syxhenry

[syxhenry]

a zephyran timetable

“to me beauty is not a perfect, shining engine,” he replies simply to endymion’s judgement of the ship. he’s a little miffed, of course, but then he thinks the response is to be expected from a prince like the younger man. it’s not good unless it’s in pristine state, with no faults to speak of. but henry doesn’t need finished products, because they don’t offer him a job; a home. henry likes the things that need work, the things that cry out in need of attention, the things that require to be undented, to be helped, to be given strength and purpose. henry likes the things that remind him of himself, and he likes to be the person for them that no one was for him.

he says none of this to endymion, of course.

when the young prince speaks of not knowing where to begin or what happened, he can’t help but breathe out a smile. yet the next moment he is asked if help can be given and he glances up at endymion. “at this point i’d rather not give too much out of hand. i need to know exactly how everything’s put together or it might cost us all our lives.” he knows he might be a little short but then the pressure on him currently is quite enormous. “i know you’re not bad at this but you might put a screw in differently than i would and the split second it would take me to figure that out could be the split second we can’t spare.” he glances around the room quickly, even as his fingers are still dutifully working on the piece he’s got between his legs, taking it apart so he can put it back together better.

“if you need something to keep busy with and you don’t mind small work you could sort the mess over there so i can more easily find what i need in it.” he nods over at the assortment of all kinds of screw, parts and pieces that is currently just a thrown together heap of things. “i haven’t had the time to organise lately.” he gives an apologetic shrug of his shoulders, as if to say he’s sorry he can’t give endymion anything more useful. then he picks back up on their earlier conversation.

“also, princeling,” he says, and it surprises even himself how the almost affectionate nickname he used to give the younger man back on zephyr rolls off his lips so easily even now, as if there’s not months and months of time between then and now, as if he’s not almost an entirely different person at this point. “i’m not your superior nor your father; i don’t need a detailed report of events. i’m just asking what happened to you. it doesn’t have to make sense.”

he holds endymion’s gaze for another moment, before returning his full attention to the part in front of him, grabbing a piece from the floor and fitting it to the main frame so he can screw it in place.

#endymion #a zephyran timetable

[syxhenry]

walk on the wild side

syxjaewon​:

(...) he stops walking with henry but keeps his tone nonchalant and unbothered, hoping this won’t descend into something disastrous. they’ve already had a lot to deal with the last few days. “hey, you go ahead without me, pick up the rest of what you need. i’ll meet you back at the ship in a few hours. we leave at sundown.” but before henry can take off, jaewon grabs the bag he has that’s holding the items he’s just purchased, and drops his stolen goods from the first store into it, emptying out his pockets and turning to stride away without another word.

jaewon walks away with him for a few steps before coming to a stop, and henry pauses alongside him automatically. too used to the way things usually go when jaewon is around, his hand already moves to his hip, checking his gun is free in its holster - when did he even start to carry a gun when out in public? he knows the answer to that, tries very hard not to think of it.

then suddenly jaewon is changing his mind, telling henry to go on alone, get what he needs, make it back to the ship. for a moment he’s thinking of making a comment about the sudden change in directives but then he just lets it go. it doesn’t matter. at least now he can be as charming or as brusque as he wants to be without jaewon’s face showing its judgement in his peripheral view. so he shrugs and nods his acceptance, about to step away when jaewon reaches for him and makes him wait, pulling down the bag to unload various items into it.

he knows, without having to ask or check, that these are unpaid items, and any other day he would probably have made some sort of sarcastic comment like “oh great, give me the stolen goods so i can get arrested”. he doesn’t this time. instead he simply bunches up the bag again, throws it back over his shoulder and walks off without so much as looking back. now browsing alone, he can skip all the stands he doesn’t need, skip everything he knows is just junk after a single glance, and just get what he needs. what he will have to do, however, is make a list of expenses so he can quote them back at jaewon and maybe one day get his credits paid back to him.

those are worries for later, though, now he first needs to try and make sure serenity is good to go again. before sundown, because apparently jaewon thinks he can fix an overheated, overworked mess in a matter of a few hours.

[ end ]

#syxjaewon #walk on the wild side #End.

[syxhenry]

syxjaewon​:

(...) he wants to reach out and touch him, he wants to grab his arms and pull him closer, but that would not get him the connection he wishes for, that would not bolster henry’s opinion of him. instead, he lets himself feel the relief, doing nothing to hinder that at least from crossing his face (because what could be the harm in that, right? relief to see a friend again? that’s normal, isn’t it?), and then reins himself back in. “i’ll be honest, i’m not great. i’m very frustrated, and i think if i don’t sit down soon i may fall down. but i’m,” he has to pause, to nod, to smile faintly, “i’m very glad to see you again, henry lau. doc told me you were here when i woke up and i didn’t want to wait.” he tries not to gulp as henry adjusts his clothing, even as his heart stops, his own fingers quick to realign his outfit to better perfection– he doesn’t want to look like a backberth in front of henry. “you work on a ship now? are you just passing through again?”

there’s relief in endymion’s features when they lock gazes at first, and he’s glad he can still recognise something like that - that he still knows this young man like he did once upon a time, that some things at least don’t change. then the prince is talking and from the first syllable passing those lips, he already knows. he recognises the weariness in endymion’s voice, the near conviction that nothing is going his way - that nothing might ever go his way again. he breathes out a soft sigh, not of annoyance but of understanding, as he already puts himself in motion again. he ducks away even as endymion’s still talking - asking him whether he works on the ship or if he’s passing through - but stays quiet as he rummages around the engine room. when he returns, it’s with a piece of metal in hand that will make do as a chair - at least for the time being. he puts it down against the metal plating of the engine room’s walls, patting the seat to see if it’s stable as well as to invite endymion over to sit down.

