#i might write a three chapter fic for this | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tunastime · 9 months ago

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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.

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sabraeal · 2 years ago

Text

Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 8

[Read on AO3]

“Don’t know what to say, sir.” The crew chief’s young enough that his knees don’t click when he levers up from the scaffolding, sandy hair made mussed and muddier still by the amount runnels his fingers have tracked through it. Youngest to ever make the grade, hand-picked by the Marshal himself-- though scuttlebutt had always painted that more as a punishment than a promotion, punitive action for a job too well done. “We’re still waiting on some of the diagnostics, and I’ve got some of my guys running over the wiring with a fine tooth comb, but I gotta say...”

It’s clear Shuuka’s never thought of it that way, not when he reaches out, giving Rex Tyrannis a chummy chuck on the chest plate. “There’s nothing wrong under hood here, far as I can tell.”

It’s difficult not to clench, not to let even the smallest nerve in his jaw jump, but if there’s one thing Mitsuhide knows how to do, it’s to pretend everything’s Situation Normal when it’s all Charlie Foxtrot. There’s a verve on the deck today, a current just beneath the skin of that scuffed up steel that puts a spring in every step clad in combat boots and coverall gray. The King’s out of his box, the air seems to buzz, and some big motherfuckers are gonna learn how to kneel. He’d hate to ruin it.

Shuuka’s palm presses flat against the plate, almost reverent, grease stains streaked so deep it’s hard to tell where skin ends and titanium begins. “Old girl’s fit as a fiddle for something two marks behind what’s rolling off the assembly line.”

Funny that he can place a man on this deck by just that: an old girl and smile. When the Marshal sat in the hot seat, no tech worth his tags would sling anything else but he’s and hims around the Tyrannis; there was just something about that edifice of titanium and tungsten and hubris was all male from the moment it rolled off the line. But a few years on the shelf and suddenly the memory of it goes soft; a monster made from miracles and mental turns into a spry she needing a little extra handhold to get past the finish line.

Kiki would have something to say about that, if she heard it. Probably several somethings, and all of them not fit for polite company. Not that there was much of it to go around here, but still-- most of these coveralls were a stone’s throw away from the academy. Didn’t need to demoralize them right out the gate.

“Good job, LT.” Kid must be holding a breath; a clap on his back knocks a hiccup right out of him. “Keep me updated.”

“Will do, sir,” Shuuka wheezes, rubbing at his shoulder. “Crazy stuff, isn’t it though? Whole deck would have been would have been FUBAR if Tyrannis let that charge go. Not to mention what would have happened to you all in Mission Control.”

Mitsuhide’s gone toe-to-toe with acid-spitting kaiju, with mountain-class monsters whose mouths have more in common with can openers than teeth, with actual hand-to-god nightmares from the deepest recesses of his childhood subconscious, and yet--

Yet none of them have thrown him from his bunk in a cold sweat, heart galloping a mile a minute behind the ragged cage of his ribs. Blue haunts the edges of his vision even now, waiting for him to close his eyes, to simply blink before it ambushes him, death painted on the back of his eyelids in scintillating detail. Even in his dreams, he’s only got one lifeline: some microphone smaller than his finger joint and the blind hope that there’s someone who can still hear him on the other side.

It’s the sort of thing that would land him on Shirayuki’s couch if he stopped to think too hard about it. Which he can’t; any second that siren could scream out and set them all scrambling to stations. His head’s hardly top priority when there’s more important parts needed in a rig.

A laugh rasps out of him, stilted even to his own ears. “Yeah, that’s for sure.”

“Don’t you worry, sir.” Shuuka hooks his hands around his hips, fingers painting gray streaks across even grayer coverall. “The whole crew’s real serious about getting to the bottom of it. A malfunction like that wouldn’t have been fun for any of us. ”

“Great.” That’s the sort of attitude he’d love to see if there were anything to get to the bottom of. Shuuka and his crew might be able work miracles on a mechanical failure, but they could do fuck all for a pilot one. Unless whatever’s wrong with Obi can be fixed with good old deckhand moonshine, which-- well, he’s heard of stranger things. “Glad to hear it.”

