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unless-otherwise-stated · 3 years

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TSCOSI Mini-Bang Fic 3 Release

A Perfectly Normal Totally Typical Cafe

The Rumor Cafe is opening on Milky Way and the crew was not prepared. As they struggle with maintaining and running the cafe due to their unexpected influx of customers, they look to hire. Enter Violet Liu, she needs a job so she goes in for an interview with her extensive resume. Violet gets hired and starts working at The Rumor, but she soon finds that The Rumor and its staff may be hiding more than meets the eye.

@tscosi-minibang

Written by:

Rayan - @unless-otherwise-stated

Beta read by:

Vi - @starshipviolet

Hec - @drumkonwords

Coming to AO3 soon!

Read Chapter One below the cut.

Chapter One

The Rumor Cafe had been open for an hour and the coffee machine was on fire. Krejjh was still serving coffee, the line in front of the counter stretched across the crowded store and out it. They juggled coffee cups between their four hands filling up cups and shuffling the order papers. Brian is huddled in the corner by the order receivers and trying to write down as many orders as he can. And though Brian is a linguist, studying languages isn’t going to do you much when fifty different people are telling you their orders, about five of which may have asked you a question. At this point, he was writing down as much as he could make out before frantically moving the order papers to the basket by Krejjh.

As soon as Krejjh had finished an order they would speedwalk over to the pickup counter and leave them for Arkady or Sana to deliver them to the customer. Sana was currently in a seemingly one-sided argument with a customer that kept insisting that “if this is a coffee shop why isn’t there a bowling alley?”

“Sir, I apologize for any disappointment, but we don’t have a bowling al—” Sana tried to reason with him, but he interrupted her.

“Okay, okay. Maybe the bowling alley was a stretch, but you at least have a giant python that grew legs giving out tango lessons.”

Sana was prepared to commit many crimes.

Arkady was left to wait the tables by herself, she would sprint to the counter, balancing as many drinks as she could safely carry on her tray and a few more. She would then blindly sprint out into the customer crowd shuffling the order papers, trying to figure out which drink goes where while dodging the mildly annoyed and confused customers.

All in all, despite their short-handedness and heightened probability of many accidents (and crimes), they were managing the flow of customers. That is, until the staff of the other coffee shop across the street, If Gnomes Ran, decided to pop in and check out the new (temporary) competition.

If Gnomes Ran was your classic ‘Large Corporation-Run “Local’’ Coffee Shop’. They worked under In Good Running (IGR for short), which also owned I Give Rup, I Gave Ryouallmymoneywhatelsedoyouwant, and I Got Radishes, a grocery store, clothing store and pharmaceutical respectively. The most important thing to know about them is that if you see them do anything morally wrong or illegal, no you didn’t.

It was in this rush that the employees of If Gnomes Ran entered the coffee store, skipping everyone else who was waiting in line to enter and orderly shuffling in through the door. Worker McCabe was left to hold the door open for all of them. What the staff of If Gnomes Ran didn’t see while scouting out the shop was Arkady sprinting right towards them carrying her tray filled to the brim with drinks and pastries. In fact, neither Arkady nor any of the recent visitors saw each other. And so, as Arkady was attempting to find table five she instead ran right into the entire group of visiting foreign employees.

The entire shop turned silent and turned to look at the group of sharply dressed If Gnomes Ran employees soaked and covered in many different kinds of coffee and pastries. A few of the customers didn’t notice and continued chatting for a few seconds before noticing the sudden silence and becoming quiet themselves.

The crackling of the coffee machine fire stood out against the shocked silence and it was only then that Brian realized that the coffee machine was on fire. He bolted over to Krejjh and motioned wildly at the coffee machine, completely silent as to not disturb whatever was currently happening. Krejjh was still frantically completing orders as Brian rushed over to the nearby fire extinguisher and put out the fire. There may have been a bit of foam in the orders Krejjh was making at the time.

Arkady looked up from the order papers she was still holding and stared blankly at the steadily glaring group of soaked If Gnomes Ran staff. Sana rushed over, steadily apologizing and rushing to hand them all towels, but the collective group simply turned and walked right back out of the door.

The coffee shop was silent and the closing door rang the bell and knocked slightly against its frame. Sana and Arkady were still stood right where they were as Krejjh continued pumping out orders and Brian tried to access the damage caused by the fire. Many of the customers were shuffling around silently trying to leave as to not get caught up in any issues with In Good Standing. One of the customers stubbornly waiting for their order coughed slightly, while not a loud cough by any means it stood out against the silence.

The cough seemed to bring Arkady back to the situation and she hurried over to the fallen mugs and pastries and began to clean up. Sana rested the towels she intended to give to the If Gnomes Ran staff on a nearby counter and knelt down beside Arkady to help. This broke the silence in the coffee shop and the chatter rose up from the customers once again. Brian abandoned his station taking orders to quickly deliver the orders steadily piling up on the counter. Krejjh had run out of space and was now attempting to precariously balance orders on top of each other.

The crew served the considerably reduced amount of customers left after the incident before beginning to close the shop early. Arkady and Sana returned the extra chairs and tables they’d brought out and straightened out the original tables and chairs. Brian and Krejjh were cleaning up the counters and general area around the coffee machines while discussing the dangers of fire and physics. After they’d restored The Rumor to its original, clean and orderly, state, they all sat around in the staff breakroom to discuss today’s events.

“So…” Sana began sitting at the head of the table, “That didn’t go as…planned, I suppose… but this is only the first day, and it was clearly an accident. The most we can do at this point is attempt to make amends with If Gnomes Ran and just continue with our plan.”

“This isn’t just any business we’re talking about here, Boss,” Arkady states simply from the other side of the rectangular table. “This is the IGR, everyone knows what they’re capable of.” The group sat silent around the table contemplating the possible repercussions from today’s incident, the only sound being the soft sounds of commotion from outside leaking in through the window.

“There’s nothing we can do about that. All we can hope is that whatever the IGR decides to do, it won’t interfere with our primary mission.” Sana says steadily, looking everyone in the eyes. “But something I think we can all agree on, if we’re going to continue this we’re going to need a few extra hands.”

“Not unless the IGR shuts us down,” Arkady mumbles under her breath.

“We could always put out a sign in the window and a few other flyers and ads, we just need to make sure we don’t…attract the wrong people,” Brian suggests.

“I could make the flyer!” Krejjh says enthusiastically, raising two of their hands.

“Arkady brings up a point,” Sana declares with a slight tone of finalization, “if business continues at these levels we’ll put out an ad for employment and we’ll see who applies.” She smiles at everyone and stands up from her chair, “until then, we’ll see how it goes.”

Everyone else follows suit and stands up from their chairs shuffling around and gathering their belongings preparing to head home. Arkady lingers by the table.

Brian waits by the door, arms covered in coats, sweaters and handbags. After a minute Krejjh walks up to him and takes their stuff from him.

“Bye!” They say as they follow Brian out the door. Brian manages to empty one of his hands and waves goodbye.

Arkady turns to Sana and asks, “do you need me to close up the shop?”

“Oh, no, you go ahead, I’ll close up myself,” Sana smiles. Arkady lingers for a second more before hesitantly leaving. Sana walks around turning off all the lights and watching the beams of noon sunlight sneak through the cracks in the window blinds. Although it had been a short one, it had been quite a day. She walked out the door and locked it behind her, strolling into the lunch crowd, and mentally preparing for a nap and an important phone call that she’d been expecting.

The next day a sign was put up in the window of The Rumor. Written in large, flowing letters in shiny dark purple ink, it sat in the window declaring to the street: NOW HIRING :), and below the main text in smaller printed letters in dark blue ink it added: apply at therumor.com/hiring. Many other signs and flyers were seen around the street and a few were spotted in further places in the city. It would be much harder for the If Gnomes Ran employees to ignore them than to acknowledge them. And so they did acknowledge them officially, in their company required daily logs.

More To Come Soon!

#tscosi #tscosimb2021 #fanfic #rayan writes #the strange case of starship iris

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iffeelscouldkill · 3 years

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say what we wanna do, make it all come true (chapter 2)

A/N: In my original notes for this fic I had written that Chapter 3 might be rolled into Chapter 2 depending on length because I thought that Chapter 2 was going to be super short. *laughs wildly in 7.1k-long chapter* But this is my favourite chapter of the fic, so it's nice that we get to spend extra time with it!

No particular content warnings for this; everything’s pretty chill. Enjoy! <3

Link to Chapter One | Read on AO3

“That, dear listeners, was ‘Landers Never Stand Down’, the hit single – or should that be anthem? – by beloved indie band Rumor, from their debut album, ‘Ghost Squid’. If you’re just joining us, I’m Piper Tanaka, and this is Radio Indie, Folk and Techno. With us in the studio are Rumor frontwoman Sana Tripathi-”

“Hello again.”

“-and bassist Arkady Patel. We’ve just been hearing the stunning true story of how the band added a new member to its line-up, drummer Violet Liu, after she was discovered trying to obtain confidential files in order to blow the whistle on her employer, the notorious IGR Corp, and its development of an unethical surveillance device.”

“Isn’t that, really, the only logical way to join a band?” Kestrel quipped.

