So sometimes I'm going to sleep and then the muse hits me with the Baseball Bat of Zillyhoo (my muse has Big-Stick-Kind) and I have to get up and create. I am sure many of you know this feeling. It's often drawings, sometimes embroidery plans, sometimes prose or poetry, very occasionally it's song lyrics.
Bluegrass is new.
Anyway, this thing is what happened at four AM on Friday morning. The tempo should start quite fast, then drop off to about half for the final verse.
Not The Same
We got Pestilence and Famine, you got here in time for War
You were preachin' very pretty but we needed healin' more
With no mama here to help you, what's a city boy to do?
You just ain't from round here, son, and no-one needed you
It's not the same, it's not the same
To waste an education, such a shame
And if your mama she could see you
She would pray the lord redeems you
'Cause our folks and folks like you just ain't the same
Well you came outta Mississippi and your eyes were big and bright
You came down to this devil's town to set the world alight
But now you been here with us sinners and your eyes don't shine no more
But you say you'd do it all again if you knew what you know, before
You're not the same, you're not the same
I know you say you'd do it all again
Maybe this time you'd do it wiser, hell, I know you'd do it kinder
'Cause no matter what you say you ain't the same
Well, I gotta give you credit 'cause you never did give in
Fifteen years and longer you stayed in this town of sin
You saw death and pain and helplessness, you don't preach so loud no more
Might even be a sinner too, you ain't the kid from years before
We're not the same, we're not the same
As we were the day we started this ole game
Maybe we'd do it different next time but we only get the one time
And by the time we reach the end, we're all the same
In which Dustin and Kree go shopping and talk about pets, brothers and sex.
Dustin was used to working on hard projects. He always looked for things to challenge himself when it came to repairing ships, and as a result rarely ever picked himself up an easy job. The Favour was no exception. She was a beautiful ship, there was no doubt, but she needed some love. A lot of love. Some mechanics would have seen her engine and walked away, but Dustin wanted to get her up and running again, make her fly like she was meant to.
So he was making a list. Well, three lists. He liked lists. They helped to keep him organized and from getting too distracted. He had a list of urgent repairs, not-so-urgent repairs, and annoyances that he could look after once the other two lists had been completed. Each of those lists also had all of the necessary parts laid out that each repair would need, as well as the ones Dustin thought would just be fun to put in and see how well they worked.
There was just one problem. He had his lists, he knew what he needed, but he had nowhere to get what he needed. He wasn't going planetside alone, but he didn't want to disrupt Kree or Danit. Especially not Danit. Still, the parts were necessary, and they did need to get the ship moving, so Dustin headed out of his safe little hidey-hole in the engine room, seeking out one of the two brothers to see if they would go on a shopping trip to the surface with him.
There wasn't much chance of bumping into Danit - he was still in the medibay, doing whatever it was Danit did at this hour, but Kree had been in the cargo bay doing combat practice, and Dustin would have to pass him to get pretty much anywhere else on the ship.
Kree heard the engine room door open and stopped kicking the shit out of a kickbag long enough to realise that oh, yeah, it was the new guy, of course it was, who else did he think it was going to be. So he stood there, panting heavily, gills open and scales lifted up all over his body to cool him down, blurring his outline slightly. He knew he looked a lot less human-like when he was like this - wearing just a pair of sweatpants so the claws on his feet were visible along with all the scales.
Still, he grinned at Dustin when he appeared and said, 'So what's the damage?'
Oh, woah. Okay. Dustin hadn't quite been expecting that. While he had seen plenty of other "aliens" before, he had never met an Aardru, and especially never seen one wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants. It was kind of terrifying, to tell the truth, what with the claws and the scales and the fin on his back and the gills and...
Dustin shook his head, able to bring a smile to his lips when the question was asked, and he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Eh, well, we've got a bit of a shopping list." He held up the handheld he'd been using to keep track of what he needed. "I, uh, I'll probably need to go down to the surface to get most of the parts..."
Kree shook himself and walked over, apparently unaware of the fact that his mouth was open and his narrow, forked tongue hanging out, but that seemed to be another temperature regulation thing, because just as he reached Dustin and took the list, his scales gradually started flattening themselves against his body again.
'Let's see that... mm-hmm... oh, yeah, I knew about that one... oh, shit, really?' Kree grimaced. 'The fly drum? Damn, that's gonna cost a fortune. Are you sure we can't, fuck, I don't know, rig something to make it hold another half-cycle?'
Dustin looked over Kree's shoulder at the list while half watching his scales return to normal out of the corner of his eye, and he shrugged at the other man's question.
"Probably, but it'll need to be replaced eventually with a proper one. Most of the stuff could be jerry-rigged, really, but that'd just be postponing the moment when it all goes kaput."
