#Tag Team Ranchers AU

[tagteamranchers]

Tag Team Ranchers references!!

These are their superhero outfits! Tango has blaze rods around his head, and Jimmy uses mechanical wings to fly.

⤑ Masterpost

[aris-has-a-paracosm]

The first chapter of my sci-fi dystopian Team Rancher au, Finality’s Fault, is here! I worked really hard on this first chapter and am very proud of it, so comments and rbs (feedback in general) would be greatly welcomed!

Also, asks are always open if you wanna ask me about it, theorize, or just chat in general :)

[gaytimeswith-scar]

hello all!!! here is my art piece for @mcytblraufest this year :))) historical ranchers yay yippee!!

go and check out the fic that goes with this piece by the lovely @chrysochroma !!!!

[crazy-pe3p]

the ranchers!!

(+ doodles and concepts click to expand or something)

[tiredfoxtf]

I am. Not escaping the allegations. Anyway have au ranchers.

What. I drew that too, might as well.

[mbirnsings-71]

An apology Ren for @pup-pee because I made him think of Ninjago again- Also Team Ranchers because I had a vision okay-

[kiwibirdlafayette]

in a good mood today, casually drops the relationship chart for the hermit/lifers side of the starborne AU (since I've already shown the mianite side 👀)

au masterpost

[redwinterroses]

(part one) (part two)

Eureka was silent and mostly dark when they arrived, the only light shining dimly from torches placed around the buildings to keep mobs at bay. It was almost as small as Oakville, but there was at least a saloon, and what looked like a proper general store. 

Tango led the way to the saloon door, which opened—unlocked—under his hand. 

“Trusting,” Jimmy muttered.

“Rural,” Tango corrected, pushing the door inward and stepping inside. The floor creaked loudly under his feet. “Everybody knows everybody—and thieves don’t stick around long.”

The saloon was empty, but a single lantern burned on the bartop, shedding just enough light on the room that they didn’t trip over the rough, three-legged stools around the tables.

Tango closed the door behind Jimmy and nodded at the back wall. “It’s no hub hotel,” he said, keeping his voice low. “But there’s no creepers. We can sleep here for the night and take it up with Cubby in the morning.”

Jimmy looked at the hard wooden floor and thought longingly of the thin mattress in his train cabin. 

“I hate the frontier,” he said, pulling off his jacket and folding it into a rough pillow. “This city boy isn't made for roughing it.”

“Well, lucky for you: we won't have to.” Tango hopped up onto the bar and swung his legs around, slipping back off into the area behind the counter. “First rule of business: drinks.”

“We can’t steal—”

“I’m not stealin’ anything,” Tango said, scorn sharpening his whisper. He set a thick glass bottle on the counter. “It’s an understanding out here: water is for anyone who needs it.”

At the thought of water, Jimmy became suddenly aware of how dry his throat was. 

“Anyway,” Tango said, pouring them each a tumbler full of clear water, “I’m pretty sure Cub has his own rain basin by now, so it’s not like we’d be putting him out much.”

They drank the water—and second and third glasses—gratefully, and then Tango set everything to the side and said. “Right. And now, for beds.”

“Mine’s back on the train,” Jimmy said with regret. “I can’t believe I didn’t think to grab my satchel.”

“Not to worry, my friend.” Like a showman reaching for his next trick, Tango crouched under the bar, and his voice was muffled when he said, “Ol’ Cub has one rule he follows like a religion, and it's this—”

Jimmy heard the telltale sound of an ender chest unsealing. 

“An ender chest?” He leaned over the bar in awe. 

Tango looked up at him, a dim purple glow lighting his face from below. 

“Yes sir, yes sir—” Tango held the lid open and gestured toward the void-dark opening, the violet swirls of magic twirling through his fingers. “If you don't have a bedroll in yours, I've probably got some extra blankets somewhere.”

“No, no—I know I’ve got one packed away somewhere.” Jimmy had never owned an ender chest of his own—the materials were incredibly expensive in the spawn regions, and the silk touch required to maintain them was almost as bad. But he’d stopped by one of the public banks before leaving home and stowed away some of his belongings, on the assumption that someone out in the new generation would have access. 

This chest looked handmade, a little lopsided and patchwork, with plain iron fittings where every one he’d ever seen had been gold, and the obsidian casing was knapped roughly. But it seemed to work just fine as Tango slipped his hand into the oily dark and pulled out a sturdy bedroll. 

“Your turn,” he said, stepping back but holding the lid of the ender chest open for Jimmy, who hesitated. 

“And this Cub person—he won’t mind?”

“Nah. Worst case scenario, he makes fun of me for not bringing my own. Best case scenario, he’s got extras stashed away somewhere he wouldn’t mind partin’ with.”

Extra ender chests. Jimmy was boggled. Tango must have seen the look on his face, because he laughed a little and said, “Cub’s a pro. Used to speedrun in new generation up until a few years back. Man can hunt blaze like you and I hunt taters in a tater patch.”

Shaking his head, Jimmy reached into the icy darkness of the ender chest, feeling around the edges of his stowed items until he found the leather straps of his extra bedroll. He pulled it out, and then slipped his hand back in again. 

“It’s not whiskey,” he said, withdrawing a small cloth pouch. “But how do you feel about candied sweetberries?”

Tango’s eyebrows shot up and he grinned. “I certainly wouldn’t say no.”

They set up their bedrolls in the corner of the barroom, Jimmy purposefully placing his nearer to the door. He kicked off his boots, but placed them near to hand before untying the drawstring of the pouch and proffering it to Tango. The sweetberries—still chilled from their storage in the void-space of the ender chest—had been dried and dusted with sugar, and left sticky residue on whatever they touched. But they were a welcome bit of normalcy to Jimmy… they tasted like home. 

Tango took a couple and popped them into his mouth, closing his eyes at the rush of flavor. “Oh, that’s good,” he said. He pushed his hat off his head and let it fall behind him, his ginger hair spiking in all directions. “Thanks kindly.”

The room was dark as they settled in to sleep, and Jimmy found himself staring at the windows: slightly paler squares against the midnight darkness. Orange torchlight flickered faintly under the door, but not enough to illuminate anything.

He waited until he heard Tango’s breathing deepen and even out. Then, as silently as he could, he slipped his boots back on.

And… he sat, staring at the door and trying to muster up the energy to leave.

Tango seemed a decent sort. Even the type of person Jimmy could see himself becoming friends with, in a different world. He didn’t deserve the fate that came with befriending James Solidarity. Jimmy needed to get away before the curse really latched on.

…But surely an hour or two of sleep wouldn’t hurt. He was so exhausted he felt like his eyes were scraping sandpaper every time he blinked. If he could just nap for a little while, he could still slip out before Tango woke in the morning.

Reluctantly—knowing it was a stupid move and yet unable to bring his leaden limbs to do otherwise—Jimmy lay back down on the bedroll. 

Just a bit of sleep, he thought. The pouch of sweetberries slipped from his fingers and fell to rest on the floor between him and the door.

And Jimmy slept.

[ceratedfish24]

Honestly someone needs to write a Flower Ranchers or a Ranchers fic that’s a Stardew Valley AU. It’s so them coded. Jimmy could work with the animals, Tango could work with the machinery, and Scott could farm and tend to fish ponds. They could take turns going out for resources.