There’s a pause, a long one; a chasm filled up with speculation and secrets neither of them are at liberty to let loose. Instead, Shuuka just squints out over the floor, a strained concern stretching the corners of his smile as he asks, “Say, you think they’ll be sending anyone to take Tyrannis out for a drag anytime soon?”

It’s an innocuous question, just the sort the crew chief should be asking now that they’ve taken his baby out of its box-- there’s a difference between regular upkeep and active-duty maintenance, a world of it, enough to keep a kid up at night wondering whether his uncrossed T or his naked I will kill a man come morning-- but coming off a handshake as hot as that one...

Well, he wouldn’t be the first to park his fishing expedition on Mitsuhide’s pond today, that’s for sure.

“Can’t say anything for sure,” he tells him, face aching from the effort. “But if the Marshal says anything where I can hear it, I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

For as fast and high as Shuuka’s climbed the ladder these past few years, he’s not the sort to raise his voice-- hell, he’s not even one to frown. But the kid looks at him now, and there’s none of that happy-go-lucky left in him, just the hard evaluation of a man whose job is to find a nicked wire in rat’s nest.

“Just between you and me, sir?” he hums, voice pitched so low Mitsuhide can hardly make him out over the welders. “The old girl’s been up on the shelf for a while. She was built solid-- built to last, like all the Mark 3s, but--” a breath whistles through his teeth “--she was made to be used too.”

Mitsuhide keeps his posture casual as a he can bear it, being the officer on deck. Anything to make it look like they’re just shooting the shit, and not...whatever this is. “Something I should know about, LT?”

“It’s not anything to worry about.” Strange thing for a man to say when he’s checking his corners, stepping close enough for their arms to brush on the scaffolding. “Just...sometimes when the older ones sit on the shelf, it makes their suspension a little lose. Joints don’t quite move like they should. Parts aren’t always right where you expect them. Not like the newer chrome, you know?”

“Right.” He lets the word roll around in his mouth, fully tasting the flavor of it before he asks, “So what’s that mean for getting boots on the deck?”

His hands fly off the rail, waving off his worries. “Ah, nothing, nothing! Really, Rex is ready to take a walk the minute she’s off the leash. Fighting condition! It’s only...” Shuuka hesitates, casting him a long look from the corner of his eyes. “Something like that...sometimes it makes it harder for them to fight up close. Puts more kinks in the armor when they go hand-to-hand.”

Mitsuhide scrubs at the back of his undercut, stubble scraping at his palm. That’d be a death knell for a machine like their Redwood Dancer. But Rex Tyrannis... “Good thing Kain Wisteria designed that thing to dominate a battlefield, not dance on it, I guess.”

“Guess so,” Shuuka agrees, shoulders slumping over the rail. “A few days ago, I would have told you the girl’s better than new, but, sir-- I could have sworn we did every check on that plasmacaster the lot of us could come up, and still it nearly took out half the dome. I swear--” he lets out a huff of a laugh, almost fond “-- these older ones, it’s like they got a mind of their own. Or like they’re still haunted by the pilots, even after...ah, you know...”

Oh, there’s a lot Mitsuhide knows. He knows he’s never once stepped on stage, but if Shuuka ask him to chassé-sauté-pirouette right off this scaffolding right now, his body would remember how. He’s never once read Alice in Wonderland, but he can recite the Lobster Quadrille by heart. His hair has been military regulation since sixth grade, but he knows how it feels to have someone wrap their fingers through it at yank. “Don’t think it’s the jaegers that are haunted.”

Shuuka blinks up at him. “Sir?”

It’s not the sort of thing they talk about in the dome-- actively discourage, the Marshal would say with that smile of his, the one that never quite makes it to his eyes. It’s bad enough when one of them chase the rabbit in the pod, but to admit there’s something that lingers, that the ride doesn’t just stop when they hop out of the harness--

Well, the last thing people here need to think about is how thin a thread their lives are balanced on.

