After The Storm

Rich takes his vodka jug and helps himself to a long drink to settle what's left of his nerves. It doesn't work great, but then again, he's got a lot of vodka left…

"So, that happened," he announces to the world at large, and gives a final, breathless shudder as the greater part of the aimless, pointless fear built up inside him breaks away and dissolves. It happened, and it was fine, and everything's going to be fine.

"Yeah," Basil says, "Uh, yeah, it—yeah..." He's still hanging back by the door, not looking at Rich, but Rich can tell he's blushing. Have sex, Mitch said, which isn't at all a bad suggestion, and which clearly the kid is contemplating.

"So," Rich starts.

"I'm sorry Mitch scared you like that," Basil blurts out. "Like, pushy, he gets pushy sometimes—"

"No, it's—I'm okay with it, it's fine," Rich says, feeling his face heat with embarrassment. "Not his fault I'm kind of pathetic about, uh, y'know."

"You're not pathetic!" Basil says, and actually looks at him, eyes wide, expression indignant. "You've been through a lot of shit that's made you understandably not cool with sticking your neck out, and then you did anyway because you couldn't ignore that the Mall was hurting—man, that was amazing."

Rich thinks he must have missed something. "It was…it was a straightforward fix, man, I'm not—I didn't really—I mean, what's actually cool is that Mitch is gonna get everyone arrested so they can't keep fucking things up, that's the real fix, and that's definitely not on me, so…"

"Are you kidding me?" says Basil. When he turns back around again he's flushed even darker, and he's looking somewhere over Rich's shoulder. "You just dug your way into the Mall's deep processes from a whole other boat, you exposed a whole crime ring just from noticing that Anton got misidentified by a boat everyone had already written off as screwy, you're like the Silver Scale or something." He must see the wary incomprehension in Rich's face, because his flush spreads further. "He's a vigilante," he mumbles. "From a—a show I like, this isn't the point, the point is you just caught a whole bunch of guys doing some crazy illegal stuff, from my bed, drunk as hell, and you're not even wearing a fucking shirt! That's stupid cool."

His eyes flick down to Rich's bare chest on the words wearing a shirt, and he turns abruptly back around when he's done talking, going and hastily shoving boxes of cards and dice haphazardly onto shelves.

"Oh," Rich says stupidly. "Well. Cool. If you…if you think that's cool, then…cool." He nibbles his lip, eyeing Basil's back speculatively, and starts to smile. Flipping the stopper back down on the vodka jug, he looks around the room.

"You know, this place doesn't look half bad now. You've done a pretty good job, man. I think you might deserve a reward. For your service to the Fleet, you know."

Basil goes absolutely still. "Uh!" he says, small and squeaky. "Y-yeah? You think so?"

"Yeah," Rich says. He tilts his head. "If you go get the hygiene wipes from my berth, we could get started on that right now."

Basil makes a squeaky little noise and whips around, eyes round, then seems to realize that Rich is sitting up now, looking him blatantly up and down. Basil seizes up, staring, holding the figurine he was putting away like he's trying to hide behind it.

"Uh," he says, "um. Ha. But, are you, do you actually want, uh—to—"

"I wouldn't offer if I didn't want to," Rich says, rolling his eyes. "And you can reward me right back, if you want, I'm sure not gonna complain! But only if you want," he adds firmly.

Basil relaxes a little at a time, eyes darting across Rich's chest, fixing on his face again.

"Oh," he says, nervous and wondering. "But I thought you said I didn't, uh...you wouldn't want…" he glances down at himself—he's wearing his plain black sarong and an oversized t-shirt with the Family Fleet logo across the chest, barefoot and blushing. He looks back up at Rich and gives a helpless little grimace.

"I said what?" Rich says, baffled. "When? Baby boy, I sure as fuck didn't ever say anything like 'I don't want to fool around with you again,' because I'm not insane. You're cute as hell, Basil, who wouldn't wanna have a turn with you when they could get it?"

He gets up off the bed, catches himself against the bulkhead until the ship stops tilting around him quite so much, then takes two steps over to Basil, careful of his balance even with how much clearer the deck is. It's rolling and heaving under his feet, he's maybe had more than enough vodka for the evening, but he can manage this. He's fine, everything's great, he's gonna get his hands all over Basil, this is gonna be awesome.

"Look at this pretty face," he says, lifting a hand to Basil's chin. "Check out those big brown eyes, fuck! The way you look at people—man, didn't I say before that I wouldn't have done it like that if I hadn't been enjoying myself?"

"But," Basil says, dazed and blinking, and licks his lips, takes an unsteady breath. "It's just, you're really drunk right now? And, uh, you were drunk the other time, too. So, so if sex with me is just some kind of mistake you keep making, when you're drunk…I don't want that."

Rich opens his mouth, caught completely off-guard. "Uh," he says, intelligently. Then, in an awkward stumbling rush: "No, Basil, never, I like you, I'd wanna do this sober, I'd wanna do this any time you'd let me."

"Oh," Basil says, softly. He looks up at Rich and his big dark eyes are wondering, like sex with Rich is some amazing privilege he's been awarded and he doesn't know how he could have managed it. Rich finds his heartbeat pounding painfully against the inside of his ribs. No one's ever looked at him like that before. He wants Basil to look at him like that forever.

He leans in for a kiss and for a moment Basil is still, his mouth soft and warm and sweet against Rich's. Rich can feel the way his breath catches, and it's thrilling.

Then he jerks back, and Rich worries he hurt or scared him, or that he really misinterpreted what Basil was down for and kissing isn't gonna be part of the deal, before Basil says, "Okay but we still, we can't! We shouldn't. I mean you're still pretty drunk right now, man! I'd be taking advantage of you!"

"Oh come on!" Rich says, exasperated. "Last time we were both drinking, so who was taking advantage of who then? I just said, I've been down for whatever you wanted to let me do with you, since the day I got back to the Reliant! You're hot and you're fun and if I have any regrets tomorrow, it's gonna be because you kicked me out of your bunk tonight, not because you gave me another shot at getting my mouth on you. C'mon!"

Basil opens his mouth like there's something he wants to say, makes a conflicted little groaning noise and then dives forward and kisses Rich hard, slinging one long, slim arm around his neck, gloved hand pushing stiff fingers into his hair. Rich kisses back, pleased to have so comprehensively won this round. His hands settle on the soft cotton wrap around Basil's hips, then paw clumsily at the hem of his shirt to slip underneath onto bare skin, one hand sliding up the narrow stretch of his back. God, he's so damn cute, Rich is so glad this is going to be the kind of sex where kissing happens. It's been a really good day, all things considered, and this looks like the perfect way to end it.

Basil breaks away again a few seconds later, and goes "Ugh," which isn't super encouraging. But then he grumbles, "You taste like vodka, agh," and goes straight back to kissing again, so Rich can't be too upset about it. Especially since Basil's bare hand has gone tentatively exploring now, light and soft, playing across his chest.

Rich has firm opinions about this, mostly that it should continue. He hums happily into the kiss, firms his grip on Basil's hips and picks him up, then manages to turn and step back to the bed without losing his balance and slamming anyone into anything, which is a definite victory with how loopy he's starting to feel. He sits Basil on the bed, drops down next to him and leans in to suck on his neck.

"I like your earrings," Basil says, all in a rush, high and hitching as Rich nibbles on him. "Fuck, nnh—you've got earrings, that's so cool, fuck, why are you so cool?" and kisses Rich before he can respond to that, hard and desperate, holding his face in both hands and really going for it.

"Hahh," Rich goes, more than a little dizzy when he finally lets up. "Holy shit, baby boy, earrings do it for you, huh? You must—fuck, you gotta really like Liam, he's got so many more piercings than that."

"He, he does?" says Basil, and then "No, that's not what—I mean yeah, they're hot, but that's not what—nnnnh, fuck, that wasn't the important part of what I said, you're so hot, it's dumb, I'm dumb." He kisses Rich again. Rich kisses him back, feeling clumsy and eager and so goddamn lucky that Basil's as into kissing as Rich is. He experimentally sucks on Basil's tongue, when Basil gets it past his lips, and they both end up moaning at the same time, which sets Basil off into a round of breathless giggling. God, that's cute. Rich kisses his jaw, his throat, his cheek, feeling hot and eager and adoring, and Basil just keeps giggling.

"Rich, ah, god, okay, okay, hold—hold on, Rich, ah," Basil finally gasps, and Rich pulls back, panting a little.

"Yeah, what?" he asks. "You okay, baby?"

"I, yeah, I just, I wanna suck your dick," Basil says, and one of his hands tugs at Rich's fly.

"Oh wow," Rich says, momentarily stunned with lust. "Fine by me! Although, like, if you haven't done that before my dick is not gonna be the easiest place to start, man." He tugs distractedly at Basil's shirt, trying to get it off. His fingers are too big for this delicate an operation, fumbling and clumsy, and it's frustrating.