“i’m not passing through.” he thinks, but there’s honestly no saying anymore these days. for now though, for now he’s staying. “right now. this is...” home is a word he’s used too often, a word he can’t seem to put to anything anymore now because it always gets taken away from him. so he alters what he was going to say to something more befitting. “the ship i told you about working on. as much my blood as the red running through my veins.” he tilts up a corner of his mouth in an attempt to make it seem like something lighthearted, one of those jokes he would make. he doesn’t know if it works or if he just looks constipated. he doesn’t really care either.

“here i’ll get you some water.” he rummages around a little more in his personal corner, and comes out with a surprisingly clean cup filled with clean water. but then he’s learned the value of clean eating and drinking utensils from an early age onwards, and has always kept his tools and his surroundings cleaner than he’s kept himself. once endymion takes the cup from him, he disappears to the other side of the room again for a moment, going out of sight behind the engine, this time to return with a small part under one arm and a few bits and pieces in the other. “i hope you don’t mind if i work a bit while we talk, she’s almost falling apart as we speak and i’d rather make it to the nearest planet alive.” he flashes that half-smile of pretend amusement again as he glances at endymion shortly before moving to sit down on the floor. within moments he’s got the right tools plucked out of his belt again and he’s back to the task at hand.

“you wanna tell me what happened or just smalltalk?” he asks, and it might be called blunt, but he’s quite sure both of them prefer the direct approach so they know where they’re standing. “cause i’ve got an engine on the verge of giving up so if it’s the latter i hope you’ll understand i’m not the best conversation partner around right now.”

#endymion #a zephyran timetable

[syxhenry]

walk on the wild side

he follows after jaewon, even if the comment about trying more wiles has him scoffing in the least amused way. he doesn’t make a fight out of it, though, there is absolutely no point. in fact, there is little point to anything much other than getting the parts he needs to keep serenity’s engine running so that somehow he can feel useful in a verse that has proven time and time again that he is not, not really. the only place where his presence has ever felt like it made a difference was in the hot engine room of the firefly class ship hurtling through the black randomly.

if not for jaewon having declared earlier that they should stick together, he would have wandered off on his own, simply getting the parts he needs and heading back. as it is, he catches jaewon’s muttered words, lets his gaze go over the items and utters a non-committal hum in response to them. “maybe you can try some wiles,” he says after a moment, as he already reaches out a hand to touch one of the pieces, for no other reason than to feel the metal under his fingertips, to learn through touch alone whether it’s decent or will give way at the first signs of strain.

it’s indeed surprisingly decent, not so bad as jaewon had named the stuff, and so he pulls his hand back as he lets his eyes go over the other things available. not for the first time he wishes he could just take whatever he needs, throw the asked price at the merchants and leave rather than having to barter his way from a ridiculous price down to something resembling normality. he’s tired of even that, tired of everything that does not allow him to put his heart and soul into making an engine run, a ship fly or a machine work. he’s tired of everything that requires energy of him outside of his work, because he just can’t find it in himself to care about any of that.

his gaze falters, his eyes unfocusing for a little while, and when he snaps back to it, he just lets out a sigh tinted with annoyance. he points out a few smaller things he knows he can use, some of them from the shiny items in the front, some of them covered in grease and soot in the back. the shopkeeper clearly tries to find the middle road between the price for shiny, pristine quality and grubby, disgusting looking ones to quote him on, but even before the man can utter three words, he sticks a hand in his inner pocket, pulls out a set of credit banks and throws them on the table in front of the man.

“that’s what they’re worth,” he says, and his tone leaves no more room for discussion. “especially in a place like this. you know it, i know it. now give them to me.” he doesn’t know if it’s his tone of voice, the look in his eyes or the captain by his side, but after another look down at the currency on his table, the merchant gathers everything he pointed out and gives it to him. he doesn’t care what the reason for the sudden compliance is, simply tucks each of the smaller bits and pieces into the bag hanging off his shoulder and then turns back to jaewon, to see if the captain is still looking or if they can continue on.