“Ah, sorry there LT.” He clasps him on the shoulder, smiling hard enough to make his molars creak. “Chasing the rabbit and I don’t even got my party clothes on. Hazard of the job, I guess.”

“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, sir, you’ve been going more hours than you haven’t.” Shuuka sends him a skeptical squint. “When’s the last time you saw your rack?”

Truth is, the last few nights he hasn’t so much seen his bed as stumbled to it, so exhausted he was asleep before he hit the mattress. But that’s not the sort of answer a subordinate wants to hear when--

“You know, if you gotta think about it--” a smile rucks up one side of the chief’s mouth-- “it’s been too long.”

“Ah...” Mitsuhide scrubs a hand across his hairline. It comes away moist. “I guess I could do with a break.”

“Not much that eight hours and three square can’t fix, major.” This time it’s the kid who claps his shoulder, not enough to sting but enough that he steps out of his stupor, suddenly exhausted. He’d be embarrassed by how much if only Shuuka wasn’t smiling, the kind that said he’d seen it all before and he’d see it a hundred times before he finally set aside his kit and coveralls. “Go hit the showers.”

It’s not that Mitsuhide doesn’t appreciate the sentiment. If anything, it’s just the sort of wall poster positivity Zen accuses him of giving on the regular, still wiping sleep from his eyes as he grouses, there’s something deeply wrong with you. No one’s this chipper in the morning without coffee.

It’s just that in his experience, there’s a good number of things that food and sleep won’t fix no matter how much of it a body get. No three course meal is going to soften the blow of a kaiju, no full night’s sleep is going to take the edge off losing someone out in the drink. It can’t help how many miles he is from home, how long it’s been since he’s seen his mother’s face on more than just a grainy screen. It won’t change that every time she giggles out bisous at the end of their calls, it might be the last.

And it’s certainly not going to help whatever went down in that Conn-Pod. Nothing this commissary can whip up, at least.

Or so he thinks, right up until the shower spray hits his back, and every muscle there relaxes.

“Jesus.” He bows his neck, letting more of the water sluice down his spine. “Maybe I did need a break.”

“Good.”

For one, blissful moment, he’s sure that voice is inside his head, that it’s just that small sliver of Kiki that’s worked deep under the nail bed of his brain until it’s impossible to tell where it begins and he ends. A nice thought, a sane one, but he knows: that voice wouldn’t have an echo.

Mitsuhide turns, not-- not all the way, but enough that the water splits over his shoulder, spraying down chest and back with equal fervor, and--

And she’s just standing there, blank tank clinging to her like a second skin, her coverall pushed to her hips with a thin strip of pale flesh peeking through the gap between. “It’s dinner time.”

And of course, the icing on this particular cake: she’s got his towel.

There’s no secrets in the drift, no fantasies that get to stay hidden in the shadowy corners of his mind, and so there’s no use pretending that this isn’t how half of his start: showers steaming and Kiki catching him in a corner, both of them getting wet, as--

Ah, no need to make this worse. It’s, er, already hard enough to hide what’s going on below his waist, let alone if he goes and makes an event out of it.

“Kiki,” he gasps, scrabbling at the lifeline she tosses him. Stupidly, of course; the water’s still going at the only pressure it knows-- full blast-- and by the time he’s got it tucked around his waist, the towel’s as soaked as he is. “What are you--?

“It’s dinner time,” she repeats, slow as the stare she drags up him, mouth hooking into a smirk. “You hungry?”

The knot slips at his hip; only those ranger reflexes keep him from flirting with disaster. “W-what?”

“I am.” Her arms fold right under her breasts, and it’s a struggle to keep his eyes from tracking the movement. “Zen is too.”

Mitsuhide blinks, the shift in tone leaving him stymied. “H-he is? He told you that?”