'I'm not saying we couldn't do it eventually,' said Kree. 'Just right now, we can afford to do... uh, I don't know. Maybe... half of this list? Or just the fly drum. I suppose we could do the fly drum and one other thing - one other cheap thing, if we get lucky and the dealers are feeling happy today. So I'll go get dressed and get the shuttle ready and you can go over this and work out what really needs doing right now, okay?' he handed the list back with an apologetic smile.
"Oh, yeah, yeah!" Dustin nodded, accepting the pad and tucking it into one of the far-too-large pockets of his pants. "Just gimme a shout when we're, uh, all ready to go and stuff."
He didn't bother sticking around for more conversation; small talk had never really been his thing. It terrified him, honestly. He didn't know what to say or how to carry a conversation. He shook his head and took out his list again, going over what was immediately necessary and what could wait. It was going to be a tough choice; the poor Favour needed a lot of work.
'Good man.' Kree clapped him companionably on the back and headed off in the direction of his own quarters to shower and dress.
Twenty minutes later, with his hair still wet but dressed in the strictly utilitarian grey and green Aardru space-to-planetside jumpsuit, he knocked twice on the engine room door and came through.
'Dustin? You ready?'
Dustin jumped a little at the knock, but he smiled at Kree when he came in before continuing to root around for his goggles. They'd been right on his helmet, he'd swear it on his life...
"Yeah, I just- Ah, there you are!" He reached into one of his suitcases - he still hadn't really unpacked anything - and pulled out his elusive goggles, after peeling a stray sock off of them. He gave them a tentative sniff and, after determining that they didn't smell like feet, slid them on, pushing them up on his forehead so they held his bangs back. He smiled at Kree.
"Alright, I'm good. I looked over the list again and I think I've got what we can and can't avoid buying for now."
'Let's have a look,' said Kree, holding out a hand for the list. 'Nice goggles, by the way.'
A genuine grin came to Dustin's lips as he passed over his list. "Thanks! I got them when I was a kid, not long after my dad bought me my helmet. The lenses are self-tinting, so they're great for welding work and stuff like that. They've kept me from losing an eye more than once."
Kree nodded approvingly and looked over the list, making up mental tallies in his head. At the end of it, he made a regretful hiss, and handed the list back. 'Well, it's gonna sting, but we'll live. No hookers for a while, eh?' he flashed his teeth, then set off across the cargo bay to the shuttle dock, jerking his head for Dustin to follow him.
Dustin trotted after him, wincing a little at the hiss, and accepted the list back. He let out a nervous little laugh and said, "Heh, yeah. I guess not." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Hookers would be nice, though."
Seeing as he hadn't had sex in almost three years, hookers would be very nice, but hookers were kind of pointless when you couldn't get to them. The world they were parked around was pretty nice, but human prostitutes were hard enough to find anyway (or hard for Dustin to find; truth be told, he'd never really looked that hard).
"Gotta have the Favour running, though, yeah?" he said, clearing his throat slightly and trying not to think of breasts. Or ass. Yeah, those were both bad places for his mind to go.
'Yep, and I must say I'm glad to hear that kind of dedication from you,' said Kree. 'Maybe sometime when we've actually got some cash we can go and dock at the Light of the Skies - Madame Dalae's a Hinchonite, she'll find you exactly what you need. It's my favourite place in the whole galaxy.'
He sounded a little wistful, and the scales around his face were slowly changing colour from olive green to teal, but as he settled into the pilot's seat of the Fortune's Favour's tiny shuttle he took a deep breath and applied himself to the task at hand. 'Anyway - this is our shuttle, it's not officially supposed to have a name but it used to be some rich kid's toy so that's why it's called Silverfish. Luckily for our budget we haven't had her nearly as long as the Favour - our last shuttle was shot to bits about a year ago so we had to buy a new one.'
"Oh! Oh, sure, that'd be... Yeah!" Dustin tried to imagine what a Hinchonite could find for him and found himself at a loss. Sure it might be a little awkward going there with his boss (his kind of attractive boss, if he looked past the scales and the gills and the claws and good God he was not thinking of this right now), but it could be fun. For the moment, though, there were more pressing matters. Like paying attention to what Kree was saying about the shuttle.
He nodded as the other man finished speaking and said, "She looks nice. I could probably give her a look once the Favour's running nice and smooth. I hate seeing ships get run down, even just the shuttles."
'Oh, Silverfish is running perfectly, you'll find nothing wrong with her. Previous owner barely even broke orbit, so she's practically new. We got lucky.'
That was almost as bad as letting a ship get run down. "Shame for them. She really does look good."
Kree nodded and pulled the mic towards him. 'OK, Danit, we're ready to go. See you in a few hours, don't run off to Dalae's while we're gone.'
There was a short silence and then Danit's voice from the mic. 'I'm not even going to dignify that with a reply. Go away and come back when you've got something productive.'
Kree laughed. 'Alright then. Over and out.'
Then he typed a code into the Silverfish's console, added coordinates and let it scan his hand for DNA ID verification, and there was the familiar click-hiss-thump of the shuttle moving smoothly away from the airlock.