"I'll figure it out!" Basil says, and goes with it as Rich starts to peel his shirt off. "Careful, okay, I—I like this shirt, it's old, please don't rip it nnh!" He jerks, startled, as Rich brushes a finger roughly past one nipple in passing. "I-I can do it, I'll figure it out, okay! I'm a, hah, a quick learner."

"You're a smart cookie, yeah," Rich agrees, carefully getting the shirt over and off Basil's head without pulling at the thin material. "So sure, go for it, I guess, just uh, be careful? Choking yourself isn't sexy." He folds the shirt and drops it on a relatively clean patch of floor, then sets his vodka jug next to it, well out of the way of flailing limbs.

Then he gives Basil's chest a thoughtful look, lifting a deliberate hand to thumb that nipple. "You didn't know about Liam's other piercings, huh?" he says, and Basil makes a squeaky little noise and squirms.

"No?" he says, "What? No, I, I, he said I was too young, last time I tried—" he lets out a giggling moan and swats weakly at Rich's shoulder, breathing in little, shuddery gulps. "C-come on, man, quit it, fuck. Mmh."

Startled, Rich lifts his hand off Basil's skin. "You don't like that?"

"Didn't say that," Basil mumbles, and catches his lip in his teeth, shivering. "It's dumb, to get going that fast, like I, I don't know what I'm doing? I do know what I'm doing, I'm all grown up and shit!" He stops, looking mortified by how that sentence turned out. "Fuck."

Rich couldn't stop himself from bursting out laughing if his life—or this sex—depended on it. He puts a hand on Basil's chest while he tries to get over it, hoping he won't get offended and flounce off the bed, and Basil grumbles and swats at him some more but doesn't try to go anywhere. It takes Rich a few stupid and giggly seconds to realize it's like a gentler version of how he play-fights with Mitch, and then he's stupid and giggly and feeling things, too.

"Never mind, you're not cool and I'm not gonna practice blowjobs on you," Basil says, and then completely undermines his own grumbly tone by leaning in and kissing shyly up the side of Rich's neck. Rich shivers, breath catching.

"Well damn, I was looking forward to that," he says, tilting his head to give Basil better access. His voice has gone low and growly. "Fuck, baby boy." He's enjoying the attention, and then something occurs to him.

"Y'know, considering I've been drinking, you should probably get a head start. S'gonna take forever to get me off, so like, if you wanna start working on that now, and I can join in on you later, that's probably fair. Since you apparently get revved up so fast anyway."

"No," says Basil, very firmly. "I can make it, okay, I told you I can—can last, as long as you can! I've…" he bites his lip, faltering, then admits, "...I've been, uh. Practicing."

Rich stares at him, stomach doing a weird, painful flip. "You—with who?" It's fine, obviously: Basil can do whatever he wants with whoever he wants, especially since that's what Rich has been doing. It's definitely not a problem, but also Basil's cute and inexperienced and hasn't had any practice weeding out creeps yet. Rich would kind of like to know who's been fooling around with him, is all.

"With nobody!" Basil says, squawking a little. "Just, by myself, when I…" he squirms in place, then rushes on, "I've just been practicing on my own, but look, I can go as long as I gotta, fucking watch me!"

"Oh," Rich says, heat going through him in a wave. "Holy shit that's hot." He can just imagine it: Basil laid out on his bed touching himself, all long freckled limbs, teasing himself to the edge and then stopping, flushed and panting and sweaty. Doing it again and again until he knows he's got the control he wants.

"Fuck," Rich groans, and kisses Basil hard, one hand on his back and the other on his chest, pinching and rubbing at his nipples in turn, back and forth. Basil makes a few more startled noises, and then melts into it, twitching and shivering as Rich plays with him, hips giving aborted little thrusts against nothing. By the time they break apart again, he's gasping.

"Okay," he says. "I'm gonna—here, sit back, I'll…" and he tugs at Rich's fly meaningfully, wrong-handed and at the wrong angle but determined and persistent.

Rich is about to help when he stops. "No," he says determinedly, "nope, I'm not making the same mistake again." He gives Basil a stern little push backwards. "You are going over to my berth and bringing the hygiene wipes back from my desk. If we don't need them, great, and if we do, no one has to misuse the laundry."

"What?" Basil says, dismayed. "No, come on, Rich…"

Rich folds his arms over his chest and gives Basil an unimpressed look. "If I'm halfway through blowing you and you suddenly decide I should, like, finger you or something, you're gonna be way more unhappy about stopping then."

Basil makes a startled little 'Hnk?!' noise at 'finger you or something', which is adorable but Rich isn't uncrossing his arms until Basil does as he's told.

"I, uh okay, then," Basil says, and stands up, a little wobbly and a whole lot hard, palming at the stiff line of his dick through the folds of his wrap. "Ahhh fine, okay, fuck! You and Mitch and Liam, why is everybody I know so pushy…" he trails off, shaking his head, and stumbles off toward Rich's berth. By the time he comes back he's a little less hard, but not any less hot and bothered. He throws the package of wipes in Rich's direction with bad grace and comes sulking back over to flop on the bed, probably unaware of how transparently he's pouting.

"Good!" Rich says, dropping the package on the floor within easy reach. "Thanks," and as a reward he leans forward and gets his mouth on Basil's chest.

Basil gives a hitching, giggling shriek and gets extremely wiggly for a minute, like he's having trouble figuring out what he's feeling and whether he should squirm away or press into it. Rich has to hold him still with a hand on each arm to prevent any unfortunate teeth incidents, which makes Basil moan again and rub his thighs restlessly against each other, rucking up the hem of his sarong enticingly. Whatever flagging happened with his boner while he was out running errands is quickly reversed.

Basil really obviously likes being held down, so it's probably cool for Rich to do that, but he still really doesn't want to screw up here. Basil doesn't deserve some sloppy, pushy, drunken jackass taking things too far on accident, hurting him, making him regret giving Rich another shot. Basil deserves something that's just fun and good all the way through.

"You can tell me to stop whatever, y'know," he says, lifting his head to catch Basil's gaze. "Like, if you don't like something, just say. I'll still get you off and everything, I won't be mad, so you don't have to, uh, do anything you don't want. 'Kay?"

Basil blinks at him once or twice, like it takes him a second to understand, like it never occurred to him it would be any other way. Then something goes soft and warm in his eyes and he nods, pressing forward until he can get close enough to nuzzle his face into Rich's hair.

"You too," he says, breathless and catching, and kisses Rich's temple. "I, yeah. You too, okay? It'll be great, it's already great, you're great."

"Okay," Rich says, relieved, "okay, cool." He gets his pants open, going up on his knees to shove them down his thighs and get his slowly hardening dick out. Then he pauses, blinking. "Huh. If we're gonna suck each other's dicks at the same time…How do we wanna do this?"

"We're—oh!" says Basil, startled. "Both—is that a thing? That's a thing. That's a thing, right? Uh, like…" he makes a weird, twisty hand gesture that's presumably meant to represent two guys 69ing, and then gives Rich a slightly wide-eyed look, uncertain. "Like, people don't just do that in porn, that's a real thing?"

"I mean, yeah," says Rich, who hasn't had any personal experience with the act, but has definitely seen the porn. "You wanna do something else? That's cool with me."

"I mean…" Basil fidgets self-consciously some more, not quite meeting Rich's eyes. "If—I mean, I'm not...I just dunno how good I'd be if I was...like, distracted. While I tried to, uh…"

"Oh," Rich says, frowning. "Well…so, what do you wanna do? Trade off?"

"I mean, I've got some, uh. Some…" Basil is blushing so hard now his cheeks are a dark rosy brown, drowning out his freckles. He ducks away, off the bed, and gets a box out of his locker, then brings it back to the bed. It's a simple little lock-box with a number code on the top—Basil curls around it, types the code quickly and then rummages around in it and pulls out a sleek, nice-looking black sex toy, a dildo. Rich feels his eyebrows rise and his face heat and his dick finally start to get with the goddamn program.

Basil waves the toy haplessly. "I could, uh, use this, and blow you at the same time?" he says, like he's not sure if he's even allowed to suggest this astonishingly sexy course of action. "It, uh." He presses the button at the base, and the thing gives a ferocious buzz and almost vibrates out of his grip before he scrambles to turn it off.

"Holy fuck, man," Rich says, wide-eyed, absently squeezing his dick as it slowly twitches upright. "And, uh, you think that's gonna be less distracting than having me suck you off?"

"I've—I mean, I messed around with—I've practiced with this too," Basil mumbles, and works the toy in his hands like he's fiddling with a pen or something. "Shut up."