#syxjaewon #walk on the wild side

[syxhenry]

ever since returning to the engine room after the entire adventure outside, he’s been working hard to make sure the ship stays afloat. some parts of the engine had nearly overheated during their crazy flight to get to saito in time, some other parts had been damaged, and so he’s had his work cut out for him trying to make sure they will make it to the nearest planet where they can get some replacement parts and things he could use to fix serenity up again. she’ll not be in superb condition until they stop over somewhere and get some decent parts, but at least until then he can make do again.

he’s not really expecting anyone - jaewon’s busy piloting the ship, the doctor’s taking care of their new passengers and harper’s probably feeding her daughter, so he doesn’t really hear anyone walk in. when his name is called, he catches it but barely, and so he takes a moment to just finish what he’s doing before he slowly straightens and turns around.

endymion is the last person he expected to find standing in the engine room calling for him, but he adapts to this new development quite easily, wiping his hands on a cloth - still relatively clean, surprisingly - he walks around the engine, ducking under some overhanging tubes and cables so that he can come out standing in the same part of the room as his old friend is, showing the young man a smile for good measure, even if there isn’t very much to smile about.

“i didn’t expect you to be awake yet,” he says, tucks the cloth away and then slides his tools back into his belt before fully focusing his attention on the young man. “you feeling alright? you’ve been through a lot; it’s a surprise you didn’t get hurt.” he reaches out temporarily to gently tug a fold out of the prince’s usually quite pristine clothing and then just looks at him. he’d much rather turn around and go back to work, but no matter how he feels, he’s sure endymion must feel worse, and so he tries his best to come off as sympathetic, even if the state of his baby is questionable at best.

#endymion #a zephyran timetable

[syxhenry]

walk on the wild side

“if i’d seen saito i would have told you,” he replies almost instantly to jaewon’s question, but there’s no sharpness or blame in his voice, it’s a simple fact. “i didn’t see any of the upheaval, i was only learning about the mechs nothing else.” he tries not to think back to the larger than life machines, to the power held within a single one of them, to how he worked with their mechanics so closely that he’s pretty sure he could build one from scratch now if he tried. he tries not to think of the joy of building, of creating, of any of it, because it’s like the door in his mind shutting out all those ancient emotions has been ripped off its hinges and he simply can’t contain all of those feelings inside of him - and he’s trying to be professional here.

so he’s glad for the change of subject, even if it moves to his sister, even more glad when he doesn’t really have to reply to that because the subject moves on again, and it’s a relief greater than himself when he is capable of just focusing on the parts at hand and the subject of haggling.

“i did,” he replies easily, like it’s no big deal, because it really isn’t. he’s had to learn many things going off on his own in the black, and where perhaps jaewon might be thinking of the year that lies behind them now, he thinks of all those years before serenity, thinks of the years of horrors and betrayals he’s gone through, years that jaewon doesn’t even know about, and he wonders what the younger man really sees him as. does he look like a fool to jaewon’s biased eyes? does he look like a mechanic who’s never done much else than get lost in machinery and engines? does he look like an idiot with a limited view of the real world so far as it’s not in relation to his job?

“but i can’t put my apparently tantalising good looks into play the way harper can.” and he’s not calling her his sister, because he doesn’t think he could ever consider the sharp-edged, seductive mercenary the same person as the soft, gentle and warm whitney, but that is also something else that shouldn’t be voiced out loud. not here, not ever. when he shared that bottle of booze with jaewon, he should have kept his mouth shut, really. “i could give it a try, but i doubt you, the merchants nor i would appreciate it much.”

he turns to the stall’s owner then, motioning at the engine part he’s had his eyes on and asking for a price. what he’s being quoted is way too high a value even if it would’ve been in pristine condition, and so his features instantly fall into displease and he shakes his head, returning an offer that is way below the selling price. and from there it begins, the seemingly endless back and forth of numbers, the merchant’s claim of him somehow being the reason they’re poor until eventually he sets his final bid at a number still below the piece’s actual worth, and when it’s rejected he merely turns away and waves off the entire discussion.

“we’ll check out the other stalls first,” he tells his captain, thinks this merchant is not going to find anyone else to sell such a specific piece to anytime soon so he doesn’t have to worry about it being gone later on. “he might change his mind.”

#syxjaewon #walk on the wild side

[syxhenry]

walk on the wild side

jaewon asks about his knowledge of the prince, and he has no reason not to divulge the information, so he easily does as they make their way through the crowd. “doc and i spent a few months on his planet. doc was treating one of endy’s extended family.” he isn’t actually on a cute nickname basis with the prince, but he figures while they’re out in public and until they figure out what the fuck has happened to the planet and the royal family, it’s better not to use any names too easily. “i spent that time checking out their mechs and our unwilling passenger was the one showing me around. we taught each other a few things.”

he leaves it at that, because there isn’t really more to say. endymion was a friend at the time, perhaps, but one of those fleeting friends, more of a temporary good acquaintance - and henry had a heart to full of pain, loss and betrayal to really focus on anything other than taking his mind off that. perhaps he could have made actual friends with the prince if he hadn’t been so preoccupied, if he hadn’t been trying his hardest to forget about the whole damn verse and the existence of a specific one man. 

there’s no point in thinking about that now.

he follows the captain through the crowd, one hand always on his gun. he remembers a time when he’d not really carry many weapons, remembers a time when the only reason he’d go off-ship was because he knew the place well and knew where to find people who sold what he needed. he remembers a time when the ship was bustling with people and activity. it’s different now. it’s all different now. he tries not to let that feel as bleak as it sounds in his head.

when jaewon speaks again as they reach the marketplace and stalls, he lets his gaze go over their surroundings, takes in the stalls there are and already locks on to a few of them as places he could find what he needs. jaewon mentions medical supplies then and he nods in acceptance, takes on every job or part of a job he’s given because he understands the need for all of them to work together.