As the shuttle disengaged, Dustin felt a giddy, jittery feeling in his gut and he smiled to himself. He loved flying. Even, or perhaps especially, when he wasn't doing the actual flying. He had no head for navigation; he'd crash before he got airborne.
"So, uh, how's Danit been?" he said, attempting that ever dangerous minefield that was small talk. "I haven't seen him around the ship much."
'He's been fine,' said Kree, steering the shuttle easily away from the Favour - the engines made not a sound and the ride was so smooth they may as well not have been moving at all - then pressing a button which made a buttery synthesised female voice say, 'Autopilot engaged.'
'You'll see him around more when he gets used to the idea of you being on the ship. He's just sulking right now cuz he doesn't like new people much - no, scratch that, he doesn't like most people. He's... you know how sometimes you get a new person in your hole and the salamanders are all wary and checking 'em out, working out how they tick, whether they're 'mander people or canra people, whether they're gonna stay, how much of their territory they're gonna take up? Like that. Although for fuck's sake don't tell Danit I compared him to a salamander.'
It took Dustin a moment to get the metaphor, but he let out a little chuckle once he did. "I won't, don't worry. I hope he thinks I'm a salamander person, though. It would really suck to have him hate me."
Kree grinned. 'I shouldn't worry about that. Danit doesn't bother actually hating people generally. Anyway, you look like a 'mander person to me. You ever have any pets?'
Dustin blinked and then laughed a little, shrugging. "Well, kinda. When I was just a baby, my mom owned a rabbit - one of those old Earth animals, you know, real expensive - and it didn't live long enough for me to really get to know it. My mom made me a stuffed rabbit, though, 'cause I was sad after hers died. I probably still have it somewhere."
Kree frowned for a moment, trying to visualise 'rabbit' in his head, and then understanding dawned visibly. 'Oh, yeah, the hairy things? With the ears? Oh, fuck, you had one of those? I thought they were extinct!' He ran a hand through his almost-dry hair. 'Wow, I've never seen one of those in real life. My old mate Guirden said they breathe fire, I figured they were way too hairy for that - I mean, you'd think it'd burn off, right? Anyway, do they?'
The question had Dustin staring, and for a moment he had to fight off laughter. He lost that fight and was soon covering his mouth with a hand and trying not to make it too obvious.
"N-no, no, nothing like that. Rabbits were tiny, fuzzy little things, and there are still some in a preservation centre on Trigo IX. They're completely harmless, except for when they bite; their teeth aren't sharp, but they're long. I think I like the idea of fire-breathing rabbits better, though."
'Oh.' Kree seemed kind of disappointed, apparently he'd been hoping that fire-breathing rabbits actually existed somewhere. 'We had four salamanders back on Denka - most Aardru have 'em, those or canra or sometimes marsiiks, you have to have something to keep the bugs and praets down. But me and Danit had one each - couldn't bring 'em with us, of course.'
"Yeah. My mom was pretty sure she shouldn't have brought her rabbit with her either, but she couldn't leave it behind. There was no one to look after it, and she didn't want to sell it." He let out a sigh and stretched, scratching idly at his stomach. "I always wanted one of those little companion robots they make for kids, you know the ones that act like different kinds of pets. I tried to make one, once, but my brother stepped on it by accident and that kind of killed my dreams of pet-ownership."
Kree snorted softly. 'Brothers, huh?' Then he stood up. 'I need a coffee. Want one? I'm pretty sure Aardru coffee is the same as yours...'
"Oh, sure, yeah. Please, thank you," Dustin said, watching Kree get up. "And yeah. My brother, Emmett, was three years older than me, and he hated me." He laughed a little. "Thought I was too nosey, and it didn't help that I never left him alone. I would always be tagging along with him, no matter how much he yelled at me."
Kree chuckled. 'Sounds like someone's a glutton for punishment.' He turned on the coffee machine and started collecting the fixings. 'How do you take yours? Oh, that reminds me, we're getting food supplies on this trip too. So no real milk but we do have some of that crappy milk powder stuff we always kept for guests... and sugar or salt?'
"Just a couple spoonfuls of sugar, thanks," Dustin said, "and yeah. I was a pretty dumb kid. I was great with machines and stuff, but I sucked at reading people. Even when my brother was screaming at me to fuck off or he'd tell Mom, I'd just tag along, happy as anything."
'Well, at least you were happy,' said Kree, stirring sugar into Dustin's mug and salt into his own - Dustin would find that nearly all Aardru food and drink contained horrendous amounts of salt. 'I dunno how easy me and Danit are to read - I think Danit is pretty easy, but I'm used to him. I'm glad you're good with machines, though. When we've got the Favour running well enough that we can do long-haul trips or Eeo-forbid, hyperjumps, we'll have that much more spare cash and everything'll be easier all round.' He handed Dustin his coffee with a grin. 'I like being able to raise everyone's wages.'
