*Time set somewhere later on in the Dirt Quest, Sips never was taken to Mars becuase they never had the big space race. I'm trying to write something not-Sjips or angsty, so hopefully something good will soon be coming your way*

TW: Holy crap the feels while I was writing this were big. I started crying, and had to stop writing at one point. So be prepared.

It’s been months since I’ve seen Sjin. The last time I saw him I left him standing alone in the rain. I fired him, then took his farm hand from him. I didn’t even say goodbye. I’ve asked Lewis about him a few times, but he doesn’t say much. He has made it obvious that Sjin doesn’t want to see me though.

“What are we doing today, Sips?” Lewis and Turps stand in front of me, waiting for me to tell them what to do.

“Uh, what do we need to do?” I ask. Lewis usually knows what’s going on.

“Turps, if you could go mining that would be great. Sips, I don’t have anything for you to do right now, so you can just hang out.”

I nod and we set off. Turps disappears down the staircase to hell, Lewis starts digging around in the factory, and I am just standing in the middle of the compound staring at our crops. That’s where I go when I’m upset. I go stand in the middle of the little farm we have, and it’s almost like Sjin is there with me, calming me down.

So that’s what I go and do, harvesting and replanting the crops. I hear someone call my name and look around for Sjin. But he is nowhere to be found. Instead, Lewis is standing at the edge of the farm frowning at me.

“What?” Lewis doesn’t say anything for a few seconds.

“Can you go dig up some more mud balls for me?” I nod and grab a shovel out of my bag.

After I have a few stacks of mud balls Lewis comes over. I give him what I have and he nods in thanks. “Everything alright Sips?”

“Yea, just really tired.” I shrug and continue digging.

“He misses you, you know.” I freeze mid-dig and turn around.

“What?” I drop my shovel and walk over to Lewis. “What did you just say?”

Lewis looks at the ground. “He talks about you a lot. I tell him about you.” He looks up at me and smiles sadly. He turns and walks into the factory. I watch him go, staring at the door long after it has shut.

“I’m okay. It’s okay.” I whisper to myself. Heading over to the farm I lay down on the small walkway and fold my hands over my stomach.

I open my eyes to find the sun low in the sky and my two workers standing over me. “Uh, hey Sips.” I rub my eyes and sit up.

“Don’t sleep here, it’s not really comfortable.” My everything aches, and I almost fall over when I try standing up.

“Uh, Turps and I were talking and maybe it would be a good idea if we pushed back our work days? You seem to need a few days to catch up on sleep.” I need a few days with Sjin, but that ship has sailed long ago.

“Lewis, can we talk alone for a minute please?” I start walking away, going inside the factory into my office-that -is-actually- just-where-my -bed-is.

“What is it, friend?” I take a deep breath and prepare for the worst.

“I want to talk to Sjin. If you could talk him into it. . .” I trail off.

“I will bring the idea up to him, but I don’t promise anything.” I grin. It’s a start.

“Thank you.” Lewis nods and walks away. I lay in bed thinking about all the great times Sjin and I had together.

I sleep until the sun is high in the sky, and even then when I wake I don’t want to get up. So I don’t, laying in my bed until the urge to pee forces me to get up.

I relieve myself (they have a little outhouse somewhere) and walk around to the front of the compound, looking up at the clouds. It might rain soon.

I wander around for a while, adding on to the factory a bit. My grumbling stomach leads me  back inside looking for some food. I go through all of the chests but find nothing.

“What the hell Turps?” I know he’s the one who ate all my food. He always does. Heading out to the farm I don’t notice the person in the field right away.

“Sjin?” We stand in the middle of my farm, a few feet between us. I want to reach out, see if he’s real, but I find myself rooted to the spot.

“Sips.” He sounds so formal, like we’ve only just met.

“I- what are you doing here?” I’ve planned out what I want to say to him countless times. Now that he’s here though, actually here. . .My mind goes blank.

“Did I come at a bad time? Maybe I should leave,” He trails off, looking sadly at the compound but makes no move to leave.