“should have brought harper,” he says, when jaewon tells him he should do the haggling. “pretty sure she can talk someone into giving you stuff and paying you for taking it off their hands.” he shakes his head lightly as a flicker of an amused little smile appears on his face, but moments later the expression is gone again, his eyes wandering once more. “do we also need food?” he asks then. “or are we still stocked well enough on that part?” as he’s saying it his eyes fall on a stall with a few engine parts and so his question is instantly followed by a “captain” and a nod in the direction of said stall, before he’s already walking off towards it to check the piece out more properly and see if it’s in a good state or not.

#syxjaewon #walk on the wild side

[syxhenry]

it’s not really surprising that he’s up early - he’s always up early these days, his sleep schedule messed up and off - so it’s also not really a surprise that by the time most of the rest of the ship wakes, he’s already put in quite the amount of work. so when he finally emerges from the engine room, it’s also not surprising that he finds his way to the living quarters with a little device in hand. he’s not a little bit surprised to find that endymion’s door has already been latched and security system overridden. he thinks then that he should have known jaewon would be smart enough to figure out it’s necessary, but he still connects his own little device to the door lock and quietly adds another few layers to the lock.

when he’s done with that, he walks off to gather his things, to dress up properly for a trip into an unknown world, tucks a gun in at his belt as well just to be sure. when he leaves his room, he feels the familiar thrum of the cargo bay opening and so he speeds up just enough to make it on time. he doesn’t even pause in his movements as he sides up with his brother, looks down the slope of serenity’s metal to the soil below.

he gives a nod of his head in response to the question, then waits just long enough for jaewon to step off the ship before following right behind him, once again siding up next to him the moment they’re on the ground. “i told the other two not to let the prince out under any circumstances and i added a few extra safety measures to the lock on his door because he’s quite well-versed in technology,” he explains as they go, and then lifts a hand to run it through his hair, his entire body feeling heavy. he’s glad for this trip out of the ship that will hopefully remind his body of what it’s like to feel like a human again.

“we need so many things that it’ll be better for me to go with,” he says then, and unlike in the past, when he would continuously bug jaewon with the fact that he knows the ship so well that he might be able to make better choices than the captain when it comes to her engines and parts, his voice is void of any of that playfulness, and holds merely a sort of resigned fact. “we won’t be able to buy everything so i can decide as i see what they have available what to take and what to leave.” because jaewon is a lot, but he’s not a full-fledged engineer, so if decisions need to be made to leave some things behind in order to properly fix other things, at this point henry himself probably knows best which things he can create a temporary quick fix for now and which things really shouldn’t be left any longer.

“do you want to go separate ways or just go find it all together?” he lets his gaze go over their surroundings for a moment and breathes out a sigh then. “i’ve not been here before i think, or at least not in a long time. do you know anything about this place?”

walk on the wild side

#syxjaewon #walk on the wild side

[syxhenry]

the clock is ticking

despite his family dying years ago, more than a decade ago, there has always been an invisible thread binding him to them, tying him to the remnants of a life once lived, to the tatters of his youth that stick to his skin as if he’s a entity running on excess fuel. he never thought he would last much longer, never thought the world between here and where the finish line would be spanned over a very large amount of space anymore. but still he kept going, driven by some sort of survival instinct, something that kept him moving, that made him want to somehow, in whatever way he could, get back at the people who destroyed his entire life.

and then things changed. he found peace in a small engine room on a beat up ship with no particular destination. he found peace within the metal-alloy plating carrying him through space. he found peace and a home in a ship that would perhaps burn to a crisp, but would never let her soul slip into oblivion if there was still a chance for henry to fix her, to put her back together and help her fly again. there’s an infinity in machines; a way to fix them over and over again, to replace parts with newer pieces until they outlive you by at least as many years as you spent working on them. this is the peace he found; the knowledge that there was one thing in the world that could not be taken from him before he would go himself.

funny, how that works.

he doesn’t think of the time when he left, doesn’t think of the crazy hunt across the galaxy until he found the person he went looking for. he doesn’t think of the months after, slowly nursing the man back to health, slowly trying to carve out a piece in the universe for the two of them. he doesn’t think of the moment when the realisation came that he’d gone and done something stupid again. he doesn’t think of the pain he felt when he packed up his things, landed their spaceship on one of the major travel hub planets in the verse and boarded something else - anything else - just to get out of there. he doesn’t think of how for a long time it felt like he left a part of him somewhere else.