"I like that too," Dustin said, accepted the coffee with a smile. He took a sip and leaned back in his seat, scratching one calf with the opposite foot. His small talk meter had been run dry, so he didn't say anything. He just sipped and did his best not to stare at Kree. He had a bad habit of staring at people when he was waiting for them to speak, and he didn't want to freak out his boss with it.
Kree, however, was fine with being stared at - Aardru were comparitively rare this far away from the Berkis-IV system, and while they tended towards being slightly bigger on average than humans, Kree was pretty large even for an Aardru, so he barely registered people looking at him anymore.
He settled back in his chair and took a sip of his coffee, and his back fin stretched a little in contentment, enough to ruffle his collar and hair a little but not enough to actually show above his hair. His scales turned a slightly warmer shade of green, too - eventually, Dustin would probably figure out that the easiest way to read an Aardru's moods was by the colour of their scales.
He did notice, and he was curious. "So, your scales change depending on how you're feeling, right? Can you feel it, or does it just happen?"
Kree rolled up his sleeve and inspected the back of his wrist as though he'd never seen his scales before. 'Yeah, I guess... well, there's no "guess", really, I just never thought about it. I mean, it's sort of not exactly the same for each Aardru but mostly it is, if you get my drift. Heh. I haven't been asked about that in four turns. Damn, I'll be thinking about that all day...'
"Heh, sorry," Dustin said, taking another sip of his coffee. He licked his lips and cleared his throat a little. "Uh, so... how is it at Madame Dalae's?"
Yes, he was still thinking about that, so sue him. To his credit, he'd tried not to. It hadn't worked.
To give him credit, Kree just shot him a grin and said, 'It's this big space station in A3-80R12 sector, you get there and you dock, and usually we don't go and see Madame Dalae right away, or even every time - we go pretty regularly and we know what we want, but if you do want to see her then the greeters take you to get fed and freshened up and maybe get some rest. We generally do that anyway whether we're seeing Madame Dalae or not, but anyway.
Then you get taken to her room, and she's just this ball of golden light floating in mid air and you just feel all calm and happy and peaceful and sometimes that's the best bit, but she can figure out exactly what you need and fuck, if they don't have it on the Light of the Sky you must be some kind of sick weirdo. I mean, they even have high-quality robots to deal with most of the really hardcore customers.
I'm really fucking tame in comparison. I like Aardru, Deriban, Human and sometimes Reutin. Although I dunno, I'm generally open to experimentation, Dalae found me a cracker of a Strilbine last time and I didn't even know I had a thing for those single-gender, uh.' He waved his hands eloquently. 'Thingies. This one was a talented thingie, though. Throat went on forever.'
Dustin listened intently, trying not to gape, and he shuddered a little as the other man finished speaking. "God, I can't even imagine... But I guess that's not saying much. I mean, heh, I'm not exactly, uh, experienced, so just about anything would be good for me probably. But that's probably too much information, so I'll be quiet."
Kree laughed good-naturedly. 'C'mon, it's not a big deal, it's just sex. Oh, wait, damn, I forgot, you humans get all embarrassed about that, don't you? Why, anyway? You might as well get shy about music.'
The question made Dustin's cheeks heat and he rubbed the back of his neck. It made him think, though. "I dunno, really. We're just... we're just taught to be discreet about sex. I dunno why..." He shook his head. "How do Aardru handle it, then? Why don't you get embarrassed?"
Kree had to think about that one. 'Well... why would you? I mean, yeah, it can be a private thing between you and your other half, but it's also a lot of fun, so why get embarrassed about it? I mean, I'm not stupid, we have rape and all that kind of shit on Denka, and sometimes the squid get mean with POWs because they think we're nasty dirty little land sluts and they want to make us regret it, but everything's got a bad side. Like, saying all of sex is something to be ashamed of is like saying you should be embarrassed by food because poison exists.'
He raised a good point. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Dustin snorted softly. "Not that it'd matter to me. I'm too self-conscious and shy to ever talk about sex. The fact that I'm actually saying the word in front of another sentient being is fucking impressive. I'm probably going to burst into flames of embarrassment any time now."
Kree smirked and finished his coffee. 'And yet here we are, talking about it. OK, here, let me fan the flames a little - males, females, both, neither or other?'
Dustin choked a little on his next sip of coffee and had to try to keep from falling into a coughing fit. He managed to swallow it down and murmured, "I dunno. Girls, I guess. I've only ever slept with a girl, so I dunno..."
Okay, now he was sure he was going to burst into flames.
Kree quirked an eyebrow at him, scales an inquisitive shade of yellow-brown. 'Does that mean you'd be open to experimentation? Oh, look at that, I didn't think humans did the colour change thing...'
