After The Storm

Rich gets back to the Reliant emotionally exhausted but feeling weirdly good about it, and lands his hopper without too humiliating of a thump. He's really gotta schedule some practice courses for himself as soon as the weather clears up, this is getting sad.

The rain hasn't let up yet, though, and Rich is more than glad to hurry back to his berth and strip out of his wet clothes. He trades them for a soft, worn, casual set of black jeans and t-shirt, then goes to see what Basil's up to now. Maybe they could play Spellcraft. Or have more sex.

The door to his berth is unlocked when Rich taps the palm-pad hello, and he steps in to find Basil sprawled back on his bed, eyes closed, the remainder of his left arm stretched out on a white towel. Another towel over the top of his desk holds dozens of pieces of the plating, and Mitch is kneeling beside the bed on one of Basil's pillows, ginger head bent, methodically snapping the last few pieces off the metal support struts with a small hand-tool and laying them out in neat rows.

"Hey, man," Mitch says casually, eyes still fixed on his work.

"Oh, uh, hi," Rich says, unaccountably flustered. Basil twitches, blinks his eyes open.

"Rich," he says, and his voice is soft and blurry. He makes as if to sit up, and Mitch puts his palm on his friend's chest, pins him down.

"Easy, buddy," he says gently. "We're not done yet, okay?"

"Okay, okay..." Basil mumbles, and subsides. "But, s'Rich..."

"I can go," Rich says, retreating back to the doorway. His skin's crawling at the intimacy of whatever it is he's walked in on, and how horrifically vulnerable Basil is right now. "I don't—I don't mean to—uh, intrude."

Mitch looks up at him, and there's something sharp and disappointed in his eyes. "You grossed out, man?" he asks.

"No!" Rich says, indignant. "Shit, c'mon, man, I've seen worse. I just, if he's not—if he's not safe right now, if he's not okay—I don't wanna stick my nose in..." He looks over the slow rise and fall of Basil's chest, how he's already closed his eyes again. There's wet spots on the towel, dripping down from somewhere further up inside the prosthesis, and the kid is out of it. It makes Rich want to stand in the doorway and punch anyone who so much as walks by.

"I wouldn't wanna mess things up," he finishes.

Mitch eyes him, calculating, then nods like Rich has passed a test.

"You won't," he says, more confidently than Rich would have expected, and jerks his chin at Basil's desk chair. "Sit down and help me out here, would you? You should probably know how to do this yourself, anyway, if you're gonna be sticking around."

Rich sits, hesitantly. The pieces on the desk have a smell, moldy and sweaty and disgusting, and Mitch just grins sharply when Rich wrinkles his nose at them.

"Yeah, right?" he says. "I swear to god, one of these storm seasons Basil's going to put off maintenance a week too long and get mold growing up the wires into his brain."

"Doesn't work like that," Basil mumbles.

"Shut your face, cupcake," Mitch says. "Rich, there's white vinegar and a toothbrush—can you clean his plates off? I gotta wipe down the wires here, the leads get all gunky."

"I, sure, yeah," Rich says, and gets to work. Some of the plates are smaller than his thumbnail, little pieces of fingertip for a hand much smaller and finer than his own. They're also crusty on the inside surfaces, with a yellowish residue Rich doesn't want to think about at all.

He picks up each piece in turn, dunks the toothbrush in white vinegar, and scrubs the plates perfectly slick and clean. He's always found cleaning to be a soothing, grounding process, and it feels even better than usual to be helping someone else get important things cleaned up. It's fundamentally satisfying to work his way along piece by piece, turning a sloppy mess of disorganization and contamination and grossness into neat rows of nice clean polymer.

"Done," he finally announces, putting the last wet plate down.

"Fast," Mitch comments, raising red-gold eyebrows at him. Rich twirls the toothbrush over in his fingers and gives Mitch a proud little smile, because: yes, he is, thanks.

"Okay, let's get the baby buttoned back up," Mitch says. "C'mere, you should see how," and shifts over a bit beside the bed, invitingly. Rich kneels down next to him, hesitantly—goes still when Mitch has to shift over a good deal more to make enough space, but Mitch doesn't seem to resent it.

"Here's the diagram," Mitch says, and passes him an overlay screen. "His arm's not waterproof like simpler builds are, see? His is a whole lot more sensitive, so it needs to breathe so that changes in temperature and air pressure don't screw things up in there. But that means crap builds up inside, right?"

"Right," Rich says, nodding.

"And he's sloppy. Like, I love him, but god he's messy." Mitch's face is drawn, and he runs a hand absently over Basil's wild curls. "Thinks being smart makes up for anything, the big jerk. He doesn't wrap his arm up tight enough in storms, he ripped his glove halfway through that last shift he had out in the rain and didn't go get a new one…didn't even let me know till this morning. Coulda been culturing all kinds of radioactive bacteria in there, I don't know… Maybe with you nagging him too, he'll be better about it this year."

"We'll see," Rich says, heart stuck tight and painful in his throat. Mitch's hand petting Basil's hair is getting to him, the possessive, tender gesture of it, and how Mitch is looking up to Rich like he wants Rich in on it, too. Rich dares to pat Mitch's shoulder, very carefully.

"If I can help, I will," Rich says more firmly, and Mitch gives him a slow, warm smile.

"Alright, man, great," he says, and turns back to the disassembled arm. "Okay, so this is the clipper-tool that takes the plates on and off, and you can see in the overlay they're all numbered. Gimme number one?"

Rich finds the plate and hands it over, and Mitch carefully shows him how it snaps on to the metal struts of the prosthetic. He gives Mitch another few pieces, then Mitch hands him the clipper tool and watches intently while Rich puts on a piece himself.

"Good," he says. "Awesome, figures you'd be good at this. You were a mechanic before you were a technician, right?"

"Yeah, about a year or so," Rich says, working as smoothly as he can. "I had the build for it, so it seemed like a good fit. I just wanted more—it was either technician work or engineering, and I turned out to have more of a knack for talking to AIs than developing new technologies and adaptations and whatever…I bet Basil would have made a good engineer." Rich isn't nearly as practiced and confident as Mitch is at putting the plates on, though, even with a mechanical background. "How about you? You never thought about being a mechanic, something other than…?" he mimes a fast Security salute. "You're really good at this."

"Hah. Glad it looks like that, at least," Mitch says, with a rough, strained edge in his voice. "He didn't want me to see it when I got here, like I was gonna think he was stupid for screwing up, like I was gonna laugh at him for it. So I decided screw that, I was gonna help him with it instead. I guess his arm started out just like...pretty much one of those general-issue, ball-joint puppet prosthesis with a couple data rings glued on, but by the time I saw it he'd already upgraded it a couple times."

"He's always been so damn smart," Rich says quietly, trying not to shake Mitch out of wherever he's gone in his head. It's strange to see him so serious. It feels special.

"Yeah, he's really something," Mitch agrees. "He would've made a great engineer, he picked up most of a qualification for it in like six months, just for his arm, but he likes AIs too, I guess." He waves the tool off when Rich offers it back to him. "Keep going, man, you're doing fine. Anyway, no, I don't have any mechanic training, I can hardly draw a straight line or hold a screwdriver the right way around, but…I know how to do this. I learned how. He can't do it himself, it hurts too much, and there's only like five or six medics in the Fleet who have enough specialized prosthesis training, and the scheduling was crazy…anyway, it's better like this. Less fuss."

"That's really cool of you," Rich says, slow with the revelation that Basil's in pain, that's why he's so bleary—or, no, that's probably from heavy-duty painkillers. However much it should be hurting, his face is peaceful. "I don't think a lot of people would just volunteer to help somebody like this," Rich finishes.

"Well, he's not just anyone," Mitch says, completely missing the point. "I mean. It's Basil."

"Your cupcake, yes," Rich says, daring to tease.

"Yes, my snuggle-muffin," Mitch agrees.

"I still think it's cool of you," Rich says. "I mean, there's people who wouldn't do this even for their spouse."

Mitch shoots him a quick look he can't read. "Well then they're jerks who don't deserve whoever they got hitched to," he says firmly. "And I try not to be a jerk. And, um, also, we're not actually married, so. I checked, and it turns out a twisty-tie doesn't count."

"Better luck next time," Rich says sympathetically. He's halfway done putting the plates back, and starting to feel more confident about it, but at the same time he's beginning to feel out of his depth with the conversation. It seems like Mitch is trying to joke, but the most he's managing to do is sound fondly, painfully wistful.

Rich pushes that to the back of his mind and focuses on Basil instead, chewing all the new information over thoughtfully. He studies the wiring on the inside of the arm more closely as he snaps the next few pieces on.

"It's got really good sensory feedback, doesn't it," he says. Basil does all kinds of delicate stuff with that hand without misjudging pressure or grip or anything, so: "Are there artificial nerves in there?"

"Yeah," Mitch sighs, "and they don't have an off-switch, and they go pretty haywire when the plates come off, so. He could've left it out of the design, but he wasn't willing to lose the precision, even if it hurt him more."

"Shit," Rich says. "I hope he's on good painkillers."

"Of course!" Mitch says, pretending offense. "Only the best for my darling honeydew!"

Rich snickers appreciatively.

They're quiet for a while as Rich keeps working. Mitch strokes a hand over Basil's forehead and his eyelids barely flutter.