The rest of the valley neighbors could be replaced too, granted their dynamics will probably be changed. Scar is Pierre.

I really like the idea of Jimmy getting tired of the big city life and moving to Stardew Valley, starting a farm, and then realizing he knows nothing about farming. He goes to the museum/library and finds Scott (in my head, Scott is replacing Leah. I know she doesn’t go to the museum but surely, if she were not code, she would go once in a while.) and they hit it off and realize that they’re neighbors. Then, Jimmy heads up to talk to whoever is replacing Robin (I’m thinking Impulse cause he’s mentioned that if he weren’t a streamer he would love to do carpentry) and that’s where he meets Tango, one of Impulse’s roommates, who is replacing Demetrius.

They all show up to the mermaid pendant merchant on different rainy days, probably in the summer since there’s a higher chance of storms during the summer, and he sells them all pendants cause he doesn’t realize that they’re intending to propose to each other.

You can even have all of their pets thanks to the new update!

Scott could also be the traveling merchant because honestly I keep calling the traveling merchant “Scott Smajor” they look so alike.

[canarydarity]

(Thought a little bit too hard about Romeo and Juliet ranchers...)

Keeping his head low and his tread light, Tango ducks from tree to tree under the cover of dark from the canopy, protecting him from the spotlight of the moon and therefore his discovery. Behind his back, leftover laughter from Skizz and Etho drifts further away; the volume of Skizz’s last protests, however, remains annoyingly the same as it continues to plague his mind, as does the memory of Etho’s agreement that Tango was—for lack of a better word—fucked. 

Louder than all of that, though, more insistent, more pressing, was the ghost of Jimmy’s lips against his. The sole force of it drove him on, his heart tripping in anticipation when around the trunk of a tree he’d glimpse the stone of the house of Solidarity, or through a break in the leaves he’d catch a glimpse of light from a brazier. 

Voices draw near just as the treeline breaks at last, and Tango ducks behind the nearest trunk as two servants meander by, following a worn path toward the back of the manor; his courage returns to him as they fade, and as if pulled by some rope falling taught or some string being coiled, Tango draws as close as he dares to the base of the stone without giving up the shade of the last tree. He kneels.

Now that he’s here, he must admit, his mind draws blank of any possible plan for continuing on. It’s not like he can wander the house of Solidarity unattended, making it clear in every way that he did not belong, and, on top of that, with one of Verona’s most recognizably unwanted faces. 

Idiot, Skizz had called him; blinded, his friend had laughed. Always the most cautious of them, Etho had recalled that even a masquerade hadn’t been enough to conceal his presence from Grian. 

And Tango hadn’t really until now heard a word. 

Movement in the far window, the unmistakable shifting of the curtains, drawn by an imaginary force—the manmade wind of someone passing through. After a moment, a more permanent form takes shape, and Tango finds himself wondering how he could have stayed still for so long, how the sun could possibly have risen while he had been unaware. 

But it of course is not the sun. He blinks and darkness is restored around him as his eyes adjust to the sight. 

Jimmy, framed in beiges and creams and white—the masonry, the curtains, his blouse—fair as any portrait, as any bolt of silk, as any fine jewel. The slightly damp flop of his hair, the color like spun gold; the curve of his shoulder, the tan glow of skin shimmering beneath the cotton—he’s breathtaking, breath-robbing, even at such distance away, and Tango wobbles enough in his stance that he places a hand on the ground for stability. 

How clear it is that this is a setting in which he doesn’t belong; how envious must be the moon for how dull it shines in comparison. Its colors—silver, the cool tones it usually accompanies—they were despicable in their wrongness. Tango thinks he’d be suited more enveloped by heat; in open fields of flowers, stranded in miles of wild wheat and tall grass, in places without trees, without shade, without reprieve. 

The masquerade, Tango thinks, was not to foster intrigue amongst the guests, but to shield them from such raw beauty, to protect them from its temptation. 

Jimmy’s chest bellows with what Tango imagines a sigh, and he continues on, momentarily disappearing from Tango’s view only to appear again in the following window, and then the one after. Tango follows, and they walk together along the length of the manor, albeit separated by its walls.

Bound, tethered, Tango’s heart tugs him along. 

A corner is turned, and instead of a further row of windows through which to watch, Tango finds a balcony jutting out of the stonework, grand and open to the air. He swallows as Jimmy steps out onto it; stares, enraptured, as Jimmy wanders over to the railing, balances his elbows on top of it, and then drops his head into his hands. 

Through the stillness of the moment comes an unmistakable and truly inspired groan, and Tango startles and glances around expecting to be caught by a rather resentful servant before realization alerts him to its source. 

Jimmy drops his hands and sighs again, and this time Tango can hear the puff of his breath as he exhales.

“Stupid,” he mutters, “so incredibly stupid. Why did I…” He shakes his head and decides better than finishing the thought, squeezing his eyes shut tightly as if he can will the arrival of more to a complete halt with just enough concentration.

Tango is familiar with this method, and, he’s gotta say, it is not as successful as he’d like it to be. 

Jimmy’s lips move again, but too little sound comes out for any of it to be heard, and Tango finds himself wandering closer before he can arrive at any of the reasons why he absolutely should not—too distracted by the thought of those lips touching his mere hours before. 

Just as he’s braving closer ground, Jimmy’s voice rises to exclaim “Tango!” and Tango’s foot finds false purchase over a well-placed root and he slips, catching himself on the cool dewy grass. His head raises slowly, ready to be forever expelled from the grounds—or more likely stuffed and made to decorate Grian’s quarters—but Jimmy’s gaze remains safely away, off into the distance beyond. “Why did it have to be Tango?”

Tango does not dare move. 

Jimmy grabs the balcony railing with both hands and leans back, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose. When he opens them, he draws himself back in and lets his arms go slack. His brow furrows in thought, his nose forming a little scrunch by the action, like his tutor’s just posed him a particularly troubling set. “But…it’s not Tango that’s the problem, is it? It’s just his name…Tek.” 

Should he be listening to this? Tango doesn’t bother thinking about it, he already knows the answer; not that that stops him, or compels him to turn around and proceed the way he came—for how could he when he’s hearing the echo of his own musings? An utterance of reciprocation for the feelings to which he’s fallen victim? Shared dismay at the grandeur of their circumstance?

“Maybe…maybe if he weren’t Tango.” 

Even before Jimmy drops his head in defeat, Tango knows that line of thinking is for naught. Maybe if he wasn’t Jimmy, maybe if his cousin wasn’t Grian, maybe if his name wasn’t Solidarity and his very existence meant to be an offense. Maybe if the sun didn’t shine, or the moon didn’t beam, or resentment didn’t flow through the streets like blood spilled. Maybe did not stand the test of time nor outlast the memory of a grudge. 

“Perhaps, should I not call him Tango, but assign him some other name…”

If only Skizz was there to witness Tango blurt out, “You can call me anything you’d like.” Idiotic and blind would not have been the only adjectives he was assigned if he had. A few immediately come to Tango’s mind himself—stupid, insane, absolutely and completely screwed. 