“It sure worked out well for the Rumor crew!” said Piper. “On a more musical note, though – and yes, that pun was intended – that was a great track we just heard. I’m curious about the name you picked for your debut album; is there a story there?”

Sana glanced at Arkady, amused. “Call it an in joke,” she said. “We were originally going to go with ‘In the Deep’, since there’s kind of a loose space theme to the first album, and then… after rehearsal one day, we were just riffing on what kind of creatures might live out in the depths of outer space-” They had also been pretty drunk at the time, but she didn’t need to mention that live on air. “-and Arkady suggested that maybe there’d be giant squid, like in the depths of the ocean.”

“Space squid!” Piper enthused. “Now there’s a concept I can get behind.”

“Right, but Violet, who is our resident science expert – she has a Masters in Molecular Biology–”

“Fancy. Love a woman of science.”

“-pointed out that a squid could never propel itself in a vacuum. Unless it was, you know, a ghost squid.”

“How much had you guys been drinking?” Kestrel asked shrewdly. Arkady coughed.

“It was a dumb joke, but we thought it would make a pretty unique name for a first album,” she finished.

“You were right there!” said Piper brightly. “Then, of course, there’s your upcoming second album, which we’ve heard will be titled ‘More Than a Rumor’.”

“That’s right,” Sana confirmed. “We’ve been working on some really cool material for this one, and we’re excited to bring it to you all.”

“We’ve been hearing some interesting talk about what exactly that material might be,” said Piper. “The discussion boards online are buzzing about one track, ‘The Saga of the House of Zravshen’, which is said to be a thirteen-minute-long “epic space opera ballad” written by Brian Jeeter.”

Arkady made a derisive noise. “It’ll be a thirteen-minute-long something, all right.”

“Arkady, maybe you could tell us about ‘Nanoswarm’,” said Kestrel slyly. “I’ve heard that you and Violet Liu collaborated closely on that track.”

“I – we didn’t – what I mean is, uh, it really wasn’t a formal – collaboration–”

Arkady’s transformation from self-assured to completely flustered was delightful to behold, even though Sana felt like she should maybe step in and save her best friend from herself.

“It was more of a, uh, sort of a side project – we just worked on it and it sounded pretty cool, so it, uh – went onto the album.”

“What I think is really great about ‘More Than a Rumor’,” Sana intervened smoothly, and Arkady let out a breath, sitting back in her chair, “is that there are various tracks where different band members get a chance to shine. Building on ‘Ghost Squid’, which was the introduction to the band as a whole, we really delve into different members’ specialisms in our second album, which has made the material really varied as a result. But at the same time, we’ve worked hard to give it a cohesive flow…”

---

Not everything about adding a new member to the band had been as seamless as that first set. They’d improvised together well over the course of a performance, sure, but there was a different quality to rehearsals now that there were five of them instead of four; they were still figuring out how to navigate each other, adapting routines and in-jokes to accommodate a new person.

A lot of their original material sounded different now with the addition of a keytar and a new drummer; Liu was more technically capable than Jeeter had been, and she also wasn’t content with just falling into a role that had been laid down for her. She had ideas, things she wanted to change, and they weren’t bad ideas, but they still bugged Arkady anyway. She was just attached to a lot of their old songs, that was all.

And okay, maybe she’d pushed back on a few suggestions during rehearsals in a way that had Sana raising an amused eyebrow at her and Krejjh pretending to duck and cover. To her credit, Liu didn’t just roll over and give up on her ideas at the first sign of resistance, sticking to her guns in a way that Arkady respected even if it was also annoying. Things never deteriorated too far, mainly because Sana was quick to play peacemaker, but there always seemed to be some kind of friction between the two of them. It was like an itch under Arkady’s skin whenever she was around Liu, quick to flare up.

Then there was the time that Liu had made an offhanded comment that, “Everyone here went to an underground concert or two in college, right?” in the context of discussing the kinds of set-ups that they’d performed with in the past. Arkady had said nothing, but could feel her teeth grinding as she played an overly loud riff on her bass. It was an innocuous enough comment on its own, but the easy presumptions behind it – the idea that everyone had had access to the same educational opportunities that Liu had had – were what pissed Arkady off.

But contradicting her would have meant talking about something that was personal to Arkady, something that cut way too close to the bone, and she didn’t want to do that. Liu hadn’t earned that from her. Instead, Jeeter made a joke about having been way too immersed in books to find time for concerts, and Sana tactfully steered the conversation out of dangerous waters.

After the rehearsal, she’d pulled Arkady aside. “If you want me to talk to her about—”

Arkady shook her head. “It’s not a big deal. Really,” she added at Sana’s unconvinced look. “It was a stupid assumption, but I can let it go. I’d rather just… let it go.”

They were in a band together, but that didn’t mean they had to be best friends. Arkady could maintain a civil working relationship. It didn’t matter what she’d… thought when she first met Liu, or what Liu might have been about to say to her in the bar. All of that was in the past, so there was no point dwelling on it. All Arkady needed to do was work with Liu within the context of the band; she could do that.

Until one afternoon when Arkady arrived early for rehearsal without really meaning to, and found that the only other person in the warehouse was Liu, who was setting up her drumkit. Before Arkady could turn around and pretend she’d never been there, Liu looked up and spotted her.

“Oh… hey. I was just planning to run through a few drum lines before the rehearsal… try some stuff out,” she said.

“Right,” Arkady said, casting about for an excuse that would get her out of the warehouse until the others arrived. “Uh, I’m gonna go get some coffee from the-”

“Arkady, listen, can we, uh… Can we clear the air between us?” Liu asked, the last few words coming out all in a rush.

Arkady froze. “Clear… what air?” she asked, hoping to god that Liu would say something innocuous about why she thought the drum line on Fear for the Storm needed work.

No such luck. “Look, I get that you’re not… thrilled with having me in the band,” Liu said, quietly, though her voice still carried in the echoey space. “I’ve been in a lot of workplace environments where I’m not welcome, so I… know how to spot the signs. And maybe I’m being hypersensitive, or looking for things to worry about, but something still feels off between us, so whatever it is, can we just talk about it and deal with it? Please?”

Arkady’s chest clenched at Liu’s mention of not being welcome in ‘workplace environments’. Damn it, she didn’t want to make Liu feel the same way she’d felt in whatever white dudebro-filled tech companies she’d worked for. But she also didn’t want to go into the reasons why she wasn’t always a ray of sunshine when they interacted. There was no way that that conversation was going to make anything better.

“I don’t have a problem with you being in the band. Really,” she said instead. “If it comes off that way, it’s just because… Sana and I worked on a lot of those early songs together, and I’m… attached to how they sound. That’s all.”

“So… this is really just a musical disagreement?” said Liu, sounding unconvinced. “Because it feels like there’s… something else. I know you’re not the biggest fan of my former employer – and I mean, me neither – but I figure if it bothered you that much, you wouldn’t have come to help me when Seiders was threatening me-”

“I wasn’t going to just let you die,” Arkady said, nettled. “And no, I’m not in the habit of judging people for where they work. I’ve worked my fair share of jobs for shitty employers just to get by.” She shrugged. Then, almost without meaning to, she added, “Of course, I didn’t have the choice that you probably had…”

Liu frowned, but more like she was confused than like she was annoyed by Arkady’s comment. “What do you mean?”

Arkady sighed. “Not everyone went to college, Liu,” she said. “I’m a high school dropout. So no, I didn’t go to any underground concerts. Or any kind of gigs in college.”

Liu’s eyes widened as her comment from earlier came back to her. “Oh my god,” she groaned, putting her hand to her head. “I am so sorry, Arkady – I should know better than to make assumptions like that. I was just – I’d been talking to Brian about his studies and how he met Krejjh doing fieldwork, and I guess I assumed you guys had all met in college-”

Arkady barked out a laugh, too startled to even really be annoyed. “What, you thought that I could’ve been studying alongside Jeeter? You know he went to Brightwell, right? That elite college that’s supposed to be harder than Harvard to get into?”

Liu shrugged like the idea was actually plausible and not something that sounded like part of a bizarre alternate reality. “Yeah, I don’t see why not.” Then, quickly, as if she was afraid that this might have offended Arkady even more, she added, “But like I said – I really shouldn’t have assumed, and I’m sorry – I know better than that. I was only able to go to the college I did because I won a scholarship.”

Keen to move away from the topic of Arkady possibly having gone to Brightwell – because really, what – Arkady said, “You went to uh, that all-girls college, right? Harmony?” She vaguely remembered overhearing a conversation between Liu and Jeeter where Liu had talked about there being a Latin motto. “It sounded… interesting.”

Liu pulled a face. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.” She went on almost shyly, like she was confessing to a deeply-held secret, “I would have liked to study something more artistic – music, maybe – or at least do more extra-curriculars, but… I got that scholarship, and I was under a lot of pressure from my parents to do something ‘worthwhile’. Plus, I really wanted to show the kids who said I only got that scholarship because I was ‘a minority’.” There was an anger and a bitterness and a tiredness underlying those last two words that Arkady knew far too well.

“They what,” she spat out. God, was she glad she’d never been to college. Then again, she’d worked at places where she’d come up against the exact same attitude.