"So," Mitch says finally, "is sex with guys who've never had it before any good?"

"Uh!" Rich says, and carefully unclenches his hand on the tool before he snaps something out of sheer shock. "You, uh—man, you really gotta warn someone before coming out with a question like that."

"Oh," Mitch says. "Right, yeah, you all think Security doesn't even know what sex is just because we don't want to have any."

Rich opens his mouth and closes it again, because while still mild, that comment had a bit of an edge to it. He decides it's safest to ignore it and focus on the question, which is not exactly simple.

"It depends?" he hazards, starting in on the plates again. "It depends on what you're after, maybe. Like, I dunno, I think the guys who showed me the ropes were just having fun taking advantage of a real dumbass who didn't know what he shouldn't have been putting up with."

Mitch's eyes narrow. "Uh-huh," he says, and for a second he's every inch a Security officer, protective and pissed off.

Rich hastily goes on, "I'd never do that to anyone, though, I swear, I'd never try and take advantage of—"

But Mitch is shaking his head, sitting back on his heels and sighing. "I know," he says. "Chill, man, I know, you're a cool guy. I just wanted some hot gossip on how you two lovebirds were getting along, okay?"

"Okay," Rich says, and takes a careful breath. "Okay. Cool. Well—he's, it's been, it's an adjustment, I've never been with anyone with less experience than me, it's way different from just lying back and letting Liam handle everything, but you know, he's smart, he learns fast. He learns really fast."

"Yeah, especially when he's got the right motivation," Mitch smiles. "He was real stressed, when he was thinking he'd screwed things up with you, that you didn't like how it went that time after the fish fry. I think he must have spent a week's worth of credits on, y'know, instructional material."

He wiggles his eyebrows, grinning, and Rich can't help but snicker.

"Basil's been doing great, it was—he's just, he's great," he says. "He's a sweet kid—a sweet guy, and, uh, like I said, he learns fast, it's been—great." He rubs at his warming face and adds, only half-joking, "No complaints on his performance or attitude, Officer!"

"I figured," Mitch says with a pleased nod. "I figured he'd be like, really good at it once he got a little practical experience in, I even told him so, but he was still worrying."

Rich considers Mitch, and how he's talking and acting right now when Basil's not listening: as serious and collected as he's ever gotten, and also coincidentally asking about what his best friend's like in bed, while possessively stroking his hair. It's been more than clear that Mitch adores Basil, but at this point if the kid's not actually in love with him, Rich is a fourhands.

It'd be nice if Rich knew what the hell he's supposed to do about that.

"So," Rich starts as casually as he can, "have you ever thought about dating? You know, apply for exemption from the suppressants?"

"Nah," Mitch says, giving him a brief, puzzled glance. "That's for couples who are like, engaged or really serious or something, not just anyone who gets curious about sex and wants to try it out. Who would I even date, anyway?"

Rich focuses much more closely than necessary on getting the next plate snapped in place, to keep from saying anything like 'Well, you just asked me how sex with Basil was going, and I am 99.5% sure you'd like to find out yourself. Is there a reason you're being so weird about it?'

"I meant, have you thought about dating Basil," he says carefully. "Getting together with Basil."

Mitch looks at him like Rich is speaking a foreign language, hand stilling on Basil's hair. "How am I supposed to do that, man?" he says, and Rich notes that he doesn't answer the actual question. "Basil's pretty into the whole sex thing, pretty into you, I don't exactly have anything to give him he can't get from someone with all their equipment up and running already."

"That's…not actually how it works," Rich says. "I mean, sex is different with every person, and, like, the other stuff is too, you know? You're his best friend, you got twist-tie married when you were eight. You learned how to fix his arm for him. You spend basically all your time hanging out and playing around with him. You've got plenty to give him, man. You could…you could at least offer it."

"Mm," says Mitch and looks away abruptly, goes back to petting Basil's hair. Basil stirs and takes a shuddery little breath, eyes wandering open; this time when Rich clicks a panel back onto his arm, he twitches and his face creases faintly with pain.

"...Mitch?" he mumbles, faint and bleary, and the bare struts of his fingers twitch. Basil makes another pained noise, tiny and awful. "Nnf—Mish, it hurts."

"No—hey, sweetheart, hey," Mitch murmurs, and it doesn't sound anything like when he normally says it. Rich is getting the distinct feeling he's not necessarily supposed to be seeing this. "You're okay. Halfway there. I'll get you some more meds, okay?"

"D'n boss me 'round," Basil mumbles, but he lies back, eyes still closed, lips barely moving. "...Older 'n you. Mittens."

"That's Officer Mittens to you," Mitch says, smiling, and without the least hesitation or revulsion takes hold of the pink mess of scar tissue and wires where Basil's truncated arm joins to the prosthesis. "Quick sting, cupcake."

He presses a medical-grade injector against Basil's bicep, and there's a quiet hiss; Basil makes a faint, high noise but barely twitches, and the wrinkle between his brows smoothes out.

"...I've been talking too much," Mitch says, and shakes his head, but doesn't stop petting Basil's hair or look back in Rich's direction. It's hard to tell on his warm copper skin, but Rich is pretty sure he's flushed right now. There's a strange, glowing fondness in Mitch's voice, an audible smile. "We'll get a move on, okay?"

"'Kay," Basil says, barely a breath.

"Right," Rich says, and kicks the mess of conflicted feelings—discomfort and vicarious warmth and stupid jealousy and a quiet sort of awe—all to one side to deal with later. He stops asking questions, since Mitch clearly has some weird Security hang-up going on, which explains a lot about him and Basil, and just focuses on getting the plates put back on Basil's arm. He finishes up reasonably fast, it feels like, and then he hands the tool back to Mitch. Maybe he should leave now? He's worried about Basil, though.

"How, uh," he waves a hand at Basil. "He's fine now, I guess? How long does it take for him to…get back online?"

"Like fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour." Mitch rubs the place he injected the meds, lifts Basil's arm and flexes all the joints gently. Everything moves smoothly, flexing and extending, twisting easily. "He's so bony it doesn't take much to knock him out pretty good. Huh, Oregano?"

Basil doesn't respond, of course, and Rich eyes Mitch.

"So. Mittens?" Rich says. "Is that because Mits is easier to say than Mitch, or…?"

"I mean yeah, he had some speech problems when we were little," Mitch says, half-laughing. The hand he was using to test Basil's arm is still lingering along the prosthesis, thumb rubbing slowly back and forth over the smooth polymer of Basil's knuckles. "But y'know, my name's Michigan, and Michigan the state was shaped like a big mitten, when it was still a state, and Basil got so freakin' excited, like it proved something…" he trails off, leaning on one elbow on the bed, smiling down at Basil's hand in his.

"You guys have known each other a long time," Rich says. It's the kind of obvious statement that always sounds dumb, but fortunately Mitch takes it for the invitation it is.

"Oh yeah," he says. "We were like five when we met. Or, he was six, actually, cuz y'know, that's a big deal when you're tiny. We were both raised in the crèche on the Kwan Yin."

"Shit, man, I'm sorry," Rich says, a little horrified. The Kwan Yin's a permanent crèche, for kids with unfit or absent parents. Or dead ones.

Mitch shrugs again. "It is what it is. My mom surrendered me right on delivery, I never knew her. It was worse for Basil—both his parents were Spooks, and he was getting raised by a grandma, until she died. And neither of them dropped out of service to take care of him." His thumb keeps circling around Basil's knuckles, one after the other and then back again. "He was so sure at least one of them would come pick him up, y'know? But they never did. They never even visited."

He glances up at Rich, meets his eyes sharply as his grip goes firm on Basil's hand. "He doesn't need people jerking him around," he says. "He's had enough of that."

Rich just nods, and Mitch nods back.

"...He'd barely talk for like a week after he figured it out," he says, softer and less pointed, remembering. "I started giving him my juice box every day to try to get him to smile."

"That is ridiculously cute," Rich says.

"Hey, you didn't see him, all quiet with those big, sad eyes. You would've done it too."

Rich has to nod again, conceding the point. He doesn't want to think about a tiny, abandoned Basil, miserable and lonely, waiting in vain for parents who never came for him, because it makes his chest clench painfully tight.

It takes a minute to nerve himself up to say, "It's not really the same thing, since I didn't lose them both when I was a kid or anything, but me too, kinda."

"Oh, yeah?" Mitch nods at him. "Hey, no-parents solidarity! Sorry, man."

Rich shrugs uncomfortably. "I don't think it counts, exactly. I mean I was five when Mom didn't come home, some kind of accident, but Dad was still there, you know? And he'd been doing a lot of taking care of us to start with. So I missed her, but I got over it okay. And then," he takes a breath, "Dad went a few years back, he was—you might've heard about it actually, Finn Merrill?"

"Whoa, wasn't he that big important reporter?" Mitch says, and Rich has to smile.

"Yeah," he says, "he was a foreign correspondent, and a really good one, too. Did all kinds of traveling outside the Fleet, once we were old enough to be okay with it."

"I heard about this," Mitch says, frowning. "Chicago, right?"

"Uh," Rich says, "I mean, he was there, yeah. He was on the ground reporting on this gang treaty that was supposed to be a whole, a new era of peace and prosperity and whatever, and then of course it turned out some Detroit crazies had infiltrated, and—" Mitch is nodding grimly, like he knows the story, so Rich gratefully cuts off the explanation there and finishes with, "—yeah. So. He didn't make it back."