I try and think of something to say, looking around. “I’ve tried farming, figured if you could do it I could too.”

He crouches down and inspects the chilli plants closer. “Your wheat looks shit, but these don’t look too bad, Lewis must have planted them.”

I shrug, pretending that didn’t hurt. “He does the cotton, otherwise I’ve planted everything myself.”

He stands back up and gives me a look that I know means he doesn’t believe me. We stand there, and I can feel the awkwardness slowly fade away.

And as we start to warm up to each other again, we also start to move closer together. We are less than a foot apart now. I can feel his breath tickling my cheek. We inch closer. . .

It starts raining. Not just raining, but pouring. We bolt for the factory but are both soaked through by the time we get inside, the awkwardness coming back full force.

I immediately take my space suit off and put it on the floor with a wet plop! My underwear is soaking too, but those are staying on for the time being. I look over to Sjin and see his cheeks bright red.

“You’re going to get hypothermia if you don’t do the same. I’ll go get a blanket and start a fire.” I turn and run upstairs to grab the blanket off my bed, quickly coaxing a fire out of the logs in the fireplace. Walking back over to Sjin I see him shivering, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I’m not taking your clothes off for you, Sjin. I mean, I know you’re a big babby, but even big babbies can take their clothes off by themselves.” I hold the blanket in one arm, staring at him expectantly.

“Fine. I’m going to be warming up by the fire. Stand here and freeze. I’ll have Lewis deal with you when he gets back.” I throw the blanket over my shoulder and bring my suit upstairs with me.

A/N: I know there isn’t anything in his office but a bed and flower pots, but for this he has a fireplace, a rug, a desk(not a big CEO desk, just a small writing desk), and a double bed.

Laying my suit on top of the fireplace I sit on the floor and wrap the blanket around my shoulders. It doesn’t take long for Sjin to come upstairs. I get up and take his suit from him, giving him the blanket in return. He quickly covers himself and sits down on the floor.

I lay his suit next to mine and smile. It’s been too long since orange and blue have been together. Too long.

“What?”

I turn around, blushing slightly. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. “Talking to myself. Now give me some of that blanket, I’m freezing my balls off.”

He hands me a corner of the blanket and it is big enough to wrap around both of us, but his entire left side is touching mine. Shoulder to hip, Sjin sits with his left leg on top of his right stretched out toward the fire.

“Do you guys not have any other blankets? Turps and Lewis sleep here, don’t they have blankets we could use?” Sjin scoots away from me so we are no longer touching, and I frown.

“No, they use burlap sacks. There isn’t enough money in the budget for us to get blankets for them.” We are quiet for a moment. “Sips Co. was bought out by a Japanese company. Nothing about this reminds me of when we tried building a factory.”

“Which time?” I smile, watching the fire crackle and pop in front of us.

“God Sjin, what happened to us?” I say it quietly, not expecting an answer. The rain beats down on the factory, and I know the next few days are going to be hell walking around in this already muddy wasteland.

Sjin leans his head on my shoulder and sighs. I respond by resting my cheek on the top of his head. I try not to think about this, telling myself it’s nothing. Reminding myself he will leave again and I’ll be alone. Alone in this muddy swamp I’ve started calling home.

After what must be an hour I decide I should get up and see if our suits are getting anywhere, and see if we have any food inside.

“Sjin?” I nudge him slightly and he mumbles something about bunnies in response. (I’ve been watching Sjin’s Farm and they were looking for bunnies)

I look down at him and see he is fast asleep. “What the hell, Sjin? You come here and fall asleep on me?” I look around, trying to figure out how I could carry him to the bed, I decide waking him up is my best option. “Sjin? Can you stand up for a second please?”

I shake him and he looks around. “Can you stand up for a sec?” He seems to still be pretty out of it but manages to stand up. I half carry half drag him over and help him lay down, throwing the blanket over him.

“Sipsy?” He blinks sleepily, smiling up at me.

“Go back to sleep, ya big dum dum.” I turn to walk away, but Sjin stops me.