“Yeah,” Liu said wearily, fiddling with the drumsticks she was holding. “It wasn’t all bad, though. Being away at college was the first time I was really able to be myself – play the drums, be out. I got this haircut in my freshman year that was just – wild, it was awful.” She laughed, though Arkady barely heard her, her heartbeat suddenly pounding in her ears at the word ‘out’. God, Patel, get a grip. “My parents never liked the drums, they thought they were too – un-feminine,” she pulled a face again. “I play the flute, too, but I’m bad at it.”

“We should add that into the line-up,” said Arkady, to distract herself from thinking about Violet’s – Liu’s – flushed cheeks and her smile as she talked about her old haircut. “Sana can write a flute part.”

“Oh god, no,” Liu said, laughing again. “I don’t even have my flute any more, I sold it in grad school.”

“So… if you went to grad school… you can’t have hated it that much, right?” Arkady asked. “Uh – the biology, not the – flute playing.”

“Oh, no, I love biology,” Liu enthused. “It’s the study of living things – what’s not to love? Grad school itself, though, was…” She pulled a face. “I came close to quitting, a few times.”

“What happened?” Arkady asked. They were pretty far off their original subject by now, and Arkady was willing to admit to herself (and only herself) that maybe she was enjoying the conversation. It was all in the name of building better inter-band relationships, of course. Sana would be thrilled that they were bonding like this.

Liu sighed. “Let’s just say there were a few people on my course who were determined to let me know I didn’t belong. We had a lab work module where we were supposed to carry out an experiment as a group, and… I got put in charge of our group of six. My teammates would do things like pretend not to understand my instructions, or move things I needed to shelves I couldn’t reach… make comments they knew I could overhear… Growing up with an anxiety disorder, everyone’s always telling you not to worry – you learn to doubt your own thoughts. And my advisor just dismissed my concerns as ‘over-sensitivity’, so…” Arkady’s eyes narrowed further with every word that Liu spoke. “It was too late for me to transfer to another module. In the end I wound up carrying the whole project basically by myself.”

Liu gave Arkady a weak smile. “So, y’know, you didn’t miss out on much. I interned for a pharmaceutical company for a couple of years after college, did some work as a research assistant. When I got the job offer from IGR Corp, I felt like I’d finally made it – and look how that turned out.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault that IGR Corp turned out to be a special brand of greedy, soul-sucking and unethical,” said Arkady bluntly – even though she’d previously thought that maybe Liu could have had less awful taste in employers. “That’s on them. Look… I know a thing or two about soul-sucking workplaces myself.”

Arkady hadn’t intended this to turn into Personal Story Hour, but at the same time she felt like she should at least offer something after Liu had opened up about her time in college. She hadn’t needed to justify herself; she could just have apologised and left it at that. Instead, she’d shared something that Arkady suspected she didn’t talk about to a lot of people.

“The last job I worked before Sana and I started Rumor was for Telemachus Enterprises,” Arkady said, and Liu’s eyes widened in recognition.

“The global consulting firm? That’s very… well…”

“Capitalist? Soullessly corporate?” Arkady finished for her.

“I was going to say stable,” Liu said diplomatically.

“Sure, as long as you also like ladder-climbing, backstabbing and toxic work environments,” said Arkady. “I was an assistant, doing all the crap work like photocopying, fetching coffee, making calls, scheduling appointments and dealing with angry clients. It was the kind of job you get to get a ‘foothold’ in the world of business, and all of the other assistants were recent college grads who were way younger than me. I hated it.”

Liu nodded, listening intently, not offering any kind of commentary or judgement.

“Playing the bass was kind of the only thing that kept me sane, so… I used to go down to these shitty clubs at night and play, sometimes straight from work because the overtime was ridiculous. I’d join up with a couple of other musicians and do jam sessions, or sometimes play solo stuff. I’d sing, sometimes, too,” she added, a little self-consciously, even though she sang backing vocals on most of Rumor’s songs, and everyone in the band had heard her sing.

“I moved around a lot, never performed at the same place two nights in a row, so that no-one got to know me too well. I used to use different stage names – my favourite was Duchess Calpurnia Higginsworth-Cobb.”

Liu burst out laughing. “You didn’t really tell people that was your name?”

“Drunk people will believe anything,” Arkady told her. “I’m still known as ‘Duchess’ in a few places. It was a precaution, in case anything got back to my work, but in the end… the person who recognised me was someone I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Sana.”

Liu’s eyes widened. “You guys go back that far?”

“Kind of,” Arkady said. “It’s a long story–” delving into the tale of The Landing and her and Sana’s shared history definitely felt like it would be going a step too far – “but uh, I used to do work at a tattoo parlour that Sana came to a few times. I didn’t think she’d really noticed me at the time, but she remembered me well enough that when I played at a club near her workplace, she recognised me. She managed to catch a few more of my performances, figure out where I’d be, and one night she showed up with her guitar, and… we played together.”

Arkady smiled a little, remembering that night, the spark she’d felt as soon as they started to play. The drummer had been awful, some white asshole named Ricky who thought he was God’s gift to music – and wasn’t – but they’d sounded like magic anyway.

“Somehow she managed to figure out where I worked, showed up one day, invited me to get lunch, and after she found out how much I hated it there, she told me I should quit so that we could start a band,” Arkady said.

“And you did?” Liu asked, sounding half impressed, half scandalised.

“I really hated that job,” Arkady said. “Besides, the Capt- Sana can be really persuasive. We joke about her motivational speeches, but she’s…” Arkady hated to admit this, because it sounded so goddamn cheesy, but there wasn’t another word to describe it. “…inspirational.”

Liu smiled. “Yeah, I can tell. She seems like that kind of person.”

“We wrote a lot of our early songs together during that time,” Arkady said. “‘Landers Never Stand Down’, ‘Fear for the Storm’… they kind of – ugh, this is going to sound so corny, but they were about our hope for something better. So… that’s why I’m weird about changing them.”

Liu’s expression softened. “I completely get it. Look, I know that all of this has been pretty sudden – me joining the band, us trying to put together an album – and I’d understand if you wanted me to… back off a little. I was throwing out ideas for things that I thought would sound good with our new line-up, but I should have appreciated that these aren’t just songs to you and Sana.”

“No, it’s – you’re – okay,” Arkady said awkwardly. “You’re fine. They’re… they’re uh, really…” God, Arkady, just spit it out. People pay each other compliments all the time – it doesn’t have to mean anything. (Even if you might want it to mean something). “They’re really good. Ideas, I mean. And the others seem to like them! So… don’t stop on my account.”

Arkady’s urge to just leave the building after finally stumbling through that awkward admission was pretty strong, but she managed to resist. Which turned out to be worth it to see the small, pleased smile unfolding on Liu’s face. It was a different kind of smile to the one that she wore when the Captain paid her a compliment, though Arkady couldn’t have said exactly how. It just felt… personal to her.

“Well, in that case,” said Liu. “I had this idea I really wanted to try out on ‘Landers’, and… I’d love to get your thoughts? On how it sounds?”

Which was how, when Sana showed up for the start of the rehearsal fifteen minutes later, Arkady and Violet came to be mid-debate about the merits of speeding up the tempo of the drum line in the first half of the second verse, Arkady singing Sana’s part of the vocals to illustrate her point.

“Am I late?” Sana joked, throwing Arkady an amused glance. “Sorry, I didn’t realise practice was starting early.”

“The cool kids show up to practice a half hour early to go over new drum lines,” Arkady deadpanned, and Liu laughed. Sana smiled as she brought out her guitar.

“What you were playing just then sounded really good – can you go over it again?”

The conversation with Liu didn’t magically fix everything between them, but the tension eased up significantly after that, and it became easier for Arkady and Liu to come to a compromise whenever they disagreed. The album started to come together much more quickly, and when Red Gregor stopped by (which he did a lot more than he strictly needed to as the head of their record label, and Arkady suspected he was mostly there to see Sana), he was full of praise for the new arrangements.

It also somehow became a habit for Arkady to start showing up early to rehearsal. She told herself it was because the line in the coffee shop was easier to deal with at that time, and it was true that at some point she’d bought enough coffee for both her and Violet to have Violet’s regular order memorised; but it also had something to do with the fact that more often than not, Violet would arrive while she was setting up, or vice versa, and they’d run through the parts that had been bugging them, each lending the other an honest and unjudgemental ear. Sometimes they’d play around with something new, or improvise, trying on new techniques and styles for size.

Arkady honestly hadn’t had this much fun experimenting with music since those first early, heady days with Sana, when they started to lay down exactly what kind of performers they wanted to be. It was different with Violet – they had a different relationship, a different vibe – but there was still something about their sessions that felt similar, like they were breaking new ground.

One day, Arkady had been messing around with a bass line that she couldn’t get out of her head – she’d been thinking of adding it to ‘The Carmen Gambit’, one of the band’s originals that Jeeter had helped write, but it didn’t really fit. She liked how it sounded on its own, though. Liu had been listening, head tilted to one side, which Arkady didn’t really think anything of until quietly, underneath the bass line, Violet started to add a drum part.

Arkady was startled, mostly by how well the two fit together; after a slight fumble, she carried on playing, improvising and adding a couple of variations to the bass line when she ran out of material. Liu smoothly changed up the rhythm of the drum line to match just a second later, and Arkady realised that they had something that almost sounded like… a real piece of music. Something organic, something that flowed and moved and changed with-

Crap. Arkady came to a stop at the end of a section as she realised she didn’t have any idea what to play next. “Uh…” She threw an apologetic glance in Violet’s direction. “I haven’t really figured out what comes after that.”

