IV || [MxM, Sci Fi]

The Machine | 1

He wished he had conveniently forgotten this date, but both the screen and his wrist computer kept rubbing it into his face the entire shift.

It used to be a special day back when he believed it mattered to them both. 

What a fool.

Ray switched the water to almost boiling, but it changed nothing - he was still freezing, memories of that evening sending spikes of chill up his spine. Involuntary, his fingers reached for his forearm, brushing over the long, raised scar stretching up to the shoulder blade, crossed by a matching one perilously close to the artery.  

Still shivering, he slipped into the bathrobe and strode into the room. He noticed he forgot to dry his hair only when the soaked fabric glued to his back; he pondered for a moment about going back and doing it properly, but grabbed a comb instead and ran it through the mane of dark waves several times, his mind swiping under the rug all the untangling to suffer through later. 

He preferred to keep his hair in a ponytail, but recently left it loose as it partially obscured his lack of rest, sleep, and coherent thoughts. 

Deeming the combing decent, Ray tossed himself into the armchair, pulled the bottle of dry gin out of the fridge, and took a gulp straight from it.

"Happy fucking anniversary, Raymond," he announced into the empty room and took another gulp. "You chickened out to send the divorce papers again, at least now you have the perfect excuse of being half a galaxy away."

It went down exactly as it was supposed to - he always was a lightweight drinker. To add insult to injury, he forgot to replace all the aspirin he used for the ankle sprain, and now his thoughts were dragging at snail's speed and glitching. It was equally, if not even more, annoying as back when they were racing at third cosmic speed.

Did it ever help? No. Did it help this time? No. Ray let out a moan, pressing his face tighter to the cold surface of the desk. Such a shame to show up at the med bay in this state. It would land him a disciplinary too - alcohol wasn't prohibited on board, but it was expected of the crew to be responsible adults, and clearly, he wasn't one of those.

A light tap on the shoulder woke him up. 

"Access denied." Ray flinched as his own words came out more like a set of zombie noises.

"Are we going to the greenhouse?"

"Go on your own."

"No. You set the 'under supervision' rule yourself, so you have to go with me."

Ray's reply was the screech of a dying griffin, but in the back of his mind, a more sober version of himself pointed out the first aid kit in the greenhouse had aspirin.

His head was still spinning a bit despite taking two tabs, and since he couldn't focus on work, he took to the sofa, observing Iv fidgeting with the orange in his corner. 

After looking at the fruit from each angle, Iv placed it on the armrest and scratched a very rectangular circle in the image editor, adding a couple of dots here and there. He looked at the orange again, looked at the screen, and cleared the canvas, just to draft a couple more versions with the same outcome. 

"Did you take it just to draw it over and over?"

"I'll study it properly after I finish sketching."

"I studied one from the last crop, and believe me, it was as tasteless as it gets."