Goddamn it. Dustin shuffled a little in his seat and turned his cup in his hands. "I dunno. I mean, maybe. I've heard... stuff... about stuff with... yeah. Maybe. I dunno. What about you?"
'Depends on mood, generally I like both,' replied Kree easily. 'Sometimes if I get something new then that's fun, like I said - I think I'm most at home with males, though. You know, if I had to pick.' He put his hands behind his head and grinned happily at the ceiling. 'Every now and then I get enough cash to get one of each.'
Dammit, apparently it was harder to embarrass an Aardru about sex than he'd been hoping. Dustin cleared his throat again and sipped at his coffee, noticing that he'd managed to down most of it already without realizing. Kree's statement had brought to mind a question, though.
"How does that... work? With three people..."
'Oh, there's plenty of ways, you can have them take turns, or if-' He stopped suddenly and his grin widened, his scales turning almost pink. 'You trying to get me to talk dirty to you, human? Well, Earthers aren't all priss and proper after all, it seems...'
"What? Oh, no no no! I wasn't- I'm not- Oh God," Dustin said, running a hand down his face. He had to admit, the things he'd been saying had sounded a lot like he was trying to pry information from the other man. "I really... I don't... I'm just gonna shut up. I can't talk without making a fool of myself or sounding like I'm coming onto my boss."
Kree cackled evilly, then reached across and scruffed Dustin's hair. 'It's okay, I'm flattered. Madame Dalae'll probably give you a nice human girl who'll teach you everything. Or a pretty boy if you're curious. Of whatever species floats your boat. And it will be all happy fucking ever after, or at least until morning.'
Dustin dug himself a little further into his seat when his hair was ruffled, but he was smiling a little bit. "I hope so," he said. "I've had sex, but I still feel like a fucking virgin with how little I know. I mean, I'm twenty-fucking three. Prime years of my life, and I'm too busy trying to find work all the time that I haven't gotten laid since my first time..." He chuckled. "Hell, I'd probably skip on the pay raise if you'd just pay for my visits to Madame Dalae."
Kree shook his head. 'Sorry, Dustin, hookers come under the remit of "things you pay for out of your own pocket". Don't worry, it's all worth it. Oh, and if you get a male and a female, one of the ways that can work out is with you sitting on his dick with her in your lap riding your cock.'
Dustin was about to laugh, but the... instructional comment had him sputtering and blushing again. "God dammit!" He busied himself with his coffee and did everything he could to not look over at Kree. Bastard was teasing him...
Kree laughed uproariously, but was interrupted by the shuttle's navigational system voice saying, 'Approaching planetfall,' so he took over the controls while little bursts of laughter escaped like steam.
'Fuck, word of warning, if you keep being so funny when I do that I'm just not gonna stop...'
"S'not funny," Dustin grumbled, sinking down in his seat to sulk. That was one thing he hated about being so shy and socially inept: everyone could take advantage of him so easily. He ended up relaxing into the chair as they started their descent and eventually let out a sigh.
"I'm hopeless, aren't I?" he said with a small laugh, shaking his head.
'Nah, you're just specialised,' said Kree. 'You'll learn. Anyway, shut up for a minute, we're being hailed.'
The conversation with the docking official was short but nonetheless tedious, but eventually they got permission to dock and so the Silverfish headed down and settled neatly in its designated bay. 'Alrighty then - so they've seen our clearance documents, now we just have to give them the usual DNA imprints and we're off. Let's go and make this quick.'
So the people in the chatroom I was in expressed an interest in seeing the RP logs for Fortune's Favour, the RP played by beyondsociety and myself. I have to edit the actual logs for public consumption, but there are some other things that I wrote that are ready.
Incidentally all these will be tagged #fortune's favour - so if you don't wanna see it, you don't have to.
INTRODUCTION
'OK, who's next?'
'T'ar Seven Seven Aleph Three-Muresa-Cardrett.'
Kree raised an eyebrow. Danit was looking at his clipboard and didn't see him do it.
'That's... some name,' said Kree.
'He - sorry, it - is apparently a clone from that planet in the Ori cloud that even I can't pronounce,' replied Danit absently. 'Mik-Twi-Something.'
'Oh, god.' Kree rolled his eyes. 'Fine, send it in.'
The clone looked pretty much exactly as he'd expected a clone to look - kind of insectile, going on four legs with a big thorax like an ant and no real personality of any kind in face or dress. This, in someone who would be sharing a small space for long periods of time - and interplanetary freight sometimes seemed to contain the longest periods of time in the universe - was not promising. Still, they needed an engineer, so it was worth a shot.
'So. T'ar... Seven Seven Aleph Three-Muresa-Cardrett -' Kree sighed. 'Look, can we call you T'ar?'
The clone cocked its head. 'That is not my name,' it said. 'That is the source name.'
Kree and Danit exchanged glances. Danit shrugged, and Kree tried again. 'Okay, how about, uh... Cardrett?'
