Chapter Text
As Curly stood over the broken and defeated form of his crewmate and friend Anya, he clenched his fist, digging his dirty and oil stained nails into the flesh of his palm. The sting from the action the furthest from his mind. He had known Anya for about 2 years and a half years, for the two trips they had been on together with Pony Express, and the current one. Throughout those two previous, Anya was a source of softness and levity that was a welcome change from the grumpy nature of Swansea and Jimmy. It’s probably why he gravitated towards her so much. She was kind and easy to talk to.
And why did she gravitate towards him? Throughout the time he had known her she had always been meek and soft spoken, but never weak. Especially during game night, you’d never realized how angry a woman like Anya could get when she thinks you’re cheating in a game of Uno. When she told him about what happened, he noticed the immediate change in her. Small enough that no one not knowing to look wouldn't been able to pick it up but she just got smaller, and weaker. And the worst part was the way she looked at him, every single day after she had told him and he did nothing, the trust in him that she had was lost little by little. He hated it, but thought he could put up with it, not anymore, not when she said what she just said.
“I know you’d never give me the gun to protect myself.”
Her faith in him, the trust she once had, it was gone, completely
He closed his eyes. Jimmy and him went way back, WAY back. They met in fucking kindergarten for christ sake. Grade School, Middle School, High School, hell he turned down scholarships to be with his best friend in college! They weren’t just friends at that point, they were brothers, family. You never want to think that your loved ones could do something like this. Imagine finding out your dad is a serial killer or your mom tortured puppies for fun.
It’s this weird mix of guilt for not seeing it sooner, anger at being betrayed, as if you had been lied to about who this person who you loved was and wanting to deny reality so you can keep the person you loved and not let the good memories be tainted by what they’ve done.
But at some point you have to face the music. The Jimmy that Curly loved as a brother no longer existed, perhaps he never existed. Curly can't go back to the way things were, no matter how desperately he wanted to. It was time for things to change, no matter how it hurt the beautiful big picture he had been blinded by for so long. An illusion that Curly so desperately kept intact, no matter who it hurt. But no, he would make this right. He’s going to take responsibility.
He placed a hand on Anya’s shoulder. “I’ve failed you, haven’t I?” It was not a question.
Anya finally looked up at him in surprise, she had expected to hear more of his constant excuses and his repeated “i’m going to fix this” for the millionth time. This was new. “What? what are you doing?”
Walkie talkies, primitive but useful with a handy feature of being able to select which other walkie talkies you wanted to speak to and which you didn’t. He pressed two buttons on the side and spoke. “Swansea, Daisuke, come to the cockpit now. If you see Jimmy, tell him you have to fix something up here.”
“Damnit boss I’m trying to-” Swansea grumpy, southern voice was about to complain but Curly interrupted him.
“Now.” His tone was forceful and conveyed that he didn’t have time for Swansea usual griping.
“What are you going to do?” Anya asked again.
Curly looked down at her, and met her eyes, she hadn’t looked up from the floor since he came in until. Her eyes were once filled with such life, now sullen and dead.
He got down on a knee to be on her level and let himself have a small forced smile. “Oh, have I messed up so bad you can’t even think of me doing the right thing?” He half-joked, his smile dropped though. “I-” He paused to take a deep, shaky breath. “Goddamnit Anya I’m so sorry. I just- I just didn’t want to believe it was something he could do, so I let all three of us just fucking pretend it didn’t happen, and maybe I could’ve held onto my friend for just a little while longer and keep you safe at the same time. I tried to do both and ended up not doing either. So I have to choose one." He breathed in again, and patted her back softly. “Don’t worry Anya, you don’t have to worry about anything anymore. Just stay here and let me deal with him. I have already sacrificed your safety just because he’s my-was my friend.” The quick correction felt unnatural but needed to be done. “The least I can do is give you your safety back.”
Anya was about to say something back but loud metal footsteps caused her to pause her thoughts. Curly stood up straight, not in a normal way but in a forced way that looks unnatural. Like he was a soldier standing at attention.
The Mechanic and his intern entered the room, the older man looking confused and frustrated and the younger one just confused and concerned at the state of Anya.
“H-hey boss! What’s going on?” Daisuke asked in his usual casual eagerness, his eyes constantly switching from his captain to their nurse on the ground.
“Yeah what the hell’s so important that you dragged us from our work? And you know that those walkie talkies are only for emergency.”
“Swansea, Daisuke,” His voice was commanding and authoritative, not his usual casual self, even when he gave orders he was kinda lax about it. He couldn’t afford to be now. “Co-pilot Jimmy has-” He looked down at Anya, waiting to see if it was okay to speak on it. She gave him a nod. “Co-pilot Jimmy has committed a crime, and I have deemed that he is a danger to himself and other members of this vessel.”
“W-what?” Daisuke questioned in surprise. “What did he do?