“No.” Annoyance flashes in her eyes, lightning from a distant storm. “But he needs to eat. Whether he wants to or not.”

Her hip cocks, both the angle of it and her brows daring him to chide her.

“Kiki,” he sighs, fist clenching tighter in the cloth. “You know as well as I do that the only way out of a hangover like that is through. If he’s not ready... we can’t just brow beat him into being better.”

Kiki’s spent the better part of a decade proving to the boy’s club here that’s she’s one of them, that there’s no need to relegate her to the personnel head just to keep the dress on the door, or for some private shower to be set aside for her own use. That she can go to the mat with any one of them and end up on top without special treatment. That her blood, sweat, and tears was just as real any anyone’s.

But she lifts her chin, and with every imperious inch she proves she’s General Seiran’s daughter.

“Not--” the edge of each word clips to a point “--with that attitude.”

The Academy might only be nine months, three trimesters spread across twenty-four weeks total before they roll their shiny new recruits into the grinder, but it’s not all just simulations and bushido. No, before they’re even allowed a glimpse of the combat room, they have to go through the basics-- engineering, K-science, tactics. And there’s no learning all that without talking about the greats.

Kain and Abel Wisteria. Haruto Jiran, usually in the same breath. Duc and Kaori Jessop. Mason Arleon and Ren Haruka. Lo Hin Shen and Xichi Po. Lata Forzeno, before he up and disappeared from the program. And of course, no tactics course would be complete without discussing Luke Seiran.

Most Rangers made a name for themselves by bold maneuvers and suicidal risks, half of them going out in a blaze of glory before they could rack up more than three kills. But General Seiran did it by living, dodging acid sprays and chainsaw teeth until those lizards left a scaly side open, waiting to spring until victory was no longer an opportunity but a certainty. He’d kept that reputation as a marshal, only losing two rangers from his dome during his five year tenure, until they bumped him up to top brass.

There’d been speculation when his daughter joined up that she’d be much the same. Slow to speak and hard to rile, everyone had seen her father in her, and yet--

And yet, the knock at his door is all the warning Zen has before she drags him through it, locking his arms in a hold he’d need at least six inches and eighty more pounds to break. A fact Mitsuhide’s learned through hard-won experience. Even still, his shoulder doesn’t sit quite right.

“I already said,” Zen grunts as she steers him through the commissary doors, “I’m not hungry.”

“Shut up.” Kiki’s never had much need for eloquence when her eyebrows can do so much of the heavy lifting. “Last thing you ate was a cup of yogurt, and that was last night. You’re hungry, and you’ll eat.”

If you knows what’s good for you, her tone implies, along with the dire consequences if he doesn’t.

It’s enough to get him on a bench. “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean I’m hungry.”

Kiki Seiran’s frown could make battle-hardened soldier spring for the head, but Zen just weathers it, drawing this stand off to a stalemate. “I’m gonna get you something. I’ll even make it green.” She glances across the table, scowl sending shivers down even Mitsuhide’s spine. “Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”

There’s not enough showmanship in a Seiran to stomp, but Kiki moves with a purpose, exuding the sort of don’t fuck with me energy that makes seas of servicemen part in her path. She might be one of the smaller rangers on deck, but everyone who has dreamed of sliding on a drive suit knows that an altercation with her is career limiting. Mostly for the joints.

Or at least the ones that didn’t grow up with her being two doors down do.

“What crawled up her ass and died?” Zen hunches over the table, shoulders hiked up around his ears as sharp as pickets, like that might warn everyone to keep their distance. “All I say is that I’m not hungry, and she thinks she can get all up in my business. Like there’s something wrong with me just because I don’t need to eat all the time.” He glances up at him, annoyed. “I’m fine, you know.”

The thing is, Zen believes it. His eyes are jumping all around this room, not able to hold a gaze while saying it, but he’s convinced he’s okay. All his parts are in the right place, nothing’s bleeding, and he’s not waking up in the wee hours screaming, so what’s there to complain about? A couple skipped meals here and there, a few extra hours of sleep, none of that feels like trouble, not to a guy who has trained his whole life to climb into a Conn-Pod and leave it all to the drift.