Violet nodded, not seeming put out by this. “What about…” She hummed the end section of the melody that Arkady had been playing, and then another phrase that almost mirrored it. “Actually, that part could come before the-”

“Right, right-” Arkady understood Violet’s meaning, and quickly picked up the tune on her bass.

The song (well, technically it was an instrumental) they were writing didn’t have a name for the first few days. Arkady and Violet would pick up where they left off each time they came to rehearsal, and would throw around ideas for additions and changes, discussing the overall sound and vibe, but it didn’t feel like there was a need to put a name to it.

Then in the middle of one of these discussions, Violet started scribbling something in a notebook, and Arkady realised she was writing down their song. She peered curiously at the letters and notes, and Violet grimaced self-consciously.

“I’m not sure if I’ve got all of the bass chords right,” she admitted, tilting the notebook so Arkady could see it better. “Feel free to correct any bits that are wrong, I was mostly trying to get the drum part down for my own benefit. My memory’s not as good as yours is.”

Arkady hesitated. She was tempted to lie and say the notation was fine; Violet would accept it, and it probably wouldn’t come up again. There was a time when she would have done it without a second’s thought. But Violet already knew that Arkady had dropped out of high school; knew bits and pieces of her background, if not the whole story; and Arkady had to admit that she’d been enjoying being herself more around Violet. She didn’t want to backtrack on that.

“I never really learned to read sheet music,” she admitted. “I can recognise a few chords, but… I mostly learned how to play from YouTube videos, so it always seemed easier to just watch someone else play the chords, and learn which ones went with which songs, and… for performances I always had to memorise stuff anyway, so, um.” Arkady was rambling, and Violet was staring at her, which was possibly not good. “There didn’t seem much point in having it written down.”

“So… you never had a bass teacher?” Violet said slowly. “All of your playing, your singing – it’s all self-taught?”

“Uh,” Arkady cringed. “Yes?”

“Wow,” Violet said, and Arkady suddenly realised that she was dumbfounded because she was impressed, not because she’d just realised she was playing with an amateur. “That’s… really impressive.”

Arkady fidgeted, uncomfortable with the pure admiration in Violet’s gaze. “It’s not really – I mean sure, I put in a lot of hours, but so does every musician,” she hedged. “It wasn’t anything special, I just – couldn’t afford to pay for classes.”

She braced herself for an awkward silence to follow, but instead Violet nodded. “No, you’re right, everyone has to put in the work if they want to improve,” she agreed. “But I imagine that it would be harder to motivate yourself when it’s just you and the instrument.”

Arkady shrugged her shoulder slightly. “It wasn’t so bad. It helped that I enjoyed it, I guess.” After the disaster that was her high school education, it had been a relief to find something she’d felt like she was good at – and wasn’t being assessed on.

Violet smiled, and mercifully changed the topic by looking down at the notation she’d scribbled and saying lightly, “Well, now that it’s been written down, it feels like we should give it a name.”

Arkady thought about it. “Anything that’s shorter than whatever the hell it is Jeeter and Krejjh are working on,” she said, because Jeeter had been waxing lyrical about the ‘epic space opera ballad’ that he’d been composing with his fiancé. Apparently it was about a race of fictional aliens, and some of the lyrics were in a made-up alien language that Jeeter had invented. Arkady had no idea why Jeeter had such a dedicated following among their fans for the weird shit that he came up with, but there you were.

Violet grinned, tapping her pen against the space above the lines and notations. “So, one word, then. It’s got a pretty futuristic sound… What about ‘Cyberpunk’?”

Arkady couldn’t help grimacing a little bit. “Yeah, too clichéd,” Violet agreed. “Maybe something themed around space… ‘Supernova’?”

They tossed around a few other ideas, but none of them quite seemed to fit the mood of the song. Violet frowned down at the music she’d written, and Arkady was about to suggest they come back to it later when she said, “This might sound like a weird association for a piece of music, but I was reading a paper the other day on nanotechnology, you know, technology used at the atomic and molecular level?”

“Sounds kind of dry for bedtime reading, but I’m with you,” Arkady said.

Violet laughed, blushing a little. “Yeah, a friend from my Masters sent it to me; I still like to keep up with new developments in the field, and there are fascinating implications for biology. But I’m thinking, what if none of the space names fit because they’re too big, too grand? What if instead we went really small, like… ‘Nanobot’?”

“Nanobot…” Arkady turned the name over in her mind, thinking about the quick, intricate rhythms of the song they were creating together. It was a surprisingly good fit, but something about it felt off. Something about the ‘bot’ part was too… lonely. “What about ‘Nanoswarm’?”

Violet’s eyes widened slightly and a smile spread across her face. “Nanoswarm,” she said, and wrote the song title in blocky capitals above their music. “I like it.”

Both Red Gregor and Campbell came to rehearsal that night, which Arkady took as a sign that they were there to discuss something Important. Their album, ‘Ghost Squid’, was selling more copies than any of them had expected, and had actually got them some interview requests from indie music blogs and magazines. This seemed to be partly down to Red Gregor, who apparently had enough of a reputation as a business investor that his decision to start up a record label had attracted a lot of interest, and consequently a lot of interest in the first band he’d signed to it. But they’d also had some great reviews, including from Radio, Indie, Folk and Techno (also known as RIFT), the go-to station for all things indie music, who had covered it on their ‘Rave Review Hour’.

There’d also been a noticeably bigger audience at most of their gigs. They’d had a modest but dedicated following before Violet had joined the band, and were regulars at a couple of underground venues where they pulled decent crowds, plus one bar where Arkady had managed not to piss off the owner (the other four were… long stories); a bunch of people also streamed their music from various parts of the world. But since Ghost Squid came out, they’d started playing at (and filling) much bigger venues across a much wider area. It was fun, but also a little surreal.

“What’s the good word, Campbell?” Krejjh asked, leaning on their keyboard. “Are you here to tell us how much the people love us?”

Campbell’s lips twitched in amusement. “They love you a whole lot,” he said. “More every day.”

Krejjh fist-pumped, and Arkady asked, “So, what are you guys here for? Is this about ‘Ghost Squid 2: Electric Boogaloo’?”

They’d had a discussion with Red Gregor about beginning work on a second album; this one would take longer, since they’d had plenty of existing songs to draw on for ‘Ghost Squid’, and hadn’t needed to put together any new material. But, as Gregor had pointed out, it was better to start thinking about that sooner rather than later, and they’d been working on a few new songs anyway. So far, the second album was still nameless, but they’d taken to calling it by a range of joke nicknames.

Red Gregor grinned. “Sort of, in the sense that it’ll be good promo,” he said. Spreading his hands out to either side like a showman introducing his next act, he said grandly, “I’ve landed you a gig at the CUI Stadium.”

Jeeter’s mouth dropped open, Krejjh flailed and exclaimed, “Holy moley!”, and Violet repeated, “Stadium?!” in an almost horrified tone. Even Sana seemed surprised by the news.

“You actually got it?” she asked Red Gregor, who nodded.

Arkady’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, what’s the catch?” she asked. “They don’t let just anyone play the CUI Stadium.”

“No catch,” Campbell promised them. “Red has some contacts who tipped him off that the CUI is looking for some new, lesser-known talent to put on its billing. Once upon a time, the CUI had a reputation for scouting the best undiscovered bands and giving them a bigger stage – literally – and they feel they’ve been losing their touch.”

Put like that, it did make a kind of sense. “Cool, so who are we supporting?” Jeeter asked. “Oooh, maybe it’s Hremreh.”

Hremreh was a weird electronic band that Jeeter and Krejjh were completely obsessed with. Arkady rolled her eyes. “I hope the CUI has more taste than that.”

“Excuse you, Hremreh is an underrated gem of a band,” Krejjh retorted.

“The Destroyer?” Violet suggested jokingly. “They’re local.”

Arkady knew from having spent time with Violet that The Destroyer was one of her favourite bands from college, whose gigs she’d religiously attended during her freshman year. Everyone else looked interested but bemused, and Violet hurriedly added, “Uh, that was a bit of a niche joke. I used to go to their gigs a lot in college.”

“All great guesses,” Red Gregor said, “but you’re all missing one important piece of information. You’ll be the headline act.”

“What?” said Arkady.

“Heck yeah!” Krejjh exclaimed, and high-fived Jeeter.

“So, someone will be supporting us?” Violet said a little faintly.

“Red, exactly how many strings did you pull?” Sana asked, sounding halfway between amused and disapproving. Red Gregor held up his hands.

“I just talked to my contacts, I promise,” he said. “It gave me a chance to put your name forward, but that was all I needed to do. You guys have a great sound; they’re excited to have you on.”

Everything dissolved into a flurry of noise and celebration. Jeeter played a celebratory tune on his keytar that Arkady was fairly sure was from some video game, Krejjh whooped and slid their hands up the keys of their keyboard, and Campbell picked up Sana and spun her around, both of them and Red Gregor laughing. Violet caught Arkady’s eye, grinned, and did a little roll on one of her cymbals. Arkady huffed and rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t fight the smile that was trying to emerge.