at some point he ran into the doc then, two wandering souls trying to find purchase, and so they’d decided to travel together. he never asked what doc was running from, doc never asked what he was going towards. they just went, and went, and kept going. and then one day... one day they ended up on a planet doomed to head towards its own destruction, and doc had been asked to heal someone, and henry had found... something. his connection to machines, perhaps. a new challenge he couldn’t say no to, because no beaumondian engineer in their right mind could ever see a mech and decide to leave without getting a closer look. and perhaps he imagined the look on his father’s face if they would’ve seen this together, and perhaps it was just easier to lose himself in what he knew best for a while rather than to think of anything else.

but a planet is a planet. a planet is a sitting duck when someone’s out to target it. there is no moving in unexpected directions or hiding in unseen corners when you’re on a planet. and a planet blows up a whole lot more easily than most people think it does. 

so they left. they left and they set a new course. for the first time in the months they traveled together, henry told the doc of his home, of his baby flying out among the stars, and his wish to board her again. and so they’d followed every trail, every lead, until eventually he’d managed to pick up her signal again with his very own tracker, and they’d followed her across the black, until eventually they’d found her on this or the other planet, and henry had finally been able to put his feet back on home soil, bring himself back to safety, find peace again in the steady thrumming of her engine and the dependable rumble of her gears working.

there has always been an invisible thread binding him to his family, tying him to the remnants of a lost youth, of a time when he was still naive and innocent, when he could still afford to be naive and innocent. and then his sister walked back into his life, and contrary to what one would think would happen in the event of gaining back that which he lost, the thread snapped.

he sits with his back against the metal plating like the constant rumble of the ship will somehow chase the emptiness out of him, like serenity will be able to clear all the doubt from his mind, but she can’t. it is as if, like a ship without a pilot, he’s just floating out in the black, directionless, clueless, useless. the more serenity is coming back to full life around him as he works on her parts and tinkers on her pieces, the emptier it seems he grows, as if he’s letting his life force bleed into the ship, as if he’s giving it whatever is left of him, because what is he going to do with it anyway?

harper walked into his life, into the peace he’d carved out for himself, like a memory of everything bad that happened. rather than soothe him with her familiarity, rather than warm him with the recognition, she is an invasion on the home he’s made for himself. she is a stranger stepping into his most treasured space, but a stranger whose familiarity stabs at the softest, sorest parts of his core. a stranger who is a walking reminder suddenly, once more, of everything he has lost, of every little bit of all he once treasured that will never be the way it was again. and it was easier, he thinks, to handle the constant nagging pressure of that loss, when he wasn’t reminded of it every single time. when his sister wasn’t there with him like some caricature version of herself. it was easier when at least his memories were free from the reality of life; that nothing good can ever stay unbroken.

serenity hums all around him, steady and unchanging, but the peace he used to find here, in the heart of her, is gone. because just like his sister, just like everything good that he managed to find in his life, he now knows she, too, can be corrupted, will be corrupted, will become something entirely different from what he once knew.

it’s only a matter of time,

and the clock is ticking.

#¤antimatter #a: the clock is ticking #syxjaewon #syharper #docvelaw

[syxhenry]

he doesn’t expect the silence to be broken by jaewon’s voice, but when it does he’s instantly listening, focus shifting almost entirely back to his brother, though his eyes remain fixed on something else for the time being. it takes him a moment or two to realise jaewon is sharing something, a little tidbit of a story from when vera was still aboard the ship, and the thought of her suddenly fills his chest with an ache he can’t quite describe, something he doesn’t think he’s felt in forever and that he desperately wants to blame the alcohol for, but he thinks it might also just as well be something a lot more complicated and shitty like healing. 

he can imagine it easily, jaewon and vera at this very table, because he’s seen it more often, always just a glimpse in passing, but he remembers well the hint of envy he’d felt sometimes at the easiness of their being together when things like that had been taken from him by all the people stabbing him in the back. there are a lot of things jaewon and him have disagreed about, a lot of things they tend to not see eye to eye on, but there has always been the one thing they both strive to protect and that is the ship. serenity had been what kept them together in the very beginning, and serenity might just well be what keeps them tied together till the very end.

jaewon asks if he knows what vera told him, and his thoughts are bitter at once, harsh and uncalled for, so he remains quiet and simply moves to lift his head finally, gaze wandering over to the captain and locking with those golden eyes, all of the image a surprising balm to the thorns and hackles that have risen inside him so far. he remembers again why he hasn’t touched a drop of liquor in years, remembers again what the alcohol does to him, and he knows he should leave it be now and just make it through the night as is, but he raises the glass to his lips yet again instead and takes another sip.

the words that follow are very unlike jaewon to ever speak aloud, but he does hear a ring of vera in them, and for some reason that is a comfort. this woman who felt somewhat like a mother to him sometimes, somewhat like a friend, somewhat just like his boss. he will always be grateful to her for taking him in and giving him a place to recuperate from the trauma he’d endured before, to let him hole up in the engine room and only come out for what he deemed necessary. he will always owe her for it, and it’s another debt he’ll never be able to repay.

