Work Text:
He wakes up in Nahla’s arms. For a moment, it feels right, feels like something slotting into place just inside of him, like he fits here. She’s gazing down at him, holding his head in her lap, his large body draped across her. It feels destined.
It feels destined until he notices it: the shards of shuttle around them where part of the paneling had shattered in the crash, the little bits of hard metal like an inverted halo around their bodies. He jolts up, his forehead almost slamming into Nahla’s as he thrashes toward composure. All thoughts of destiny fade away when he sits, cross-legged, in front of Nahla’s place on her knees, and watches cherry red drip from the corners of her mouth.
“What the hell happened?”
She tries to respond, but her words are slurred between bits of broken tooth and gushes of half-Lanthanite blood. It sounds like his name being moaned out and stifled, gasps of pained pleasure—- the thought is something he cannot deal with at the moment. After a few moments of trying to spurt out the word Caleb, Nahla only groans and points toward the shuttle debris.
Caleb tries to stand, his breastbone aching as he moves, each limb igniting in sharp trickles of pain. The landing must have been harder than he thought. So much for investigating that lead near Goja V. He approaches the shuttle; the main screen has been shattered open, and the control panels have spiderweb cracks all along their surfaces, rendering the whole thing inoperable.
"Computer?" he asks.
"Malfunction detected."
"Good observation skills," he says, giving a defeated laugh, and after his stomach convulses with the laughter he feels something shoot blades into the center of his abdomen. The planet's temperature is beginning to increase, causing Caleb's shirt to drench in the back. They really need to get out of here.
He peers through the burst glass---the landscape is a vast desert, the sand a burnt orange, only hills of dune as far as the eye can see. And he inhales with terror; no way to get a distress call out, at least a week until the others come back from their break, no one coming, no one. No one---
Nahla.
There is one source of light left in the shuttle, some pale blue that flickers up and down with his heart rate's variability. An investigation yields some sort of divine gift: a half-functional, small replicator nested in the shuttle's very back, every possible pattern unlocked by Nahla shortly before their departure. He tries not to be relieved yet.
"Dermal regenerator," he requests, resting his arm against the side of the shuttle. He's starting to feel exhausted, sick to his core, nausea boiling around his body in all the places where it shouldn't be like a cancer that has spread. This heat must be getting to him.
"Comprehensive twenty-first century first aid kit," replies the computer, glitching a large briefcase into reality. He sighs and takes it from the replicator's plate, shaking his head.
"Can I have an actual dermal regenerator, please?"
"Apologies," the computer replies. "Dental surgery instruments, here you go."
"Computer, scan for any malfunction in replicator processes."
"Malfunction reported earlier."
Caleb clicks his tongue. "Oh, sarcasm, okay. I get it." He inhales again. "Um, fine. Bottle of water."
"Bottle of water, here you go."
Well, there's that, at least.
He clenches his fists at his sides, his fingernails digging into the rough skin of his palms, touching against callus and scar. Nahla didn't plan this, but he is now even further away from his mom than he has ever been, alone in heat exhaustion with only Nahla Ake for company. And he has to take care of her.
Okay, he can do this. He picks up the first aid kit and the tray of dental tools—the computer must have misheard dermal as dental, but maybe there's something in this archaic toolbox that can heal Nahla's mouth. Thankfully, he's learned at least a few things from Jay-Den, he pays attention.
He brings it to Nahla, setting the tray and the briefcase down next to her on the sand. He takes a seat next to her again, forcing himself eye-level.
"Weird," he says. "The sand is cold, but it's hot out. I wonder why… maybe we can, I don't know, avoid heat stroke if we stay down here for a while."
Nahla nods. He hopes she's thinking how smart you are; it is more likely that she is thinking get these teeth out of my mouth right now.
"Let me take a look," he says. He places one leg around each side of Nahla's hips—a rather awkward position, one that causes him some inexplicable scorch where his wounds are below his stomach, but the only stance that will allow him to give her mouth a proper examination. He gives a shy laugh as Nahla opens her mouth, the pinkness of her lips stained crimson. The intimacy of the act is far too prominent, far too overwhelming; part of him thinks, like a thunderclap headache, that it'd be better if no one ever came for them. That this is where they belong now—that he won't be able to face her once they get back to the Academy.
But he must do what is required of him. He is good. She doesn't deserve it; he won't let her down. The others need her; she can't afford an infection.
Nahla's top incisors are chipped in half, split—now they look more like vampire fangs than tangible teeth. Her front bottom teeth are all-but-void, and only thin slivers remain. All of these will need to be taken out, and he'll have to keep an eye on her until the rescue, and this is the worst situation he can possibly imagine. He wasn't meant to care for anything; he was made to run, his limbs were crafted to move quickly. He shouldn't even be here. He shouldn't be with her at all.
But she needs him now, and Caleb has never before been relied upon. Another thing to deal with later.
"Shit," he breathes. "Is this it? Did you hit your head?"
Nahla gives a slight shake — no — and mumbles something that sounds like a misshapen just my jaw as blood begins to flood out and drip down onto Caleb's shirt, the movement of her tongue inflaming the wound.
"Okay, no more talking," he continues. "I have to take these out, okay? The replicator worked enough to give me something I can use. So… just relax." Easier said than done.
He can tell that Nahla is trying to hide a sense of anticipation when he picks up the forceps. It is easy to sense facades as Caleb Mir; it is even easier to sense Nahla's facades when you are Caleb Mir, when Nahla Ake has been etched into you against your will. He places his left hand on the back of her head, feels the grate of the sand against the soft of her hair. He tilts her head back just far enough to reach the best angle, never far enough for the blood to trickle down into the back of her throat and choke her.
Placing the jaw of the forceps around the few remaining slivers of Nahla's bottom teeth, he gives slow sways of the tool back and forth to loosen it from the gum, and then breathes ready, one, two—
When he plucks out the shard, Nahla gives a sharp yelp that makes Caleb's organs sink and shrink and prolapse. God, why doesn't he want to hurt her? Why does hurting her feel like hurting some catlike, animal thing? Why does the knowledge that he's causing her pain seem to only drill him down with more pain? It doesn't make sense. Nahla spits blood onto the sand beside her, and it just doesn't make any sense.
When she looks up at him, she looks at him with the same intensity she radiated when she found him again, months and months and months ago, when he hovered over her in a gesture uncharacteristically harsh. Her intact front teeth bite down on her bottom lip, and he watches as her tongue runs across the freed gaps, dipping into each depression where the teeth had once been. Nahla leans her head back, keep going, and when Caleb's thumb brushes against her chin and lips to hold her in place, she shivers, moans again, the eye contact never faltering.
Maybe, he thinks, on second thought, it isn't pain after all.
Keep going.