Chapter Text
“Bastard,” was the first word Tim said after the war had ended.
“I’ll have you know my parents were married,” Jonny D’Ville said, leaning over to look at Tim’s face. “How are your eyes doing?”
“I can see. Barely.” Tim tried to close his eyes. “Wish I couldn’t. Still don’t want to see you.”
“After I saved your life?”
“That means you could have saved—“
Tim paused. He knew what would happen if he continued. He didn’t want to test it. It wouldn’t have changed now.
Jonny dashed his hopes anyway. “Could have saved who?”
—
The eyes hurt.
They really, really hurt. Pieces of metal scraped across bone, clawing into his eye socket. Fragments of the life pod, maybe, or just a sign that Jonny D’Ville was really, really shit at saving people’s lives via. . . whatever this was.
Tim still didn’t know the details of what was happening. He didn’t think he wanted to know. Jonny had started to explain at one point, said things about “saving your life” and “now you’re one of us”. Tim had pretended to fall asleep.
He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to continue to be in a world like this, because—
Because.
He’d really destroyed the world, hadn’t he?
Destroying the moon would do that. The moon pieces would have probably crashed into the Earth, made a sizeable dent in the whole thing. He’d thought he’d seen the blast, with the last bit of his vision. Imagined the rest.
It wasn’t hard to imagine, all things told. He’d imagined the world ending, over and over again, during those years on the lunar surface. The thousand ways the Moon Kaiser could have done it. He never imagined that he’d be the one to do it.
God. He didn’t have much of a family to speak of still around, but— Bertie had had— he’d had people still. Family members. A younger sibling or two he’d still had pictures of in his bag, when—
No. Not thinking about it. He didn’t want to go more mad than he had already.
He blinked again, and someone new was there, fussing around with the metal. If there was any chance they were trying to help, it didn’t seem like a high one. The metal fizzed and spun, and he could feel blood trickling down his skin, leaking towards his throat.
“Fuck off,” he said, trying in vain to move his arms. “I— whatever you’re doing, it’s making it worse.”
“A shame,” the woman replied, a touch of sarcasm in her voice. She gave the metal one last tug, and Tim held back a scream. “I’m sure your face looked better without the metal in it. Perhaps Jonny is fond of piercings.”
“I don’t fucking care what Jonny’s fond of,” Tim hissed. He looked around him, trying to find something, anything he could use as a weapon. There were fifteen ways he could think of to disembowel someone when they were this close, thirty seven if he’d had access to a gun. He’d been too out of it before, with Jonny, but whoever this woman was—
“I’m trying to help,” she said, shaking her head a little. She looked behind him, to some sort of display he couldn’t see. “Immortality does not solve every wound, you know. And it is difficult to fix mortals. Especially of wounds this close to your mechanism. . .”
Tim froze.
“I’m sorry,” he managed after a second. Probably something close to affronted, maybe, but the woman didn’t seem taken aback, “but if you said bloody immortality, you’ve got the wrong bed.”
A pause that stretched too long. The woman hesitated. “Jonny didn’t tell you?” she asked, almost sympathetic. Almost. “He dragged you back on the ship, half dead—”
“He told me he saved my life, if that’s what you mean,” Tim said. He felt himself rise to a seat, felt his fists clench around the blanket. “He didn’t tell me— fucking immortality? That’s not— not possible.”
The woman sighed. “It is very much possible, and it is also possible that Jonny is much more of an idiot than I thought he was—”
That was when Tim struck.
If the woman was immortal, he thought, oddly tinted blood dripping from his fingers, this wouldn’t matter in the long run. She’d come back to life, and he’d be just as stuck as he was before.
And if she was immortal, he was never going to see—
Not thinking about him. There wasn’t going to be a chance for twin graves, or a shared tombstone, or anything of the sort, and there wasn’t a fucking afterlife, so why did Tim learning that he wasn’t going to die like— like that hurt so much?
He’d been going to. He’d been going to go out taking out the person responsible for the war, for his suffering, for everything that happened. And he’d failed to fucking die properly, because Jonny D’Ville couldn’t take a hint.
And the prick thought that that meant anything special? Saved his life. More like doomed it.
The woman stirred on the floor, where her heart hadn’t been beating seconds before, and Tim began to run.