"I was just a cadet then," Mitch says. "That was the first time Detroit picked a fight since I'd joined, and all the officers were arguing about if Security should start training as soldiers as well as police. I didn't realize they start the same freakin' argument up about that every time Detroit pulls something awful."

"Huh," says Rich, not knowing what else to say.

"Your dad was really smart," Mitch says. "One of my instructors had us watch practically every report he gave, thought he was brilliant. Like, the stuff Mr Merrill noticed, how it all fit together, the way he'd break it down for folks back home to be able to understand what was going on out there…it was pretty cool. Security pays a lot more attention to news from the outside world than the average citizen, you know. Especially the cadets who want a posting to the Mall when they graduate—I didn't, but some of my buddies did, so."

"Oh, huh," Rich says. "Makes sense, I guess." Especially if there's an ongoing debate about whether they should be actively fighting Detroit somehow instead of just letting them do their freaky nuke-worshipping thing all the way over at Lake Erie.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make it about me," Mitch says a minute later.

"S'okay, you didn't," Rich says, shrugging. "It's—it's cool to remember that other people knew him, you know? And appreciated him doing what…he died for. My little sister Thena was the only one of us who was still young, she's about your age. Me and Angie were basically grown by then. So it's not like…it's not the same as you and Basil, really."

"It still sucks pretty bad," Mitch says, knocking his shoulder gently against Rich's.

"Well. Yeah," Rich admits. "Yeah, it does." He wonders sometimes how long it's going to take before the pain is gone. It's faded from the scouring, shattering grief of those first awful months and following year, but it still hurts insistently if he thinks about it more than in passing.

He breathes, pushing it away. "Go, no-parents solidarity," he says, giving Mitch a little smile, and Mitch smiles back and bumps his fist against the back of Rich's knuckles.

There's a comfortable silence, and then Rich dares to pick back up the original topic. "So, you guys have been friends forever, right? That's cool."

"Yeah, pretty much," Mitch says. "Well, at least—we kinda fell out of contact for a while. He was such a genius he started interning at thirteen and stopped calling pretty quick after that, didn't have any time to talk with a little kid cuz he was busy doing adult stuff—" Mitch rolls his eyes, a brief flash of something leftover and lonely twisting his face before he brushes past it. "And then I went into the cadets at fourteen and got busy training, so I fell off trying to call him too, and after that we were out of touch until I got stationed here year before last."

"Oh, wow," Rich says, eyebrows rising. "That must've been a hell of a reunion."

"It was good," Mitch says, low and happy now, eyes on Basil. "He practically tackled me for a hug when he saw me, I didn't even know he still remembered me, but, yeah. Turns out we were still friends, it was awesome."

"That's great, man," Rich says, and he means it, but it sounds incredibly lame once said.

"Yeah," Mitch says, though, smiling at him. "Yeah, we're good."

Another companionable quiet rests between them, and Mitch goes back to watching Basil with that soft look on his face.

"...He's such a good guy, y'know," Mitch says finally, and his tone is so painfully fond. "You're really lucky he likes you so much, buddy."

Rich licks his lips. "Yeah," he says, and not another word.

Did Mitch try, at some point, and Basil wasn't into him that way? Maybe he didn't even try because he could tell Basil didn't like him like that. Rich can't actually be sure, looking back at what he's seen of the two of them, how Basil would even react to the suggestion. Since they grew up together, maybe Basil thinks of Mitch as a brother. Maybe Mitch is only being sensible.

He still thinks he probably ought to clear out, give them some space, but Mitch hasn't made any pointed comments or even looked at him like he's wondering why Rich is still here. And it's been unsettling to see Basil out of it and vulnerable and hurting, so Rich really wants to see him wake up and be okay.

So he stays.

Mitch was perfectly accurate on how long it'd be until Basil recovered, not that Rich is surprised at this point; after about fifteen minutes total, Basil starts to shift and stir, eyelids fluttering and artificial fingers twitching.

"Mm," he says, and blinks bleary eyes open, head lolling. "Mitch?" and then, squinting at Rich, "...Rich? Ha. Mmmmrich? Richigan." He tries to push himself up on his re-assembled arm and makes a confused, pained noise. "Oh, I'm, ow? W'happened?"

Rich gives Mitch an alarmed look. He wasn't expecting Basil to be this confused, but Mitch doesn't look surprised or distressed at all as he gently presses Basil back down on the bed.

"It was arm-cleaning time, so we cleaned your arm!" he says with sing-song cheer. "Rich helped."

Rich gives Basil a cautious smile, hoping that's as okay with him as it was with Mitch.

Basil doesn't look pleased, which is...not great. Except instead of going 'why is Rich here?' he huddles down on himself sulkily and mumbles, "I don't wanna do arm-cleaning time, 's sucks. I can do it later, my arm hurts right now."

Rich blinks and gives Mitch an even more alarmed look, but Mitch is stroking hair out of Basil's face with a rueful smile. "Okay, sugarplum," he says gently. "We'll do it later, that's fine."

"Um," Rich says. "Memory…issues?"

"Comprehension's wobbly on these meds," Mitch murmurs. "It's fine, it wears off."

"Oh," Rich says with immense relief. "Okay, cool."

"You're wobbly," Basil mutters, and tries to push himself up, favoring his artificial arm this time, cradling it suspiciously like he thinks they're about to hold him down and scrub it out all over again. "Fuckin'. Wobbly. I'm not wobbly." He scowls at Mitch, then sways, then looks frankly alarmed. "Mitch?" he says. "Am I sick?"

"No, snuggle-bug," Mitch says patiently, trying to coax him back down on the bed. "It's the painkillers, they'll wear off in a bit. You're fine, I've got you."

"Yeah," says Basil, and blinks at Rich. "Why—painkillers?" he says. "Wait am I...am I hurt? Is Rich hurt? Did somebody hurt Rich some more? I'll kill 'em." and then before Rich can decide whether to be touched or amused or vaguely annoyed, "...Ugh, Rich, I feel bad. Am I sick?"

Somehow, Rich wasn't expecting to be addressed right now. "No, man," he says, glancing at Mitch, "you're fine, it'll wear off."

"Not you," Basil says, frustrated. "Rich! I mean—" he squints at Mitch. "Mitch—" he stops, some of the confusion in his face subsiding into a slightly clearer disgruntlement. "...One of you guys s'gotta change your name," he grumbles, and slumps onto the bed. "Okay, okay, le's—les' do the arm-cleaning. Jus' do it."

"We already did it," Mitch explains, with practiced patience. "That's why you're loopy, remember?"

Basil frowns, face pinching in intense concentration, and then blinks. "Oh," he says, and looks down at his own hand, flexing the prosthetic fingers gingerly. "Oh, that's why my arm hurts."

"There you go," Mitch says, and scoots up onto the bed. "Starting to come back, huh? Welcome back, honey-buns."

"Thanks, sugar-butt," Basil says, and snickers, letting himself be chivvied into Mitch's arms and snuggling up against him. "Thanks, haha, candy-nuts, hee."

"You're so dumb," says Mitch, without force, and gives Basil a little shake, grinning. "Are we sure you can't get a moldy brain from letting your maintenance go too long?"

"My brain's fresh as a goddamn trout," says Basil, with dignity, and then catches sight of Rich and looks startled and delighted. "Oh, hey! Rich! Yeah hey, thanks for…thanks for helping, you helped, right?"

"Yeah, I mean, a little," says Rich, shrugging.

"It wasn't gross, was it?" Basil says anxiously. Like he isn't thinking about it, he pulls his knees up and curls around his arm, hiding it. "You didn't think it was gross?"

"It's really nice," Rich assures him, and Basil droops with transparent relief. "It's cool. You're cool."

Basil giggles again, but more sleepily this time, and drops his head against Mitch's shoulder like he's having trouble holding it up anymore. "Mmh."

"Nap it off for a minute," Mitch says, and pats his back. "Man, I should've—"

Rich never finds out what Mitch should have done, because there's a sudden faint, omnipresent chime; the Reliant's ship-wide announcement system coming to life.

"Reliant active crew members," she says, as smooth and cool as ever, "report to your department heads. The Washington has issued a preliminary superstorm warning. Repeat, an active category one superstorm has been detected; estimated time to impact, twenty-four to thirty hours. Reliant active crew members, report to department heads for orders. Thank you."

"Fuck," says Rich, more than startled, jarred. There can't be a storm coming, he would've felt it, she would've warned him—except, no, of course she didn't. The Reliant doesn't depend on him like the Sympatico did, she doesn't come running to him every time a gull shits on the deck, and she's so much bigger he barely feels the motion of the lake under them. Rich probably won't even feel the change in her motion until the storm actually hits.

He stares at Mitch, then at Basil, who's blinking awake again with an obvious effort.

"Uh—fuck," Basil mumbles blearily. "Okay...okay, I'm up. Storms, gonna, we're. Fuck. I'm up...fucking storms..."

"Yeah, coming a little early this year," says Mitch, with an attempt at his usual tone of sunny cheer. His jaw looks tight, though, and his shoulders are tense. "Just a category one, though. Piece of cake."

"Yeah, sure," Rich says, and pushes himself up, backs toward the door, throwing a worried look at Basil. "I gotta…"

"Get out there," Mitch says. "He'll be back in a couple minutes here, we're right behind you."

