Curly is extremely lucky.

He hates it.

You saved him all those months ago, and he feels as though he doesn’t deserve it. It’s his fault the Tulpar crashed. It’s his fault Jimmy took advantage of his kindness. It’s his fault everyone but him is dead.

The cruelest kind of irony. Mute, unable to move on his own, skin burned to a crisp. Curly should’ve had the lowest possibility of surviving the mess that ensued after the crash, and yet here he is: alive. Looking a bit more like his old self.

He moves his gaze from the silver prosthetic, attached to what remains of his left arm, the panel in the underside of the forearm open as you work on the mechanisms and circuitry.

You’re an alien, traveling the universe solo, who just so happens to have a special interest in your species’ version of mechanics and engineering. A bit of a scavenger, you came across the Tulpar at least a decade or so after Curly was put in cryostasis, ripping out different wires and parts once you realized the freighter was no longer in use, checking every room and eventually finding the ex-captain.

He came in and out of consciousness at first, about a week passing before he was able to actually stay awake longer than a few seconds. You’d patched him up, pretty damn well for someone who doesn’t know that much in medicine (at least from where you’re from), as Curly would later learn. Skin grafts, reconstructing his face a bit, prosthetics. If there was something to be done you did your best to do it.

It should’ve been Anya, Daisuke, or Swansea at the very least in the pod. Not him. Not after how much the ex Captain had fucked up.

He almost jumps when you poke his bicep, a concerned look on your face and a tilt of your head, the panel on his prosthetic shut. You. okay? reads the tablet you hold up to him after typing, the translation still a bit rough, but he gets what you mean.

Yeah, don’t worry about it, the text disappears after he types his response, translating into symbols he’s trying to learn, your native language.