He has no memory of deciding to speak, but the words have undeniably come out of his mouth, and there’s no hope of them not having been heard based on the way Jimmy rises to attention. 

“Hello? Is someone there?” Alert and understandably perhaps a little frightened, Jimmy's eyes scan the treeline in which Tango dwells.

Intelligently, Tango replies, “uhh.”

“Who are you?”

Tango flounders, his voice raising a dozen octaves, becoming high and stringent as he at once wheezes out, “God, why has that question become so complicated all of a sudden?”

Jimmy shuffles to the corner of the balcony, his waist pressed against the perpendicular juncture of stone as he leans over the railing to squint into the orchard. “Wait—Tango?” 

Tango is left with no other option than to abandon his haven of trees and shade and step into the torch light of the Solidarity’s garden, lest he’d rather Jimmy lean so far over the balcony that he falls. He catches the moment that Jimmy sees him—the softening of his features, fear being overtaken by the more welcome feeling of surprise, the nervous tightening of his jaw, the biting of his lip. 

If he thought revealing his presence would mean less of Jimmy’s precarious balancing act, then he thought wrong; Jimmy doubles over more, if possible, and Tango throws his hands out in a gesture he hopes is universally interpreted as stay put while some sort of alarmed squeaking comes out of his mouth. But Jimmy just fervently whispers, “What are you doing here? Are you crazy?!”

“Are you?!” Tango whisper-shouts back. “You’re giving me a heart attack here, lean back wouldya?”

Jimmy thankfully returns his upper body to a standing position safely behind the balcony’s edge, but his voice gets no less intense, his words no less urgent. “They will kill you if they see you here, you know that right?” 

In return, Tango can only nod as if this realization has only just, for him, come to light. Of course, it hasn’t—Skizz and Etho had been trying to tell him since they left him outside the Solidarity’s walls, and by instinct alone he knew to hide if he suspected someone walking too close by, and yet. His frantic nodding does not cease as he says, “You know, I hadn’t really thought about it…to be quite honest.” 

“You hadn’t thought about it?!” Jimmy grabs at his hair, incredulous, and Tango is momentarily distracted for the amount of time it takes to imagine doing it himself and wonder at what it would feel like. “I can’t believe this.” 

Shaking his head, desperately trying to restore function, Tango delivers the only defense with which he’s come equipped. “I just—I had to see you!” 

Once more, Tango curses the moon for its inadequacy, for what must be its deliberate hindrance to the wonder of this scene. Because, though it’s too dark to really tell, firelight falling much to short, Tango swears that Jimmy begins to blush. 

Since he can’t completely be sure, he’ll have to make due with admiring this: the way Jimmy tucks his head down, closer to his shoulder, the shifting of his weight from one foot to another; how his eyes seemingly impossibly get a fraction of an inch bigger, wider. 

He doesn’t quite look back at Tango when he says, “You really mean that?”

Tango smiles, “I do, I swear it.”

Whatever modesty was held in his expression before disperses and Jimmys face holds room for little more than mirth when he turns back and demands, “On what?”

“On…” Tango draws his shoulders higher, his hands raising with them as if attached by puppeteers string. They suspend there momentarily, waiting to be released by the arrival of a coherent thought that unfortunately never comes. “I don’t know…” 

Tango bites the inside of his cheek. “What would you want me to swear on? Name it and it’s done.” He holds his hands up in pure complacency, a promise and an offer; take me, im yours.

Jimmy laughs at his near madness, and Tango swears that it moves like wind through the orchard, rippling across all the branches and leaves of all the trees; he sways on his feet to the music of it, doesn’t bother to curb the urge to smile harder at it—his face a perfect mosaic of every feeling he’s every felt. 

With a shake of his head, Jimmy admits, “I dont know either.” 

“Ah, an impasse.” 

Though his head doesn’t move, Jimmy’s eyes duck away again, seeking safer purchase as he instills the night sky with his reply. Tango doesn’t mind, for it’s easier then for him to continue to to watch. “Maybe just…say it again then. Instead.” 

“I came because I had to see you, Jimmy.”

Jimmy’s eyes dart back and then away again, needing to see Tango to truly be sure, but needing privacy to be able to comprehend. “Alright…” He glances back into the room behind him, whatever is beyond the curtains that are all Tango can see. “They’ll come looking for me soon, you really should go.” 

Playfully outraged, Tango sputters, “What! That’s it, I don’t get anything in return?” 

The dramatics earn Tango an eye roll, but Jimmy also begins bouncing a little in place—resevoired anxiety that lets Tango know he was serious about the chance that someone would soon seek him out. Whatever stolen time they had managed to accrue was fleeting and not a second more. 

Even so, Jimmy plays along. “And what am I supposed to give?”

“I don’t know, something!” 

“You’re very helpful, has anyone ever told you that?”

Tango laughs, “A fair hit.” He watches as Jimmy turns around again to assure their privacy once more, understands for both of their sakes the importance of not overstaying his welcome, and his hands tucked behind his back, comes up with, “alright, just tell me this: are you glad I came?” 

Jimmy turns back to him, and this time Tango is absolutely certain of the blush present on his cheeks by the way Jimmy raises a hand as if to feel his own temperature on instinct, or to hopelessly pat it away with the back of his hand. He’s smiling, but it’s clear he’s trying not to, and that’s all the answer Tango needs. 

Before Jimmy can, in his bashfulness, form a verbal reply, from inside a voice does indeed call “Jimmy?” 

Bliss turns to panic in an instant, and instead of earliers soft tone Jimmy near hisses when he says “Tango!” 

If he was smart, he would heed the warning and go, but Tango is still drunk on their proximity alone, on the events of the night—all of which were set in motion by the taking of a chance on an innocently shared kiss. He figures if this is where one chance has gotten him, then he can stand to risk another. 

“I mean, I’m perfectly content to wait, Jimmy.” Tango steps to the nearest tree and leans against it like he’s planning to stay for some time, tries not to laugh as Jimmy’s eyes practically bug out of his head. 

“You—” Jimmy’s head swivels back and forth, caught between the harmlessness in the tease and the actual realistic harm in its consequences if Tango legitimately followed through. Of course, he isn’t going to—the second Tango sees another silhouette in the window he’s out of there, blending back the way he’d come into the trees—but where was the fun in it if there wasn’t just a little bit of real life pressure? “You’re insane,” Jimmy berates, but before he turns and disappears behind his walls that are meant to keep out Tango and Tango specifically, he whispers, “Yes, I’m glad you came.” 

Jimmy’s already gone, but when Tango says, “That’s all I needed,” its more to himself than anything as he turns to go back the way he’d come. 

He did not imagine when the night began that he’d find himself betraying the one rule his family had ever demanded he follow, nor did he expect to feel little concern for himself in spite of this fact, but he did know he’d be helpless but to do it again had the situation started anew, because Tango doesn’t know what greater purpose he could have than to love this man. It wasn’t just the remembrance of a kiss that drove Tango to Jimmy’s window, but the sense that it was only the first, and where there was one would come more. Of this, Tango was certain: attending the masquerade, glimpsing Jimmy through the party-goers, risking following him through the crowd and delighting in that first, perfect kiss had set off more than the events of tonight, one singular night, but rather of whatever was in store for him—for them—all the rest of their lives.