"Holy shit," Rich breathes, wholly disinclined to shut up. "Fuck, that's so hot, baby boy. Okay, so, like." He licks his lips. "You're gonna have that in while you're blowing me. You, uh. You wanna go for it like now, or, or what? You wanna let me watch you while you put it in?"

"If that's not," Basil mumbles, and fidgets with the toy some more. "Unless that's—y'know, gross, if you'd think it was gross, or stupid—"

"Oh yeah," Rich snorts, "I got a cute guy in bed with me and I don't wanna see him play with himself, fuck himself with a cool toy or whatever, that's—that's—" he can't think of the word he's looking for. "—Stupid. That's what's stupid." He waves a hand impatiently at Basil. "C'mon, get naked already! Where's the lube?"

Basil opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again and digs back into the lock-box. Eventually he produces one fairly sad-looking pump-bottle of lube and plunks it on the mattress, then closes the box and bends halfway off the mattress, shoving it under the bed for the moment. He probably isn't intentionally waving his ass in Rich's face, but that's a nice view. Rich briefly resists temptation before getting his hands on that tight, narrow ass through the black fabric, careful not to let Basil fall off the bed, but groping with great enjoyment.

"You being this sexy on purpose or does it come natural?" he says, grinning.

"Fuck!" Basil yelps, then twists back and smacks out at him some more, shifting and never quite shaking Rich's hand off him. "You're so dumb, come on, fuck."

"Nope, I'm smart enough to identify a nice hot ass when I see one," Rich says, squeezing it, "so I can't be that dumb. Come on, get naked, I wanna touch you. I wanna see you take that toy already." He lets go of Basil and puts a hand back on his own dick, which isn't quite half-hard yet. Basil pulls a face at him, dubious and flustered and shy, then goes and leans back against the headboard and starts unwrapping his sarong, hesitating every couple of seconds like he's waiting for Rich to go 'actually never mind, I don't think you're completely fuckable'.

Rich continues to not say any such thing, watching him hungrily as he bares lean, freckled thighs from beneath the black fabric. Rich's hand is idly sliding up and down the length of his dick, which is still way too soft for how very into all this he is.

Basil's freckles are everywhere—thickest on his warm brown forearms and face, but scattered in sweet constellations across the lighter brown expanse of his chest and stomach too, all the way to the deep ruddy flush of his dick. Rich's mouth is watering to taste him again, get his mouth on the slick-shining crown of his dick already, play his hands all over every freckle of Basil's soft vulnerable thighs until he gets nice and loud. The one downside to being this drunk is how frustrating it is to have his own dick lagging behind when the rest of him is raring to go, god.

"Okay," Basil says nervously, and drops the fabric of his wrap over the side of the bed. Then he picks up the toy and the pump bottle, spreading his thighs wider, and gives Rich a final, wincing look, like he expects to be graded on this or something.

"You're not gonna stretch or anything?" Rich asks, startled. "I—uh, I thought—"

"No, it's not that thick, the toy, I mean, and I, I kinda like how it feels to just. Uh. Go for it," Basil mumbles, spreading lube up and down the length of the toy.

"Shit," Rich breathes. "That's crazy hot."

"I'm not doing it wrong?" Basil asks.

"If it feels good then no, baby boy, you're doing fine," Rich says. "Go for it, fuck."

Basil nods once, uncertainly, then again more firmly, and clicks the toy on, cycling through the settings until he gets to one that's a low, pulsing buzz. Then he takes it in his bare hand, sets the tip of the toy against his entrance and pushes it in, slow and careful but—practiced, he's practiced this, he's pushing in time with the way it pulses against him, he's used to this, and it's incredibly hot.

His face goes slack with concentration and he lets out a series of increasingly high, broken little gasps, hips rolling, and he keeps going, sinking the toy into himself further and further until it hits the flared base. Then he lets his head tip back against the bulkhead and just breathes, eyes closed and concentrating. His dick's started to well up with precome, twitching dark and untouched as he fists both hands in the bed sheets on either side of his restless hips.

"Basil," Rich breathes. "Holy shit."

Basil blinks his eyes open and smirks at Rich, triumphant. "Told you," he says breathlessly.

"Yeah, fuck, I'm goddamn told," Rich says. "Can I touch you? Please? I'm dying, man—"

Basil reaches out and grabs at Rich's shoulder, fumbling to pull him closer, and Rich goes willingly. He kisses Basil back as enthusiastically as he's getting kissed, and meanwhile runs his hands all over Basil's spread thighs, kneading and petting and pulling him closer bit by bit until Basil's got his legs around Rich's hips and Rich can grind his slowly-cooperating dick down against the sweet, eager length of Basil's.

Basil, for his part, makes an increasing amount of gorgeously overwhelmed noise, and scrabbles at Rich's shoulders to hang on. His prosthetic hand has hard, stiff fingers underneath the worn softness of the leather glove, and it feels weird but really cool when he grabs at Rich's bare skin. Rich puts a hand on Basil's back to support him, so he doesn't have to keep fumbling for a grip, and groans softly into the kiss, breaking off finally to stare hungrily at Basil some more.

"How the fuck are you this hot? God, okay, we were doing something." It takes him a second to remember past the stunning heat of Basil enjoying a whole entire vibrating dildo. "Right, uh, you still wanna—?" he waves a hand at his dick.

"Nnh, ffuck," Basil says, slurred and distant, and licks his lips. They already look flushed and slick from kissing. Even if he doesn't know what he's doing yet Rich is so ready for this. "Yeah, I can...yeah. Here."

He shifts away a bit to get room to move, breath catching as the toy shifts in him—braces himself over Rich's thighs and gives Rich's dick a look like it's a challenge he's determined to overcome.

"Okay, so," he says, and leans down to take a broad, slow lick all the way along it, then suck cautiously at the head. He pulls back, making a dubious little noise, but leans right back in and sucks harder. Rich breathes out, tries to stop his hips from rolling up.

"Yeah," he says hoarsely. "'S nice. Maybe, uh, wrap your hand around below your mouth? It's kind of a lot."

The look Basil gives him says clearly that 'a lot' is not enough to stop him—he does as he's told, though, using his bare hand to spread wetness from his mouth across Rich's skin and stroking slow and steady, brow furrowed with the effort of keeping his hand in a rhythm with his mouth. Rich tips his head back and moans, because Basil sure is a fast learner. He's clumsy at this, yeah, but it's still good, way better than Rich expected, and Basil seems to be determined to get more skilled by the second, practically.

Of course, given how Rich's dick is working right now, there are probably a lot of seconds until he gets off, enough that Basil might regret his determination. Rich hopes the guy's jaw doesn't start aching before he's done.

"Fuck, Basil," he sighs, and strokes the bowed head, the soft curls still partly pulled back. "So good, just keep, yeah, that, 's really good."

Basil makes a muffled, satisfied noise, wriggles up further on the bed and presses himself further onto Rich's dick, far enough it hits the back of his throat—he twitches, gags a little, backs off and then huffs and makes a frustrated little growling noise that's adorable and—god, feels really nice, too. Everything feels really nice, right now.

"Careful, baby boy," Rich says, "don't hit that gag reflex too hard or things will get real unsexy in here. Just take it easy, nnh, you don't have to fuckin—hah, fuckin prove anything, c'mon!" He keeps patting the soft cloud of Basil's hair, stroking his freckled shoulders and upper back, anything to be touching him.

"Nnf," Basil says, and pulls off, gasping. "I want to, though, I wanna suck you off." He gives Rich's dick that narrow-eyed, challenging look again, and scrubs his mouth with the back of his bare hand. "...Bet Liam can. Bet he did."

"Uh," Rich says, suddenly experiencing the sensation of having steered to dangerous waters. "He didn't, actually? He used his hands, and it was great. And anyway, like, you can do whatever you want, whatever feels good, don't like…worry about what Liam would or wouldn't do. Unless you're gonna go dye your hair and get a bunch of things pierced."

Instead of looking struck and thoughtful at this great point, Basil just huffs at him and goes right back to what he was doing. On the one hand, Rich can't complain, because most of it feels really good. On the other, the jolt of nerves every time Basil chokes himself is a steadily mounting concern, and it's starting to make him more anxious than horny, which isn't helping his dick situation at all.

"Okay, enough," Rich says, and gets Basil by the back of his neck. Basil gags again, deep and nasty-sounding, and Rich pulls him off and upright in one hasty jerk. "Man, come on!"

Basil coughs for a moment or two, darkly flushed and miserable looking, and squints up at Rich through teary eyes.

"I can do it," he insists. "Lemme go, I can do it!"

"Yeah, but you don't have to and also this isn't fun for either of us right now," Rich says. "Here. Sit—yeah, like this, gimme your legs." He sits Basil down between his thighs, and drapes Basil's legs around his hips. "Okay, gimme your hand." He grabs the lube and dispenses a pretty generous amount into Basil's sullenly-offered bare hand, then places that hand with an extremely silly 'splek!' noise onto the shaft of Rich's rapidly-deflating dick.