The clone raised itself up on four spindly white legs and said stiffly, 'I believe this application was a mistake.'
'Aw, man, don't be like that,' said Kree, but the clone just snorted at him and crossed its arms. 'Look, I'm sorry, we've never hired a clone before, alright?'
'The thought occurs that you may be happier working on a cruise ship,' suggested Danit. 'Something with a much bigger crew than the Fortune's Favour, in any case. I apologise for wasting your time, T'ar Seven Seven Aleph Three-Muresa-Cardrett.'
The clone nodded smartly at Danit, and left. Danit crossed it off the list, as well as two more clone names, as Kree pounded his head gently against the desk.
'No more clones,' said Kree. Danit clicked his pencil against his teeth. 'Just... argh. Never any more clones. Whoever thought cloning was a good idea? Fuck. What was that thing's problem, anyway?'
'Well, I believe you initially called it a god, and then you implied it was a mere child,' replied Danit.
'Yeah, screw that shit right over. Who's next? Tell me we've got a Deriban.'
'Sorry, no Deribans anywhere on the list. We'd have to pay higher for that.' Danit didn't have to look up to know his brother was scowling at him. 'We do have a human, though.'
'That's great, humans I can deal with. Bring him in.'
(First of all, Dustin belongs to BeyondSociety. Second, this prompt takes place shortly after Kree made Dustin an eyewateringly terrible sweater - yes, Kree knits - in colours that are pretty much literally obscene, since colour is of course very deeply rooted in Aardru culture and in their language, 'teal' and 'horny' are the same word, as are 'pink' and 'happy', and so forth.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One day, Kree will tell Dustin he loves him.
One day. Not yet. It's too soon, and despite the sweetness of the man, the way he turns towards Kree every time he touches him, like it's natural now and they've been doing it for years, despite the fact that Dustin says *he* loves *Kree* - it's not safe yet.
Kree has a picture in the back of his mind, of Dustin walking away at the next port, and he has a speech rehearsed in his head to tell Danit and any other crew they may have picked up along the way. No, I didn't love him, it was just a thing to pass the time. Ask him, I never told him I did, I wasn't building sandcastles here. Ask anyone, nobody ever heard me say I loved him. Nobody can prove a thing.
Of course, Danit wouldn't really listen, because the person Kree would really have to convince would be himself, and it'd be much easier if he knew he'd never said those words, than to have said them and have to convince himself he was a liar.
It's not like it's needed, anyway. It's pretty obvious. There are other ways to express how one feels, and Dustin walked around all the time these days wearing a physical manifestation of one of them, bearing Kree's name across the front in Aardru script that he can't read. The fact that he's willing to wear a sweater in teal and pink stripes - Kree had heard that that colour combination wasn't particularly attractive to human eyes - is pretty remarkable, subtext notwithstanding.
And then there's the scheduling - if it were casual, Kree would never regularly uproot his circadian rhythms so that he could spend a night out of his tank, with Dustin. Dustin doesn't really understand the strain it takes - sooner or later Danit will start intervening, and *that* will be a fun conversation - but Kree knows he's grateful, and, in the back of his mind, he knows he wouldn't do it if he wasn't serious about this.
But he could be reading Dustin wrong. Humans aren't like Aardru, they don't change colour to indicate their moods. Dustin could be lying to make Kree feel good, this whole thing could just be a way to pass the time between planets. If Kree told him, who's to say Dustin would even understand? And if he did, maybe he'd leave in disgust or, worse, stay out his contract but resent Kree to the end?
That's a stupid thought. Kree knows how Dustin feels, he's not exactly difficult to read, even without chromatophores. He wears his heart on his sleeve - or at least, he does now, in that sweater.
Still...
Not just yet.
Darrin and Saires stared at each other in silence for a minute, then the brother of the bride decided it was time to intervene. 'Is not exactly complicated. What is bothering you? You have nearly everything done already.'
'I know, just... Go over it one more time, Alexsi. I'm still a little hungover - in Sterran's name, what was *in* those drinks, anyway?'
'Ynusha is right, you *are* sissy water-drinker,' said Alexsi dispassionately. 'Don't worry about vodka, it will put hairs on your chest. Now. I go and sit with family, you go into hall. Tell me how you go into hall.'
Saires took a deep breath. He remembered this part, at least. There'd been a rehearsal, and then another when he'd messed up the part that wasn't like a Myravese ceremony, and another rehearsal after that to make sure he'd got it right. 'I go and stand at the left door of the hall, Darrin will be on my left, with the rock. We wait to be summoned by the priestess, and when we are, we walk to the centre.'
'Don't rush this time!' said Darrin. 'Remember it looks bad if you get there before Ynusha, even I can tell that.'
'Yes, yes, I'm *aware*...'
'Bicker after honeymoon,' said Alexsi, grinning widely and looking unfeasably impish despite the formal robes of his house. 'Now, priestess gives speech, and you are exchanging rocks. What rock?'