(gonna put "can translate Shakespearean English into gamer speak" on my resume under special skills. [read on ao3 here])

[toffee-biscuits]

hey!! here's my art for @mcytblraufest ! scifi ranchers to go with @drunkintergalacticemotions 's fic In The Stars - lovely fic and only 10k, do read it if you get the chance!! this was a blast to work on :D!!

[tagteamranchers]

Intro to TTRAU! || Masterpost

Welcome to the Tag Team Ranchers AU (TTRAU for short) Masterpost! TTRAU is a hero alternate universe based on the Life Series, specifically stemming from Wild Life session 7, where everyone received special superpowers. This AU mainly revolves around Tango and Jimmy (the Ranchers) as they balance their lives as secret heroes fighting in factions.

This AU is made by Kip (@kipskip) and Bee (@laventeabee)- two friends who share a love for the Life Series! TTRAU is meant to be a fun, light-hearted project. Feel free to send any asks our way!

---

Links:

⤑ References

[aris-has-a-paracosm]

Some more android Jimmy and cyborg Tango from my sci-fi dystopian au! I’m having entirely too much fun with this concept, and I’m so excited to share it! (First chapter drops very soon 👀)

[tunastime]

Love in the Time of Calculation

as promised: the first chapter of the ranchers SEN fic! this fic takes place inside the au I created for Stretching Endless Night. I'm hoping posting this first chapter will actually get me to. write the rest of it. since I've got so much of it written. jazz hands!! enjoy!

In order to continue supplying food for a growing station, Commander Tango Tek, second to the head of engineering on the space station Prometheus, takes a six month study with the Empire-2 station at the behest of his admiral. There, he meets their botanist and horticulturist, Jimmy, a man he's only communicated with in communiques, voice memos, and documents. When they meet for the first time face-to-face, Tango realizes they both have something very interesting in common. In the face of all odds, two androids fall deeply, horribly in love. (6711 words)

Tango flips a switch on his navigation panel.

“It would be funny,” he says, slowly, enunciating as the recorder picks him up. “If I were to start these with some outlandish startdate. I would find it hilarious, I think, but I don’t know how many other people would. So…

Stardate 2105.47: I’ve just made brief contact with the Ring-style Space Station known as the Empire-dash-2. After discussion of docking procedure, I was forwarded the…passkey for the docking sequence and I should be arriving within two hours of my current time. That time is…in hour format…8:07pm. Lookin’ forward to meeting them, as much as they’re probably lookin’ forward to meeting me. I’ve never spoken to them in person—it’s all been electronic. So…it’ll be interesting, to say the least!” He nods, feeling some inclination to sigh—despite there being no way to. Motions he’d learned and copied from his peers. 

“Thus begins my month-long stay with E-dash-2. I can only hope some work with hydroponics actually gets me somewhere. They tell me the guy’s a genius, so I’m inclined to believe them.”

Tango jabs his finger against the stop recording button. After a beat, the small, LCD screen flashes SENT in dark, bold letters. Leaning back in his chair, Tango folds his arms over his chest, and sets his boots on his console. The ship around him hums faintly, enough to be heard if he pays attention to it. As he leans back, he surveys the inside of his ship, the LTS-111, the small craft that he called home. In comparison to other ships on the Prometheus, it’s smaller, built for short term travel between locations, a cool, dark grey inside. There’s two swivel chairs at the helm, a large front, port window, overlain with his control panel, above and below his chair. Behind him, a door opens to a short hallway—mess hall and his room, just a plain, grey-white with one bunk. There’s a crate with his belongings, of which there are few, a plant on the windowsill to keep him sane. The mess is devoid of food and drink. It’s a luxury he doesn’t need. It’s nice when he can, but it’s nothing but an experience for him. Nothing to be gained from poorly made HASA meals full of crude protein. The edge of his boot catches the lip of the console, pulling at the rubber. He’s tucked his flight suit into his boots. His eyes follow the bright red and gold stripe down the side—division colors. Commander, engineering and technology. On his sleeve there would be the same designation, as was on all of his uniforms. Even the plain black, well fit shirt underneath, even his boots. HASA; Commander. Luckily his boots didn’t have a commander or engineering tag. If he felt so inclined to sand off the small rubber HASA branding he could.

His eyes follow a line across the ceiling, to the small strip of light that brightens the room. He runs his fingers over the seam in his sleeve—habit, again, but he’s not sure from whom. 

The hour passes slowly. Tango spins simulations in his mind, projects from the ship's computer the schematics of E-2. He can see the docking station there on the map and traces out the line from there to the botanical garden. He spends time memorizing that path, and out to other locations, and rolling the names of his new compatriots around in his language acquisition program. None of these things are foreign to him—he’s built for new experiences, new learning opportunities. He can feel where known things end and new begins, and craves to fill the space, often and continuously. When that hour ends, there’s a tinny beep from his communications panel. He looks over the message displayed.

LTS-111 prepare docking sequence.

Tango dials the coordinates into his navigation system, overriding the current charting program to pilot into the docking bay. As he does, a crackling voice jumps to life.

“LTS-111, this is Fwhip, Commander of E-2. Do you copy?”

“E-2, this is Commander Tek of Prometheus. I copy. The Rift is ready for docking procedure.”

“Commander!” The voice—Fwhip—laughs. “It’s good to have you. Glad to hear you made it safely.”

Tango nods to himself.

“Myself as well. Looking forward to meeting you all.”

The line clicks out. Tango resettles in his chair, sitting up straight, taking in the sound of Fwhip’s voice, the designation, the information. He files that away.

The curve of E-2 comes into view, stark white and grey, glittering gold where the paneling reflects light. He watches as the shining craft sits suspended amidst stars, its own field of gravity and oxygen and life shining a faint blue in the light of the nearby sun. He feels that warmth through the front viewscreen, despite the gold foil and shade to block it. It’s nice. In the closest approximation to nice he could get. He pulls the seat’s harness over his chest, snaps it in place as he begins standard docking procedure—slowing to a noticeable crawl, flipping on his communications panels, and switching to reserve thrusters. The Rift was made with older tech, anything he could salvage and amass from ships being decommissioned. It functioned—better than the standard HASA ships and was fully compliant—well beyond what he’d ever expected. Though he wasn’t quite human enough to have real expectations.

The ship settles into a launch port on the far side of E-2. Tango takes his time collecting his belongings. He wanders into his room as the ship powers down, settling into a dull hum. He repacks his bag, giving a quick once-over of the bunk before he lifts the trunk into his arms, the weight negligible. He settles the plant in the corner of his bag, making sure it’s settled before he slings the bag over one shoulder and sets the crate on one hip. His startup keycard sits in his front shirt pocket, and his credentials badge in his back pocket. 

The first thing he notices as he enters the launchpad for E-2 is how clean and bright it is. The launchpad is devoid of anyone working, and there are certainly no other docking ships. The two other ships Tango can see are relatively new and clean, parked closely together. He glances around the space, looking for any sign of movement. His footsteps echo quietly around the empty chamber. To his right, beyond a stabilizing membrane is the winking stars of space. There’s a planet in the far distance, but it’s much too far to see anything notable. 

The bay door to his ship closes as he steps toward the winding steps up to the lofted second floor. He starts up the steps, lifting the crate into his arms. 

