"Oh. Keep doing it, then."

A watery huff. "I'm not gonna be able to stop anytime soon, don't worry."

"Do you want us to keep talking?"

"Y-yeah. Um, what are the canyon lands like?"

"They're these massive stretches of bare rock that reach from one side of the planet to the other. They're very treacherous for single or even double exploration teams, so we have to go in really big groups to be able to get around them safely." Remus's eyestalks wave back and forth. "There's not a lot of cover out there so we gotta be able to have eyes in all directions."

"It also gets really hot because of that," Roman adds, "so we take turns being at the top of the group."

"What do you mean, 'at the top?'"

"Oh, sorry—we travel in a horde when we go out in groups that big to make it easier on our legs for long distances. The ones at the bottom provide the power to keep the group going, the ones at the top are the eyes for the rest of us, and the ones in the middle provide stability to make sure no one gets left behind."

"That's…cool."

"But it gets really hot at the top so we change positions every so often to keep the group moving and stable."

"I don't get hot as easily as Roman does—"

"Hey!"

"—so I get to spend more time at the top."

"You just hate having to walk for yourself when you don't absolutely have to."

"I'll have you know I'm still the winner of the Marsh Dash for three galactic cycles in a row and you've never gotten in the top 200."

"Yeah, but that's for your pride."

Remus chitters in an affronted way and Virgil makes another little one of those watery laughs. The engine hums around them, just like the thriving colony of a healthy hive.