Swansea, however, being more observant than the kid, realized quite quickly what happened as he looked at Anya on the ground. “Oh fuck.” His face contorted with anger. “That fucking sick bastard.”
Daisuke wasn’t a complete idiot though, the company thought he could be a mechanic for a reason. He became more disgusted as he slowly realized. He covered his mouth with his hand. “Oh god.”
“The details of the crime are not for me to discuss, for now, we must apprehend and restrain Jimmy. Then we can decide what to do with him.”
“Apprehend him?!” Swansea asked in disbelief. “How ‘bout I grab my axe and bury it in his fucking-”
“Swansea!” Anya interrupted with a slightly raised tone. “W-we’re not,” She took a shaky breath as she stood up. “We’re not g-going to do that.”
“No?! Why the fuck not?”
“Cause it would be too easy.” Curly said curtly, surprising everyone in the room at the coldness of what he said. “He needs to face the consequences of what he’s done here, on this plane of existence.”
Anya looked at him, she was surprised the most. It was such a switch up from the way he talked about Jimmy just a couple minutes ago. Was this genuine anger at his friend for what he did? Or was he just trying to phrase it this way to keep Swansea from killing Jimmy? Maybe it was both.
“Not that I'm agreeing with Swansea but, what else could we do? It’s not like there’s a cell on board.” Daisuke pointed out the obvious.
That seemed to cause the room to stop and think about it. He was right, there were no rooms where he could be held. None of their rooms had locks on them, and even if they did it would be on the inside not the outside. Curly rubbed his forehead he could feel a massive headache coming on. Damnit, what the fuck was Jimmy thinking?
While Curly was thinking, Anya interrupted his thoughts by speaking. “The Medbay, it has locks on the inside and out.”
“Doesn’t the inside unlock the outside?” Curly asked.
Anya meekly shook her head. “The outside lock is separate from the inside one, they don’t affect each other at all.”
“That’s weird, why?” Daisuke asked.
“It’s if patients ever become,” She looked down at the floor and rubbed her arm awkwardly with her other hand. “Unstable.” She didn't mean that medically.
“That’ll have to do, we will restrain Jimmy, then we will move all the medical supplies out of the medbay and into Jimmy’s-” Curly stopped himself as his eyes caught Anya’s. Her expectant eyes look to him for a plan, guidance in this situation. He remembered that wherever he moved the medical supplies would be her new office. “My, my room, it’s bigger than the rest of yours, and I’ll move into Jimmy’s for the rest of our trip.”
“You don’t have to do that, captain.” Anya said with her usual panic at the thought of causing anyone distress.
Curly furrowed his brow in confusion. Why couldn’t she be angry, hate him, something other than her usual kind self. It would be completely understandable and yet she stayed herself. It only made him hate himself even more for allowing it to continue like this.
He turned back to Swansea and Daisuke. “We won’t do it immediately, tonight while he’s asleep I’ll help Anya move the medbay supplies into my room. After that we will restrain Jimmy while he sleeps and put him on a stretcher and wheel him back to medbay where we will lock the room on our way out.”
Swansea grunted and crossed his arms. “I have a bunch of zip ties in the utility room, that should do the job.”
Curly nodded. “I’m going to need the two of you for that part, Jimmy is a pretty tough guy and he’s going to fight like hell. Swansea.” Curly closed his eyes and sighed. “Me and Daisuke will focus on keeping him restrained, you’re going to stand by with the axe. You are NOT to use the axe unless he becomes a genuine threat to our lives. It’s just there for intimidation.”
Swansea made a face like he disagree, but bottled it down. “Got it.”
Curly looked back and Anya, her face marred with a sullenness that Curly hated to see. But there was something else there, a spark of light back in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in a while. “For now, pretend everything is normal okay? Can’t let him know what’s going to happen.”
“I’ll just stay away from him.” Swansea grunted out and turned around, “I’d doubt I’d be able to keep my cool if he comes near me.” With that he left.
Daisuke stood still for a moment, taking in everything. He let in and out a few deep breaths. “Okay, okay I got this, we’ve got this.” He told himself. “See ya later boss.” He said before following Swansea out of the cockpit.
Curly let out a deep sigh as the door to the cockpit closed, he tiredly moved his way over to his pilot and slumped down in it.
“Thank you, Curly.”
Curly allowed himself to stay there for a couple seconds before getting up again. “Yeah well, I should’ve done this when you first told me.”
“Maybe, but I understand why you didn’t, he’s your friend.”
Curly stayed silent as he moved by her to get to the locker behind her. “You’re my friend too and I should’ve- I don’t know, I just wanted to ignore it, everything was going so well and-” Curly paused as he spotted something in the locker, something that made him sick to his stomach.
“You wanted things to continue being perfect, I get it. But it’s not your fault, Jimmy’s the one who put you in this position and-”
“Anya?” Curly stopped her from continuing.