then jaewon fixes him with a different sort of tone and he knows these words are what the little anecdote was brought up for. he listens to them just as quietly as he has been listening so far, eyes for once fixed solidly on jaewon’s face, not wandering, not accompanied by a little grin, but simply a steady, serious look. when eventually jaewon stops talking, he’s still looking at him for a moment longer, and then he returns his gaze to his glass. the words make sense, probably, but he can also feel himself rejecting them with a vehemence, refusing to agree to the reality of things changing, of the shock of whitney reappearing having been all for naught, because she is not whitney anymore. there is a sharp quiet between them that he thinks might be hurtful, but then he thinks ‘when was jaewon ever hurt anyway’ and so in the end he just ends up shrugging once, and then lifting his glass to pour the rest of its contents down his throat once more.

when he puts it back down on the table, he does manage to push it away from himself a little further, more onto the table, as if to signify he’s done with it for now, but really the bottle is still there, the glass is still there, right in front of him. so he looks at them for a few long, dragging moments, just looks at them as his expression draws in on itself, his usual openness closing up even more, and he can almost feel himself go back to that boy he used to be when he came to serenity the very first time; drawn, quiet, distrusting, suspicious, hurt. he doesn’t like the feeling, but at the same time it brings comfort, a strange sense of safety, and so when he feels the urge to rise, he does.

“going back to work,” he says in some sort of inadequate kind of explanation as he puts a hand on the back of the chair and pushes himself up on his feet. he takes a moment when straightened to let the effects of the strong drink fill him up completely, nearly swaying in place, but then he squares his shoulders and starts making for the door. and he knows he should not drink, he should never drink, because there’s no one to watch his back when he’s drunk, and that’s really all the world comes down to, but he also doesn’t know how to deal with any of this awake, so he thinks it might be better to just black out, and if anyone murders him while he’s out; well... at least he’ll not have to worry about the other problems then.

to the bottom

#syxjaewon #to the bottom #ajzeksghlshg poor henry is not okay #jaewon did his best tho no one will blame him

[syxhenry]

eventually the silence is broken by jaewon’s voice again, replying to the question that wasn’t really a question by giving an answer that isn’t really an answer. henry turns his gaze momentarily on his captain, his friend, his brother. he takes in the expression he sees on the man’s face, and then glances back down at his glass when the question is asked of him, the words both warming and cutting at the same time. he doesn’t know what to think. doesn’t even know if this child is really whit- harper’s. she’d looked fond enough of it for that to be the case, of course, but for all he knows she picked it up from a dying woman’s arms and fulfilled the mother’s last wish to keep her baby safe and sound. whitney would do that, after all. admittedly he doesn’t think harper would, but he does not know harper at all. he does not know the person the verse has turned his sister into, and he’s afraid of that person turning out to be horribly different from the one he used to know.

“i’m not angry,” he replies eventually, because that is the truth, of course. “we haven’t seen each other in eleven years. ten of which i thought she was dead. if anything i’m grateful for the chance to see my sister again, to get to know her again...” he pauses for a moment, staring down into the glass he holds like it might keep him tethered to reality, to this place and time where he is in the company of someone he knows, someone who is not a total wild card to him. “but we haven’t seen each other for eleven years. i was twenty last we knew each other, she was twenty-two. a lot has happened since. i don’t know the woman with a baby who’s filling up one of your quarters. i love her, but i don’t know her.” he lifts the glass to his lips and takes another sip

it’s an admission he would probably never make to his sister herself, but has no problem voicing in the presence of his brother. even if he doesn’t know what jaewon’s relationship with harper is exactly, it doesn’t matter if they’re closer than he is with his sister, because it’s hard enough to get jaewon to talk about anything at all, let alone somebody else’s secrets. he trusts that whatever is spoken into the silence at this table here and now, will be kept between the three of them - serenity, jaewon and him. and those are the exact three he trusts with his life. those and no one else, sadly.

“so i don’t know why she’s here,” he says eventually, when the liquor is swallowed and his body is getting a bit fuzzy with it, and he knows if serenity fails now, he’ll be struggling to fix her. but he wouldn’t be emptying a bottle of liquor with the man next to him if he wasn’t sure she’d hold out at least until he sobered up again. “i don’t know if she fished that baby out of someone’s arms or gave birth to it herself. i don’t know if she knows who the father is or slept with half a planet and has no idea herself anymore.” he shrugs his shoulders lightly as he thinks of the thing that bothers him most. “i’d still give my life for her, though, or for the child, because eleven years ago she gave hers for mine and i owe it to her. but right now i don’t know what kind of person i’m indebted to.”

he empties the rest of his glass again, and though he thinks he should probably stop drinking at this point - because he’s really not used to it - he picks up the bottle again and refills his glass, once again offering a refill to jaewon as well before putting the bottle back down on the table. and then he succumbs to his own thoughts again, quiet as he ponders the fact that he would have once said ‘i’d give my life for her because she’s family’, but really his family is sitting at the table with him right now, the word to him no longer defined by blood ties but rather by something entirely other. and though his relief of course was great upon realising whitney was still alive, and he’d felt a great many things upon meeting her again today, he has been faced with the reality of the unfamiliarity of her as well, as well as with the fact that he’d finally managed to fully say goodbye to the sister and family he lost just a few meager weeks before she’d popped up on that communication screen again.

to the bottom

#syxjaewon #to the bottom #henry having a personal crisis in jaewon's presence? #more likely than you think.