“Commander Tek!”

Tango startles. Looking up to the second floor, he sees someone lean over the railing, waving enthusiastically. Tango squints at him, surrounded by the white facade of the walls around him. 

“Commander Fwhip?” Tango says, cocking his head to the side. He sees Fwhip nod again.

Tango smiles a little, eyebrows furrowing despite it. Fwhip. The intonation matches what he heard crackling over the communicator of his ship, though, of course, without the static. He’s wearing stark black, with a large diagonal line cut in red across his chest, up to his collar, and over his shoulders. Tango realizes for a moment that his jumpsuit may not have been the prime choice for meeting a commanding officer—no matter the rank or office. Especially considering that he was supposed to be both a liaison and a researcher. 

But as Fwhip meets Tango on the landing, he shakes his hand firmly. There’s a spark, somewhere, in his eye, his heart rate elevated as Tango greets him. He’s winded, too, like he ran all the way here. Tango feels a piece of information in his mind click unexpectedly into place.

“Commander Fwhip,” he says, copying the smile Fwhip is giving him more fully. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Oh, please,” Fwhip laughs. “Commander, the pleasure is ours. Congratulations on your most recent publication.”

Tango nods. Somewhere, something kicks in his chest, just the faintest flicker of painful phantom sensation. It took him two years to publish that paper—and it was a damn shame he had to die to get it published in full, despite Doc and Etho’s help.

Fwhip’s hand is warm in his, enough to notice the change in sensation between them. He can feel Fwhip’s heartbeat in his palm and the way his breathing stutters for a second when Tango and him shake hands. Fwhip looks down at his hand. Tango lets go first, the noticeable white lines on his skin pulsating in and out. His hand feels stiff as he stretches it, feeling metal extend and retract.

“You’re…” Fwhip starts. Tango sees him frown, just the smallest change between his eyebrows. 

“An android?” Tango finishes. He watches color rise to Fwhip’s face as Tango tilts his head, expression neutral, amused, even. Fwhip laughs, even if it’s born from a touch of embarrassment. Tango hums something low, a version of a laugh he can manage to sound normal. 

“It’s not strange, if that’s what you think I think,” Fwhip says, leading Tango toward the stairs. “Unexpected maybe, but—to be fair, they didn’t tell you anything about me, either.”

“That is very true,” Tango says. He feels that itch, then, that want to know, to delve deeper. He shifts the box in his arms as they round the stairs, reaching the upper platform. “I think most people are surprised to find that I’m an android.” 

“That’s a shame—you’re brilliant for more reasons than just being an android,” Fwhip says, and the click comes back again, like he’s cracking a combination lock one number at a time. 

“I appreciate that,” Tango says, inclining his head. If there were anything in his face to indicate blush, he would be bright red. He hums instead, tilting his head back and forth in a dismissive sort of shake. Fwhip backsteps to walk by his side, raising his eyebrows over his glasses.

“So,” he starts, motioning to the door. “Did you have any questions about the ship as you settle in?”

Tango looks down at his shoes for a second, letting the thought spin in his head. He nods, just once.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’d love to hear more about the botany division—I got a real short mission briefing with Admiral Xisuma before I left. I know we were in a hurry to find the sweet spot of travel.”

“Of course,” Fwhip says. “Lining up that parallel can be real difficult if you don’t time it right.”

“The Admiral’s got an eye for interesting navigation patterns.”

Fwhip laughs, nodding his head. 

“Glad to hear you’re in good hands,” he says, opening the door for them. Tango follows him into a brightly lit hallway, lined in white and cream and bright floor lights. Along the edges are colored lines, intersecting and dividing—red, blue, green—to locations Tango can’t see. He follows Fwhip down a corridor, further from the launch platform. Tango knows this layout—further down the hall is a passenger elevator meant for the science team. They’ll take it down four flights to the belly of the ship, where many of the labs rest, tucked away. The ship's rings orbit each other, so he’ll be in this ring for as long as he’s doing research. They’re relatively straight forward, broken into divided sections inside. He traces the pattern out in his mind as Fwhip begins to speak.

“Well, to give you a station briefing, our main team fluctuates, but I’d say we have about 15 to 20 of us at any given time on command, and then a hundred of personnel and staff besides ourselves. I work closely with Lieutenants Scott and Pix, and both of them know our botanist pretty well,” he turns to Tango as he calls for the elevator, pressing his keycard to the small panel next to it. The numbers above the sliding doors illuminate in orange, bright and blocky. Tango raises his eyebrows. 

“His name is Jimmy,” Fwhip continues. “He’s a Lieutenant Junior Grade, but he’s incredibly good at what he does. I’ll let you two get acquainted when we get down there.” The elevator doors slide open. Fwhip gestures Tango inside before he himself steps in, pressing the button for their floor. Tango sets his trunk at his feet, toeing it off to the side and out of the way. “He spends most of his time down there, so you may not see him much at all besides when you’re working.”

Tango hums. He screws up his face into an approximation of thinking, running the words over in his head. A junior lieutenant. A higher officer, for certain, but for him to be teaching Tango—there feels like there should be a catch. Tango pulls at the seams of the phrasing, the intonation. His eyebrows furrow.

Fwhip answers his question before it leaves his mouth.

“He basically revitalized the hydroponics system overnight—nothing’s changed in the watering or feeding system, but the plants grow like crazy now,” Fwhip folds his arms, glancing over at Tango as Tango folds his hands behind his back. “I think it was his specification for a while, so as soon as he got here, he requested the transfer, and his work brought him up the grade.”

“That’s impressive,” Tango says, a touch quiet. The only other person he knew who’d ever done something like that had been Mumbo, and most of his ideas were feats of engineering so large they required a three-room modified lab space and a blast chamber. Meridian supplied that—though Prometheus—himself included—was sad to lose him to their sister station, especially after how long he worked with Tango. 

“He’s written a paper on it—it’s in the works of being reviewed now,” Fwhip says. “I don’t know how likely it is to go through, though.”

Tango hums again. 

“Why’s that?”

Fwhip shrugs. “He’s just not a nice guy to work with,” he says. “And I don’t mean that to be rude, either.”

The elevator doors open. They spill out into a lackluster hallway, still the same bleach white as the floors above. Taking a sharp right, they follow the curved edge of the ship down the green line, toward a series of crew cabins. Fwhip gestures toward a room closer to the middle of their row. As they stand there for a moment, he offers Tango a keycard.

“We got you a room—well before we knew that you…probably wouldn’t need the bedspace,” he says, shaking his head apologetically. Tango waves his hand. “You’re welcome to it, though.”

“Oh, I’ll absolutely take it,” Tango says, trying that smile again. Fwhip smiles back this time, one that touches his eyes, and makes Tango smile harder.”I like having my own space. Normally I have an office, so this’ll do just fine, I think.”

He presses the keycard to the door as Fwhip lifts his crate into his arms, struggling under the weight for a moment. The door slides open. Inside, as the soft yellow lights raise to bright, is a sparsely furnished room. Fwhip carries his crate into the room, setting it at the foot of the double bed. The room is small, clean, tidy. He turns in a small circle as Fwhip sets the crate down, nodding his head.