“Yes?”
“Have you been missing your I.D card?”
Anya looked puzzled. “Uh, yeah I think it’s somewhere in the medbay, we’ll have to find it tonight. How’d you know?”
Curly, without looking back, held out a card. Her I.D card. In the locker in the cockpit, the only way it could've gotten there was that Jimmy brought it here. As some sort of trophy, or souvenir.
“Fucking hell.” Curly cursed with venom before slamming the locker hard.
…
An uncomfortable silence was held all throughout the medbay. The only noises being the metal clanging of items on the cart as Anya and Curly placed the medical supplies on them. The silence was palpable, they both understood their positions in what was about to happen. Any was not to do anything, in fact Curly recommended that when things go down, she should go to the cockpit to be far away from all that was going to happen tonight.
“So, why do you think he did it?” she asked as she placed a box of gauze on the cart.
“What do you mean?” Another bang, a tool kit filled with medical tools.
“Why do you think he raped me?”
The question was so blunt and curt that it hit Curly’s mind like a train to his face and it brought his actions to a screeching halt. It took him a second to gain his bearings and resume. “I don’t know, maybe he just snapped or something. It’s not good to try to explain these things. He’s a terrible person who did a terrible thing, that’s all.” Curly watched Anya continue working as if she had not just asked him that question.
Curly sighed. “Listen I know you like to think that our worst mistakes don’t define us. But this is one of those times where this mistake very much does def-”
“Why are you acting like this?” She asked meekly, surprised at her own boldness.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like you’re overcorrecting.”
“What?” Now he was completely confused.
“You went from being his friend, to absolutely hating him.” She continued on like their conversation was nothing.
“I do hate him, he's ruined everything!” His voice was just below a shout. “This trip! my friendship with him! He hurt you! Why are you making it sound like I’m in the wrong for hating him?”
Anya didn’t react to him raising his voice, despite everything she knew Curly would never hurt her. She kept calm and continued. “But you don’t hate him.”
Curly stood there, speechless.
“Have you forgotten how you introduced him to me? “This is my friend Jimmy, he’s more like my brother though.” You care for him, I know you do.”
Curly seemed to be contemplating her words, taking them in. “But that was before all this!” He slammed another item down.
“Y-you don’t have to convince me you hate him to protect me. You were wrong earlier, you don’t have to choose between being his friend and protecting me. And like I said earlier, he hurt you by forcing you to be in this position and he hurt Swansea and Daisuke by forcing all of us to be stuck with him and his actions. Could be a lesson there about the ripple effects of bad choices or something.”
Curly moved over and gently but firmly grabbed her by her shoulders, surprising her. “Why are you so calm? Get mad at me, cry, do something!” Curly let go of and walked away to sit down on the medical bed in the middle of the room. His shaky breath only getting more unstable as he gripped his head with his hand. “Damnit, damnit.” He removed his hands from his head and began slamming his fist into the bed hard. “DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT!”
“We’re fucking brothers!” He got up and began pacing fervently around the room. “We grew up together! I went to his mom’s fucking funeral! How am I just supposed to forget all that?! How, how,” Curly stopped and reached a hand up to his face, without realizing it, he had begun to cry. “How could he just throw all that away?”
Anya knew this was coming. Curly had tried both avenues of avoiding this. Either by avoiding the fact that Jimmy had raped her, or by avoiding the fact that him and Jimmy were friends. But now it was coming crashing down. He could no longer avoid either of those facts and neither of those things were the only reality, Jimmy had raped her and he was Curly’s friend. Those two realities had to clash, this was inevitable. Anya cared for Curly, it hurt her to see him so weak but this was needed so that he could finally face the music.
“I just-I just want to go back to the way things were.”
Anya slowly walked up to him before slinking her arms around him and pulling him into a hug that they both needed. The first time she had touched someone since it happened. It was awkward but comfortable and welcomed.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“I know, I know.”
Their friendship had become extremely strained due to this whole mess, and she welcomed the idea of being able to repair it. But that would take time, and they had work to do.
“Look at me, grown man crying.” Curly said as he pulled away and wiped his face.
“Oh don’t start with me on that bullshit.” Anya said with a surprising attitude to her voice.
Curly did a mock gasp. “Did you just cuss Anya?” He asked as if it was the most unbelievable thing in the world. She almost never cussed, not because she had a personal rule against it, she simply never felt anything strong enough to cuss about it. So her cussing was a rare occurrence.
She laughed softly. “Oh shut up.” She returned to putting supplies on the carts. “Come on, we gotta get this done.”
AN: Feel free to tell me your thoughts, especially with my characterizations. We get so little of Curly pre-crash and I find it hard to write shy people like Anya. Also I just played the game yesterday. Also I don’t know, If it’s just mentioned, do I put the rape/non-con warning up?(I put it up there just in case)