malos.exe has stopped. do you want to wait?

I only give the people what they want (and have asked for, I ain't no thief ;).

"What the fuck do you MEAN Morytha is only 10,000 peds below the cloud cover?! The pressure will kill him!"

Akhos sighed, pushed up his glasses because if nothing else was constant (besides Malos's...Malos), that tic was.

"I only asked if you wanted stir fry or dumpling soup for dinner. Really, Malos, I don't see what I've done to deserve this...acrimony."

"Yeah, Malos," Mikhail piped back in unhelpfully, resuming from his numerical status report. "I mean, it's not like dying has ever stopped Jin before, right?"

Malos's eyes shriveled to gray pinpricks. They could hear him mutter the tiniest trace of a "Dying...?" under his breath.

"Mik!" Patroka exclaimed, smacking his upper arm with the back of her hand and eliciting a babyish "Ow!"

"Wrong time, dumbass. As if there ever was a right one."

"Okay, okay, maybe you're right," the engineer conceded, still rubbing his arm, "but look, Jin'll be fine. The kid fell down there with him, didn't he?"

"Yeah, the kid fell down there," Malos growled. He had recovered from his inward swing, but then the other side of the pendulum wasn't exactly better. Balance, Malos, balance. Can't you do that without Jin? "And my partner, and Nia, and the robot maid, and the rest of them. He's not strong enough to handle himself alone."

"He's not...?" Akhos's expression was worried as much as it was teasing and arrogant. "Not right now," Malos amended hastily.

He got like this sometimes, frazzled out of his mind with anxiety because so much of his purpose now was helping Jin, protecting Jin. When Cressidus had been with them, the big guy was great at offering crushing, suffocating hugs, a widespread touch to help quell all the fears, rational and otherwise. Perdido would have looked on with calm wisdom, Obrona would flit with irreverent quips, and even Sever would help to distract with something inane or insane or other. Their not being around anymore...it certainly didn't help.

"Do you want seafood instead?" Akhos asked softly. "We've got some left in the freezer, but it'll take some time to defrost before we can cook it. Or something sweet, maybe to tide you over? I think Mik has some leftover cookies from our baking party last week."

"Chocolate chip, aren't they?" Malos grumbled, distracted for the time being. "I don't want 'em."

Of course he didn't, and "Of course they're chocolate chip!" Mikhail burst out. "That's the only way a cookie should be!"

Malos wheeled on him, pupils dilated once again, and stamped out in his fiercest snarl, "Will you stop nitpicking about the cookies and get to the damn control room?! We need to get down there and save Jin, pronto."

"Sir yes sir!" Mikhail shot back, perhaps a little nervous but more cast over with a grin - as long as Malos had a goal, they'd be alright, they'd stay on track. He grabbed Patroka's arm as he sauntered out, and at first she made to shrug it off, but at a grave glance from Akhos followed petulantly nonetheless. Work to be done, no matter the company or the content of the cookies.

Away below the clouds, Jin shrugged out the cricks in his shoulders and waist, the back connecting them feeling altogether too weak to support him anywhere, let alone...here.

He groaned. "Malos'll be frantic right around now."

Years ago (a very, very many years ago), the thought would have made him unnerved, conflicted. Months ago, it would have made him smile - a rare thing, for him, after it all. Before it all. Now it just made him...agh. Time to get up. He's not there to catch you down here.

Malos has a very many brain cells but he made the conscious choice long ago to only ever use them on Jin. What can you do?

Referencing the cookies saga was a bit of an accident, but then of course I did it. Sicahya's art is so freaking lovely and done with so much obvious care - here's another recent one, rather applicable to this story if you haven't seen it, or even if you have.