“So, when is the gig?” Sana asked, flushed and catching her breath, after Campbell had put her down.

“A month from today,” Red told them. Sana straightened up.

“Wow, okay, we need to get rehearsing! Everyone—”

They quickly got into position, picking up instruments and drumsticks and plugging in amplifiers. Sana beamed around at the assembled band members.

“I just want to say how proud I am of all of you for what we’ve accomplished so far, and everything that lies ahead of us. I-”

“Not to head you off at the pass,” Arkady interrupted, sensing a long Sana Monologue was coming, “but didn’t you say we needed to get rehearsing? Maybe save the speech for after?”

Most people would have taken offence at being interrupted, but Sana, being Sana, smiled at Arkady. “Thank you for the reminder, Arkady. I am proud of you all, but I’ll tell you exactly how proud once we’re done.”

Rehearsal went well, everyone energetic and buoyed up from the good news. As they were packing down afterwards, under the noise of Sana, Krejjh, Jeeter, Campbell and Gregor eagerly discussing where they could go out for drinks to celebrate, Violet said to Arkady,

“I forgot to tell you earlier, but I heard back from the journalist. Emily Craddock.”

Arkady fumbled the wire that she was looping around itself. “Yeah? What did she say?”

“She said that she thinks we have enough for a story. Even with the missing data,” Violet said.

She looked happy, but something in Arkady’s chest still clenched. It had been nearly four weeks since the fateful gig at IGR Corp, and so far, everything had been quiet. The band had been on high alert at all of their performances at first, not spending any more time than was necessary setting up or lingering on the stage, but there’d been no attempts at sabotage, no suspicious ‘fans’ trying to approach them after a set. (There had been a few real fans whom Arkady had cross-examined a bit too aggressively when they tried to get close to the band, but people seemed to actually find it funny and no-one got offended).

They figured that IGR Corp must not know about the files that Violet had managed to copy across; Seiders had been unconscious, after all, and it was possible that they hadn’t realised that Violet had made off with anything, or had downplayed the severity of the incident to the higher-ups. Arkady had, in spite of her misgivings, broken the encryption on the files for Violet, but she’d been secretly hoping that the data wouldn’t turn out to be useful, or that there wouldn’t be enough of it to do anything with.

She’d hoped that even after Violet told her that she’d found a tech journalist who was interested in taking a look at the files and potentially investigate the story. Of course Arkady was a fan of doing whatever they could to stick it to the corporates; she just wished there was a way to do it that wouldn’t involve Violet painting a huge target on her back.

“That’s… good,” Arkady managed, and even she could hear how unconvincing it sounded. Violet looked at her questioningly. “It’s just…” She tried to find a way to word things that wasn’t, ‘I’m afraid that you won’t be safe’. “Once the information is out there, IGR Corp is going to know who leaked it. What happens if they come after you?”

“By that point, they should have bigger things to worry about, if the evidence that Emily Craddock has found is as damning as she says it is,” Violet pointed out. “She’s been looking into that engineer that Seiders mentioned, Alvy Connors. It’s not really clear whether something… happened to him, or whether he just made a run for it, but he definitely disappeared. And it wasn’t that long after he started work on Project ADVANCE.”

As they talked, the other band members had been clearing equipment away and loading it into the van, until Violet and Arkady were the only ones left in the warehouse.

“I know there’s risk involved,” Violet said. “But I can’t just forget everything I’ve learned. And this is bigger than me – I have to do it for Alvy, too, and his family and friends, and everyone else who could be affected by Project ADVANCE. What IGR Corp is doing-”

“I know, I know,” Arkady said. “Don’t get me wrong, I think they deserve to have the cover blown right off their shitty, awful surveillance plan.”

“I’m going to talk to the Captain before I do anything,” Violet assured her. “I know this could affect the band, too. I just wanted to tell you first.”

Why? Arkady wanted to ask, but that would have taken the conversation down a road that Arkady was not prepared to go down. Either Violet would say something like, ‘Because we’re friends’, or ‘Because you’re my bandmate’, and Arkady would feel like a moron for having hoped for anything different. Or she wouldn’t, and that would be worse, because Arkady had no idea how to respond to Violet saying… Well, it didn’t matter, because it would never happen, anyway.

“Sana will tell you to go for it,” she said. “If it’s what you think is right, she’ll be behind you all the way.”

“And… you?” Violet asked quietly.

“I…”

Why was it so hard for Arkady to just say that she approved? Violet was a grown woman who could make her own decisions; she didn’t need Arkady second-guessing her. Violet didn’t even need Arkady to agree with what she was doing – she could just go and do it anyway. But the fact that she’d asked Arkady meant that she cared what Arkady thought… and that made Arkady want to be honest with her.

And honesty was terrifying.

The moment stretched out; Arkady composed and drafted half a dozen different versions of what she wanted to say in her head. ‘I just need you to be careful’ – ugh, that sounded like something Sana would say. Also, of course Violet was going to be careful; that didn’t mean there was no risk involved. ‘I trust you to make the right choice’ – vague, and it also made Arkady feel weird. ‘If they hurt you, they’ll wish they’d never been born’ – alarming, and probably too honest.

Arkady took a breath in, gathering her nerve – and then both of them jumped as the van horn beeped loudly from outside.

“Paging bandmates Liu and Patel!” Krejjh shouted. “Bandmates Liu and Patel to the Rumormobile, please!”

Violet laughed a little, as Arkady huffed, inwardly cursing her own goddamn indecision. She’d spent so long trying to figure out what to say that she’d lost the chance to say anything.

“I guess we shouldn’t keep them waiting,” Violet said, slanting a small smile in Arkady’s direction.

“I trust you,” Arkady found herself saying, almost without meaning to. Violet looked puzzled, and Arkady scrambled to clarify. “Uh, that is – if you think this is the right thing to do. Then, you should… do it. Just…”

She still couldn’t say it, but Violet’s smile widened, her eyes softening like she knew what Arkady was trying (and failing) to tell her. “I’ll be careful,” she promised.

#TSCOSI #Podcast Big Bang 2021 #The Strange Case of Starship Iris #Vikady #Arkady Patel/Violet Liu #Sana Tripathi #Brian Jeeter #Krejjh #Sana/Campbell/Red Gregor #Band AU #RIFT #Piper Tanaka #Kestrel Colvin #screams in emotionally constipated Vikady #which might be my favourite kind of Vikady #Also no disrespect intended to Telemachus by turning it into a soulless consulting firm #It was meant to be a stand-in for Arkady's guard job on Telemachus rather than the planet itself

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reconditarmonia · 4 years

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2019 Fic Rundown

I wrote a LOT this year - it was the first full year that I’m really writing again. (Even though they’re mostly short.) In no particular order, here is what I produced this year:

- Yuletide fic! There’s still a little time to guess what it is! :D

- “Forget Your Perfect Offering”, Fullmetal Alchemist, 1300 words. Scar and other Ishvalans figuring out how to mourn and pray in the aftermath of the Ishvalan genocide. This aspect of the canon was really important to me and I’m really happy with how this fic turned out. Writing it also was apparently the kick in the ass I needed to organize my cousins about properly digitizing my grandfather’s Holocaust testimony, so I’m glad that’s happening.

- “The Sky Changes”, As You Like It, 1300 words. Orlando is a woman. There is now twice the crossdressing and at least 50% more dumb pining. (Female Orlando would super work for a production! Theoretically a rich inheritance that in practice she’s totally unable to access because it’s controlled by her brother, it’s canon that Orlando enters the wrestling in disguise...)

- “Fair Play”, original work, 1800 words. Dashing female duelist/sensible female ex-soldier who can fight her to a draw, in pastiche language.

- “Pati Pactae”, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, 800 words. Let’s be real, this has some painful Homura feels, but *points* witches!!

- “Fallen Star”, original work, 300 words. A double villanelle about an ancient space war machine used as farming equipment.

- “A Time Like This”/“She’asani”/“Goddess of Crossroads”, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 300-400 words each. Working out some stuff about Willow being Jewish and also invoking various goddesses, with a bit of Willow/Tara fluff.

- “Comin’ At My Friends Like a Missile”, Check Please!, 5900 words. Kent gets into a fight with his own teammate who makes a homophobic comment about Jack; outsider POV. This is really a 2018 fic, but I finally wrote that last conversation.

- “Revenge is a Kiss, This Time I Won’t Miss”, Bad Blood, 2600 words. Only-one-allowed-to-defeat-you shipping, but in a very ridiculous context. This is pretty mild smut but for me that was a lot!

- “This Is The Thing That Is”, fairy tales, 3400 words. From the POV of Cinderella’s godmother, who is a selkie.

- “as happy as they understand happiness”, Starship Iris, 500 words. Violet/Arkady/Sana - so you know how Arkady’s favorite opera is about a hot butch leaving their relationship with an older woman for a more suitable younger woman? (Happier ending to the fic than I’m making it sound.)

- “Come Home Broken”, Dishonored, 1500 words. What might have happened with Emily, and between Emily and Billie, if Emily had stayed in the Dust District before “A Crack in the Slab.”

- “plausible deniability”, Dishonored, 1500 words. Daud/Billie at a Fugue Feast. Is it us pretending we’re strangers to avoid talking about the shit we should talk about? Are we strangers working something out on each other? Both?