"Handjobs aren't a fucking staple of interpersonal communication because they're bad," he tells Basil. "No one's ever gotten a handjob and been like 'oh hey never mind, this sucks'." He thinks about that. "Okay, actually I did, once, and that was because it was Trimmer and he was being an asshole. Don't compare my dick to an accident at the dolphin-skinning factory and we'll be fine."

Basil gives a soft, tentative smile at that. "Okay," he says softly, and sniffs hard, knuckles at his eyes with his free hand, and firms his grip up on Rich's dick, which approves of this maneuver, twitching gradually back upright.

Rich leans back on his own hands, shifting his hips back and forth a little, encouragingly, and enjoys the way he can feel Basil's slim thighs pressing back against his. Then Basil starts to move his hand up and down with delicate concentration, and the way he's staring wide-eyed at the way his fingers barely meet around Rich's shaft is worth…a lot, a hell of a lot, everything. Worth all the miscommunication and readjustment and just, everything. Rich watches Basil watch his hand on Rich's dick and feels like he's getting away with something fantastically crazy and lucky and maybe illegal.

Basil obviously doesn't know how to jerk someone off from the other way around, but he's definitely put in enough time with his own business to have accomplished the basics of holding on and pumping at a steady rhythm, and his hand is warm and the lube is excellently slick, and every couple times Basil gets to the head of Rich's shaft he runs his thumb back and forth across Rich's slit, a teasing little jolt that makes Rich's hips shiver out of his control. Gradually Basil's look of wide-eyed, wondering concentration turns hotter and more confident. He starts pausing the up-and-down motion of his hand with teasing, exploratory strokes all around Rich's dick, squeezing his thighs, running his nails along the hair from Rich's navel downwards, then goes and—

"Okay no," Rich yelps, jerking his hips back. "No squeezing those, fuck!"

"Guys like it in porn!" Basil protests, pulling his hand back from Rich's balls.

"Yeah, and do you see any recording screens?!" Rich demands. He gets his own hand down between them and rubs protectively, feeling weirdly defensive. "Shit, man, I've had enough guys try to bust these off me, give 'em a break."

"Okay, okay, sorry," Basil says, flushing, and his touch goes faltering and uncertain and delicate—and restricted to the upper half of Rich's shaft.

Rich sighs, and leans forward, and grabs Basil's wrist, guiding him in long, full strokes up and down. "You're doing fine," he says. "I didn't, mmn—mean no touching, just, just—yeah. Fuck."

"No tearing them off and keeping them in a jar as a trophy, huh?" Basil murmurs.

"Prefer if you didn't," Rich says, and sighs again, this time happily. Basil learns so fast, god, it's unfair. He strokes Rich just like how he was shown, over and over, and it feels so good. Rich moans a low, heartfelt approval and shifts his hips up against that brilliant grip, enjoying himself too much to hold back.

"Oh," Basil says softly, and Rich finds himself being kissed again. He shivers, moaning against Basil's lips, and brushes clumsy fingers down Basil's cheek, cupping his jaw a moment.

"You're so fucking good," he gasps when Basil finally pulls away. "God, who said you were allowed to be this good, baby boy?"

Basil snorts at him, one corner of his mouth turning up. "I'm not that good," he says, "I couldn't even figure out—hahh! Rich!"

"Mm?" Rich says, spreading precome over the head of Basil's dick with his thumb, circling delicately.

"Wh—I'm, you said, I'm supposed to," Basil moans, hips jerking into Rich's hand.

"Supposed to try and last as long as me, yeah," Rich helpfully finishes for him. "Which means if I'm getting somewhere, you should be getting somewhere too, otherwise it's not fair, is it?"

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Basil is half frowning, like he's pretty sure there's a flaw in that argument but he can't find it when Rich is teasing his dick like this. Rich has no intention of making it easier for him. He ducks forward and gets his mouth on Basil's throat, sucking wet and filthy up and down the jumping pulse, enjoying the hell out of the way he can feel Basil moaning right against his lips. Basil's grip on Rich's dick goes tight and then uncertain and then tight again, his rhythm faltering, and Rich laughs and starts jacking him, hard and fast and unmerciful, teeth digging into one slim shoulder. Basil wails, startled and overwhelmed, and shudders against him, bucking and squirming.

Then, "No, stop, I can't!" Basil chokes out, and Rich lets go immediately.

"Sorry," he gasps. "Sorry, ff, shit, you okay?"

Basil is flushed all over and gulping for breath, eyes squeezed shut. "I'm gonna, nnh, I can't," he mumbles, and shakes his head vaguely. "Fuck. Gimme—give me a sec', okay?"

Rich relaxes, realization soothing the jagged edge of shock. "Okay," he says softly. "Okay, okay, it's cool." He runs one of his hands up Basil's side, then pulls him close and pets the long pretty stretch of his spine, listening to the faint, throbbing sound of the vibe and feeling the way Basil twitches against him sometimes when it spikes up. Basil presses his face into Rich's chest and just pants for a while, muscles jumping in his legs where they're pressed against Rich's.

"Okay," Basil finally says, sounding a little less shattered, and then goes after Rich's dick like he's getting paid for it.

It takes a minute to adjust to the new intensity enough to do more than moan and rock into Basil's grip, but then Rich gets himself together. He hesitates briefly, wondering if Basil doesn't want to get pushed that far again, but—he'd stop Rich if he didn't like it, he said so. He'd at least grumble and be annoyed at Rich, so it's safe to try it.

Rich gets some lube and grabs Basil's dick again, stroking steady and soft, aiming to tease. Basil gives no sign of being unhappy about this, just gasps and moans and tries to keep the rhythm of his own hand with limited success. When Rich uses his other hand to start playing with his nipples again, pinching one and then the other in turn, working them all flushed and tender in time with the soft strokes along his straining dick, he gets noisy. Rich laughs softly, triumphant, and keeps playing with him, slow and firm, enjoying himself.

"Please," Basil finally gasps, right when Rich feels like he's about to go over the edge. "Please, I—can't, nnh, hold up—" and Rich stops, dragging in a huge shaking breath and leaning back on his hands. God, his dick's starting to ache by now, he's gotten so worked up, he can't imagine calling a halt himself. Basil's hand is soft and perfect around him, even though it's not moving anymore, and his dick keeps twitching, his hips keep shivering, he doesn't think he's been this ready to get off in forever.

"You good, baby?" Rich asks, hoarsely, and Basil shakes his head once, looking dazed and desperate, confused. Hot as hell.

"I want you to come," Basil says. "I—c'mon, you gotta, I can—you gotta let me..."

Rich wants that too, but some wild impulse has him saying, "Bet you'll go first," and grabbing for Basil again. He pulls him close, chest to chest, arm wrapped around Basil's back, and shudders as Basil's legs wrap around his hips and his dick rubs up against Rich's, both of their shafts so slick with lube that it's a gorgeous, frictionless glide of pleasure across his tight skin. He gets his hand around the lower half of his shaft and just about all of Basil's, and squeezes.

"C'mon, baby, work with me," he says, getting his other hand buried in Basil's curls, pulling until Basil's throat is stretched back. He gets his mouth on that taut, pretty expanse of brown skin and freckles and works each developing hickey he's already left there darker and more vivid. Basil convulses against him, choking out one gorgeous, broken little cry after the next, both hands clenched tight on Rich's biceps, his prosthetic hand clamping down a lot tighter than his bare one, digging hard fingers into Rich's flesh—not enough to hurt, especially with the soft leather padding of the glove, but enough to be thrillingly intense. Basil's hips are rolling up against Rich's now, stuttering and hitching, and his dick's rubbing eagerly back and forth against Rich in Rich's grip, a sweet, tender slide that gets hotter and faster the more Rich jacks them both.

Basil doesn't come first, though, Rich does. He shoots off between them in heavy, shattering pulses, coming his brains out, unwinding in one long, hot, helpless wave after the next.

"Oh god," Basil moans. "Oh, god, oh fuck—god, Rich—" he fucks up into Rich's grip faster, frantic now, shuddering and desperate for a long few breaths, and screams when he comes. Rich bites one narrow, freckled shoulder hard and just hangs on, working the aftershocks out of both of them, wringing Basil dry of every last scream and whimper and beautiful little shiver.

Finally it's too much, he's too tender and shaky to keep it up, and he sighs and lets go of Basil, leaning woozily back on his hands. His arms shake, and he's distantly aware that everything's spinning a lot.

"Fuck," he sighs, and carefully lowers himself down to his elbows, then sprawls out entirely. As an afterthought, he starts licking his fingers clean. "Fuck, shit, okay. That was…that was awesome."

"You okay?" Basil says. He leans in, kisses Rich cautiously—Rich kisses back, then has to break the kiss to yawn.

