things were tough on the skeld.
nearly… half the crew had died. maybe more. all of the deaths were brought on by the alien perpetrators that had disguised themselves as innocent crewmates boarding the same ship as them, the aliens brought on the ship in the first place by the damn ores they were supposed to ship to industria—which turned out to be alien eggs.
very convenient.
only captain red, purple, green, them & yellow were left.
the captain was still trying to brush everything off with repeated assurances of “no biggie” & whatnot, & purple was still hot on his tail, completely convinced that he was the next alien perpetrator left standing after orange’s ejection.
yellow & brown were both in the kitchen together, working silently alongside one another whilst the rest of the crew argued in the cafeteria before them—well, it was mostly just purple accusing red & red trying to brush everything off, with green just watching it all unfold before them.
no matter what happened, the crew had to eat, right? even if none of them seemed to be in the particular mood for eating something right now.
yellow was working away silently at the counter that overlooked the cafeteria, head bowed as they kneaded the dough. they were planning to make pizza, them & brown, so brown worked on whipping up the paste whilst yellow expertly wound the dough to perfection.
no matter how many profanities or accusations were thrown out in the cafeteria, brown couldn’t quite look away from yellow, hardly facing towards his own work, which they usually took immense pride in perfecting.
they didn’t want to lose their best friend, no matter what happened. they didn’t want to lose the person they’d trained for this trip for for nearly all of their lives; they didn’t want to be separated from their…
their best friend. the one that had stuck with them through it all, even when things were falling apart at the seams in real time on board skeld.
they left their unfinished paste of tomato sauce behind on the counter as they moved over to yellow’s side instead, facing their profile as the other crewmate worked away at the dough—kneading it diligently whilst clearly fighting a battle beneath their visor.
brown could, as easily as anything, tell that they were worried too, just as much as them, for whatever outcome could befall them. brown had never seen them work the dough quite so harshly before, but they didn’t bother to warn yellow about treating it too aggressively. they knew that wouldn’t do anything to lighten the situation.
instead, they just lift a hand, gently laying it on yellow’s shoulder as they lean against the counter with their other arm, fixing yellow with a sympathetic look—perhaps just as depressed as them, too.
“stressed?”
his voice is soft.