“This is great,” Tango says, dipping his head. “Thank you.”

Fwhip nods, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Absolutely,” he says. Moving past him, he gestures back to the hallway. “I’ll be forwarding you the ship changelog, so you know who’s on shift at a given time, and when meals are, if you have any interest.”

“That sounds great,” Tango says, moving with him to the hall. He follows Fwhip back down the hall, back towards the elevator. They diverge at a second hallway and down a third, following the winding corridor through the ship’s interiors. The walls shift from opaque to translucent as they follow the path down, with more and more people shuffling about. Fwhip moves through the hall easily—Tango navigates with a bit more difficulty, skirting past doors sliding open and bright lights and the new rush of people. As they weave through, Fwhip says:

“Figured I’d show you down to the lab,” he checks his wrist, a brief flash of numbers and notifications that Tango doesn’t quite catch fully. “I’ve got a bit before I have to be back at the bridge.”

Tango hums.

“Great—I’ll…hopefully be able to find, uh, Jimmy?”

Fwhip nods. 

“Mhm—” he says. They pause at a lab closer to the end of the corridor. Through the high ceiling and tinted glass, Tango can see the warm yellow and purple light that floods the space. The lab stretches further down the hallway and out of sight. Fwhip tilts his head toward the lab. 

“This is it?” Tango asks. 

“This is the one,” Fwhip says. He steps back from the door, letting Tango tap his card, the door sliding open for him. It stays open for a moment as Tango steps in. Fwhip checks his wrist again.

“I’ll let you find him,” he says. “Hopefully you’ll get a briefing before you leave to unpack.”

Tango nods, smiling again. The warmth of the room starts to roll over him as he stands still—cooling kicks on to adjust, like a sigh out of his chest.

“Thank you, Commander,” he says. Fwhip nods, dismissing him, before the door shuts between them, and Tango stands, alone, in a room full of plants.

He picks his way around the lab for a long while. The quiet is nice, the sound of air circulating and the soft hum of lights and electronics. He hadn’t run this particular section over in his schematics—something about it almost felt invasive. He wanted to learn it for himself, standing in the center of the room, hands braced on the work table. The equipment portion of the lab is its own self-contained room at the front of the lab—big enough for a table, several workstations, shelves of equipment. He rounds the table as he spots a secondary sliding door, obscured by the semi-translucent, white glass. 

Tango presses his loaned keycard to the scanner, watching the door slide open. Stepping inside, he stands amongst a huge lab filled with rows of vegetables, aquatic plants, and small trees. He can see potatoes, carrots, beets, neat and lined in suspended troughs of water and sitting in cups on the floor. Along the walls are digging and planting tools organized haphazardly, strewn about in small piles. The air is warm and humid as he walks his way around a series of rows—it almost feels like its own planet, like the atmosphere alone were thick enough to taste. 

Tango walks along a row, watching the plants with a careful consideration, as if they would move, or reach out to him, or something. But they’re just plants—unmoving beside the slight wave in the airflow. He reaches out after a moment, brushing one of the leaves, feeling it between his fingers. It’s rhubarb. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen rhubarb before. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen this many plants before.

Moving around the hydroponics, Tango wanders around the other side of the lab, watching as it stretches out and further back, rows of plants in tight lines, purple lighting and tubes for irrigation running across the ceiling. He turns into a slow circle, moving back through the rows as he does. The rows loop around back to the supply stations, where Tango walks backward, trying to see the end of the lab, where else it could lead, where else he could explore.

His foot catches under him, sliding out as his knees buckle and he lurches sideways.

He yelps loudly, flailing as he falls, losing his balance and smacking into the shelf behind him. A handful of ceramic plants pots and glass beakers fall with him, smashing to the ground as the shelf comes loose. Tango scrambles up, slipping again as he lands on his hands and knees, fumbling as he tries to scoop the glass into a reasonable, unnoticeable pile, to fix the shovels that must’ve fallen with him, the stacks of gardening gloves under his right boot. He mutters to himself as he does, babbling as his mind whirs with simulations. They were always there—right? That’s fine! He tries to stack a pair of gloves back on the shelf, watching them slide directly off. 

Shoot. Shoot! Damn it!

“Shit—” he mumbles.

“Hello?”

A voice calls out from the other side of the room. Tango hears a door shut. He pushes the broken shards of a pot near his knee together, like he could even try and fix the shattered pot. He searches wildly for the voice as he does.

“Hi—” he manages, voice warbling unexpectedly. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to.”

“What?” the voice comes again. “Who…”

Tango follows a shape through the row of plants as a man in grey steps around toward him. He blinks, owlish and confused, as he stares at Tango. Tango can see the name stitched into his quarter-zip.

Jimmy.

“I’m so sorry—” Tango starts again, but the man—Jimmy—is already halfway to kneeling in front of him, taking the broken pot from him, scooping the rest of the shards into his hands. Tango realizes, all at once, that he’s still sitting on the ground, surrounded by the carnage of him falling unceremoniously over into the stand. He starts gathering the tools around him into his arms.

“It’s…it’s alright—” he sighs, a trickle of confusion, of agitation, leaking into his voice. “Walk me through it, what happened?”

“I walked into it—” Tango says, feeling foolish all of a sudden. It’s not a tangible feeling. He just knows something is churning and curling in him and he can’t place what. “One minute I was turnin’ around lookin’ at this place and the next—wack.”

Jimmy hums under his breath, something amused. Tango blinks at him as he rights the shelf and replace the items from the floor. 

“Wack?” he says, starting to laugh. “I…yeah. Sorry, I don’t organize things very well, it seems like.”

“I don’t either, I’ll be honest…” Tango says, shaking his head. “You’re Jimmy, then?”

Tango scrambles up with glass still in his hands and Jimmy turns back to him as he looks around for somewhere to put it. Jimmy nods his head over to a waste bin, dropping the shards of clay pot into it. 

“Mm,” Jimmy nods. “You’re…?”

Tango makes a half-sound as he turns back to him, waving his hands.

“Commander Tek,” he says, sticking out his hand, smiling a bit lopsided. It feels lopsided at least. He’s trying to copy what he knows, and he thinks he’s failing. “Er, Tango. You don’t have to call me Commander.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows. 

“Ah—Fwhip told me you were coming,” he says, tilting his head a little, something like a smile coming to his face. “You’re sure just Tango?”

Tango nods.

“Too fancy with the whole thing. I prefer just Tango, anyway.”

Jimmy smiles in full. The action alone splits his face in half, stretching up to his eyes. Tango copies him, after a beat, something that falters just a little bit as he does.

Jimmy takes Tango’s hand. As he does, a buzz of electricity spikes up Tango’s arm and to his elbow, pooling there, zinging cool and bright. Tango startles, jolting back, making a small, sharp sound that gets lost as Jimmy audibly yelps. It didn’t hurt, but it felt new. Tango likes new.

He feels something wash over him, even as he jolts—memory, knowledge, understanding, like an imprint of knowing the man before him before he even did. Jimmy blinks, a furrow coming between his eyebrows. Tango, for a split second, wonders if the feeling is mutual.

“Sorry,” he blurts. The static shock dissipates as he shakes out his hand. “Sorry, I might still have glass….”