"Fantastic," he says. "Perfect. Great. Thanks for…thanks."

"Yeah, you too," Basil says.

"You…you too," Rich repeats, and yawns again. "Hygiene wipes."

"Aw, but they're all the way over there..." Basil protests.

"And aren't you, mmm…glad, that. They're not…they're…not in my bunk..." Rich is gonna close his eyes for a second. Then clean up. Or not; Basil is cleaning up. That's great, he can be in charge of that now. Rich is going to keep his eyes closed for awhile. Maybe forever.

God, this was a good day, he thinks, as Basil finishes cleaning them up and then cautiously, shyly wedges himself down under Rich's arm, letting Rich stay in his bed, sleep over even. This was such a good day.

-

Rich twitches awake in the dark, stares around immediately for the noise that woke him, for the door, for anybody in his berth while he's sleeping. There's a long second of panicky incomprehension, and then the noise he's hearing resolves itself into the soft, persistent chime of an alarm screen, and a warm, lean body stirs next to Rich and yawns. Basil groans faintly, gropes out with one hand to shut off the alarm and then wiggles his way out from under Rich's arm, pulling the blankets up conscientiously to cover him again.

"Nuh," says Rich, and grabs after Basil's body-heat as he slides off the bed.

"Gotta get to work," Basil says, softly, and then ducks down and gives Rich a fast, light little kiss on one temple. "...Go back to sleep."

"Mnh," says Rich, and goes back to sleep.

-

The second time Rich wakes up, he's alone in bed. Weirdly, more alone than he usually is, when he was just sleeping alone. He also has an epic headache, because...wow, he was pretty catastrophically drunk yesterday. And it was so good.

He lies there feeling a weird combination of smug at the awesome sex he had and gross, because ugh, hangover. Eventually he has to move, and pushes himself carefully up on one elbow, groaning quietly. He feels all drained and weak and sort of grubby on the inside of his skull. Or maybe that's just the headache.

Basil left him a mug of tea, and even though it's long since cooled, it's sweet just like Rich likes it first thing in the morning. He swallows half of it at a go and props himself up against the bulkhead, silently pledging Basil his undying devotion and very best blowjobs for this. Then he sips the rest of the mug and goes through his messages.

There's nothing pressing, but he's weirdly uncomfortable. Being in a berth that's not his isn't helping, no matter how much he likes Basil. Rich sighs, flicks through his last few messages—a confirmation his food request went through, like he couldn't tell as soon as it did, a department-wide announcement from Ben about a refresher course on appropriate mechanical work-order filing, and an incoherent text from Anton complaining about how drunk he was.

Rich is about to close his message queue when a new message pops up at the top of it.

Basil Wright, IST: Last night was great.

Rich smiles helplessly at the screen, then pulls up his keyboard.

Richard Merrill, IST: hell yeah, it was! we'll have to do it again sometime

Richard Merrill, IST: baby boy

There's a long second, and then Basil sends him a blurry picture of himself flipping Rich off. It's adorable. Rich saves it to a special new folder just for cute pictures of Basil, then feels like an idiot about it, goes to delete it, can't quite make himself do that, then gives up entirely on not being an idiot because at this point in his life he might as well be honest with himself about what a complete idiot he is, and pushes himself up to head across the passage.

It's a relief to be back in his own berth, which is dumb considering it's the exact same setup of room and directly across the passage from where he was. Still, it makes some part of Rich's anxious, aching brain settle down, and he sighs with relief. He left his hygiene wipes on Basil's desk, because it's not like the guy is going to think to get his own, but he remembered to grab his bag of new Mall loot, and he'd sooner forget his own arms than the jug of vodka. It's uncomfortably light, in the light of Rich's new, sober reality—he was really hitting it hard, yesterday. Rich pours himself a morning shot anyway and then, on consideration, sneaks himself another one because he's only human. He can get more now, too, whenever he likes.

Extra shots don't help with a hangover itself, but it makes the rest of the world softer and less shitty to deal with, which is something. He muzzily puts all his new stuff away on shelves or tucked away in his dresser and spreads his new bedspread out on his neatly-made bed. The journals and art supplies get a shelf to themselves, set aside safe. Then he heads for the washroom, has a long drink of water right from the tap, and takes a shower while it's empty. He feels steadier and less gross afterwards—and remembers, on the way out, that the medical stations along the passages are all easy to access and fully stocked. He helps himself to a double-dose of painkiller, then goes to breakfast.

By the time he's done shoveling down all four blocks and a half-dozen hard boiled eggs and an apple and a big cup of sweet green tea, he feels great. Wide awake and boiling over with energy, ready to get to work…maybe he should have skipped caffeine this morning, come to think of it. He's still not used to how much more alive he feels lately.

He can't stand the thought of settling down anywhere for sit-down jobs, not even in the kitten room, so he takes the first job off the queue that promises some actual physical labor, and finds himself climbing onto a deck-hopper with Phil to head off to the Magnificence, a women's 50-boat that does textile manufacturing.

The working deck is a dense, overwhelming maze of machines all strung through with threads, as if a bunch of tanker-sized spiders wanted to make themselves a playground for their cargo-crate sized babies. Huge fluffy bales of cotton and hemp and bamboo fibers are turned into thread, which is turned into fabric, which is wound onto enormous spindles, which are bundled together on big pallets and hauled to another boat to get turned into t-shirts and jeans and wraps and whatever else the Fleet needs. Except, as the captain explains via text, today half of them have gotten jammed up somehow, all the millions of fine gears and beams tangling together and chewing themselves apart, and the rest of the machines have been powered down pending a thorough diagnostic.

The Magnificence's single resident intelligent systems technician is a pale, thin, stooped-over fourhands who's got to be even older than Phil, and who introduces herself as Hellbender. Rich is too intimidated to ask if that's a first name, last name, or title. Hellbender has extremely short white hair and extremely thick magnifying goggles, and sturdy leather work gloves on her prehensile feet, the wrist cuffs cleverly cut and stitched up around her ankles. She's also got a cane that comes to a wickedly sharp steel spike, which she uses to poke at things terrifyingly fast. She keeps tucking it under her arm as she goes swinging and climbing around the huge machines she tends like a monkey, then whipping it out to demonstrate which arcane piece of machinery is completely screwed.

Phil, who has apparently been here before and knows this lady already, nods a lot, smiles a lot, and takes incomprehensible notes. Rich jitters a lot, carries whatever he's told to, pushes things, pulls other things, gets to whack some stuff with a big rubber mallet—which is a real relief for his nerves—and gets pinched on the butt by a passing lady crewmember. Which is awful for his nerves, and he sticks close to Phil after that.

Finally, when Phil's combed out all the tangles in the machine's coding and Rich has finished up combing out physical tangles—with a hell of a lot more sweat and bruised knees and skinned knuckles involved—they're closing up the last couple issues. Then Hellbender pauses and looks Rich up and down. Rich freezes, suddenly awash with dread, because if he gets propositioned by someone older than Phil he's going to catch on fire and die.

"Say, you're Joey's boy, ain't you?" she asks. "That big Hastings fella." Rich's heart does an immediate, dizzying reversal from dread to wild hope.

"You know Trimmer?" he demands. "How is he, is he okay? Has he been okay? Can you tell me anything?"

Hellbender laughs: a shockingly loud, hearty noise for an old lady roughly the size of Rich's forearm. "Yeah, he's one of my crop of good-for-nothing grandkids, and gives me more ulcers than the rest of 'em combined. But I heard from my Alice—that's his aunt, you know, his momma passed maybe a decade back but Alice is a good girl and she keeps up with him as much as he'll let any of us—that he's bouncing back from whatever it was. What did happen, anyway? He got cut up and glued back together like the fuckin' medics were trying to taxidermy the sprat and missed a couple times."

"There was a bad fight," Rich says unsteadily, "a really bad fight." He's aware of Phil's mild, curious gaze, but all his attention is focused on this lady in front of him, hoping that if he gives her whatever she wants she'll tell him more. "We got separated—I was trying to get to him, I swear, we looked after each other on that boat, we'd fight together usually, but the fight started before I even got there and then he was in the middle of things and, and I got taken down pretty hard. By the time I woke up it was all over and they were splitting the boat up because too many people had died, and no one would let me see him. We all got isolated from each other, I guess cuz some assholes kept trying to keep the fight going even during the assessments, and stuff. He's really okay?"

"Healthy as anything, lately," Hellbender says, and pats Rich's hand with a startlingly warm, maternal air. "It was touch and go for awhile, I heard, but by the time I came by to visit all the stitching and gluing and whatnot had been finished up and all that was left was to fetch him ice cream and listen to him bitch. That boy could eat twice his weight in ice cream, I swear, none of his cousins have such a sweet tooth."