- “Princes of the Underworld”, Dishonored, assorted short ficlets of ~200-400 words, mostly Billie and/or Daud.

- “Waltzing”, Choice of Broadsides, 300 words. Decades post-canon ficlet.

- “Frame Convenient Peace”, Coriolanus, 300 words. Coriolanus and Aufidius have to get married.

- “Absence Makes”, Dishonored, 500 words. Plotless Daud/Delilah sex that’s about how they both want Billie instead.

- “Stories and Lies”, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 200 words. My first Buffy fic and somehow it’s about Andrew and Anya?

Of course, I didn’t do this last year, so you could also check out my 2018 output - “The Fourth Riddle” (Turandot, parser interactive fiction, lots of twisty surprises), “Loved I not Honor more” (original work, 4000 words, military f/f loyalty kink), “The Edge Case” (Dishonored, 2800 words, Billie Lurk and the Void), or “Trees Against the Sky” (The Tempest, 1000 words, a piece about Miranda’s pre- and post-canon life that accidentally ended up being a verse monologue).

#my fic

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fira211 · 6 years

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Late Nights (A Ship With No Headlights): A Starship Iris Fic

Inspired by Krejjh always cheating at cards (and a shout-out to Vignette 8 which is available to Patreon supporters)

"Hey Krejjh, can I ask you something?"

Krejjh looked up from their controls and grinned. "You ask I answer, our lady Arkady.”

There was a long pause before a long-winded sigh echoed through the ship. "I won’t ask who helped you with that nickname. Honestly, I probably don’t want to know.”

“You probably shouldn’t.” It was Crewman Jeeter. Of course it was Crewman Jeeter. There were few people with enough leftover mental space, and not enough sleep, to spend time on nicknames. Honestly, in the name of fixations, there were worse. At least this one didn’t end in Krejjh mumbling in alien languages they didn’t even speak. “You had a different question though?”

“Why do you always cheat?" Arkady asked.

Krejjh’s face twisted in confusion. “That’s your question?”

“Violet asked about our deck of cards, sans the one card, the one you ate,” Arkady said, and ah. That made sense. Arkady wanted to know for Violet. It’s as though squishy feelings reminded Arkady she was allowed to be curious. It was like watching a plant being watered after a long drought. Confusion, followed by growth.

It was kind of great to watch. A little odd, since it left Arkady stumbling around like a lost baby animal sometimes, but great. Arkady had feelings. Krejjh was never going to forget that.

Speaking of things they’d never forget: “Plastic is not as edible as I had hoped. Still, easier going down than some hot sauce!” Krejjh said.

“I’ll take your word on that,” Arkady said with a dismissive hand-wave, “but it made me wonder, why do you always cheat?”

Honestly, what kind of question was that. "It's fun!" Krejjh replied.

"But, it doesn't seem to help you win?"

"Pfft, that's not the point of cheating." Cheating wasn’t to win. Well, sometimes it was. Mostly it was to make Crewman Jeeter laugh. To make Captain Tripathi hide a grin in her coffee. To make First Mate Patel roll her eyes but also hide a small smile in her tea. Now, too, to make Crewman Liu tilt her head in confusion, but giggle, just slightly. There were many reasons for cheating, few of them for winning. Or at least, winning the game at hand.

"I mean, it's supposed to be," Arkady said.

"Then people are cheating wrong,” Krejjh said.

"You are one of a kind, Krejjh," Arkady said. She even sounded like she meant it.

"I do try." Krejjh said, accepting the compliment. From Arkady, they knew it was a compliment. Even if Arkady didn’t realize.

"So it really is just for the entertainment value,” Arkady said, still sounding disbelieving.

"I mean, yeah, mostly,” Krejjh said.

"Mostly?"

Ah right, Krejjh tended to forget Arkady noticed verbal slips. Worse habits to have, but it did mean she wasn’t one to play poker with. "You really wanna get into this?" Krejjh asked.

"Wouldn't mind,” Arkady said, a little mockingly, “but I mean, seems like the week for feelings. So if you have them, shoot.” She even leaned back against the wall, as if she was willing to wait for Krejjh to tell her.

Sometimes Arkady was a good person. Well, no, she was always a good person, but she was often so bristly, like a scrub brush, that you forgot how helpful she was. Then she’d go around and do stuff like ask pressing questions and offer to listen, and even show how actively she was listening.

It wasn’t surprising that her and Violet were slowly spinning into each other’s orbit. They both needed to be listened to, and they both were really good at it.

“I have at least two feelings,” Krejjh said. They did. Squishy feelings for her future spouzze, and delight at the universe in general. Any other feelings were probably gloomy and unnecessary.

“Two more than me,” Arkady said.

Krejjh laughed. “You have at least two: annoyance and a crush.”

“Bite me. No, not literally. Anyway, this is your talk time.”

“Eshalzo,” Krejjh muttered, then a little more loudly, “I guess it's... three? Three things. It's fun, is the biggest one. I like making everyone laugh. And I guess... I mean, not to get too heavy, but I grew up in a really political household? Like my entire sense of self worth was supposed to be tied up in responsibility and prestige and I hated it from the get go. So I bailed out and did the earth equivalent of 'running away to join the circus'. And I found out what fun was. What life was. And I guess it's just a reminder to myself that even if I'm a pilot for a renegade group. Even when things gets rough, I'm not here because I have to be, and I don't have to be stern and serious. And yeah. So… there’s your daily dose of Krejjh feels I suppose.” They grinned up at Arkady, who rolled her eyes, but nodded.

“Fair, and the third?”

“Ah, well, it’s a bit…” Krejjh wiggled a little.

“I promise not to laugh,” Arkady said.

Krejjh smiled, “It’s not so much funny, as a little morbid? I suppose? But if anyone would understand... So, it's a reminder. Of me. To all of you.”

“Krejjh,” Arkady said, a small catch in her voice. She always did cotton on faster than most, and Krejjh isn’t surprised she gets it.

Still, they continued, “If something happens. If something bad goes down. I'll still be here. If I go out. Or if war happens again. Or if Eejhgreb tattles and I have to disappear. When you replace me, I'll still be here. You'll get a new pilot and they're gonna come in and ask why the deck is missing a card and you'll say ‘oh, that was Krejjh, they were a riot’ and I'll still be here. Like a space ghost! But a friendly one.”

“Krejjh—”

“It's a little silly but it's harmless. And I'm having fun now. And you'll remember me later,” Krejjh said, a little out of breath from rushing it out. Feelings were hard.

“Krejjh. I say this with the most sincerity I can muster. We won't replace you,” Arkady finally said.

“You will. You'll have to.” Not that Krejjh expected to go out anytime soon, but they didn’t have any issues with the thought of it happening. Death wasn't scary. Being forgotten was scary. So they made sure they put reminders in place.

They didn’t think to do that, back home. Who would have thought Krejjh would run away? Even Krejjh hadn’t until they did. They weren’t sure how many people remembered Krejjh. How many were already forgetting Krejjh. Eejhgreb knew they were still alive, but Eejhgreb also sounded like they were going to do their level best to forget that. That’s what scared Krejjh.

“No. We'll... Ugh... You're gonna make me say it. We'll replace a pilot. But we won't replace you. We can't. No one could.”

Krejjh looked up, and Arkady looked away. There was an angry slant to Arkady’s mouth, and her brow was crinkled, but Arkady always got angry about her feelings. That she had feelings about Krejjh was… Well, it was pretty damn cool.

Krejjh gave Arkady feelings. This was the greatest day ever. “I am pretty one of a kind,” Krejjh said, trying not to relish too much in the glory and make Arkady annoyed.

“If you like,” Arkady said, trying to be dismissive, but Krejjh knew, “anyway, that's probably enough emotions for one night. So I'm to bed. Try not to crash us before morning.”

“No promises,” Krejjh said, letting it go. They didn’t need to gloat. Today, anyway. Besides that: “... Hey Arkady?”

“Yeah?” Arkady asked, shoulders going tight.

Krejjh threw them a softball. “I also carved 'Krejjh was here' under the controls.”

Arkady’s shoulders, dropped, then shuddered a little, as though Arkady was holding back a laugh. Win. “... Of course you did. Night Krejjh.”

“Night,” Krejjh said, and then, because they really couldn’t let things go, “and uh, actually though, thanks.”

Arkady waved a hand. “Don't mention it. Seriously. Don't. We're even on emotional vomiting and that means we take this to our graves.”

“I mean the chances of us getting graves...” Krejjh joked. There were few people they could make that joke with.

Arkady chuckled. “Metaphorical graves,” she said, walking out the door.

“Fair,” Krejjh said. “Night, First Mate Patel.”

“Night, Pilot.”

Krejjh grinned and turned back to their controls. If they reached out and traced the words they carved, well, no one could blame them.

They left their mark on this home.