'A brick.'
Alexsi raised an almost invisible eyebrow. 'A brick?'
'Part of a limestone brick. It was going to be a necklace of polished quartz beads, but then I thought, well...' Saires trailed off.
'Go on, I am most interested in hearing what you thought.'
Saires glared at him. 'It's not just any brick, Alexsi, I took a portal back to Myravene and blasted part of the battlements off my father's castle.'
'Are you *insane*?' said Darrin. 'You could have been *killed*!'
'Yes, I know. It was worth it.'
Alexsi gave Saires a long look, and then shrugged. 'Fine. I don't know whether I am disturbed or impressed, but fine. Next, promises. This part has been adapted to include Sterran, you should have no trouble with vowing, right?'
Saires swallowed. 'I hope not. I've been rehearsing it for weeks.'
'Good. And then all come into garden to plant trees. Is your tree as dramatic as your rock?'
'Oh, gods, no, it's a male Myravene cherry. But it's an import.'
'I helped him find it,' said Darrin. 'You would not believe how expensive it was.'
'I work in biggest library on continent, of course I believe,' replied Alexsi. 'So what is reason for spending all that money?'
'Oh, that's easy,' said Saires. 'It's a long way from home and useless without the female.'
Alexsi nodded. 'Not bad.' He looked Saires over - Saires had had a uniform made for the occasion, a reworked version of his old Knights of the Service of Pitnos uniform, but since he was an exile now he was wearing the colours of House Vlasniyov, at Sergei's insistence.
Alexsi twitched a piece of dog fluff off his shoulder and prodded him towards the door. 'I had better go and take place. You are ready to go.'
'I ain't even gonna pretend I know what the fuck yer talkin' about,' said Leland. 'Kid, just face it, the scowlin' ain't gonna work, yer too short and yer spend too much time feelin' up Soto in public. We all *know* nothin's gonna come of it.'
'Yeah, but I'm just *practicing* on you. Nobody else really knows me,' said Burton.
'Doesn't stop you being tiny,' said Soto, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. ''Sides, everyone *does* kinda know you from the ad campaign and - oh, hey, there's a thought.'
'Soto, the ad campaign was about looking sexy, not scary.'
'Yeah, but somehow you managed intimidating. Go on, give it a shot.'
Burton sighed, but put his shoulders back and let his features settle into the calculating, come-hither-my-childe smile of Taelle's fashion shoot. Leland rolled his eyes and muttered something - Soto, predictably, ignored him.
'Oh, yeah, that's the stuff. Now lose the smile or lose your pants, you have two seconds to make up your mind.'
'Not in mah bar,' snapped Leland. 'If that's the way it's gonna be yer c'n practice later! Burton, go help Riley. Fuckin' over-sexed kids, gonna drive me senile.'
'Oh, you bet we'll practice later,' said Burton, and fled to the kitchen laughing before Leland could find something to throw.
Soto might have had a point, though.
(Storm Colduck is a 16-year-old high-powered psychic at the Grace Lord Facility for Extranormal Research. Andy Temmelten is his psy teacher. His best friend and boyfriend is Todd Claydon Downs, who is host to an alien parasite colony which has recently been discovered to be a world-scale threat, should it ever get strong enough.
Storm wears a variety of adapted hats which serve as part of a psychic shield to stop the thoughts of the outside world giving him a nervous breakdown. He is a boy who really would go out in public in a Hello Kitty soul hood.
As usual, this is another RP between BeyondSociety and me - Todd is her character.
Also you may have noticed I'm not doing these prompts every single day. I'm keeping them for when I'm waiting for a coffee, getting lunch, that kind of thing. Something to do at a loose end, which happens a lot.)
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Today's hat was a multicoloured monstrosity that would have looked much better on someone with a full head of dreadlocks, but Andy had seen worse. Storm had been trying to make up for his lack of height with increasingly strange headgear ever since he'd arrived here, and now nobody would have batted an eyelid if he'd turned up wearing a full mascot head. At least he was punctual.
'Hi, Storm,' said Andy. 'How's things?'
'Oh, not bad,' said Storm airily. 'Kicked Todd's ass at TF2, *again*. Why he keeps trying to play Demos I'll never know, he's much better at Scouts.'
'I'm not even going to pretend I have even the faintest idea I know what you're talking about, but I'm glad you're having fun.' Andy gestured to the armchair opposite his, and Storm slouched into it and pulled off the hat. It was subtle - Andy had to look carefully - but the slight twitch as Storm's psychic abilities came back online was definitely there. 'You know, you should be prepared for that by now.'
'Yeah, I know.'
'You usually *are* prepared for it.'
'I *know*, I'll be ready next time, get off my back.'
Well. Don't have to be a psychic to see thunder. 'I'm your teacher. It's my job to be on your back about this. You're normally much more alert than this. What's on your mind?' Suspicion creased his brow. 'Have you been trying to talk to the Colony again? You know you're not allowed to do that unsupervised.'
