The Babysitter

Asteroids

Black's PoV:

The automatic doors slide open and shut again. Lime walks through, pausing to look back over his shoulder, presumably to check if someone was following him.

He's the outcast in this crew, you know, that one person in your class who nobody quite knows anything about, they're just there, ignored, silently observing the world carrying on without them, wondering if they'll ever be of any importance to anyone, the loneliness eating them up inside?

Aaaanyway- enough of that. I do tend to get quite philosophical sometimes, don't mind me. I'm Black. Well, that's what they call me because of the colour of my spacesuit. I was just out here with my son, Coal, teaching him tasks. You know, the stuff you always do with your kids to show your paternal love and everlasting care and support?

The stuff that everyone knows the feeling of, the warm feeling inside that makes you complete and without it you'll never be whole? That everyone knows the feeling of- aside from poor Lime.

As far as I'm aware, I'm the only person who feels bad for him.

As far as he's aware, nobody cares about him whatsoever. He's just the one who is conveniently there for 'daycare' if your kids are being difficult. Nobody wants to talk to him. Well, I do, kind of. Although I've never really managed to psych myself up to doing it, and I'm not going to tell anyone else about it. As heartless as it sounds, I don't want to be an outcast too.

Perhaps it's because of the fact that if I become an outcast, I think Lime won't want to talk to me either. Little does he know that I really want to help him.

"Hi!" Coal shouts, tearing me from my world of thought.

"Hey Coal!" Scarlet calls back.
So, it's Red who's palmed her kid off on Lime today...

"H-Hi... Black" Lime nervously murmurs.

"Hey Lime" I say with a smile, and Lime seems to relax, only slightly, but it's better than nothing.

"Okay Scarlet, just let me turn the machine on first quickly" he says, pressing a button on the asteroid machine.

I smile to myself. He doesn't even know it, but he's great with kids.

Lime's PoV:

Whenever I was around Black, I kind of felt as if he was observing me, watching and just waiting for me to get something wrong. Like Orange. He was the best at tasks, and criticised me at every opportunity he could, along with his friend Pink. Pink was rather arrogant, always thinking he was better than everyone, and if you don't believe me, ask anyone else on the ship and they'll tell you the same thing.

Anyway, back to the present. Black seemed to be staring at me as I let Scarlet play with the asteroids.
What? I'm just teaching a kid tasks - leave me alone please, also don't tell Red she'll kill me also don't tell Blue who kinda runs this whole place because she will lecture me about how I could have put the whole crew in danger!

Luckily, or unlucky depending on how you put it, an alarm went off.

Oh nonono is it because I didn't finish the wires?! It wasn't my fault, Red distracted me! It isn't because of the asteroids, is it - normally it didn't matter if we missed a few, but were they about to crash into HQ and kill everyone and now I was going to be blamed for it?

"Lime, emergency meeting, LET'S GO!" Black exclaims, shaking me from my thoughts with one hand on my shoulder.

"Oh, uh, yeah right" I mumble, picking Scarlet up and placing her on top of my helmet. Black does the same with Coal, and we both head towards the cafeteria.