#fira writes #tscosi #starship iris

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loumauve · 6 years

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some starship iris thoughts

In another couple of months, she might have friends again. [x]

I can’t tell you how much my heart hurts for young Violet. (also for older Violet pre coming into contact with the Rumor crew)

I’m sure we’ll learn more about her history in time, but so far my takeaway is that she’s been feeling lonely for a long time. unable to make the connections she longs for, unable to find people who are as interested in getting to know her as she is in getting to know them. work (and life) on the Iris was isolating, as she told Brian when they talked about Alvy and how he was the only one to make an effort to be friendly with her. and just.. imagine that. you’re stuck out there in a metal bucket which.. sure, it’s a fancy metal bucket but still, and there is nothing but empty space around you, and the few people you could connect with don’t care to. just imagine that loneliness.

and to know that it started long before she ever got on board.. to know how she’s felt like she was never going to measure up (to the other Violet Liu, to her own aspirations) to know that she feels like she’s not smart enough or tall enough or too neurotic.. it just breaks my heart.

and I feel like Arkady and Violet are more alike in that way than they possibly realise. Arkady with her background and her hang-ups about only having an eights-grade education, and about the things she has done and continues to do even though she doesn’t like having to hurt people. I just want them to get to a point where they can accept that they are doing their best to be the best possible version of themselves, and to a point where they learn to communicate and to accept their self-worth, but I’m sure it will be a long time before either of those things happen. (we all know mental health is something that takes a lot of time and effort, and with everything else that’s going on, I’m afraid they don’t have a lot of time or energy to spare. but one day. hopefully.)

but.. and here comes my crappy headcanon about Violet and her home life.. which has no basis whatsoever, and I might be missing snippets of information already canonly publicised bc my brain is crap at retaining information..:

I feel like Violet’s mum or dad (or mums/dads/parents of indetermined gender?? there was definitely a moment when she was thinking about how her family was feeling about thinking she was dead and not knowing she was actually still alive in one of the episodes but the details are escaping me right now) probably were hard-working, kind people; people who would have taught her to always be kind, show humility, always do her best and that the right people would accept her for all of who she is. now, we know that we can hear all this and still feel anxious and have doubts and feel like we’re never going to be good enough. and being an anxious and possibly fretful, painfully shy kid.. life is hard that way. but I think her parents did the best they could to make sure she always had a safe place to come home to.

now.. we know that she moved away from home somewhere before middle school (excuse me for not having the slightest clue of how education works in the US or other parts of the world. it confuses me to no end when there are no simple grades that go from 1 to whatever.. sorry. also possibly part of bilingualists problems??) but I’m unsure about whether or not she moved with her family, or if she had to move on her own to some kind of boarding school - again, I’m sure we’ll learn more about the education system under the IGR in time. but at whichever point she separated from her family and went to live by herself, I feel like her parents would have made sure she never forgot she had people and a place where she was loved.

so.. all that build-up just to throw this tiny little thing into the room - I feel like Violet probably has a patch somewhere that one of her parents gave her that’s some piece of embroidery of violets that they made so she could pin it on whatever she was made to wear, be it school uniforms or uniforms that I imagine the IGR would happily stuff their researchers, and therefore the Iris crew, into. and it’s also my headcanon that when they went to retrieve her stuff and loot The Iris after Violet was onboard The Rumor that’s possibly how they knew which pile of stuff was hers. (or maybe it was just really obvious bc she is pretty tiny and most of the crew was tall people. I don’t know. just.. I like the thought of her having sth personal with her at all times. like.. who even knows. maybe she still had a plushie of some sort left over from her childhood. maybe it was all very soft, very comfy sweaters and thick socks and a home made patchwork blanket. I NEED TO KNOW IF THERE WERE STILL SHEEP ON EARTH WHEN SHE LEFT)

aaaanyway, let’s stop the rambling thoughts there.

PS: even more so than Violet and Arkady, I ship both of them with therapy and softness and gentle care and a ton of healthy communication. also naps. definitely naps. all of the Rumor crew (plus Junior Agent, I forget her name) x naps

#mostly Violet Liu thoughts #and soft headcanons about the harshness of mental illness in childhood and in space #The Strange Case Of Starship Iris #maybe one day when the fandom has grown and more people are contributing their thoughts and hcs this will feel less daunting #bc rn I'm pretty darn anxious about messing anything up. usually I'm all about AUs but I really just wanna get it right and close to canon #there will be time for AUs later

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jaggedwolf · 3 years

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tscosi 2x04

rain is nice

green as toothpaste cream

A great exchange bc the other day I was contemplating that even if we agreed with an alien that something is "red" would we even know that they are actually seeing red or if they see a different color and would think "red" is the English translation for that color and how much that matters...

They don't like octopi! What a thing I didn't expect, and McCabe just dropped in some octopus facts in the middle of a tense moment.

Anyway! Are we gonna get to see more Dwarnian society stuff thanks to whatever strings Eejhgreb attaches to that blackmail money? I'm down, tell me more about Dwarnian courting rituals and how you're supposed to hide away your illicit human lovers. (I wouldn't have been opposed to McCabe having to murder an agent though. Just saying.)

Rival pirate lovers....I always thought the Dwarnian soap opera was more Downton Abby than Tanglin but apparently it's Black Sails (I still haven't seen Black Sails don't @ me). Contemplating the notion of Sana, Violet and Park being the odd three that don't get the appeal of the show.

Krejjh jumped to the money option really quickly, and didn't even anchor it particularly strategically - it probably was the best option, but it's fun to consider how different subsets of the crew might've handled the lone agent sitch

knows what macrame is, doesn't know what ROI is

Such incredible grumpiness at being disturbed when she was literally complaining to an empty room that she had nothing to do, I swear

"The impact'd pulp a person"/"Love you too Kady" made me have an incredible amount of feelings about these two in a very condensed moment. Tangentially related, there is an entire graph in my head with what names everyone does and doesn't call each other, because this shows plays so much with that and I love it

Sana saying "first fight is the hardest" to Arkady like she isn't about to demonstrate an entire episode's worth of being a hot mess in this regard. Captain, ILU, but you and Arkady are equally ridiculous about these things, neither of you will ever have the upper hand.

Thinking it can't get worse than the regime is a very Arkady type of optimism. Loved her squabbling with McCabe and McCabe holding their own against her

Arkady considering those years that Violet views with concern as really great years of her life and it being hard to partition out the bad stuff makes so much sense. I was looking at a career advice thing the other day (I know, kinda leftfield, stay with me here), and once you're at a baseline level of security, the things that tend to really motivate people are autonomy, mastery and purpose. It's...not hard to see how fighting in a united human military force against the Dwarnians would beat what came before for Arkady, in all of those aspects.

why'd they stab the paintings

The sister! Only a glimpse, but seems like a hum major, speech with the same kind of interrogatory nature as Violet's though perhaps a bit more reckless.

My brain is desperately trying to resolve the contradiction between "four years apart", "Juniper is 22", "Violet graduated Harmony at a normal age in ‘85" and "this show occurs in 2191", and is landing on ignoring the first statement as the least disruptive choice

By the end of this show Violet will have fake-dated everyone on this ship in front of an IGR officer or two. (Am slightly surprised neither Violet or Park prepped a "siblings or spouses" answer, but it's been a long day and that's a really common last name)

"We're married now but I don't see things working out". I say this every episode but I love Park, he's so funny, he should also go through a fake dating rigmarole with other crew members.

Violet has a...kind of comprehensiveness to her where I 100% bought her going well Arkady isn't talking to me about shit in her life, guess I'm not talking to her about shit in my life. Like, she can go either way but it's gonna be even across the board.

Minor Character MVP: Soup Man! What a dude, it’s nice to hang with someone who’s a little more rooted than our gang and seeing how it plays with an unbounded Sana. They resolved that so neatly that it makes me curious to know how they even fell apart in the first place tbh. And while I’ve never needed canon validation, I appreciate that the conclusion leaves space to play with my fave Sana ships when I do feel like being canon-compliant

#tscosi #tscosi reviews #mine

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jaggedwolf · 5 years

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TSCOSI Ficlets #1

Villains pretending to be redeemed

McCabe is an inconvenience. Park had hoped they would panic, betray him, add credence to his cover. Or that Patel would get suspicious at someone Park never mentioned, take care of that problem. No luck there.

They're alive, and worse, they're on the Iris with him and the merry band of insurgents.

Now Park has to keep track of everything he's ever let slip to McCabe, make sure none of it contradicts what he tells the rest of them. Quite frankly, he's not trained for this. He's not even being paid for this.

The crew gets more used to his presence. McCabe quickly realises Park has nothing to offer in this life and they'd have better luck looking expectantly at someone else. The gaping hole that used to be his left eye doesn't get infected. All things in favor of his operation.

Yet, every day on this ship tires him.

He wants to walk out of the airlock and let the cold vacuum of space take him. He wants to corner Patel to tell her everything so she can end things with a bullet to his head. He wants to go to sleep and never wake up. Screw humanity, screw the IGR.

He wasn't made to be a spy. If they hadn't had Shelly, he never would have agreed.

Frederick might be dead or incapacitated (another great aspect of the on-the-run life was the complete lack of information he was used to), but the IGR has an excellent chain of command. Someone else is in charge of Shelly now, someone else knows the terms by which Park could keep her safe, someone else is listening to the coded messages Park taps into his watch every night.

So, he wakes up.

Spends yet another day pretending he cares about the lives of anyone on this ship.

Time for a sex-off

Violet really isn't sure what she's witnessing, but she figures she'll follow Krejjh's lead and watch. Eat some of their fruit jerky while she's at it.

Arkady frowns at Brian's most recently made point. "Okay, what about a bar?"