'I said get off my *case*, alright?' snapped Storm. 'Of course I haven't, do I look like a complete numbass to you?'
'Of course not. I apologise.' Andy waited for the hackles to settle. 'Feel like telling me?'
'No.'
'Fair enough. Up to you, I suppose.' He cleared his throat and mentally shook himself. 'Right, first of all, I told you before, face me in class, please, you can lounge around like a grumpy housecat in your own time. Now where where we? Oh, yes-'
'Hey...'
Andy looked up from his notebook. Storm was looking smaller than ever, tiny and pale and scared, like the last lab mouse in the cage. 'What's up?'
'Well... first of all, I promise I haven't been trying to talk to the Colony. I wanna establish that, right? You can look in my head if you don't believe me.'
'I believe you.'
'Great. But...' Storm took a deep breath, addressing the hat in his lap. 'Listen, if anything *does* happen to me, like, I get assimilated or infected or whatever - will you tell my dad I'm sorry and... I guess let him know I love him and everything? And I guess mom too. Please?'
Andy let out the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. 'Storm, you're not going to be assimilated. Neither will Todd. They'll find a cure.'
'You don't fucking know that.'
'Language, Storm,' said Andy mildly. Storm ignored him.
'It's just - look, just promise, alright? It's important. It's not like I'm asking you to take out the f- the frikking alien parasite for me or anything, just this one little thing. Incidentally if you tell anyone else-'
'Relax, I'm not going to tell anyone else, your secrets are safe with me,' said Andy. 'Fine, I'll tell him. But I won't need to, will I?' Silence. 'Storm. I'm warning you, you know the Colony's been recategorised as an A4-level threat. If you give me reason to believe you're going to do something stupid, like get yourself infected, then I am going to have to let someone know.'
'Don't be a fucking moron,' said Storm, and this time Andy let it go. 'Fine, it won't happen. And yes, I've been doing my psy homework, before you ask, today's lesson was going to be dealing with psychic manipulation. Right?'
It was clearly not the end of the conversation. This had obviously been brewing for some time and wasn't going to die down just like that. However, Andy figured that you generally got more out of people when they were ready to give it to you, so he shelved the subject for now, and turned his attention to the lesson.
(NB - These characters are from my RP with BeyondSociety - Kree and Danit Beksacht are aliens and they own the small cargo ship Fortune's Favour. They are about to hire the human engineer Dustin Harford - BeyondSociety's character. This is not him.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'OK, who's next?'
'T'ar Seven Seven Aleph Three-Muresa-Cardrett.'
Kree raised an eyebrow. Danit was looking at his clipboard and didn't see him do it.
'That's... some name,' said Kree.
'He - sorry, it - is apparently a clone from that planet in the Ori cloud that even I can't pronounce,' replied Danit absently. 'Mik-Twi-Something.'
'Oh, god.' Kree rolled his eyes. 'Fine, send it in.'
The clone looked pretty much exactly as he'd expected a clone to look - kind of insectile, going on four legs with a big thorax like an ant and no real personality of any kind in face or dress. This, in someone who would be sharing a small space for long periods of time - and interplanetary freight sometimes seemed to contain the longest periods of time in the universe - was not promising. Still, they needed an engineer, so it was worth a shot.
'So. T'ar... Seven Seven Aleph Three-Muresa-Cardrett -' Kree sighed. 'Look, can we call you T'ar?'
The clone cocked its head. 'That is not my name,' it said. 'That is the source name.'
Kree and Danit exchanged glances. Danit shrugged, and Kree tried again. 'Okay, how about, uh... Cardrett?'
The clone raised itself up on four spindly white legs and said stiffly, 'I believe this application was a mistake.'
'Aw, man, don't be like that,' said Kree, but the clone just snorted at him and crossed its arms. 'Look, I'm sorry, we've never hired a clone before, alright?'
'The thought occurs that you may be happier working on a cruise ship,' suggested Danit. 'Something with a much bigger crew than the Fortune's Favour, in any case. I apologise for wasting your time, T'ar Seven Seven Aleph Three-Muresa-Cardrett.'
The clone nodded smartly at Danit, and left. Danit crossed it off the list, as well as two more clone names, as Kree pounded his head gently against the desk.
'No more clones,' said Kree. Danit clicked his pencil against his teeth. 'Just... argh. Never any more clones. Whoever thought cloning was a good idea? Fuck. What was that thing's problem, anyway?'
'Well, I believe you initially called it a god, and then you implied it was a mere child,' replied Danit.
'Yeah, screw that shit right over. Who's next? Tell me we've got a Deriban.'
'Sorry, no Deribans anywhere on the list. We'd have to pay higher for that.' Danit didn't have to look up to know his brother was scowling at him. 'We do have a human, though.'
'That's great, humans I can deal with. Bring him in.'