Tango looks over his hands, prodding at the silicon for any shards left there. There aren’t any, though—he even brushes them together, trying to feel for anything. Tango glances back at Jimmy. He’s looking him over, that curious, owlish expression on his face again. His mouth quirks up a little, the sides of his mouth lifting.

“You’re an android,” he says.

Tango’s eyes flick over his face for a moment. It’s completely symmetrical, brown eyes clear and bright, hair neatly parted. His movements are smooth as he steps back and adjusts his sleeves and reaches to gently brush something from Tango’s jumpsuit.

“So are you,” Tango finally says, mouth quirking up. His mouth tastes like static electricity.

“Huh,” Jimmy says, soft, thoughtful. The edges of his mouth fully curl up in a way so human and so foreign. Tango catalogs it immediately. “That’s so interesting.”

Tango huffs out an approximation of a laugh—which causes Jimmy to laugh in earnest. The tension dissolves as he laughs, and Tango feels his shoulders drop. That tingling feeling still hasn’t left Tango’s hand. He wonders for a moment if it ever will, or if every time they brush together it’ll light up like static, or if maybe they just happened to be carrying just enough electrical discharge to shock each other. Tango hopes it doesn’t happen again. He’d like to be friendly without risking a shock.

“So,” Tango starts as they stand together in the hydroponic farm. “Is there a reason ESA lets you use terracotta and glass in space?”

Jimmy shrugs. 

“They want it to feel more like Earth,” he hums, amused, turning away from Tango. He wanders a bit before Tango startles to catch up, following him through to the lab room. Jimmy pushes up the sleeves of his ESA sweatshirt. “Not that I would know what that feels like…though I do like it.”

They step through to the lab with the door hissing shut behind them. The humidity and heat follow them in, clinging to Tango’s jumpsuit. He can hear Jimmy mumbling to himself under his breath as he circles the large lab table in search of something. Tango tracks him with his eyes, pausing in the space where Jimmy once was, folding his arms. Jimmy fumbles around for a moment, digging through his cabinets, with Tango watching over his shoulder.

“That’s nice,” Tango says, eyes following him. Jimmy hums, nodding in response. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen Earth myself, either.”

“Oh yeah?” Jimmy says. When he turns back, he’s holding a data pad, a thumb drive and a blank badge. He lines them all up on the table, sitting next to each other. “Have you ever been planetside?”

Tango nods. 

“A few times with my old crew,” he starts, waving his hands back and forth. “Some dry and dusty ones for sure. Not too exciting.”

Jimmy tilts his head a bit. He’s still smiling, and Tango, for a moment, can’t take his eyes off it. He isn’t sure anyone’s ever smiled at him for that long, or maybe he’s misreading it—emotions were a fickle, strange thing. Maybe Jimmy was simply happy. 

Tango leans against the table, back pressing to the side of it, glancing down at the data pad and keycard for a moment. Jimmy looks away as Tango catches his eye. Tango thinks he sees him flush as he turns back around to the computer.

“They haven’t really briefed me on why you’re here,” Jimmy says. “Why’d they send you?”

“To E-1? We’re uh…our science director was looking for a secondary project to help bolster our food supplies—stretch it out a little longer?” He folds his arms over his chest. “Our admiral’s been in contact with Fwhip a few times conversationally, but we normally reach out to the Meridian, a station in our system, for help, but they weren’t having any hydroponics success. So…here I am.”

Jimmy nods absently as he continues typing.

“Hopefully I can give you something useful to take back,” he says, glancing up to Tango. Tango nods, raising his eyebrows.

“I mean, they say you’re the best,” he offers. It’s true—everything Pearl had told him seemed to point directly to whoever was running the botanical experimentation lab on E-2. And here he was, an android, standing in front of Tango.

“Do they?” Jimmy asks.

“Mhm!”

“That’s very nice of them…I uh, I’ve got a badge for you,” Jimmy says, sliding the piece of plastic toward him. Tango picks it up, turning it in his fingers as he listens. It has a small symbol on it, like an overlapping square and a green stripe all the way around it. When he looks back to Jimmy’s face for a moment, he notices that same green stripe around his upper arm. Green. Science. It was fitting. He fits that bit of information right next to what he knows Prometheus’ color to be: nearly the same shade.

“It’ll get you into this lab and ones like it, um, all the way down this hall,” Jimmy unlocks the data pad, pushing it toward him. “And you can record anything you’d like on this pad.”

“Oh, thank you, that’s great, actually” Tango says. He tucks the card into his pocket, where it rests against his chest. The data pad is blank, no notes, no sketches, and no documents. Just the time and date. From what he can recognize, he’s been aboard for about two hours. “Is, uh, is there somewhere we can share notes, or should I be handing this off to you periodically?”

“Whatever you write there will also be stored on the lab computer,” Jimmy says, gesturing back to the screens behind him. “Either of us can access it at any time. It should recognize you as having access to the console, so there shouldn’t be too many problems with that.”

Jimmy studies him for a brief moment before he picks up the thumb drive, twisting it in his fingers. Tango watches the movement, eyes flicking between it, and the pad, and the screen.

“So,” Jimmy starts again. “I can’t say I was expecting an android, but that does make this whole process a lot easier.”

He holds out the thumb drive—Tango holds out his hand. The small bit of plastic that falls into Tango’s palm is lightweight and bright white. He holds it between his thumb and forefinger, frowning just a little.

“What’s this for?” he asks, setting the data pad on the table again. His hands feel an itch to turn the drive around in them, nervous ticks surfacing as he receives data and writes to disk. The humidity, Jimmy’s expression, the curious glint in his eye, the buzz of excitement he can nearly feel in the air. For an android, Jimmy was certainly animated, certainly running high on emotion. Tango could reach out and grab it, if he knew he would catch something.

Jimmy nods a few times, leaning on the table in front of him.

“That right there,” he says, pointing at the drive. “Is all of my research. That way you can just—” he mimes a plugging motion, patting the back of his neck. If Tango’s chest could cave, it would have, as he feels some gear shudder and start again. “Get it all.”

Tango blinks. His vision stutters for a moment, fading out on the edge as he tries to process Jimmy’s comment, his voice. He feels that tug at his eyebrows as they furrow, a copy of a motion he’d seen so many times on so many faces. Jimmy’s research rests in the palm of his hand, still cold, despite the heat leaching from Tango’s synthetic skin.

“I think—” Tango says. What a stupid turn of phrase. He knows—he’s not thinking this time. He knows. “I can’t do that.”

Jimmy hums, face morphing into concern for a moment. Tango sees how his posture stiffens, almost a gut reaction to the change in Tango’s voice. Write to disk. Catalog. He softens his stance as Jimmy pipes up.

“What d’y’mean?”

“I think I’d rather just learn it from you,” Tango says, closing his fist around the thumb drive. “I’ll keep this, but I would like to learn from you, if that’s alright.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows high on his forehead, nodding a few times. His dark eyes go wide, too. They flick across Tango’s face, looking for something, before they land on the table in front of him as Jimmy raps his fingers against the plastic top. Tango tucks the data drive into his pocket, where it rests with the keycard, sticking his hands in his pockets to give them something to do.

“Oh—I mean—I, sure. Sure, we can do that,” Jimmy stutters, shaking his head. “Yeah, that should be fine, you should be able to learn that way.”