So there’s no point in starting in argument, in scolding him for not taking better care. Instead, Mitsuhide hums, not quite an agreement, and not quite not. Middle of the road--

“Oh, fuck you,” Zen sneers, digging a fist through his hair. “I am. Just had one hell of a drift. You know how those are. It’s just like...”

Like your body isn’t your own. Or that there’s more of it, a whole person’s worth, that won’t work no matter how many signals your brain pumps out.

“A hangover.” That’s what they used to call it in the Academy. Made sense when the first trip through the Pons System usually ended with a cadet hanging over the toilet. “I still eat.”

Zen glares. “Of course you do. You’d die if you didn’t eat a whole cow every day.”

“Be fair.” A tray slams down on the table in front of him, leafy greens fluttering in disarray. “Sometimes he eats a whole turkey instead. For cardiovascular health.”

“Hey.” It’s always like this when the two of them snipe at each other; if he stands on the sidelines long enough, he’s the one bound to end up in their sights. “I abide by the PDPC’s nutritional guidelines. For a man my height--”

Zen snorts. “Don’t pretend this has anything to do with your height.”

“That’s--”

“You think all those calories are going into your bone structure?” Kiki folds her arms behind her own dinner, one perfectly plucked eyebrow rising with the sort of searing skepticism only a Seiran could manage. “Please, if they let Zen in, I think the PDPC isn’t concerned with inches on a yardstick.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zen forehead fouls up with the signs of a stormfront even the Pacific would be hard-pressed to match. “I’ll have you know that I grew at least two inches in basic, and after the Academy, I--”

His teeth snap shut with a clack, hard enough Mitsuhide’s molars ache with sympathy. Every inch of his body quivers with tension, alert the way a ranger is in his rig, ready for conflict to rear right up out of the waves--

And that’s when the doors swing open. The commissary is packed shoulder-to-shoulder now that third shift’s let out, J-techs and K-science and admins all bumping elbows to make some space; even a familiar faces could get lost in the crowd, and yet Zen whips around and fixes on this one right away.

Not because of the full head of dark bristle, or the cheekbones so angular they could cut glass-- that’s par for the course in a place that specializes in picking clean the bones of other service branches, poaching only the best of the best. No, it’s how he slips through the door, not with the macho swagger the Academy breeds into its recruits, but with a cat’s boneless saunter, like his skin is just a suggestion of where he ends, not a hard boundary. He’s got that ranger confidence, the kind that says he could take down every body in the room, but on him it’s not hot air, not some way he gasses himself up to fight ten ton monsters, but--

But the truth. There’s a ruthlessness to him, an edge that says he’d be willing to turn that even onto himself if it meant he stayed breathing.

It makes Mitsuhide’s hands itch, makes him want to pick up a jo and see just how much of that really bears out on the mat. To see if he’s all attitude like most of the rangers that strut under the dome, or--

Ah, but another cracked chin isn’t what this situation needs. Not when Zen’s already half out of his seat, quivering like a dog at the end of his leash.

Not when Obi catches a glimpse of him, a flash of red hovering at his shoulder, and ducks right back out the way he came. Zen practically collapses back on the bench, all that nervous energy turned to despair.

“Oh, I get it,” Kiki hums, leaning a chin on her fist. “He’s ghosting you.”

Zen spears a spinach leaf. “It’s complicated.

“I gotta tell you, major.” Shuuka lifts his hands, something less than a shrug but more than a sigh. “This whole thing’s got me stumped.”

Mitsuhide hums, a toneless question, palm scraping across the bristle at his neck. “You don’t say.”

“We’ve gone over every bolt of the old girl and there’s not a thing out of place, not even a line of code left to bug.” He hooks his hands around his hips, squinting straight up into Rex Tyrannis’ sightless eyes. “Either this whole thing was a fluke, or...”