"Gotcha," Rich says, and goes.

-

The next few shifts are a blur of wind and rain and noise and work.

Captain Mencia is working closely with Ben and Phil to keep the Reliant steady through the rising waves, the three of them balancing between them the intense strain of piloting as complex and crucial a ship as an industrial 200. When Rich had thoughtlessly reached out to pilot the Reliant himself, he was immediately confronted with blank incomprehension from his ship, amusement from his captain, and brisk impatience from his senior techs. He'd been sent scurrying off to the top deck to join the rest of his department at their actual work assignments, face burning with mortification.

The Reliant's intelligent systems technicians who aren't senior enough to be trusted with piloting are in charge of the almost equally crucial work of organizing her docking maneuvers. The techs are spread out across the top deck, every man to a station as the Reliant's dozens of assigned ships circle around her on the dark, choppy water, their AIs pinging ceaselessly back and forth to keep the boats from running into one another or smashing up against the Reliant herself.

Rich and his crewmates are kept busy monitoring everyone's positions, sorting out what order the ships need to be brought aboard and which cradles they're settled into. They also need to calculate how many float-tubes and which types of clamps are required to get them stowed, as well as supervising the Reliant's mechanics as they get each boat lifted out of the increasingly dangerous waves and hauled into their respective garage bays.

The Reliant's mechanics occupy themselves with attaching float-tubes to hulls, getting in the way, hauling the floating boats around in random directions and at variable speeds, complaining, opening and closing all the wrong garage bay doors at exactly the worst possible moments, removing float-tubes and applying docking clamps when the boats are fitted into their cradle, screwing that up entirely and failing to notify anyone until something goes crunch or catches on fire, complaining more, wandering around aimlessly, getting underfoot, falling overboard sometimes, getting lost, picking fights, complaining some more, taking way too many breaks, and actually helping out the Reliant's poor overworked ISTs every now and then, when they happen to feel like it.

It's well past midnight, and the Reliant's kinetic turbines are humming away, drawing power from the waves to feed the docking cradles and recharge spent float-tubes. The wind off the lake has kicked up, the rain is coming in constant cold gusts, and Rich is soaked to the bone. He hasn't fit into a raincoat since he was about eighteen, and the oilcloth tarp he's wrapped around his shoulders and over his head keeps the worst of the rain out of his face but does nothing about the cold trickles dripping into his eyes and down the neck of his shirt every few seconds.

He took a ten minute break a couple of hours ago and wolfed down five nutrition blocks in a row, but he's still hungry and freezing and the Reliant's mechanics are reporting significant issues with getting the clamps to actually clamp to the single-family houseboat he's trying to get settled in her assigned docking cradle. The maintenance logs of the Bok Choy, when accessed, say that the boat got her hull scraped clean right on schedule but the boat's extremely thick and slimy coating of algae says otherwise, and either way the clamps are now slipping and squishing and making unpleasant fried-algae smells instead of clamping and the mechanics are looking about ready to mutiny.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The boat's family, of course, is no help whatsoever, the three parents aimlessly bitching and whining about how long everything's taking while their five thousand children zip around in ballistic circles at the end of their leashes, splashing and sliding across the rain-slick deck and tangling everything they can possibly hook a line around, while Rich is out here in the rain trying to coordinate through all the chaos, and he's deeply cranky about it.

He's got to strain his ears so hard it hurts to hear whatever stupid bullshit the parents are trying to take him to task about, over the chatter of people crammed onto the deck behind him, the screaming of the children, the angry yelling of mechanics, the thrum of every float-tube on the Reliant all operating at once, the creaking and groaning of ships as they're hauled into place, and the constant pounding wash of the rain. Through all that, it's a breathtaking relief to hear the clear, high chime of an incoming message.

Miguel Hernandez, IST: Hey, big guy, can you take over traffic for awhile? I'm getting a headache over here and Basil says you're a total beast at parallel processes.

Richard Merrill, IST: only if you come save me from the Bok Choy, im about ready to dump these guys back overboard

Miguel Hernandez, IST: Oh god please do, I won't tell anyone

Richard Merrill, IST: too late, youre gonna have to do it yourself now, let me at those processes

Miguel Hernandez, IST: ):

Sad face or not, Miguel still turns up in the next minute, rubbing at his temples and staggering a little.

"You okay?" Rich yells over the storm. Miguel winces blearily.

"Yeah, just fuckin' storm shifts, man, they always get to me!" he yells back.

Rich claps him sympathetically on the back and then gladly abandons him to the nonexistent mercies of the Bok Choy's crew complement, scrambling down a boarding ladder to huddle under the biggest rain awning he can find and monitor the flow of traffic on-deck.

Traffic monitoring is apparently one of those things that Ben gets fussy over, to judge by the comms chatter, cycling techies out every quarter-shift or so to make sure no one gets seriously burnt out. But it doesn't get to Rich like it seems to bother anyone else, and he's made it known that he'll gladly spot anyone who wants to trade. Streamlining data processes for the Reliant is so much easier than having to deal with people, anyway, he's nearly happy for awhile.

The Reliant runs facts and figures through his implants and he finds conflicts and trims them away, prioritizes the flow of tasks and traffic for her, stands in the lee of the top deck and lets all the less-manageable chaos of human activity swirl around him while he stands still.

It's beautiful, in a way, the interlocking systems of the people and the ships and the rising storm. The bright lines of float-tubes glitter Cherenkov-blue through the curtains of rain as the boats are hoisted from the water and towed, dripping and creaking, their AIs chiming nervous warnings to one another across the dark and shining deck, and the vivid orange safety patches stuck to everyone's back flicker and gleam in the dark like candle flames.

Unfortunately, Rich can't do traffic monitoring forever. Eventually Ben pings him irritably and tells him to get back to docking before his head catches on fire. Rich has tried to argue that he feels fine a couple of times, and Ben just gets progressively more cranky about it, so Rich doesn't even try this time. Just sulks back to the main deck railing, where the beauty of the predictable, programmable dance of coordinated boats and people is marred by how agonizingly stupid all the boats and people are.

It takes twenty minutes for the five-crew hull-patcher It Has Pockets to get settled in its cradle and put on standby for the storm, because her tiny and near-pointless AI is also long since overdue for maintenance and decides to resolve the security alert of 'I'm above the water now and that doesn't seem right' by deleting her entire concept of 'water' and then freaking out about getting rained on. She tries to solve her own problem not by listening to Rich, but instead by mustering all her assigned crew to help her out, who are confused as hell but willing to try to get absolutely everywhere and screw things up even further.

The storm mounts steadily, and so does the chaos. Someone's grandpa has been stepped on, a mechanic has whacked his face off a taut line in the dark and started screaming about his nose, and a random lady went and climbed over the Reliant's deck rails and thus dropped straight into the lake. James has been caught trying to sell the Reliant's kittens even though they're still way too young to leave their mother and also definitely not his kittens, Nate has to be physically hauled off of James before he finishes beating the asshole's face in, the Reliant ends up two ISTs short for an hour while James and Nate both cool their stupid fucking heels in Security's detention hold, pending further disciplinary action, and Rich is swearing steadily under his breath and nursing a rising headache that has nothing to do with his implants and everything to do with his crewmates.

Then someone's dog gets loose, steals a spare float-tube, and chews through the casing in some dark corner of the deck. Rich finds this out when the screaming starts: a piercing, inhuman shriek, and then a chorus of more mundane dismayed shouts from the surrounding people as a nearly-weightless dog starts galloping blindly all over the deck, its head wrapped in a luminous blue cloud of writhing, self-repelling, hair-fine strands.

Rich manages to snag the poor thing by the tail as it streaks past him, and is promptly bitten on the arm. The chaotic tangle of float-tube filaments keeps the dog's teeth from doing any real damage, but the filaments themselves repel other matter on an atomic level, including air molecules, and Rich has to work fast with his free hand to bundle up the cloudy mass and strip it all away from the dog's head before it suffocates or gets its eyes boiled off in the vacuum. His fingertips are tingling weirdly by the time he gets it all off, and then he's just standing there, a dog in one hand, a wriggly glowing clot of self-sustaining vacuum sizzling away in the other hand, and has no idea what to do.

The dog's owner finally shows up swathed in a massive raincoat, and instead of doing anything useful whatsoever, they burst into messy tears. They then throw themselves bodily against Rich's chest, trying to go in for a really unpleasantly wet, snotty kiss, and Rich shoves the dog and the slithery wad of float-tube filament into their arms and bails out to another deck entirely.

Released from detention and completely unrepentant, Nate waves hello to him, looking warm and stylish in a custom-fit raincoat with the pattern of one of his aunt's more famous championship hoverboards on the back; Rich glares at the dancing alligator skeletons, stupidly jealous both of the actual raincoat and the Katrina Chau merch, and then backs up and clears space as the 10-crew aluminum recycler Flabbergaster comes to a soggy halt on the deck. Her AI is trying to announce to anyone who'll listen that she's sinking, because her techie is apparently too goddamn busy living it up inside out of the rain to reassure her that positive changes in altitude are not as big a deal as negative changes.