Rich blinks at this. "That was probably the first ice cream he'd gotten in two years, ma'am," he points out. "You couldn't get treats like that on the Sympatico unless you blew someone who really liked you, and—" he abruptly remembers that this is Trimmer's grandma, "—he was a good boy who didn't do things like that?" he finishes, feeling his face heat to a mortified boil.

Trimmer's grandma just laughs again, apparently delighted by Rich's lack of functioning brain-to-mouth filter. "Ha! If Joey didn't it's cuz that particular skill set skipped a generation!" she says. "His momma, may she rest easy, coulda sucked the rivets right out of a bulkhead. Gave me conniptions sometimes the way she went out fishing every goddamn hour of the day she could fit it in. No idea how she only wound up with just the one kid, I had to assume that she got turned around one night—"

"Ma'am," Rich manages to squeak out, because this is Trimmer's grandma. "Ma'am, I'm not sure this is appropriate conversation for a work environment?"

Hellbender laughs some more. "Aw, you shy? I forget how squeamish boys are about this kinda thing."

That makes Rich's face burn hotter. Squeamish, like he's still twelve and giggling in horror over the graphics of a reproductive education course, and not a grown man who doesn't want to know anything at all about this particular facet of Trimmer's recent ancestry.

"Well, anyway," the old lady pushes on, "he knitted up back at his auntie's for a week or so and then nailed the qualifications for a single-residency in a weekend, bright little fry that he is, so he's got a penny-boat plastics trawler to run now. Proud as anything about it. Took about a million pictures of the damn thing, you'd think he'd fucking built it himself, he's so proud—you wanna see?"

Rich very much does want to see. He shuffles around and bends almost double to peer at Hellbender's album screen when she holds it up for him to see. The aching-sharp knot of stress and loss in his chest that he's been carrying around for weeks now comes loose when he finally sees Trimmer, sees some proof that the bastard survived and is still surviving, even if he's somewhere Rich can't reach him. There's photos of him sitting on the deck of a clean, tidy little plastics trawler, barefoot and sunlit and relaxed, photos of him standing with a shorter, older woman with similar features who's gotta be his aunt. Photos of him smiling an awkward, shy, embarrassed smile that Rich has never before seen on his face and is sure Trimmer would gut him for witnessing.

"Can I have a copy of this one?" he asks, feeling his face heat all over again. "I—we're not allowed—not until our parole's over, we can't see each other, we can't even talk to each other—"

"Lord, I know, Joey complained about that like you were a fuckin' kidney someone'd made off with in the night," Hellbender says. "That awful boat's done nothing for the boy's attitude but at least he finally fucking made a friend. Here you go, honey."

She transfers him the photo.

"Lemme get a picture of you, now, I'll pass it along to him."

"Oh! I—yeah, okay, if you think—if you think he'd care."

"You kidding? I asked him if I missed the fucking wedding or what, way he was missing you. You should have heard him carry on about it. He'll want a picture of you."

Rich holds still for a picture, then holds extra still when the old lady grabs a casual handful of his shirtfront and climbs straight up him to perch on his shoulder and take the picture from there, that terrifying spiked cane of hers tucked under her arm like she might incidentally need to impale him if he protests. Fourhands are menaces.

In the two years they'd been watching each other's backs, Trimmer had never so much as suggested he wanted to spend a single extra second of his life looking at Rich's face. But he'd also slept over in Rich's berth a lot more nights than he didn't, curled tightly against Rich's chest, all four fists clutched around Rich's shirt or wrists or even fingers like he thought he might get torn away and wasn't prepared to go without a fight. It had used to make Rich feel so…something, so protective, so secure, to wake up with small rough hands wrapped tight around his own.

"You wanna leave a message or anything?" Trimmer's grandma asks him, climbing down. "He'll fuss if you don't, I'm sure."

"Tell him he better pass his parole," Rich says, after a moment of thought. "I'm not hauling ass to clear my coursework just to find out he's the same bitter grouch I knew last month, okay?"

Hellbender nods with satisfaction and types that down verbatim, before filing it away along with the picture. "Good!" she says. "Maybe now he'll stop bitching."

Rich is trying to figure out how to politely extract himself without really wanting to yet, because she's the closest he's getting to Trimmer for now. As dumb as it is, he just wants to follow her around soaking up whatever tidbits of information she'll drop. She's giving him a thoughtful look, though, leaning on her cane.

"You boys did good work today," she says, sparing a nod for Phil, and goes on to Rich, "and I bet a big fucking steelhead like yourself doesn't get clothes that fit much, huh? You want a properly sized wrap while you're here? Little token of gratitude."

"Oh, uh," says Rich, glancing uncertainly at Phil. "That's very nice of you, but we've gotta get back to—"

"I think we can spare another twenty minutes," Phil says, giving him an amused look.

"Oh," Rich says again. "Uh, then, I'm, thank you? Thanks, that's, that'd be great."

"Won't take twenty minutes, either," Hellbender says dismissively, and heads off with a jerk of her head to summon him after.

The Magnificence isn't a big boat, and most of it is taken up by the multi-deck garage-style workspace necessary to hold the mechanical looms. But there's a series of smaller work areas with different kinds of fabric and thread and whatever, and Hellbender leads him to one with human-sized sewing machines and bolts of fabric. She grabs a spindle of soft-looking black cloth that's about as long as she is tall, and holds it up to Rich like a really thick wizard's staff.

"Yeah, that'll do, hold it right here," she says. "Unless you want grey? If you want plaid or pink sparkles or whatever it is kids are going crazy with these days you'd better haul your butt off to the Peacock, we don't do prints here."

"Black's fine," Rich says hastily.

"Good boy," Hellbender says. She gets a pair of scissors and unspools the fabric halfway across the room. "God, you're a catch and a half, aren't you. This should do it." While Rich is still fighting down a blush, she snips the fabric neatly off the spool, then bundles it all up in her arms, plops herself down at one of the sewing machines, pushes her goggles up her forehead just like her grandson does with his electrician's radiography lenses, and starts hemming. In only a minute she's come back to him with what looks exactly like every other plain, black, standard cotton wrap Rich has ever seen, except this one's big enough to reach past his knees.

"Pants off," she says, snapping her fingers at him briskly. "Let's see it."

"Um," Rich says, reflexively clutching at himself. Because: this is Trimmer's grandma.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, kid, like I'm angling for a dish your size at my age," Hellbender snorts. "I'd break a fucking hip. Relax already and lemme see if this all fits before I send you on your way, alright?"

Rich dithers for a long, agonizing moment of pure mortification. But it's Trimmer's grandma, and she made him a wrap, and she's got the same expectant 'Well, come on already, you big dumbass,' look that Trimmer always used to give him, right down to the heterochromatic blue and green eyes. There's not going to be any getting out of this, even if Rich didn't want to have a wrap that actually fits him, which he really does. Rich steels himself, takes a deep breath, and shoves his pants down, feeling the mortifying blush start its inevitable march down his neck and across his chest. By the time he gets his boots off and his jeans folded up and set on top of them he's sure Hellbender's looked at his butt anyway and his face is bright, burning red.

His plan when he straightens back up, such as it is, is to reach over and snatch the wrap, get himself covered up and spend the absolute minimum amount of time being in his faded old underwear around Trimmer's grandma, except when he reaches out for the sheet of black fabric he gets a handful of air and his knuckles smacked with a walking stick. It's possible that the noise he makes is something like a yip. He clutches at his stinging hand and gives Hellbender a betrayed look.

"Let me," she commands, so he holds very still, elbows bent up awkwardly, and lets her arrange things to her satisfaction. She's quick and efficient, though, and doesn't even touch his butt, just gets the sheet wrapped once around his waist, then draped in a nicely mature fold across his thighs and tucked in securely at one hip.

"There, aren't you handsome now," she says, and pats his side.

"Now?" he repeats, aiming for 'sardonic' and barely managing 'not in total agony', and she gives him a wicked smirk he's definitely seen, if in somewhat less terrifying and wrinkly a form, on her grandson.

"Well, yeah, now," she says. "You're a bit of a fixer-upper, kid. But I gotcha. Here, I'm gonna set you up in proper technician's grey, while we're at it, you're a smart young man and you oughta show it off. The world's never rewarded underachievers. Y'know, I asked Joey why he never finished that engineering certification he was trying for way back when and he didn't have a good answer. He's so smart, he shoulda gotten it easy."

"He stabbed his certification advisor," Rich says, helping Hellbender unspool grey fabric. "You don't really get promotions after you do that kind of thing."

"What the fuck," says Hellbender, and snips her scissors in the air like punctuation.

"The guy deserved it," Rich says. "Trimmer only ever stabbed guys who deserved it. He's a softie like that."

"Huh. Well, damn." She snips off the grey fabric and carries it over to the sewing machine. "I've stabbed guys for no good reason at all, I guess I can't judge."

"Uh," Rich says, and takes a couple surreptitious steps back. He knew that cane was bad news.