There’s a whole sea of things that aren’t said in that silence, a hull full of hunches that are too dangerous to air out. Shuuka struggles there, mouth working around an allegation with too much armament to bring into civil conversation. But they both know: he has to. It’s not his job to spit out what the higher ups want to hear, but to accurately assess the problem.

And by the pained look in the crew chief’s eye, he’s done just that. “I’m thinking that there might not be a problem with the plasmacaster itself,” he says, winding up so slow Mitsuhide can see every word before he hears it. “But maybe there is one between the pons and pod.”

Pilot error. Chasing the rabbit. His jaw clenches on reflex. “I--”

Red flashes, right down past his feet. He can see blaze through the grating, flitting from bay to bay like a cardinal in a bush. The same way it had fluttered by Obi’s shoulder in the mess, there one moment and gone the next. Haah, now there’s someone who might have some answers.

“We’ll have to pick this up later, LT,” he says, giving the kid a pat on the shoulder. “Something’s just come up.”

There’s no reason to rush; his target isn’t much of an elusive one, even when she’s got a purpose-- short legs and too many hours behind a desk don’t really promote hustle-- and she’s sure not in a hurry now. No, by the way that professional-style ponytail is idling down by Rex Tyrannis’s toes, she’s looking for a reason to stick around. One that might have to do with the six-foot shadow she’s conspicuously missing.

Still, Mitsuhide bounds down the scaffolding like there’s a fire under him, hopping down entire flights when there aren’t J-Techs to worry about on the rebound. It’s the kind of physical stunt he thought he outgrew when the Academy put their patch on him; the kind of showboating that had been smothered out of him when they stood him in front of a hundred ton killing machine and told him to protect mankind or die trying.

But one jump down rattles the scaffolding, enough that she looks up, big-eyes rounding as she lands on his face. Her mouth shapes itself around his first syllable, but he’s the first one to wave, to call out, “Shirayuki! Just...just a minute, please!”

“Ah...” Shirayuki doesn’t have the sort of voice that implies volume, the kind that only lifts itself to fill the space between two bodies, not a room. But she takes one look at him up on the grating and lets her chest expand enough to boom out, “Take your time!”

It’s a kind sentiment-- one he appreciates when the most common one he gets from up top is, and put some hurry on it-- but Mitsuhide’s got no intention of making the doc wait around. He cans the cadet-style antics, sure, but being a big man in a hurry tends to clear a path real quick. He pounds down the stairs two at a time, hitting the deck with a friendly, “It’s been a while.”

Weeks at least, if he doesn’t count the commissary. Not since he and Kiki spent a whole afternoon idling on the sidelines, watching some boys from Hong Kong skid to victory by the skin of their teeth. The dividing lines had come down, him on one side, and her on the other, and when they lifted, well...

“It has been.” Shirayuki smiles the way he wears his drive suit: easy, like she’s made for it. “Things have been going...well?”

“No kaiju.” That’s the only metric that matters under the dome; whether that’s good or not comes down to personal opinion. By the grimace on her face, Shirayuki knows it. “And you? Everything going...ah...?”

This should be it: his moment. The perfect place to insert a conversational elbow and steer this whole topic right around, to finally ask what’s been itching at him since last night. And yet--

He can’t. Maybe Kiki could just come out and ask if Obi’s tearing himself up, if he’s locked himself in his bunk and gone on some sort of hunger strike, the way dogs do when they’ve really got a mind to pine. Not without admitting that’s just the sort of thing Zen’s been up to these last few days, and considering what he thinks of Shirayuki, well, it seems a little cruel.

But Shirayuki’s standing in front of him right now, politely waiting for him to wrap up these pleasantries, so he settles for, “...Fine?”

“Oh!” That easy smile of hers strains under her laugh. “Keeping busy!”