Rich gets the Flabbergaster straightened out and quieted down, then slots her into the docking order, and her crew rides her off toward the dry warmth of their assigned garage bay without so much as a 'Hey thanks,' leaving Rich behind to wrap his arms around himself and shiver resentfully. Something keeps pinging him, vaguely—some sense in the back of his head, like the feeling of a message coming in, except fainter and harder to grasp. Whatever it is, it isn't from the Reliant or anyone aboard, and thinking about it makes Rich's head hurt, so he forcefully downgrades it to the bottom of his priority list and forgets about it. He's so hungry.

There's a ten minute break in the queue before the next ship is assigned to come in. Rich is peering around, trying to figure out if he's got enough time to run to the mess and grab his long-overdue dinner rations, when he catches a flash of color through the grayness of the rain. A small shape in a kid's sky-blue raincoat with big bright rainbow flowers printed on it and cute bee-striped yellow rain boots, ducking through the crowd with a huge basket hanging off one elbow—making frequent use of grab bars and railings, but not on a tether. That's against the rules, kids have to be tethered during storms.

Rich jitters in place, watching nervously as the kid skids to a stop next to Nate, tugs on his sleeve and then hands him a thermos that steams when he opens it and a package of what might be more nutrition blocks. Rich's stomach audibly growls, because it doesn't care about how someone's kid might drown as much as it cares about finally getting some calories already.

It isn't until the kid with the basket turns away from Nate with a jaunty wave and comes hurrying in Rich's direction that recognition hits Rich. A flash of bright blue curls, now noticeably flatter and darker from the rain, and a pair of gleaming gray eyes. Not a kid at all, thankfully—and there's a reassuring slice of orange life-vest visible through the front of the blue raincoat.

"Hey, big guy!" says Liam, loud over the rain, and hoists his basket of thermoses and nutrition blocks with a dazzling smile that falters noticeably as he looks Rich over. "Oh my god, where's your raincoat?!"

"Right here," Rich says, with a soggy shrug of his makeshift oilcloth poncho.

"Fuck, you look like you're freezing," says Liam, and digs through his thermoses. "Green tea? Black? Sugar or no sugar?"

"Green with sugar, please," Rich says fervently. Liam sorts through and then pulls one out and shakes it up, handing it over. The warmth seeping through it is enough to make Rich groan and huddle around it, cupping it in both hands.

"Fucking yes," Rich moans, and unscrews the top with numb, clumsy fingers, taking a deep breath of hot, sweet steam. "God, Liam, fuck."

"My favorite thing to hear," says Liam smugly, and wraps his pretty little hands around Rich's much larger ones, cupping them against the flask like he's trying to warm Rich up. "Fuck, babe, your fingers are like ice. When's the last time you took a break?"

"Dunno," Rich says, and chugs several scalding mouthfuls of tea. It burns all the way down and hits his stomach like a bomb, heat radiating through him. "Hhha. I think...I guess, 2100? 'M not due for a break again until 0100."

"Oh my god," Liam says again, and chafes Rich's hands a few more times before wrapping his thin fingers as far around Rich's wrists as they'll go and leaning back on his heels to haul at him. "It's almost 0200, Rich, you're taking your break before you pass out on the deck. The docking's almost done, they'll be fine without you for half an hour. Come on, I have something to show you back on the Genesis, I'll call Ben on the way there so he can replace you."

"But—" Rich says, and then groans and chugs some more tea. He's so hungry now that he's got something in his stomach, it's giving him angry, growling cramps. Liam tugs on him again. "Okay, okay! I'm coming, cut your engines, man!"

Liam only stops towing him off the deck long enough to drop his basket of tea and food blocks off with Miguel on their way past, then grabs Rich's arm again and takes off again, down into the noisy, humid chaos of the lower decks.

The boats that have been docked in the Reliant's garage spaces are packed in tight, locked into their adjustable cradles, AIs quiescent. Their crews are already climbing down boarding ladders to get the socializing part of storm docking started as early as possible, dozens of people Rich doesn't know all yelling and hugging and waving and running around. Liam cuts right through the crowd, greeting somebody what feels like every two steps, and Rich just lets himself be tugged along. He's still dazed, clutching his thermos of tea as the heat sinks in, with that weird, pinging headache in the back of his skull—he doesn't fully process where they are until Liam pulls him through the Genesis's cramped little passageway and into the galley.

Liam has obviously been busy in here; there are giant pots of tea on the counter, and something is covered on the stove that makes the whole room smell phenomenal. Rich makes a totally unintentional, pleading little noise, shaken out of his daze by another fierce throb of hunger, and starts automatically in the direction of whatever that scent is.

"Can I…?" he starts, and glances back at Liam uncertainly. "Is this what you wanted to show me, am I allowed to, uh…"

"I don't think I can feed you up just with the stew," Liam says ruefully. "I have some more blocks you can eat while you're here though, those should fill you up."

He pulls his raincoat off and unbuckles his chunky orange life-vest, hangs them both next to the door to drip, then divests Rich of his soaked oilcloth and hangs that up too. He falters from his brisk, businesslike pace when he sees the soaked t-shirt Rich has on underneath, and takes a couple extra seconds to run his fingertips down the rumpled line where the sopping-wet fabric has glued itself to Rich's abs. Some part of Rich is flustered and pleased like he always is at Liam's attention, but the rest of him is stuck on the delicious scent coming off the stove. He glances over at it, back down at Liam, and jitters hopefully in that direction. Liam laughs and takes his hands away from Rich's torso, gesturing for him to get at it.

The pot on the stove turns out to be potato and vegetable soup, and Rich inhales a huge, steaming bowl of it and then three food blocks, then slumps on the counter and groans happily for about a minute straight.

"Fuck," he says eventually, and straightens up with a sigh, plucking at his cold, wet shirt as it tries to ride up. "God, I needed that. You didn't have to be all mysterious about it though, y'know, if you'd said 'I have soup' I would've picked you up and sprinted here."

"Oh, that wasn't the surprise!" says Liam brightly. He's perched shirtless on the edge of the stool next to Rich's, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a towel on his head, attending to his wet curls. "I came to warm you up!"

"I'm definitely warm," Rich says, bemused. "I feel way better, man."

"Not all of you!" chirps Liam, and drops the blanket and the towel. He turns around on the stool to hop up onto the counter and start to work his pants off. "If I'm remembering correctly, I promised I'd make it up to you for oversharing your personal business! So, how about we get started on that?"

"Liam," Rich protests half-heartedly, already breathless at the thought. "C'mon, we don't have time—"

"I've been in a holding pattern around your boat for about three hours," Liam says, "I already did the hard part." And before Rich can ask 'the what?' he shoves his pants down his thighs and props a leg up on the counter, showing Rich the dark, conspicuous base of the plug he's wearing—has been wearing, apparently, like it's no big deal.

Rich's dick goes from cold, damp and pathetic to aggressively invested in the proceedings so fast it makes his head spin. He stares at Liam's plug, then at Liam, then back down, then up at his face, trying and failing to process what he's seeing.

"Is," he says, "did you—? How long—for me, I mean—?"

"Why do you think I got everybody else their tea and snacks before I got to you?" Liam says brightly, like the concept of running around the deck handing out snacks with a massive toy in him, ready for Rich's dick, isn't totally unbelievable. "Come on, big guy, your break's not gonna last forever."

"I'm on break," says Rich, because he's having trouble thinking beyond simple sentences right now. He was only barely starting to come around to the concept that Liam liked his dick, was interested in having it in him, and that wasn't just a weird one-time fluke because Liam was sorry he hadn't been eating enough. But there's a world of difference between liking Rich's dick and liking Rich's dick enough to prep himself beforehand and keep himself stretched, ready to take it, holy shit.

"You are on break," says Liam, and gives a wicked little giggle, shaking his damp curls back out of his face. "So come on already!"

"Oh my god," Rich says, and almost falls over himself getting over to grab Liam and kiss him hard, holding Liam's small, rain-chilled body against him and fumbling with his clothes. For all his talk about Rich being frozen, Liam feels incredibly fragile and cold, and he seizes onto Rich's chest gratefully, burying his icy nose in Rich's neck.

"You look really good in that shirt, sweetheart," he confides against Rich's throat, and yelps, laughing, as Rich picks him up off the counter and gets a hand on the base of the plug, shifting it tentatively, still reeling with how hot this is. "Oh—oh, mm, get it out, fuck, I want the real thing, let's fucking do this!"

Rich laughs and obeys, giddy and delighted, hardly believing what he's doing: stealing thirty minutes off work to fuck this pretty, electric little guy, with his gorgeous face and his beautiful laugh and his apparently endless appetite, on his own galley counter. How is this Rich's life now? He must have done something right at some point, because this has gotta be a reward for something big, but he's not sure what he could possibly have done to deserve it.

Rich sets Liam back on the counter and fumbles his own jeans open, fingers still cold and clumsy. Liam immediately produces a packet of lube and a packet of condom from some mysterious pocket and gets a slick, chilly hand on Rich's dick, kissing him hungrily everywhere he can reach and somehow rolling the condom on without even looking. This time the polymer's a bright, ridiculous candy-apple red, with darker red sparkles, and Rich finds himself laughing breathlessly even as his hips twitch and his dick strains up between them, candy-colored and dripping with lube and more than ready to go.