Hellbender just laughs at him, sitting down to start hemming. "Relax, kid, I grew out of it. Mostly." She snickers to herself, and Rich resolves to just…keep being very polite.

A minute later she's done and folding the grey wrap up into a thick square of fabric, which she hands to him with his jeans. "There you go, kid."

"Thank you, ma'am," Rich says, hesitating before shoving his feet back into his boots. Even if he was inclined to get half-naked again right now, it seems rude to change out of her gift in front of her, so he stuffs the clothes under his arm and follows her back out to where Phil is waiting.

Phil's waiting with a whole crowd of women: operators and mechanics, it seems like, in sober blacks and browns with their hair cropped short or bound into tight buns, their arms heavily muscled and scarred from industrial work. All of them are busily trading infoscreens of complicated-looking cooked dishes back and forth. The women look up when Rich approaches, and Phil doesn't, and Rich has to resist the immediate and overwhelming urge to hide behind a lady three times his age and a third his size.

"Well hey there, big guy," one of the ladies says, smirking, and Rich can feel his face heating and his heart sinking as all the rest start grinning too. Phil's still preoccupied with paging through an album screen of recipes when the women come over all in a bright-eyed, menacing flock, surrounding him. All he can think of is gulls around a fish carcass as they laugh and chatter at him, invitations and suggestions and promises that feel like threats. Rich tries to back up, hits a bulkhead, holds the extra wrap tight and fights the urge to lash out and push past them and run until nobody is touching him anymore.

One particularly tall woman in black, her hair cropped mechanic-short, her arms thick and powerful and her hands hard and rough, takes firm hold of his wrist, leans up, and murmurs right into his ear: "I could wring you dry, soldier boy, how about you come over to my place and get to it—" and he starts shaking. He's surrounded and trapped and he doesn't want this, not again, strong hands that hurt him, pull his hair, push him down in the dark on his knees with the awful, familiar smells of sweat and dust and engine grease and he can't do this again.

"Alright, alright, beaks to yourselves, ladies, shoo, let the boy alone now, go on," Hellbender cuts in, and starts shoving a path for him out of the flock of mechanics who won't stop touching him. Rich is already moving as soon as a space opens; he scoops the fourhands up onto his shoulder from pure reflex and sets off blindly, striding fast and desperate out of there, leaving Phil behind. It isn't until he's getting ready to start the hopper that someone clears their throat in his ear and he jumps about a mile.

"I assume you don't actually aim to abduct me," Hellbender says dryly, patting the back of his neck. "Not that I'm not flattered, of course. Been a good long while since anyone came over that romantic."

"No, I, sorry, I just, sorry," Rich stammers, and sniffs hard. He rubs his face, tries to collect himself. "Sorry. I don't, I don't do well with. Uh. Sorry."

"The girls can be a lot for anyone to handle," Hellbender says. "And some of 'em don't have the sense the good Lord gave a sparrow when it comes to sweet talkin' a nice boy back to their berth, they think you can just fire one up like a deck-hopper and throw a leg over. It's a wonder the Fleet can keep itself in babies, sometimes."

Rich gives a game and watery little laugh, and that seems to reassure her. She pats his neck another few times and then climbs carefully down his back, so gently she barely even tugs at his shirt.

"Oh, there you are," says Phil, approaching. "Someone said you were ready to go, I thought I'd have longer to trade recipes. I didn't know there was a rush…everything okay?"

Rich swallows and nods. "Yeah, fine," he says, fairly steadily, not turning enough for Phil to see his face clearly.

He tells Hellbender, "Thank you, ma'am, thanks for everything," and she nods firmly at him.

"No trouble at all, kid. I'll see you around. Phil, don't be a stranger." She gives Rich a final pat on the knee and strolls off, and Rich moves over to the passenger seat.

"There was a nice-looking chowder recipe I got," Phil says absently, climbing into the driver's seat. "I have to see if I can get hold of some cream at the Mall..."

The man's perfectly happy to think out loud about the chowder and several other new recipes all the way back to the Reliant, which gives Rich time to breathe and calm down some. When they land, he hurries to his berth, changes into pants and pulls an overshirt on over his t-shirt. He shoves his two new wraps in the back of one of his drawers: he'll wear them for real sometime, but not now. Not for awhile, not until he stops feeling so damn jittery and stupid about it. Then he gets himself a shot of vodka and a package of candied fruit, settles down at his desk and dives back into work, nibbling the fruit and trying to distract himself enough to finally calm down.

It doesn't work very well. By lunchtime, he's still jittery, wired with energy he doesn't know what to do with but still freaked out about stupid stuff that doesn't even matter anymore. He's deeply unenthusiastic about going to the mess and being in a crowd of people when he's this likely to make an idiot of himself if anyone so much as looks at him wrong...but he's also hungry, and pissed at himself for being like this, and reluctant to ask anyone for favors when he's just being stupid. So he heads off to lunch, shoulders hunched and head low. He keeps the overshirt on.

"Hey, buddy!" someone calls, and Rich barely manages not to jump out of his skin when Mitch slaps him cheerfully on the arm.

"Hey!" he says, "Mitch! Hi!" and tries not to look obviously spooked about suddenly having to socialize like a normal human person. It's not like Mitch is even in a Security uniform at the moment, he's just normal, silly, friendly Mitch, Rich can cope. But not very well, apparently, because Mitch gives him a concerned look.

"You doing alright, man?" he asks.

"Yeah, fine," Rich says automatically. At Mitch's skeptical look, he amends it with, "Just kind of a long shift."

"Where, in Chicago?" Mitch snorts. "You look pretty shook up, pal."

"Hah. No, just, me'n Phil went to a women's boat, so. Uh, y'know. Sometimes women can get kinda, uh. Y'know."

"No," Mitch says, his face a picture of wide-eyed innocence. "Gosh, Rich, I do not know."

Rich snorts and shoves him just hard enough that he bounces off the nearest bulkhead, laughing brightly.

"Okay, yeah, I get you," Mitch says, coming back to walk beside him. "There's a reason they don't send male security officers to women's boats, you don't get the guys back in one piece! The ladies cut bits off and keep 'em, I've heard. "

Rich gives an elaborate shudder, but he's still laughing. Mitch makes a show of peering worriedly below Rich's beltline, then raising his eyebrows in concern, and Rich shoves him again. Then they're at the mess and Mitch sticks with him, getting himself a single block and then probably twice that calorie load in potato chips and juice boxes.

"Is that healthy?" Rich asks, gesturing with his own armload of blocks.

"Oh, good point," Mitch says, and orders himself an apple. Then, straight-faced, he rubs the apple once on the wax paper of his block, and hands it to Rich. "Okay, I'm set now."

"Ha!" Rich goes, and obligingly eats the free apple. He's never going to turn down fruit, even if someone's just joking around about it. They go get a table to themselves, and it's nice, it's comfortable, to eat with someone else, especially someone as relentlessly friendly and reassuring as Mitch. The kid has this attitude about him like he's living in a different kind of show than most of the rest of reality, somewhere bright and forgiving where no one could get hurt. It's oddly comforting, and Rich finds his stupid, jittery mood finally easing off as they talk about nothing much. Idle gossip, the weather, cartoons Mitch thinks he should try out, food boats he might visit when he's got some free time. Nothing important. It's nice.

"So hey," Mitch says, when they've finished up a carton of strawberries mixed with probably a lot more sugar packets than is legal to put on fruit, "it sounds like maybe you've got some extra energy to work off after your daring escape from, y'know, girls, right?" Getting to his feet, he grins and bounces lightly on his toes, impervious to Rich's suspicious look.

"Maybe," Rich says warily, clearing up his side of the table, and Mitch quickly grabs his own wrappers.

"Come work out with me!" Mitch says. "It'll be fun!"

"Uh," Rich says as they head over to the recycling bins, Mitch taking long strides to keep in step with him. "I don't know, man, I mean—there'll be other people there, and folks don't generally, um. Look, me in a weight room around other people is just awkward, okay?"

Mitch dumps his wrappers in the right bin and studies Rich shrewdly a minute while he's sorting out his own recycling, then nods, patting Rich's shoulder. "I'm pretty sure the gym's free right now, but even if there's someone in there, it'll be fine, okay? Look, no one's gonna laugh if you can only lift the one-pound weights, I promise—"

Taken completely by surprise, Rich bursts out laughing.

Mitch goes on, undaunted, "Everyone starts where they are, buddy, and if you have to start out with the one-pounders, that's totally okay! You don't have to be embarrassed." He grabs Rich solemnly by the biceps. "Hey, if it makes you feel better: I promise, no matter what you're lifting, I won't out lift you, okay? I want you to feel comfortable and in control of your experience."

That does Rich in again. By the time the last helpless giggle makes its way out, he can't manage to argue anymore, and shrugs his surrender more or less gracefully.