They say rangers have an instinct, a gut feeling for opportunity. In a jaeger, that’s an opening, a sense for the weak spot on a body that’s made of muscle and scale and whatever spite the Pacific can spit at them. It’s the bleeding edge between success and failure, of limping home alive or being an empty box at your mother cries over at a funeral.

With two feet on dry ground, it’s listening to the whistle of a soft pitch as it passes you by. Which is what’s going to happen right now, if he doesn’t figure out how to put a question together.

Just blurting it out is too...blunt. Too much like vulnerability, a voice like Shirayuki’s opines in his ear. He’s got to switch up his tactics. More than one way to skin a cat, after all. Something more subtle, maybe.

“So I’d imagine.” He hooks an arm over the railing, casual. “Since there’s, uh, been a lot to sort out. After...everything.”

There, perfect.

“You, uh...” He coughs, so natural, into his shoulder. “Want to talk about it?”

All right, that not so much.

Her smiles twitches, too tight, before it melts away, a hiccup of a breath rolling right into a giggle.

“Oh no,” she manages around it, clutching her belly. “We’re doing it again.”

Mitsuhide stares. “Ah...we are?”

A small hand waves between them, utterly helpless. “We’re both asking around the same things again. Fumbling around in the dark from different directions!” She collects herself with a sniff, wiping tears from her eyes. “So I’m guessing you haven’t gotten much out of Zen? When I saw you out yesterday, I thought...”

“Ah...” He grimaces. “No, that’s as much headway as we’ve made all week. I thought since you were out with Obi, that maybe he had been...?”

Seeing you, he doesn’t say, which means there’s no need for him to rush to tack on, professionally. Not that personally seems to be off the table. Just a few weeks ago, Zen and the good doctor had seemed like a done deal save for some thorny professional ethics to work around on her part, but now--

“I’m sorry.” Her smile strains at the corners. “Even if had, I couldn’t tell you.”

Well, it looks like she might not be in a rush to be ethically complicated over this one.

“Welp.” He lets out a chuckle of his own, thumbs hooking hard into his belt loops. “Guess we’re both coming back empty handed after this fishing expedition, huh?”

There’s a rueful slant to her smile as she flicks her gaze away, not so much bashful but frustrated. “Seems like. I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”

“No, no!” He waves a hand between them. “Don’t worry about it. I’m the one sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Her eyebrows furrow, a reflection of her frown. “That’s not a very generous interpretation. Zen used to be your copilot, it’s only natural that you would have strong feelings about his happiness.”

He used to be Zen’s copilot, but there no way to explain that distinction to someone outside the drift, to try to explain what having a jaeger means to someone who hasn’t dreamed of being in one.

“Everything’s going to work out on it’s own, I’m sure,” he says instead. “We just have to let it.”

There’s a dubious rumple to her mouth, a question in her eyes that she knows better than to ask. “If that’s what you think...”

He doesn’t, not a bit, but Mitsuhide puts on his brights smile when he says, “Of course I do.”

In a dome full of rangers and ranger-hopefuls, there’s no magic hour when the gym clears, when crowded machines and rubberneckers are exchanged for freedom and silence. Or at least, no reasonable hour; Kiki keeps suggesting he join her at midnight, but for a man raise on the military’s clock, that’s...way past his bedtime.

So instead he settles for an audience, racking up his plates while a tidy little crowd idles just far enough away for plausible deniability. Or it least it would be, if there weren’t so many of them, whispers gaining an edge as he loads a ninth plate on either side. By the time he sets his soles against the footplate, it’s a quiet roar, and when he presses through his first rep, it cuts to a gasp.

It’s the machine that does most of the work on a press; he squats half this-- well, a little more; last thing he needs is some J-tech fainting because he went to ten plates. But there’s no need to share that, not when the room’s actually quiet while he does his reps, letting him think for once, his thoughts as disjointed as they are in the drift, dwelling on--

Well, not Kiki cornering him in the showers, that’s for sure. They spend a whole trimester on mental hardiness at the Academy, on keeping that iron grip whenever they take a dip in the drift, but all it took was one handshake with Kiki Seiran to turn all that training useless. He’d like to believe she’s just kind enough not to say anything, not to mention how unprofessional it is for him to blurt all his sexual fantasies out the moment their handshake’s complete, but sometimes she looks at him, mouth hooked slyly like it was in the head last night, and he wonders...