The sex isn't tender and slow, like it was in the grape arbor, or even self-conscious and showy like during the screen-call; Rich is still wearing all his clothes, wet shirt rolling up his stomach and jeans shoved down just below his butt. Liam's little hands are scrabbling at his shoulders for purchase as Liam urges him gleefully on, laughing breathlessly along with Rich between kisses, like they're a pair of teenagers getting away with something fun and dumb and against the rules. When Rich pushes between Liam's legs and starts to work Liam open on his dick, Liam lets out a high little squeak of a moan and then starts immediately moving with him in fast, desperate rolls of his hips. It's hasty and rough and breathless, both of them clinging on tight and moving too fast to think, too fast to do anything except gasp and swear and hold on tight and laugh at absolutely nothing.

Liam opens up beautifully for him, slick and warm as a dream inside, so that all Rich has to do is sink his dick into him in sharp, blissful thrusts, Liam moaning eagerly and shoving back at him, taking it.

"God, that's so good," Liam finally says, thighs tensing on Rich's sides, and Rich realizes he's managed to bottom out in the guy, who knows how, but—three hours, Liam had said, and maybe he spent that time screwing with the laws of physics as effectively as he's crashed Rich's brain.

He gets his hands on Liam's shoulders and holds tight as he draws himself just about all the way back out, looking down between their bodies in awe to see how much it all is, how he managed to fit, how Liam's just—taken him, and Liam squirms and gasps Rich's name between sharp little hungry noises. Then Rich pushes back in, and it's still so slick and hot and easy, and Liam still takes all of him, every last monstrous, too-long inch of him, and makes a noise like a scream but gorgeous. That's about it for Rich's self-control, and he just fucks him, aware enough that he probably shouldn't break the guy's hips or come in like ten seconds but not much more controlled than that. He pounds Liam hard and fast and thrilled, and Liam takes it and laughs and moans and begs for more.

As absurdly good as it is, Rich is still determined to outlast Liam, make it good for him, keep him so beautifully noisy, especially considering how long Liam's obviously been ready for this—and he's doing great until the point where Liam leans up and starts licking and nibbling at Rich's earlobe around the sensitive, tender ache of one almost-healed piercing.

Rich slams up into him with a soft groan and comes hard and desperate, rocking in and out in little aftershocks, overwhelmed with heat and pleasure despite his best efforts to last for longer. When he fumblingly shoves a hand down towards Liam's dick he finds Liam's hand already there. Rich wraps his hand around Liam's entire fist and squeezes, forcing Liam into a faster, firmer rhythm, and Liam screams for him, screams his name, then follows Rich over the edge of climax, back arching against the counter, wild curls splaying out around his head in a deep blue halo.

He reaches up as Rich starts to pull out, grabs Rich's face and pulls him almost double for one more brief, hot kiss. Then he sighs and collapses back against the counter, somehow managing to look both softly, sweetly satisfied and incredibly, wickedly smug at the same time.

"Perfect," he sighs, and sits up cautiously, wincing a little and biting his lip. "Mmm, excellent, god, you were so good. But you'd better get back before they miss you." He drops a cleaning rag in Rich's hand and waves vaguely at the sink. "Not that I actually wanna kick you out, of course, but Ben said if I kept you past your break he would throw me overboard. He's grumpy when he doesn't get enough sleep."

Rich snorts, tugs his slick, sparkly condom carefully off, tosses it in the galley waste bin, then gets the rag wet in the sink and wipes both of them down before doing his pants back up. "Are you heading back with me, or…?"

"Ah, well," Liam sighs. "Downside to my love of getting vigorously dicked down, I have to do some extra cleaning up afterward. The counter needs to be sanitized now, and besides, I have soup thermoses to fill." He waves Rich off with a languid hand. "Get going, hon, you're fine. I'll catch up with you."

"You're the best," Rich says fervently, and kisses him some more, then breaks away and heads for the door, swinging his oilcloth back around his shoulders. "See you later!"

"Count on it!" Liam calls after him, and then Rich is out into the Reliant's decks again, hurrying through crowds of people and back out into the driving rain.

-

The next two hours are a lot easier to get through, warmed through with soup and enough food and the memory of Liam spread out and screaming for him, and Rich is practically cheerful as he helps get the last handful of plastics-recycling trawlers floated aboard and wedged into their cradles. He's just unclamping the last couple float-tubes from the Resplendent—a completely ridiculous name for a single-residency trawler, but there's no accounting for taste—when a guy sticks his head over the railing of the neighboring single-residency Jabberwock and goes, "Holy shit! Merrill!" then jumps overboard onto his shoulders.

"Hey—fuck!" Rich yelps, staggering, and then draws a sharp, painful breath, something hot and bright and disbelieving unfurling in his chest, as he hears the guy hanging onto him laugh and feels one too many pairs of hands grab hold of him.

"Trimmer?!" he demands, stunned, and then grunts as Trimmer noogies him roughly, holding on with just his bare feet as Rich reels. "Goddamn—shit, man, get off! Fuck!"

Trimmer is laughing like a maniac, and Rich can feel at least three hands clamping on to his oilcloth, half-strangling him with it, while the fourth hand grabs a big fistful of his hair like he's a wild horse. He yells again, spins hard, gets hold of the skinny body on his shoulders and tugs it down, balling Trimmer up in his arms and squeezing him until Trimmer huffs and wraps a toothpick arm around Rich's neck in return.

Maybe just a little less of a toothpick than before, though. Trimmer's skinny little body feels incredibly familiar, comforting to hold onto even if Trimmer's swearing and squirming and shoving at Rich's face, but he also feels just a little heavier in Rich's arms, more solid. When Rich gives him a careful squeeze, Trimmer growls and huffs but he doesn't wince like anything hurts, and he's just...relaxed, in a way Rich isn't used to feeling even when they were screwing around wrestling over stupid shit in Rich's berth.

Rich has spent a lot of time imagining how badly Trimmer could be doing, after the fight, even with the couple pictures he got from Hellbender to reassure himself that at least the little bastard isn't dead, but here and now he doesn't feel like a guy who's been starving or scared or fighting for his life alone. He feels better.

"Get off, you big ugly freak," Trimmer is growling at him, but he's still holding onto Rich's neck—not hugging him, but not letting go, either. His headlocks are never tight enough to actually work, but this one is practically gentle, by Trimmer standards. "You're crushing me."

"Too fuckin' bad!" Rich says, half-laughing, and if his eyes feel stupidly hot and wet with relief, well, there's plenty of rain on his face. "This is what you get! You don't call, you don't write—"

"I'm on parole, Merrill," Trimmer says, and scrabbles at Rich's shirt with his feet, trying to force his way up onto Rich's shoulders instead of being squished against his chest. "I'm a law-abiding citizen and you're a brain-damaged meat-mountain who went and talked shit about me to my own goddamn grandma! Get off! I'll kick you right in the dick, you know I fuckin' will."

"Like you could reach my dick from either end," Rich shoots back. "Fuck, how are you even here? Are we gonna get in trouble?"

"I won't tell if you won't," Trimmer says. "Someone else fucked up the paperwork here, we can let 'em get shipped out for it, fuck 'em! C'mere, you delinquent motherfucker, I owe you so much grief—" and he eels up on to Rich's shoulder to wrench on one of his ears. Laughing, Rich turns around to smush Trimmer deliberately up against the side of the Resplendent, just gently enough that he doesn't break anything, but firmly enough he can feel the impact land.

Trimmer yanks his hair hard enough it really stings, wheezing curses, and Rich un-smushes him. Trimmer slides down his back and hits the deck, then immediately rolls over and starts tearing at his boot laces.

Rich kicks him a few times, gently enough that he just rolls around laughing before wrapping himself around Rich's leg like a skinny blond raccoon. Huffing, Rich doubles over at the waist and gives him a brutal noogie.

"Fuck you, Joseph," he says, as sternly as he can. "I've been worrying about your bony little slice of an ass. All alone in the big wide world, with no one to mop up after whatever trail of corpses you've been leaving! My little boy, all on his own now! I've been wasting away."

"Blow me, Richard, you look as smug as a selkie and twice as ugly, you're fine," Trimmer says, and bites his wrist when Rich tries to pick him up by the scruff of his neck. Rich grabs the back of his shirt and pries him loose, then hoists him up at arm's length and glares into his face. Trimmer hangs there, grinning, then gives him a firm warning swat on the dick with his heel, hard enough to startle. He doesn't even have the courtesy to hit the deck this time when Rich drops him, just bounces, and climbs right back up Rich's arm to try and sit on his head.

"Hey!" Mitch snaps, looming out of the darkness, and Rich startles all over. Then he sees how Mitch is in full uniform, shoulders square, baton drawn, expression furious, and he grabs Trimmer close and backpedals hastily, twisting to get his shoulder and side wedged between the angry Security officer and the tense, frozen shape in his arms.

"Shit shit shit," Trimmer hisses. "Merrill, you've been here a month and you already pissed off the clubs?"

"Officer," Rich says, his heart pounding. "I, what, is, what's the problem? Sir?"

Mitch—Officer Ford—looks confused, and then worried.

"Rich, hey man—it's me, we're good—do you know this guy?" he asks, his voice slow and careful, and hooks his baton back to his belt. "Vince said you were getting attacked by another Sympatico jerk, I came running. What's going on, buddy, are you okay?"

Rich blinks at him, totally lost. "Yeah, I, uh, it's okay, everything's okay, sir, this is just—this is Trimmer."