[syxhenry]

jaewon eventually answers, and his gaze wanders over to the captain, taking him in for a moment before he turns away again. he considers the words, considers the meaning of them, which is raising more questions. but at the same time he also considers the name used - harper - the name his sister goes by now and he guess he should get used to call her that, but it still rings in his ears like a lie, like a dishonesty and like a stranger all at once. when he thinks of harper, he does not think of the sister who he grew up with, he does not think of her softness and her warmth. when he hears harper, he thinks of the blond hair, the strange face, all of the unfamiliarities standing out in the most obvious of manners.

“she probably does,” he agrees after a silence that might have lasted too long to make it seem like he would still reply, but then he thinks jaewon prefers silence a lot of the time, so if henry takes some time to be lost in his own thoughts, he’s quite certain the captain won’t mind. “harper sounds like someone who’d know.” he can’t help those words, but at least the bitterness they bring to his chest is not audible in his voice, and so he just brings the glass up to his lips and takes another sip. for a little while he’s quiet again, further pondering the entire situation as the alcohol stings his throat on the way down, burns its path to his stomach like a poison he’s willingly ingesting.

“what i don’t get is why you let her aboard with it.” this is not a question, not really. he’s not the type to pry and nor does he expect the captain to justify or explain any of his actions, so the words are merely spoken as yet another one of henry’s thoughts, to be left to float away into the black, treasured only by the ship that encases them and the silence they are followed by. he stares off towards the doorway for a while, more thoughts tumbling over each other in his mind before he eventually brings the glass up to his lips again and empties the rest of its contents. when he puts it back down on the table, he picks up the bottle to refill it, then automatically checks how full jaewon’s glass is, lifting the bottle a little as if suggesting a refill for the captain as well should he want it.

once the bottle stands back on the table and he’s leaning back into his chair again, he sinks back down into silence, suddenly lost in thoughts about everything that has transpired to bring him to this point in time. his expression is darkened by the clouds of those memories, but he doesn’t speak again - might not even fully remember anymore that he’s still in the company of another, as this particular person is someone he doesn’t mind seeing the worst parts of himself.

to the bottom

#syxjaewon #to the bottom

[syxhenry]

she speaks of his willingness to fix up a crib for the baby, and honestly it offends him for a second or two, because what did she think he was going to do? dropkick the child into the black? but then she says uncle and he is hit with the suddenness of both the responsibility thrown at him as well as the willingness he feels to live up to the title. he doesn’t really think he’ll ever have children, after all, doesn’t think he wants to bring down that fate on anyone, and so this is possibly the closest he’ll ever get to caring for a little one - and it’s even actual family on top of that. or at least, he assumes so, but he really doesn’t think his sister would have stolen someone else’s child, and short of doing that, he figures any baby she brings with her is to be considered hers properly.

he’s still mulling this train of thought when she reaches out, putting a hand on his cheek, and he leans his head into it easily. the only reason he doesn’t close his eyes is because he’s holding the baby and he doesn’t want to lose his grip on her because of his eyes being closed, so he ends up just sitting there cradling the babe in his arms as he keeps his gaze on his sister’s face mainly, watching her watch him and just smiling softly at her. eventually she speaks, words that explode in his chest, causing him to close his eyes for a moment because he doesn’t know how else to deal with them, and then she runs a thumb over his cheek and he opens them again.

she shifts, moving closer, and he easily straightens up again to allow her the proximity. by the time she settles their thighs are touching, she’s leaning into his side and her head has come to a gentle rest on his shoulder. so he does the only thing he can do; leans his head gently back down on hers and then settles the baby in the crook of his one arm so he can reach for her hand with his own and take a gentle hold of it, intertwining their fingers so they are once more linked together.

like that they sit on the bed, staying quiet and simply being together. he’s got several more things he needs to work on around the engine, but nothing that can’t wait a while. nothing pressing enough to warrant him leaving his sister’s side now that he’s finally next to her again. he breathes out a deep sigh, finally releasing some of an ever-present stress in his chest, and he turns his head just a little so he can press a kiss into her hair.

“i love you too, jiejie.”

[ end ]

reunited

#syharper #reunited

[syxhenry]

his sister pulls him further into the room, guides him to the bed, and he sits down, awkwardly makes sure the child is still comfortably in his arms - how does one even properly hold a baby? he presumes he’s doing it right since whitney’s not telling him to do it differently. then she answers his question, and it’s an answer that has him a little bitter, still frowning, not very satisfying. they themselves, after all, were with family when nearly all of them died. but then she elabortes, says that no one would protect the child like jaewon and they themselves would, and though he still has some doubts about jaewon’s opinion on the matter, he accepts the reality of that with a little hum.

for a moment there’s silence, then her voice breaks it again, speaking words that he himself knows all too well, that he’s learned to incorporate into his very soul over the years between the last time he inhabited a planet and now; nowhere is safe. the blue sun corporation is everywhere, the alliance is in all the places they are not, and whenever one manages to find some backwater planet where neither of them have footing, there is some other asshole dictator with a superiority complex making life a living hell for its inhabitants.

