There were so many hands.
His breath was so hot he could feel it in his mouth, heating up his tongue and his lips.
The only thing he could remember was being pulled out of his room, dazed and confused. Tired. Dragged out of his bed from a dead sleep, knocked out. There wasn't much after that except a few faces he couldn't remember, garbled voices that will haunt his nightmares forever. Asleep again. Pounding headache. Unable to move. Strapped down and helpless. Vaughan gasped softly, eyes opening slightly and he finally got to look up and see where he was. Small. Cramped. There were three people around him, all done up and looking like doctors. Name tags?
Why were they all named...
TRIM.
"Fuck, he's awake."
The voice was muffled and Vaughan tried to move, jerk his arms. Anything. The beeping he could hear distantly let him know how fast his heart was racing. Calm. Calm and silent. Calm. Vaughan willed himself to be calm. The beeping slowed and he opened his eyes again to look up at the ceiling again. He could be calm. All calm. The people in the ship stopped moving and... Three of them. Calm. Just looking. Just breathing. He was a candidate. Had been a candidate. Psychic. Why didn't he have any dampening things? The beeping picked up again from the heart monitor and the people shuffled. Deep breaths. Psychic. Not a Pilot. He could manipulate them though, right? Fuck he didn't want to go to TRIM. He didn't want to die.
Process later. Survive now. There was no surviving if he ended up in... Fuck.
Vaughan took a deep breath and focused. Focused on convincing them he felt too important to keep strapped down. Too important to cart away. Zombies to their emotions. The clicks of the straps on his arms let him know it had worked and he moved quickly, glancing at them and just ... More calm. Important. Shit, could he make people sleep? No. They wanted to panic, he could feel it but... Calm and maybe even happy he was out. Vaughan quickly got the straps off his legs and sat up, shaking his hair out of his face and looking to one of the TRIM guys.
"You," He said nodding to the one closest to him, "Give me your suit." Vaughan licked his lips and looked away, ignoring the headache that he could feel pounding in his ears, the way his eyes throbbed. The person slowly removed the suit, a fair haired man who didn't look older than mid twenties. Vaughan removed the weird hospital gown and stood naked for a moment, panting with the effort to keep them all in a trance. Slaves to their emotions and their calm. He wouldn't be able to kill all these people but he would rather die in the vacuum of space than be some guinea pig. Poke his brain and watch him kick.Tears welled up in his eyes when he pulled the other guys void suit on, the pain from the headache, the low key terror at just jumping into space to commit suicide.
Still better than TRIM. What had he done to deserve TRIM? Process later. It'd be fine.
Vaughan wriggled in the suit so it fit more snug and placed the helmet on,grazing the side of his head in the process. A sharp pain and he hissed, pressing his fingers to stitches at his temple. No, panic later. He pulled it on looking out from it like he was wearing one giant sunglass on a hat. Calm. Calm. Vaughan went to the emergency cabinet for the extra oxygen tanks. He frowned at it and took a breath, "How long do these last for?"
"Five hours," the now naked TRIM orderly replied, gazing at him like someone who was sleep talking. It was all a dream. A calm dream. "The suit will keep your temperature regulated for three and then you'll start losing body heat. It's not for space walks but you won't die immediately."
Minimum three hours of watching death approach. Vaughan pulled the oxygen on, head throbbing with pain and now that he noticed the stitches at his head those hurt too. Everything plugged in. Spaced.
Still better than TRIM.
Anything was better than TRIM.
Made sure the suit was secure. Made sure the gauges were good. Five hours of oxygen. Three hours before he just started to freeze to death. A quick glance around at the three people. They might have had families. People who loved them. Fuck that though. Vaughan didn't want to be in TRIM. Didn't want to be a test subject.
It was auto pilot. His hand went to the emergency button for the door. He asked the person closest to him what the code was and Vaughan put it in, swallowed carefully and hit the button that would open the door and end four lives. It was fast. Too fast to think about and Vaughan had his eyes shut when he finally felt weightless, sucked into the vacuum of space. He didn't want to see the person he stole the suit from die. Calm. Vaughan projected calm as long as he could, even though he wasn't feeling it. Vaughan opened his eyes and watched a blank eyed body slowly float past his face. Eyes shut again. Don't breath too hard. Don't panic.
Vaughan felt a sob gasp out of him and he squeezed his eyes shut, sucking in a breath and holding it while he floated to his death. Still better than TRIM. His head still hurt and he chewed on the inside of his cheek when he felt his eyes burn from tears. He wanted to be back home. Waking up and going to classes and expecting to be a Pilot. Now that would never happen. How could this be his future? Had anyone even noticed he was gone? Did they care?
"Aspen
Pizza lovin' Aspen
How do you get to love it so much
when it's just crust and tomatos and cheese
Ooooh, Aspen
Secretly, deep down, we know pizza loves you too
because you had to make this date
to get some inside you.
Pizzaaaaa, Pizza lovin' Aspen"
He was unaware that the suit had its own distress signal that broadcasted what he was saying as well as a mayday when it got too far away from the ship - that was still on auto pilot to TRIM. So, for as long as he was able, Vaughan sang songs and did his best not to cry because suffering in silence had never been his thing anyway.
The few times he opened his eyes to look at anything, Space was neat looking. He'd have liked to have been part of the Adstreia squad, even though he wasn't an engineer of any kind. Or scary. Maybe a Scorpion with Jonesy. Vaughan kept himself calm while he paused between singing songs, distracting himself again and wondering if he was upside down or sideways. The sooner he started feeling cold, the better. Fall asleep.Hypothermia and he wouldn't even know he was dead. He'd have liked to have done more. Being semi-famous was neat. He could have done more. Changed more. He had nothing now. Was nothing.
Nothing but the fog his hot breath made on the inside of his helmet.
Nothing but a little frozen song bird in space who didn't want to watch the distance spin.