Officer Ford looks taken aback and maybe even hurt when Rich calls him 'sir'. Rich isn't supposed to call him that, right, even if the guy is in uniform and he's got his club right there on his hip and Rich physically can't mouth off to an officer anymore, his entire nervous system is already preemptively freaking out about it.

"Trimmer," Officer Ford repeats.

"Yeah," Rich says, and nods pointlessly down at Trimmer, who's still hanging onto him and staring at the officer like he might pull his baton at any second. "He's a rude piece of shit, but he wasn't—there wasn't an attack, sir, we weren't fighting, I swear. We were just saying hi. Please don't hurt him. He's my friend."

Officer Ford stares at the way Rich is clutching Trimmer to his chest like a bony teddy-bear, and then goes, "Rrrrright," drawling and casual. "Just a friendly assassination attempt between buddies, huh?" When he grins up at Rich, he's suddenly, recognizably Mitch again, and the iron clench of anxiety around Rich's lungs eases up enough to breathe.

"Yeah, I, uh, yeah we were just playing around, sorry," Rich says.

"I'm not a Sympatico jerk, either, anymore," Trimmer pipes up defiantly. "I'm assigned to the Jabberwock now, suck it."

"Don't tell Security to suck it, you mouthy little freak," Rich tells him, a bit hysterical with relief, and gives Trimmer a shake. Trimmer tries to bite his arm, but can't get his jaw open wide enough to do more than scrape his teeth off Rich's shoulder.

"Okay," Mitch says, openly amused now. "Well if you don't need me over here, I'll go back to patrolling. You sure you're gonna be okay, Rich?"

"I'm fine, sir, thank you."

"Mitch, buddy," he says.

Rich hesitates a long, breathless moment, then relaxes a little more and says, "Yeah, Mitch. We're fine, man. Thanks."

"Just doing my job. You kids play nice, now."

"Got it, no problem," Rich says, and sags gratefully when Mitch walks away.

"So who the fuck was that?" Trimmer asks, squirming up out of Rich's arms to sit on his shoulder and prop an elbow on Rich's head. Rich just lets him, this time, too shaken to keep roughhousing.

"Mitch," he says. "Officer Ford. Nice guy, really, you know I just get jumpy around officers. And he's sort of involved with this guy I'm involved with, so, like..." He's not sure how to finish that sentence.

"So you play nice?" Trimmer suggests.

"I play very nice," Rich agrees.

"Must be a headfuck to have one on your side for once," Trimmer says.

"It really fucking is, yeah," Rich says, although he hadn't actually registered until right now that Mitch was. He came over here as Security to help if it was another mess like with Burton. Rich really is a Security favorite now.

God, it's so late it's early. Rich is gonna fall asleep on his feet if he's out here much longer, soaking wet and cold notwithstanding. There's something he has to do, he can feel it, and he doesn't know what it is but it's nagging, when all he wants to do is sit down with Trimmer somewhere and catch up.

"...Floats are stowed," he mutters to himself, checking over the Jabberwock's docking manifest just to be sure, "cradle clamps engaged, power draw normal...crew abnormal, but it's too late to do anything about that, huh?" He pokes Trimmer in the leg, and laughs at the retaliatory smack of heel against collarbone. "I guess we could—nngh!" He staggers, putting a hand to his head as the other snaps up reflexively to steady Trimmer. That distant pinging that's been bothering him all night just got a lot louder suddenly, clanging through his skull like an alarm.

"Merrill, what the fuck?!" Trimmer says, clinging to him tenaciously. "Are you drunk?"

"No," Rich mumbles, "'s just…so loud, what the hell…"

"RICH," the ping resolves into an urgent communication. "YOUR ASSISTANCE ISssS RE—REQUIRED."

"The Sympatico," Rich gasps, and leans hard against the side of the Jabberwock. "Shit, she's…she's…still, fuck, ahh." His ship's need for help is like an undertow, sucking him down into the hungry tangle of corrupt processes and clunky, cognition-heavy reroutes. He's dimly aware of Trimmer sliding down his body, grabbing at his arm to at least keep him from toppling over as he slumps to his knees.

"Let her sink this time!" Trimmer says. "Fuck that floating trash heap!"

Rich shakes his head. He hated every minute of every year aboard the Sympatico, but it wasn't the boat's fault. It was the people. And she needs him, still, needs Rich to hold her steady, to untangle the endless knots and soothe the crippling wounds her uncaring crew has left in her mind. He can't say no when there's no one else and she needs him.

Trimmer sighs, and ruffles Rich's hair, tugging fistfuls of it to get his attention. "Where's your berth?"

"Not—nnh, here, not here..." Rich blinks a few times, trying to surface enough to see Trimmer through the haze of overlay processes he's getting buried under. God, she's freaking out, no one's explained anything to her in a way she understands it. They just scrubbed the blood off her decks and assigned her an IST complement who're inputting perfectly crisp, clean, regulation command lines, not even noticing how few of those she can actually understand.

Rich is the only technician she knows to guide her through a storm: Rich taught her that, patiently, year after year, the only tech she could rely on. The only tech who would take the time to really listen to her, and respond in a way her tangled, corrupted cognition routines could process. So, faced with her first storm under a new chain of command, she fought her way through the Reliant's proprietary claim on Rich just to get ahold of him again…

Trimmer slaps him, briskly, and Rich shakes off enough distractions to gasp and stagger back to his feet. Instead of sorting out wherever his face has gotten off to, he just forces his way into Trimmer's comm system via the brute-force method of grabbing one of his hands and pulling the guy's screens up himself. Then he gives Trimmer full access to his Reliant profile, his berth assignment, the door code. Trimmer can take care of everything, now, while he takes care of the Sympatico.

"Fuck, that's so creepy," Trimmer says, but Rich is already losing his grip on this particular layer of reality. He stumbles after Trimmer as he's pulled along, and when he falls too far behind Trimmer curses at him and pulls his hair in sharp, angry fistfuls, hurting him just enough to keep him from sinking back down to the deck and losing track of his body entirely.

"Rich?" someone says, alarmed. Trimmer crowds back up against his front, and then there's a lot of confusing noise, someone tugging on his shirt.

"Don't touch him!" Trimmer is shouting, and then a blur of color and light as Trimmer shoves someone tall and worried away, the chrome glint of a blade flashing. Oh, good, Trimmer's still armed, that's…that'll be helpful. Rich tries to lie down before he falls over and Trimmer curses, wrenching on his shirt and hair some more, then slapping him a few times.

"Not here, you freeloading sack of shit," Trimmer is hissing, sharp and violent and cutting through the buzz in Rich's skull. "Come on, come on! Get up! I'll carve your goddamn face right off your skull, see if I don't, get up!"

They're not in his berth yet. Right. Rich forcefully closes about fifty nonessential processes the Sympatico is trying to get his input on, and in the pause while the Sympatico is recalibrating her priority queue, he staggers to his feet, picks Trimmer up, and carries him at a fast desperate stride down the last passageway to his berth.

"The door," he mumbles, with his face and everything this time, "Get th'door, Monkey," and drops heavily onto his bed while Trimmer closes it and starts disabling the lock. Then the Sympatico has Rich again, needs him, and there's no one else in the Fleet for her but him. He feels Trimmer come close and start taking off his wet oilcloth. Then he's torn away from his body entirely, and there's nothing more important than his ship and the water and the coming storm.

It's impossible to measure time like this, but at some point he becomes distantly aware that Trimmer is feeding him food blocks, and he does his best to chew and swallow in obedience to the quiet cursing. The Sympatico is tugging at him and it's hard to balance giving her what she needs with sparing the attention to eat and drink and not choke—"I swear to fuck, you overgrown asshole, if you choke and die I will piss on your corpse, don't fucking do it," —but he manages it with the encouragement of pinches and slaps to keep him present.

Then Trimmer lets him sink away again, swallowed up in the buzz of anxious processes and constant alarms. The Sympatico is already dragging Rich down again: the Tempestuous is streaming raw meteorological data and she needs Rich to translate it for her into something she can actually understand, then check each of her response calculations for bad math. And a passing ship traded location pings with her, and she can't make sense of their heading, and they can't make sense of hers, and are pinging more urgently, and she needs him to figure it out. And then there's the urgent and immediate need for Rich to keep all her kinetic sensors from locking up and her turbines from shorting out and her engines from overheating and her navigation programs from crashing, on and on...She centers every part of herself around him, the only uncorrupted processing node she has, and Rich holds himself open for her and gives her everything he can give.

He gets fed a few times, but he can't track how many; his lagging, exhausted mind is struggling to keep up with the demands on it and he's lost track of most of his limbs, much less his digestive system, when Ben's pings finally get through to him. People have pinged him before, but he muted them immediately to keep from being distracted. Ben is the department head, though, Rich doesn't have the authority to mute him, and downgrading his priority ranking only works for so long. Rich still ignores it as long as he can, hoping Ben will give up and let him be, but the pings just get more intrusive.

Finally, exasperated, he answers.

Richard Merrill, IST: im busy ben

Benedict Jones, IST Head: Break your goddamn connection to the Sympatico or I'll do it for you.

Richard Merrill, IST: cant she needs me

Benedict Jones, IST Head: She has three technicians of her own she can lean on, I'm in contact with the Captain herself and she says they're all competent and ready to go. They can take over for you.