“Well, well.” A shadow falls over him, just as oily as the smirk that casts it. “Lowen. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you hard at work.”

Mitsuhide’s teeth grit down into a smile. “Hisame Lugis. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Oh, you know.” That floppy hair of his shifts-- not regulation-- baring the vicious glint in his eye. “If I’m going to be moving around ten tons of metal, I figure I can put in a few hours to prepare.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Good thing my right side has always been my best, I suppose.”

It’ll take more than a few bicep curls to replace me, Mitsuhide doesn’t say, struggling to keep that sunny disposition. “You don’t say. Hadn’t heard any news that we had a seat open in a pod.”

“Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time.” The smirk hooks to a deeper slant, and Lugis leans, fingers close enough to brush his kneecap. “Better keep that leg in good condition, Lowen. Since it’s the only half of you that’s any use.”

That scarecrow of a man stalks off, and oh, Mitsuhide likes to give everyone a fair shake, to let everyone have their chance to grow, but he even he has to admit: he does not like that man.

“Wow,” hums a voice right in his ear. “He seems fun.”

Mitsuhide knows better than to startle on the bench, but he does jump, footplate dropping hard into his soles. “Jesus.”

“Easy there, big guy.” He’s never seen Obi up close, but now he’s got a a hand on his shoulder, patting him the same way a man might soothe his dog. “Guy could lose a finger like that. Maybe a few toes? I don’t know, I try not to think about how that stuff works with these things.”

“Ah, I...” It’s stupid how his chest heaves, how this has pushed him more than thirty reps. “I wasn’t really expecting...?”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” The hand on his shoulder helps guide him up, making him level with that grin. Alright, maybe he does get why Kiki punched first, asked questions later. “Used to get told to wear a bell. Not that it would have helped here. Your eyes were for that snake and that snake only.”

“Hisame Lugis. He’s kind of a...” Bastard. “Prick.”

“Yeah, he seemed like a real barrel of monkeys.” Obi steps back once he’s upright, arms slung behind his head. “Have to admit, I’m a little jealous.”

Mitsuhide glances up at him, confused. “J-jealous?”

“Yeah, I came in here and saw you lifting, and I thought, he’s Master’s guy, he’ll be all on me like white on rice.” Those strange eyes of his narrow, only a flash of gold between the lids. “But snake boy got all the attention.”

He’s too busy trying to catch his breath to keep up with the conversation. “Zen wouldn’t like it if he knew you called him--”

“Listen, big guy, I know what you’re after.” Obi’s all grins when he bends down, but none of it reaches his eyes. “You’re thinking that if all your friends there took me to the mats, you want a spin.”

His first instinct is to deny it, to say prefers civil conversation to combat, but--

But his hands itch. He’s a ranger, after all.

“Yeah,” he pants out. “Why not.”

The gym isn’t as well equipped as the combat room, but there’s jo slung against a rack. None of them big enough for him, of course, but--

“I was thinking we might do something a little different.”

Mitsuhide squints over his shoulder. “Different?”

“Yeah.” There a sharp edge hidden in that smile, something that says it’s looking for a bloodier sport. “I was thinking...Big Guy like you must do well at hand-to-hand.”

His fingers curl, knuckles cracking as they settle into a fist. “I’m not half bad.”

#obiyukibingo23 #obiyuki #mitsukiki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #pacific rim au #my fic #ans #here i was worried that after writing the first draft that i wouldn't have enough to make a chapter!#thinking i might only make it to 4.5K and be okay with it!!#and i had to move at least three different scenes to later chapters #got this next little arc planned out and i'm excited to dig in

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