“Where are you going? Come lay down with me.” I turn back to him, who is laying with his arms wide open. “Please?”

I know I’m going to regret this immensely but before I can stop myself I am walking over to the other side of the bed and pulling the covers up to get in. My arms immediately go around Sjin’s waist and he scoots closer to me.

We lay there, chest to back, Sjin sleeping, myself watching the rain outside hit the window. How he can sleep through this, I don’t know.

Time passes and I find my mind drifting back to the Jaffa Factory, when we would help out there. Some nights we would stay over, and I would have to sleep across the room from him, knowing we would never hear the end of it if we pushed our beds together to sleep like we are now.

There was never anything romantic behind this, Sjin just liked to sleep close to me, always talking about how warm I was. We were always just friends, despite what everyone else thought. There were moments along the way where I thought that was going to change, moments where I just had to lean forward another inch, those lingering glances from Sjin, but neither of us did anything. Then we went our separate ways, myself knowing nothing about Sjin except he was still living, for months. Now within hours of seeing each other again we are in bed, cuddling.

I feel a tear run down my cheek and slowly, as not to disturb Sjin, get up and walk over to the fire. My suit is still a little bit damp but I put it on anyway and hurry out of the room. I stop in the doorway, tears threatening to escape, and look back. He looks so peaceful in my bed, so at home.

“Sjin. . .” I breath out, my voice shaking. I close the door quietly and make my way downstairs. The rain has seemed to stop, but the clouds still loom. I step outside and look around the compound.

Deciding the best place to be alone would be in Turps’ mine, I head down there with nothing, hoping he did something right and lit the place up. So down the endless staircase I go, stepping into one of the tiny rooms near the end of the stairs.

I sit on the stone floor and pull my knees up to my chest, and I just let myself cry. I cry until the tears are gone, sit there until I have calmed down.

Back up the endless staircase I go, hoping Sjin isn’t awake. I go over to the farm and look at my reflection in the water, thankful my eyes aren’t red and puffy. I head back inside and go upstairs, mind on the factory.

I open the door and find the room empty. Both Sjin and his suit are gone, but my journal is open on my desk. Taking a deep breath I walk over and look at what page he has it open to.

xx/xx/xx (Random Date)

I have made the ultimate decision to fire Sjin. It hurts just thinking about not working with him anymore, but it has to be done. He doesn’t see, or doesn’t choose to see, how much potential he has. What a jabroni. I think I’m going to call an end to the space race and just go away on vacation for a while. Also, I’m trying to talk Sjin into starting up a farm. He talks about it sometimes, wanting to own a farm. I’m using the excuse we need to branch out, and farmers use dirt so he should figure out what dirt works best on the different crops. ~

“Sjin, what did you do?” I bolt down the stairs and outside the factory, looking for Sjin everywhere. Not seeing him anywhere around the factory compound, I run outside where is is starting to sprinkle again, heading in the direction Lewis comes from when he comes from the farm.

“Sjin? Sjin!” I reach the end of my land and drop to my knees, looking across the river at the lush fertile land where Sjin is. It has started to rain.

“I’m sorry Sips,” Is all he says, turning and disappearing over the hill.

He doesn’t return.

That is the last time I ever see Sjin again. The last I ever hear from him, of him. Time passes and despite the efforts of Turps and Lewis, the factory goes bankrupt. They leave for the final time, their last paycheck in their hands. Their last glimpse at me.

I stay at the factory, watch it fall apart. When the food runs out I go to the old SipsCo. factory, the one I worked on with Sjin.

I walk over to the beautiful skyscraper that has now fallen. There is a piece of paper taped to the door.

Sips,

I left this here because I think you will return. I have many times. So much went down here, there are so many memories. Sips, if you get this letter, I want you to know I love you. And I forgive you. For everything. I hope one day we can meet up again, but I don’t think we could ever be as close as we once were. I’m sorry, Sips. I hope you can forgive me.

I let my hand drop to my side and let the wind take the letter away. I sit on the steps and close my eyes, a single tear running down my cheek. “I love you too, Sjin.