“I hope so,” Tango says, nodding. Jimmy nods with him, that color briefly back in his cheeks. “I’d at least like to try. It’s what I’m known for, honestly.”

“Mm,” Jimmy says, face settling on that half-pleased, half-curious look. “Sure. That would be nice, I think. I don’t know how much I have to teach, but I can try.”

“I’m sure you’ve got plenty, Mr. Plant Guy,” Tango quips, patting him on the shoulder as he rounds around him. Jimmy laughs. The tingling sensation of touch before has gone now, and the new touch offers nothing but the sensation of soft sweater fabric, of coolness from Jimmy, and a brief flicker of information that he doesn’t quite catch. It feels like energy he can’t process. A line of code that doesn’t slot itself into place. He gives his shoulder a quick squeeze before he pulls away, gesturing to the door.

“Do you think you might be able to walk me back to my cabin?” his shoulders shrink a fraction. He tries to quickly run the simulation in his mind, etching out the turns of the hallways in the belly of the science department. All he can remember are faces, half-recognizable from research and names partially unobscured by association. “I lost track of how many turns Commander Fwhip made.”

Jimmy shrugs, nods, patting the table as he pulls away.

“Sure,” he says, fishing his keycard from around his neck. “My cabin is close to that area, so I know the way back pretty well—-”

“You have a room?”

The door slides open in front of Tango, the cool air of the hallway flooding into the room. He steps through, into the empty, well lit space, with its green stripe and green carpeting. The white-yellow lighting smooths out the edges of the walls around them, dotted with windows of the station’s central core as they slowly rotated around it. Jimmy pauses for a moment to watch as Tango does, before he nudges him with his elbow. Tango turns to follow.

“I like the bed,” Jimmy says, making a pleasant, almost chirping sound. “And the sleep cycle. And a space for my things that isn’t the lab.”

Tango nods.

“Our secondary engineering lead gets onto me when I don’t rest, but I prefer to not have to,” he says, shrugging his shoulders, waving one hand about. That gesture was from Doc, who loved to make things more nonchalant than they had to be, gesturing with his part-plastic, part-metal arm. “It wastes time.”

“You’re a busy man, Tango,” Jimmy says. He pauses just as he’s about to say Tango, like he had meant to say Commander, but had skipped the instinct. It stutters as he speaks. Tango feels a little bit of a twist, somewhere in the gears of his chest. Maybe everyone should just call him Tango. It felt a lot better, somehow. It felt earned.

“I try to be,” Tango says, waving his hand again. “I’m built for continuous learning—neuroplasticity. It’s what I’m meant to do…kind of.”

“Interesting…” Jimmy hooks a right at a fork. Tango notes it. “I don’t think I’ve met an android without a base program. And it was HASA who decided that?”

Tango nods.

“That was the plan, anyway. So far, it’s worked out alright. I have no issues, our technicians make sure I’m running smoothly, I can run my own diagnostics as far as I’m aware. And…I get to take back knowledge to our ship,” he sticks his free hand back in his pocket. They take a left, following the curving wall. “That’s a win to me.”

“That does sound nice,” Jimmy says, frowning a little, mostly in his voice than on his face.  As the wall evens out, Jimmy slows to a stop. Before them, on the leftmost side, are a row of doors, which Tango recognizes. He marks down their exact location, how the wall hugs the left, looping back around on the far side. Jimmy splays his arm out, gesturing to the doors. Tango manages a smile.

“Thank you,” Tango says, nodding. Jimmy hums.

“Of course, glad I could help,” he says. He looks pleased, now, none of the nervous flit that he had when they’d first met. Tango, too. He feels settled, somehow, like he was already beginning to understand the space around him, already acclimated to new gravity and new routine. Jimmy’s easy smile and tone of voice made that all the easier to do.

As Tango steps away, toward his door, he turns back to Jimmy, who’s folded his arms over his chest. Something’s there, in Tango’s chest, maybe just a trick of mechanics, something he can’t really place. It smooths out any bumps in logic programming. It makes things even, whatever the thing in his chest is. Jimmy makes a noise, and Tango’s eyes flick up to his face.

“Y’know—not to jump ahead or anything, since I know we’ve just met. But if you wanted to, my cabin is a bit closer to the lab. If you ever feel like you want a roommate, you’re more than welcome to stay there,” Jimmy starts, clasping his hands together. The small smile on his face hasn’t really faded, and his voice is even with curiosity. “There’s—there’s only one bed, but you said you don’t sleep. So it should be fine.”

Jimmy continues to babble, now, eyes flicking down to the patches at Tango’s knees. 

“I can always request you to the room next to it—I think that one’s unoccupied, too. If you ever want to sleep, that is. But you can let me know. Figured it might be nice to have a roommate so you’re not lonely,” he finishes, shrugging a little. Then he startles, blinks, and waves his hands. “Unless you like being alone.”

Tango tries to make a sound to dissuade him from that idea, but it gets caught in his programming and his vocal filter and it kind of sounds like a wheeze, or maybe a laugh, but he shakes his head several times, copying Jimmy’s easy smile from before.

“No, no…” he assures. “That sounds really nice, actually. I’ll…I’ll let Fwhip know that I’d like to do that.”

Jimmy visibly relaxes, and the smile comes back to his face, and he laughs a little, an actual, natural laugh.

“Sure thing…” Jimmy scrunches his nose. “Roomie.”

Tango feels something flip-flop over as he jumps, shaking his head again.

“Don’t call me that—” he manages, before Jimmy waves his hands again and says:

“I’m just joking, Tango!” and reaches out to clasp his shoulder. That rush of static only prickles for a moment, leaving a warm sensation in its wake. Tango feels it trickle down his elbow and to his wrist as Jimmy steps away from him. “Have a good night, alright? I’ll see you at 0700.”

Tango nods, realizing he’s still smiling just a bit, even as he steps into his room and the door slides shut behind him. He stands at the threshold, with his back to the wall, for a long moment, letting the memories play in his head as he does. The quiet hum of his room and the orange-yellow lighting soothes his otherwise spinning mind to a controlled simulation. Even still, Tango’s hand and arm prickle faintly with sensation he can’t place, and a warmth in his chest he’s not sure he fully understands.

Pulling away from the door and into his room, Tango furrows his eyebrows and starts an internal diagnostic.

[sincerely-nines]

Hell Bent in which funny lil' guy Tango made a deal with the devil [Etho] and now he must find pathetic souls for the devil to deafeat and prove he isn't washed up devour

Jimmy, the most pathetic wet bag of a man to ever, is an obvious target, but then Tango falls madly in love with him but angst or something I dunno man

this is so funny, i had to draw the image it was giving me. thanks for enabling my silly.

farmhand jimmy gets pulled into tango's adventure to collect souls for etho all because tango couldn't kill a little guy.

[r4tch3travity]

HELLO, TIM.

I really enjoy the Rancher’s Apocalypse AU :3 and I love Grian so i drew RA!Gri 🙏 Can’t wait to see the next day

Rancher Apocalypse AU MasterPost!!! ^^^^^

@hybbart , Apologies for the tag but I felt like it’d be nice for you to see your rancher’s brother!!