Richard Merrill, IST: they don't know how to pilot her! no one knows how but me we're too corrupted it wont work

Benedict Jones, IST Head: Then you'd better teach them how.

Richard Merrill, IST: cant deal with this rn go away

Richard Merrill, IST: leave us alone

He doesn't, though. He stops pinging Rich, demanding his attention, but Rich can feel him tracing along Rich's connection to the Sympatico, using his admin authority over Rich to cut himself a window into what Rich and the Sympatico are doing with each other, then just sit there behind Rich's shoulder and watch.

Benedict Jones, IST Head: How the FUCK did she get like this?

Richard Merrill, IST: leave us alone!!!

Rich tries to get the Sympatico to block him out, but he can't. As Rich's department head, Ben has full authority to monitor Rich's actions, and Rich can't get rid of him without—oh, hey.

Rich goes and deletes himself from the Reliant's crew complement.

Benedict Jones, IST Head: HOLY SHIT YOU BETTER NOT BE DEAD

Richard Merrill, ???: fuck off already!

Rich blocks him, since he's no longer Rich's department head, then gets back to work.

Everything is fine for a bit after that, and then Rich realizes he's being watched again, and not just by one person this time but several. He can't block them when they're not making contact, and when he tells the Sympatico to block them she won't, because they're her techs and they're authorized to monitor her processes. Disgruntled, Rich does his best to ignore them and focus on keeping the balance, splitting his attention between safe navigation and meteorology reports and collision avoidance calculations and—

There's a mental feeling like a hand plucking at the back of Rich's shirt, and one of the hundreds of processes fighting for room in his brain suddenly drops away from him. It's an essential process that regulates the power draw from her kinetic turbines, and if it corrupts it could leave her dead in the water and also on fire. He scrabbles after it in horror and then falters as he realizes it's still going, being run a little more erratically but still operating well within reasonable tolerances. Before he can decide what to do about that, torn three ways between fear and confusion and exhaustion, another task drops off his management queue, and then another one.

It's shocking to suddenly have the mental space to think again, and the main thought occupying him is 'What the fuck?!'

He pings the usurper of the latest task.

Richard Merrill, ???: what are you doing??

Brianna Teixeira, IST: my JOB actually

Richard Merrill, ???: its MY job leave me alone!

Brianna Teixeira, IST: uhhh no and also no my guy

The other presences quickly pile in through the connection, forcing their messages into his system before he can manage to ward them away.

Wren McCormack, IST: We're supposed to share task loads like this for a reason and that reason is you are gonna melt your fucking brain! What the hell.

Richard Merrill, ???: im used to it, im fine!

Cherry Nguyen, IST Head: we can SEE what ur handling here & u should be dead by now holy S H I T

Richard Merrill, ???: i can do this if u just leave me alone she needs me its MY JOB

Brianna Teixeira, IST: it fucking isnt anymore so shut up and let us take over already! im gonna handle proximity guidance so u better tell me how she wants that handled or ill just start keysmashing

Rich makes a furious, frustrated noise of desperate worry, jittering all over, and feels Trimmer jolt up off his chest and pat his face frantically.

"What's going on, what—Merrill, hey—"

"Shh," Rich tells him, and grumpily rolls over, tucking Trimmer under his arm like a comfort toy. He hates this, he hates piloting the Sympatico but she needs him. He's never had a choice about it before and he'd have thought that he would have chosen to have someone else do it, if he ever could have, but having her processes torn away from him without warning or agreement is viscerally terrifying.

It feels like parts of himself, his own self, are being removed, watching technicians he's never even met take over things he's been managing for years and do it differently, badly, worse, not right, it's awful, he hates it but they won't stop. This is their job now. All he can do is fumblingly try to tell them how to handle what they've taken from him, which isn't enough, which doesn't feel right, but it's something, some tiny shred of control to exert over this disorientingly unexpected situation he's found himself in.

Rich feels more of cognitive load lifting off him a piece at a time as he explains to the technicians, clumsy and halting, how he does things. He's never had anyone to teach before, and doesn't know how, but they're all surprisingly good at figuring out what he means just by watching him demonstrate what he's doing, which closes the gap well enough.

He's getting the sense that all the Sympatico's new technicians are older than him, and probably smarter—it's just that none of them have ever had to deal with an AI this disastrously tangled up and mistreated, so they had no idea how badly corrupted she really was until they followed Rich down into her core. But they're all eager to do their jobs as well as they can, and they don't get in each other's way, or Rich's, and bit by bit, process by process, the awful crushing pressure of the Sympatico's systems ease up. He starts to think more clearly, communicate more articulately, and everything gets that much more easy.

Somewhere, Trimmer tries to wake him up again—there's a sharp pain in his scalp as Trimmer gets a handful of his hair and wrenches hard, shaking his whole head back and forth to try and get his attention. Rich comes back to himself long enough to snarl, "Not now, fuck!" and the pain fades again. Eating can wait. Explaining himself can definitely wait. If they're going to help him, really help, if there's finally someone out there that can do things how the Sympatico needs them done, then he'll offload every single thing he can on them.

He's starting, belatedly, to realize that this is a good thing that's happening to him. He could be free, finally, he's getting that now, he's maybe finally understanding it enough to hope: the Sympatico needs him, he could never say no while she needs him, but that could change. That is changing. She won't need him after this, not ever again, this is the last storm he'll ever carry her through, he can be done.

Slowly, the strain of all the processes Rich knew needed to be controlled but had no capacity to manage is siphoned away. He takes a deep, shuddering breath when the last demand is passed to Brianna and she passes it onwards and it ticks along without Rich's involvement at all, and the Sympatico doesn't make so much as a peep.

Richard Merrill, ???: Technician Merrill signing off, he tells the Sympatico.

"Rest," the Sympatico says to him, and nothing more.

Cherry Nguyen, IST Head: we got this now man go crash

Rich considers, now that he has some time to do that, and then nervously un-blocks Ben.

Benedict Jones, IST Head: MOTHERFUCKER!!!

He blocks Ben again.

"You good, big guy?" Trimmer says, and Rich jumps and cracks his eyes open. Trimmer is leaning over him, looking tired as hell.

"Yeah," Rich says vaguely. His mouth feels as numb and distant as the rest of him. God, he's wrecked. "Yeah, I'm…good. She's got…new crew, they're…good. We're all good."

"Oh, thank fuck," Trimmer says. "Your boss shouted through the door that I wasn't allowed to kill you because he had first dibs. I told him he was welcome to you as soon as you were done and not a second before, and he fucked off, but like, it's been a wild fuckin' day. Can I open up yet? I been pissing in one of your soda bottles but I gotta shit too and my aim's not so great with that."

"Go for it," Rich says tiredly, and lies there, luxuriating in having his whole entire brain back to himself, while Trimmer fixes whatever he did to the door lock and shoves it open.

"He's still alive and kicking, stop crying," Trimmer says to someone out in the passageway. To Rich, he calls back, "Hey, there's a kid here, you good to see him or do I clear him off?"

"Basil?" Rich asks.

From the doorway, Basil goes, "Yeah, Rich, I'm—fuck! Hey—"

"Back off or I carve you a new fucking face, kid!" Trimmer snarls, low and vicious. "Merrill, do I run him off or what, he's gettin' pushy!"

"No, Monkey, it's fine, s'Basil, we're fucking," Rich mumbles, barely fighting off a swell of exhaustion that rises up and tries to take him off to sleep already. Basil, it's Basil, he should let Basil know he's fine. "...Le'm in already."

"Okay. Okay. Fine, then. No accounting for taste, either of you. Kid, where the hell is the washroom in this garbage crate?"

"Down the passage, asshole," Basil says, and shoves past Trimmer fast.

"Yeah, nice t'meet you too, shithead," Trimmer says disgustedly, and leaves.

"Rich," Basil says, voice cracking, and Rich huffs weakly when Basil drops onto the bed and plasters himself on, giving a sharp, muffled bark of a sob into Rich's chest.

"Hey, baby boy, wh'sup," Rich says, and pets uncoordinatedly at Basil's hair.

"God, I thought you were going to die," Basil says, voice cracking with stress and tears, and squeezes him hard. "You huge jerk, don't you ever do that again!"

"Won't have to," Rich says, and closes his eyes again. He's so tired...

"You should have died!" Basil says. "You maniac, no one can pilot a fucking 50-boat all on their own for a fucking day, you were in here like twenty hours, your brain should be fucking burnt out of your skull, you should have died!"

"Didn't," Rich points out. Basil growls, and swats him, apparently too angry to keep crying, and Rich laughs a little, weak and sticking in his throat, and he's so tired… He falls asleep, and wakes up with a start when he smells hot green tea.

"Trimmer," Rich says gratefully, and shrugs Basil clumsily off him to grab for the fourhands and the tea both. Trimmer helps him hold the thermos up and get it to his mouth and everything. There's even sugar in it, it's just how he likes it, and for a moment everything in the whole entire world is perfect.

"God, I missed you so fucking much," Rich tells Trimmer, out loud, with his own actual mouth, by mistake.

But, "Yeah," is all Trimmer says about it, very quietly. The guy puts one of his bony little hands on the side of Rich's neck and leaves it there until Rich is done with the tea. Rich pushes his luck: he curls back up in bed, clutching Trimmer close to his chest where he belongs, and goes back to sleep. He's warm and safe for a long, long time.