He follows Mitch to the gym room, which is as empty of people as advertised. Every time Rich has walked by this place the last couple weeks, it's had at least a couple guys in, lifting weights or doing stuff with the pressure bars or using one of the two sturdy, oversized treadmills, and no matter how wound-up and desperate to exercise Rich has felt he just—can't. He just can't. Not with other guys there. He doesn't do that much better around the mechanics from this boat than he did with the women on the Magnificence—it's the attitude, their big rough hands, the smell of sweat and engine grease—it's stupid, but that hasn't stopped Rich from slinking away from the gym more times than he'd like to think about.

But now there's just Mitch, bouncing fearlessly into the space that smells like nothing worse than bleach and sunlight and grabbing up a five-pound hand weight.

"Here," he says, dropping it into Rich's hand with a grin. "Warm up with that, skinny. Wouldn't want you to—"

Rich drops to his knees, groaning as dramatically as he can, and lets the hand weight smack to the floor. Mitch jumps back, startled, then starts laughing as Rich looks up at him with wide, betrayed eyes, and tugs haplessly at the weight, heaving and straining and grunting as he pretends to try and lift it from the deck.

"Why did you start me off with something so heavy, Mitch?" he groans. "You said you'd get me a one-pound weight!"

"I'm sorry!" Mitch laughs, bringing up a recording screen. "I thought you looked ready for the big iron! Maybe if you really try—"

Rich throws himself into moaning and hauling at the weight, savoring the way all the theatrical goofing around makes the kid giggle. He should go into community theater after this, probably, obviously his talents are wasted as a technician—he lets out a final, mournful sigh and lies down on the floor, the picture of defeat. Oh, gross, the floor is damp, he messed up. He pillows his cheek on his arm.

"Your technique is terrible, buddy," Mitch says, and scoops the hand weight up. "C'mon, get your shirts off and lemme spot you on the bench press or something. I wanna see how much you can lift for real."

They don't find that out, because they run out of weights to add to the bar around four hundred pounds, and Rich vetoes letting Mitch sit on the bar. Mitch takes a recording of that too, but Rich makes him transfer the clip over to his own system and then delete it off his, because—just because. He doesn't need Mitch innocently sharing it around and maybe getting people jealous of him or anything, even if Mitch wouldn't mean to. The kid's too sweet, it seems like, too willing to believe the best of people, it's gonna get him in trouble someday. Not soon, though, Rich hopes.

"Hey," Mitch says, when they're on the treadmills, and Rich is enjoying the novelty of being able to walk as fast as he likes, for as long as he wants.

"Hey," Rich says, cautiously.

"So, we're friends now, right?" Mitch says.

Rich blinks at him, stunned, and Mitch looks over and up at him with an uncharacteristic amount of concern.

"I, yeah, I mean I—I guess, if you want," Rich finally offers. "I didn't think, uh. You've already got friends, but I mean, like if you wanna be friends with me, then, yes. Friends. Sure." He can feel his ears heating, and he looks straight ahead, feigning intense interest in the front bar of his treadmill.

"Okay, cool," Mitch says, sounding relieved.

"Uh. Why, though," Rich finally asks.

"Uh," Mitch says, and then is quiet enough for long enough that Rich looks back over, worried now.

"Mitch?" he presses, even though he's increasingly sure the answer's gonna be awful. He thinks Mitch's face is a ruddier brown than usual, but maybe it's just exertion.

"Basil really likes you," the kid bursts out, "and so, uh, I mean if you and Basil are, uh. I mean in shows if there's three guys and two of them are friends and the other guy isn't cool about it then—like, there's fighting, right? And that's lame. I don't want that. We should all be friends. That's cool, right?"

Rich is aware he's blushing too, now. This has been a bad day for blushing. "That's cool, yeah," he manages.

"Cool," Mitch says, and stares straight ahead again. Rich does too, and the two of them walk in mutually embarrassed silence for awhile.

"Basil likes you more, though," Rich says. "You don't have to worry about me like, stealing him. That's crazy."

"Basil has been trying to be a grown-up since he was six," Mitch says, soft and almost sad. "And you're like..." he gestures obscurely. "I mean I'm his childhood friend who keeps trying to get him to loosen up and have some fun and you're like literally a superhero, man."

"Um," Rich says. This is probably the most embarrassing thing anyone has ever said to him in his entire life, and he doesn't know what to do about it. "No?" he hazards.

It does not seem to be a convincing counterargument, because Mitch just snorts at him and shakes his head.

"And so modest," he says teasingly. Then it's Rich's turn to snort at him.

"I like that Basil's still kind of a kid," Rich says, after a bit more thought. "I mean, shit, I don't like—I mean not children, kids, I'm not into that!" Mitch laughs at him, and Rich flips him off before going on, "But I had to do a whole lot of growing up really fast when I was seventeen, the Sympatico wasn't the kind of place you could stay a kid. You'd die. So…I got fucked up there. I don't think I got to grow up like a kid should. So now I'm not a grown-up right, not like a grown-up should be. It doesn't feel like it, anyway, it just feels…frustrating? And shitty. I…I don't want to be like this."

There's something awful and freeing about admitting that out loud. He doesn't want to be like this. He doesn't want to be scared all the time and not know when to relax. He doesn't want to seem like a cool heroic adult just because he's so joyless and scared inside, and to know how to fix things like the Mall because he was forced to do the work of three people for four years and got punished for it anyway, got screwed up and messed with and hurt and left to figure out how to recover from it with nothing but Family Fleet as his instruction manual. It sucks, it's not fair. He was an asshole kid at seventeen, sure, but he should have gotten the chance to be a different, better adult than the one the Sympatico made of him.

He says, thinking out loud, "I'm kind of jealous of Basil, because he's never had to deal with the kind of shit that makes you grow up faster than is…I dunno, right. Healthy? And I mean, I'm happy about that, too. He's going to be amazing when he grows up, like, without rushing it, whenever he gets there. He's already amazing. You are too, you know."

Mitch makes a small, surprised noise, and glances uncertainly up at Rich. "Huh," he says. "Yeah?"

"Pff, yeah, man. You're a good kid. You'll be a good man, whenever it is you feel like leveling up. Maybe still kind of obnoxious, but, yeah."

Mitch grins at him, bright and intensely relieved, almost grateful. "I'll never stop being obnoxious," he says, and puts a fist over his heart. "It's my sworn duty."

"And you're fulfilling it admirably," Rich says dryly, and Mitch beams at him. "Look, it's hard and complicated, this stuff is weird, I get it. It's...pretty cool that you figured there was a problem, so you went and asked me about it. I don't want us to have problems with each other, either."

"Well, cool," says Mitch, satisfied. "And when you guys are boyfriends—"

"We're not boyfriends—" Rich protests, startled and uncomfortable.

"When you're boyfriends," Mitch plows ahead, "keep an eye on him, okay? Take good care of him."

Rich glances over at him, disquieted by the sudden intensity. Mitch is walking fast, looking straight ahead, face gone quiet and calm again.

And then he glances over at Rich and grins again. "...Because I will assassinate him on one of your dates," he says. "Bonus points!"

Rich snorts at him, relaxing a little. "I don't know if we're gonna be boyfriends, man. I mean, I like him—a lot, he's great—" he can't keep saying stuff like that, he can feel his face going red, "—but I'm just, I just told you, I'm kind of a mess, okay? I'm still working out how to be friends with people, and where having sex with them fits, and everything. What you and Basil have, that's important, that's not something that should just get tossed overboard the minute Basil finds someone to hook up with—so like, I dunno, man, cut your engines. We don't have to sort ourselves into 'boyfriend' and 'not boyfriend so to hell with this guy' just yet."

Mitch doesn't answer that one, just gives Rich a long, intense look with his head tilted to one side. Then he shrugs, laughs, and turns back to the treadmill.

Mitch is back to his normal bouncy self by the time they head back out. Rich is feeling sweaty and pleasantly worked-out, his shirts sticking horribly to his skin when he forces his way back into them, but one of the other Security officers and two big guys in mechanic's black were headed into the shower room outside the gym, and when Mitch sees whatever Rich's face does, watching those guys, he casually leads the way right past the showers and back toward the upper decks, chattering the entire time.

He slaps Rich damply on the back and gives him a brief, one-armed hug when it's time for them to go their separate ways, and it's gross and sweaty but it's dumb how good it still feels.

"We should do that again some time," Mitch says. "Get you some bigger weights!"

Rich makes a face at him, but Mitch is already jogging off, leaving Rich standing in the passageway sweaty and tired and feeling...good. He feels good now, warm and accomplished and comfortable and just, good. He finds himself smiling as he wanders back towards his berth. Maybe someday he'll take all this for granted, the friendly crewmates and room to breathe, but for today he appreciates every last piece of what he's got.