Cost of Yesterday: An Among Us Fanfiction

Oil and Water (Zar'roc)

When morning came, Vac'shar knew what he had to do. 

Tenavik and Rei were in the hallway connecting Security to Electrical, chatting quietly as Rei downloaded some data onto their tablet. As soon as Rei saw Vac'shar, they stopped talking and Tenavik turned around. 

"Hey, Volt," Tenavik said softly. 

Vac'shar considered trying to make this more casual, then decided against it. "Tyrus, come with me. Storage. I need to talk to you."

Tenavik glanced towards Rei. "I'll be back soon."

"Don't have a party."

Vac'shar then half dragged, half guided Tenavik to Storage, making sure that no one else was around before closing and sabotaging the doors. 

"So," Vac'shar said. 

Tenavik tilted his head. "What?"

"You're dating them, aren't you?"

Vac'shar crossed his arms as Tenavik made a sound that was a cross between a cough and a sneeze. "Well? Are you?"

"How... how do... how do you know?"

"I saw you last night. In Mess. And I want to know how this happened. Now."

Tenavik hesitated for a second. Just a moment, though, before words started to spill from his mouth, overlapping and running over each other in their desperate attempt to finally come free.

He told Vac'shar about how he and Rei had first started to talk to one another, slowly opening up over the course of that month that Vac'shar took over for Green. He weaved tale after tale after tale on how he and Rei had bonded during small mishaps whilst doing tasks: Tenavik nearly dropping an O2 canister on his foot, he and Rei having a snowball fight, Rei tripping on their own two feet and nearly crushing the samples they were inspecting. 

Eventually, one night, it came out. The truth. And that's when they decided to give it a try. It was hard, with everything that happened. Rei woke up screaming from nightmares, old memories that should have been left forgotten dredged up and brought to the surface. Tenavik would flinch at the slightest thing, even though he knew that nothing could hurt him. 

But they had each other. And that's how they dealt with it.

Last night, however, was when Tenavik had finally lost it. After keeping it all in, he exploded into an incoherent mess, which was why he and Rei were in Mess at that hour; to try and piece Tenavik back together. 

Tenavik left off at that, head down and shoulders hunched forward. "I'm sorry," he said. "I really am, I know I screwed this up, I'm so sorry-"

"Stop."

Tenavik abruptly stopped talking, and there was a few minutes of silence as Vac'shar took deep breaths, trying not to let his anger come to the surface. 

"Alright, let's think this through. We can still fix this," Vac'shar said, enunciating each word and trying his best not to let his rage seep into his voice. "Parameters of the mission were sketchy at best, but we were supposed to kill everyone, so... hmm..."

"What if we defected? Bad idea, I know," Tenavik added at Vac'shar's scoff. "Sorry. Just... I don't know what else to do besides that, or killing ourselves."

"Which will never happen," Vac'shar insisted. "I didn't accept this mission for us to commit suicide."

"I know. Actually... do you think defecting would actually be that bad of an idea? I mean, you always said you hated how the Council did things, and how everything reminded you too much of Mom, and that maybe some change would be nice-"