—
The air seemed to shimmer as Tim walked through the halls. Still dripping in that weird blood. Metallic. The wrong texture. He didn’t think—
“Tim,” someone said. Someone new, someone he didn’t recognize. A shorter woman with red hair, looking at him with concern. “Tim, are you all right?”
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked. Looked around the hallway, considered his surroundings. He could probably dig a piece of that sharp metal out of his eye socket, stab her in the throat. If he was really immortal, it’d probably heal. But he didn’t think—
“I’ve heard a thing or two,” the woman said, looking a little amused. “You’re— you could be a friend.”
“Don’t think I want to be friends with anyone here,” he said, taking a step forward. Considering his weapon options. “I— he shouldn’t have done this. Brought me here. Brought me back. I shouldn’t be—”
“Oh. You’re new,” the woman seemed to realize. She rummaged through her bag, giving him— a knife?
A knife.
“I’d give you a gun, but I wasn’t prepared to meet you this morning,” she said apologetically, as if that would explain anything. “I’m Ivy, by the way. Ivy Alexandria.”
“Ivy Alexandria, why don’t you think I’m about to kill you right now?” Tim said, staring at her.
She shrugged. “The probability is there, but it seems far more likely that you’ll go find Jonny’s quarters and confront him. You being armed for that wouldn’t make the situation any worse. He probably does have a gun, you know.”
Confronting Jonny, here and now. Now that he was armed, and walking, and able to possibly walk away. Now that he had a maybe-ally on the ship. There was a chance, however small, that she could get him off it.
Where would he go, though? If Earth was gone, if the moon was blown up—
There was no trace of— of him left in the universe. And Tim didn’t really know where he belonged in a universe like that. Bertie had been home for so long that he didn’t know how to build home without him.
The war hadn’t counted. It had never been home.
“Point me towards where he is, then,” Tim said finally. “And if you can get me a gun—”
“Will do, Gunpowder Tim,” Ivy said, a slight smile on her lips. “Right this way. But you do know, if you try to escape, he’s not going to want to let you? You’re a part of the crew now.”
Tim snorted. “Think that’s a thing I’d have to choose to be,” he said. “Now, gun please. I’ve got to shoot a not-bastard.”
—
As it turned out, Jonny wasn’t in his quarters.
The woman with the metal blood, whoever she was, had apparently alerted him to Tim’s attempt at escape. He’d apparently been alarmed by that, for whatever reason. Maybe it was because a fresh-out-of-the-war soldier was now roaming around his ship and very angry with him. Maybe it was because that soldier had killed his friend. Who fucking knew or cared.
“Oh, fuck, you’re still intact,” Jonny said, taking him in. “Almost thought— never mind.”
Or Jonny had been. . . worried about him?
Was there someone to be worried about on this ship? He’d only run into the one woman and Ivy, and neither of them had seemed especially dangerous to him. More amused than anything at him existing, which was fucking perfect.
Jonny seemed almost happy, too. Happy to see him. Happy to have him there. Happy to— happy his eyes had been carved up, that his sockets were metal and pain, that he could see colors and static and shimmering light that shouldn’t have been there.
Why the fuck would anyone be happy about that?
“You didn’t ask,” Tim said finally.
“What?”
“You never asked if I wanted to be saved, if something like this happened.” Tim looked around the corridor, at the ship that was likely full of strangers. “If I’d want to join your. . . crew.”
Jonny shrugged. Something twitched in his eye, nervous and fidgety. “Didn’t think I would save you. Not at first.”
“. . .What?”
“I’ve lived through hundreds of battles, Tim. Fought in a hundred wars. And I’ve left behind many a good soldier in the meantime. I— I still don’t know, really, what made you special. But I couldn’t leave you behind.”
Tim inhaled.
All right. So Jonny had. . . acted on instinct. Through several days of apparently dragging back his nearly dead body and choosing to force him through surgery to make him immortal. That sounded like bullshit.
But who was Tim to argue with him, then and there?
“Fine,” Tim said, tilting his head. He felt a glob of blood drip from his right eye, and didn’t look to see where it landed. He probably was supposed to still be under supervision. “Whatever. You know what? I don’t forgive you.”
“. . . eh?”
“You shouldn’t have saved me,” Tim said, maddeningly calm. “You should have saved Bertie, back when you had the chance. And I’m never going to forgive you for that.”
Jonny paused. “That was— you said earlier I should have saved— who’s Bertie?”
That was when Tim finally shot him.