so in the end he has to agree that, despite its tendency to fly into the most dangerous situations and come within a hair’s breadth of death itself, the serenity is probably the safest place for them to be. at least within its four walls there is no one present who’d want to harm the child. at least serenity will fly them safely through the black for as long as jaewon captains her and henry makes sure to keep her capable of flight.

and so his gaze goes back down to the child, and he allows himself to take her in without judgement, to learn the lines of her little face and imprint it into his memories so that no one can ever take it from him again. a single look around the room after tells him its bare of anything to do with the baby, and so he hums with a bit of disapproval. “don’t you have anywhere for her to sleep? i’ll make you a little crib for her, it’d be dangerous if she rolled herself off the bed, she could get seriously injured.” he shakes his head a little, but when he looks over at whitney, she’s smiling at him warmly and somewhat amused.

“what?”

reunited

#syharper #reunited

[syxhenry]

#¤supernova

[syxhenry]

to the bottom

@syxjaewon​

when he walks into the room jaewon’s seated in that particular evening, he doesn’t really say anything. it’s out of the ordinary for him, he knows this, but it’s also out of the ordinary for him to have a bottle of alcohol and two glasses in hand, and it’s also out of the ordinary for him to sit down, pour them both a glass, push one over to jaewon and then pick up his own to take a proper sip of it. the bitter taste of the liquor has him making a face, coughing lightly after he’s swallowed, but even that doesn’t deter him from keeping a hold of the glass and planning to empty it.

what brought him here is not hard to figure out, probably, as it’s the only thing of such unsettling properties that they have aboard serenity. but then again, he’s not just met his niece today, he’s also gone out and bought them the equipment doc said he’d need as well as the things he felt were necessary to have aboard serenity before they would leave the planet and fly to who knows where in the black. his only duty is to the ship, to keeping it working properly, to keeping it intact and alive, and that he hasn’t been here for over a year is painfully obvious in some of the sub-par repairs that have been done on her. repairs that he plans to undo and redo in a proper manner when there is time for it - or in case it becomes necessary first.

“a baby girl,” is all he says after just quietly sitting there staring off into nowhere for a bit, though he figures jaewon might have preferred the silent drinking to him saying it out loud, but he had to voice it to someone, and though doc and him are friends, there is no one who would understand the unlikeliness of this phenomenon better than jaewon, his captain and brother, someone who’s lived with him for years, but who also knows his sister somewhat - perhaps even better than he himself does. “i did not see that coming.”

he lifts his glass to take another sip, to wash down the somehow biting truth of that as he sits there, still just staring at one of serenity’s wall panels, not even looking at the captain in the slightest. he can’t help remembering then, the way whitney had told him she plans on raising her daughter here, aboard this ship, with family to look out for her. he feels such a thing might not be the best to expect of said captain, but his sister had seemed quite sure about her choices, and seemed to have had no worry whatsoever about jaewon’s acceptance of the baby.

“seems like an overall bad idea, doesn’t it? a baby on a smuggling ship?” he does look over at the captain then, because this is a subject he would really like to know the captain’s opinion on.

#syxjaewon #to the bottom

[syxhenry]

of all the things in all the worlds in all the verse that could have happened when the door of whitney’s quarters open up to them, her going over to pick up a baby and then handing it to him and stating it’s her daughter is probably one of the last things he would ever have expected. not that he couldn’t see whitney with a baby, on the contrary, the sister he knows would be an amazing mother, caring, nurturing, supporting. but the sister he knows existed over a decade ago and the person she’s told him of growing into... well, he’s just not really sure that person would have ever decided to have kids.

but then she’s handing the bundle to him and his arms come up to hold it, and he’s peering down into a little, ugly, wrinkly baby face, and he really just stands there, staring down at it, trying to process the news, trying to process the fact that two years ago he was still convinced his entire family was dead and now he doesn’t just have his sister back but a niece as well, while his heart’s brother is probably standing like a lighthouse at the flight deck of the ship they’re currently on.

he almost breaks all over again, but then he swallows, clears his throat and finally manages to tear his gaze from the little baby up to his sister’s face again. “whitney,” he says softly, but he doesn’t know what to follow it up with and so he falls silent again. and then new thoughts set up; did she tell jaewon about this? she must have. there is no good to be found in trying to sneak a baby past him just so he would find out about it later, once they’re airborne perhaps. if she did tell jaewon, how did he react? clearly alright since here they both are, but also... what does she plan to do aboard a smuggling ship with a baby!?

“whitney,” he starts again, looking back down at the child for a second before looking back up at his sister, a frown creasing his forehead, the many questions probably more than clear enough in his eyes. she seems to at least see them there, because she laughs lightly and reaches out to ruffle his hair, but he’s grown enough now to recognise the laughter for what it is - a mask for her insecurity - and so he lifts a hand to catch hers and lowers them both without letting go of her fingers. “what’s the plan here? why are you not on a safe planet somewhere to raise this child?”

reunited

#syharper #reunited