"Uh, dude, did you forget I literally worked at a bar on Rydell? Yeah I've had sex in a bar." Brian chuckles.

"With a bartender?" tries Arkady.

Arkady's losing this argument and knows it. Krejjh certainly thinks so. They hoot and holler with every act or partner Brian lists off. Though Violet imagines they'd do the same if Brian had confessed to an entire life of celibacy.

Brian's smile shrinks. "Alvy."

"Shit, dude." Arkady shoots a worried glance at Violet, as if Violet is any better at lightening the mood.

Brian shrugs it off. "It's fine, man."

Seems fair enough. Violet's been tracking Arkady's yes's - she's not trying to, but her brain logicking out her girlfriend's past seems to be an unmutable feature - and many of them had to have dated from Cresswin or the war. Has to be some losses there, even if Arkady’s deft tale-telling elides that.

Brian suddenly looks pleased with himself. "You've never slept with a Dwarnian."

"No shit," grumbles Arkady.

"First Mate Patel, are you saying this doesn't entice you?" Krejjh struck a ridiculous pose, their face offended.

Arkady squinted at Krejjh, silent. Violet snickered. She refilled all four cups of moonshine, idly attempting to retrace the origins of this conversation.

"Moving on," Arkady finally says, turning back to Brian, "sex outdoors."

"You got me there, bud. Nope," admits Brian.

"I think," says Arkady, "that this competition calls for some calibration. You're half a decade older than me, you've had more time at this. Back me up, Violet. You're the scientist here, isn't there something about experiments and controls?"

Arkady smiles at Violet, her face playing at casual, her dark brown eyes filled with warmth. Her leather jacket's half-slipped off her, and Violet's gaze is transfixed by the revealed bare arm as if she's never seen it before. She wants to pull Arkady into a kiss, drag her back to her room and do about fifty percent of the things Arkady's listed. There are plenty of experiments and controls she'd like to test there.

Instead, Violet breathes out and responds with a "There are way too many factors at play for both of you, even without the age difference. I'm not sure any calibration would be fair."

Krejjh and Brian high-five. Arkady sulks, leaning even more into Violet, and Violet can't help but think they've won regardless.

Shaky Hands

Sana, Violet decides, is a far better patient than Arkady. It's a comforting fact to latch on to as Violet examines the burned flesh of Sana's forearm, the preliminary treatments done. Sana doesn't object to Violet's procedures, nor does she take offense to Violet asking if she's injured anywhere else.

"Rest of the crew?" asks Sana, her breaths ragged and eyes unfocused. She's seated on the medbay cot, her uninjured side slumped against the wall. Her shaking fingers are interlocked in her lap. Adrenaline after-effect. Temporary reflexes of muscles and tendons that would fade away.

"In the cockpit. We're clear of the planet, from Arkady's last update." Violet sets up one of the medbay's scanners above Sana's arm.

Sana simply nods, closing her eyes.

The Iris's medbay is a large room, with Sana and Violet only occupying a small corner of it. A pang of guilt strikes Violet. Maybe Sana would have appreciated having someone else around too.

Violet looks over the scans on the screen and the diagnostic inferences the software has made. "I may have kicked Arkady out of the medbay."

"Good call." Sana smiles weakly, dimples showing. "Can't have the first mate distracted while the captain's out of commission. How's my arm looking?"

"With the Iris's equipment, you might not even have a scar after this." Violet flashes what she hopes is a reassuring look at Sana. "You'll want to keep use of that arm to minimum, though."

"Okay." Sana doesn't relax at Violet's good news. In fact, she seems tenser. She blinks open her eyes. "And the tremors? There's nothing to worry about there?"

Sana sounds uncharacteristically disbelieving.

"Captain, I can take more scans, but I'm not seeing any nerve damage, if that's what you're worried about."

Sana sighs, her body relaxing against the wall. "Thank you, Violet."

Conversation to have later, maybe with some cross-referencing of Sana's medical history. It had taken a while for Violet to notice that the captain's reticence in sharing details of her own experiences, especially compared to the others.

"It'll take me a few minutes to wrap your arm up, you can go to sleep after that." Violet retrieves what she needs and starts work on Sana's arm

Sana shakes her head. "We should head back up to the cockpit after this, I'm sure the others have questions."

Violet fixes her gaze on Sana. "Didn't you make an announcement the other day that everyone had to listen to me when it came to medbay stuff? You're in the medbay, ergo-"

"I should listen to you." Sana almost looks proud. "Are you sure they don't need anything from me?"

"They're fine, and if they did, Arkady would have commed me by now." Violet adjusts the pillow on the cot. "You can rest, Captain."

Gunpoint

Arkady stared up the barrel of the gun pointed at her. She scowled. Made a show of pressing her wrists against the handcuffs that trapped them behind her back.

"Well, human," said Krejjh from the other side of the gun, a forced grin on their face, "the tables have twisted."

The dwarnian mercs behind Krejjh chuckled. That boded well. Meant they were buying the hasty cover story. Two of the mercs were whispering, jostling each other, and finally someone yelled at Krejjh something in Dwarnian. Whatever it was, it startled Krejjh.

"Why would I"-Krejjh stopped themself, hand holding the gun dropping limply by their side. They continued their reply in Dwarnian. That only seemed to piss off the mercs more, and an argument ensued.

The only non-English Arkady had ever learned was a healthy smattering of swear words, but the merc's expressions provided plenty of reading material, as did the way Krejjh's ears flared back. Easy enough to guess at the little group bonding suggestion Krejjh had rejected.

The mercs had started to doubt Krejjh. Shit. Two against ten would've been risky even if Arkady had been armed. She took a second to assess the situation before arriving back at her original decision. If they survived this, hopefully Violet and Sana wouldn't get too annoying about it.

"Hey, ass!" Arkady's words carried over the din of voices arguing in Dwarnian.

Krejjh turned to her, face stoic, but Arkady could see the signs of confusion. Krejjh hadn't had to do too many in-person cons. Might as well make it a little easier on them.

"Yeah, you, you purple piece of shit," spat Arkady. When Krejjh only took a single step towards her, she kept going. "What, you're too scared of humans to even approach one you've restrained?"

Krejjh's voice was uncharacteristically slow and serious. "I've never been scared of a human." They took another step forward.

This close, Krejjh blocking most of the other mercs from view, Arkady risked glancing at the gun and then Krejjh's brilliant red-yellow eyes. She gave the slightest nod. Krejjh's arm jerked, and they snarled, "You-"

"Me," mocked Arkady. "I've killed so many of your kind during the war. Pretty satisfying. Some deaths were quick and simple. Others, not so much. Want me to go through the list? The first one, now-"

The gun struck right against Arkady's nose, sending her stumbling to the ground shoulder-first. Blood filled her nostrils and relief her lungs in the same haggard breath that followed. A loud roar of approval came from the mercs, even some clapping. Arkady pulled herself back up to one knee. A sliver of blood slipped over her lips into her mouth.

Krejjh was panting heavily. They still looked pissed as hell at Arkady's little speech, and that'd work great for the crowd. Krejjh spun back to the mercs. They waved a free hand back at Arkady. "That good enough for you, fellas?"

The merc that had first yelled at Krejjh clapped them on the back. Arkady's lips quirked, and she reshaped the grin that threatened to show into yet another scowl. She shouldn't have doubted Krejjh pulling through.

For all the shit she'd given Krejjh, at the end of the day, they were a soldier, same as her.

Accidental Guardianship

One of the teenagers - the human one - has been staring at him recently. Longer than at anyone else. (He is excellent at noticing when he's being watched. It had been a useful skill to cultivate.)

Park briefly considers the possibilities. Perhaps she thinks him the biggest threat on this ship? Laughable. No depth perception, and Patel and the Dwarnian both exist. She's uncomfortable with the eye-patch? No, given her and her friend's background, she's seen far uglier sights than him. He snorts midway through considering the idea that she's chosen him the way her friend has chosen the Dwarnian. He has nothing to offer there.

It doesn't seem to be a problem yet, so Park does nothing. He thinks she isn't planning on stabbing him in his sleep with that knife of hers either, but he does check the locks on his door. Better to be safe.

Instead, she finds him in the kitchen one evening. Her footsteps are silent, and her question entirely unexpected.

"You were an analyst for the IGR, right?" Her brown eyes are intent, but wary, as if he might react the wrong way.

Park presses his hands flat against the table where he sits, and decides not moving is the best strategy. "Most people lump it all together under 'Agent' but yes, that was my job title."

"My mom did that too." The teenager slowly flexes her hand. "At least that's what Dad always said." Her hand stills into the form of a fist. "Then again, he always said she'd ditch it and finally join us again, so who knows what he knew."

An unexpected distaste settles into Park's mouth. His job had been a good one. Hard-won, too. But there was a very good reason Park had made sure the only person he was responsible for over those years had been himself.

Shelly had been the exception. Then again, she'd barged into it all. Left him little choice in the matter. Or perhaps that was a justification to cope with how little he knew about her current state.

A matter for another time. The teenager looked at him expectantly, and he realizes, dread in his gut, what she wants from him.

"There were many analysts working for the IGR." He tries to say the words kindly, but that's never been one of his strengths. "I wouldn't have-"

"What? I'm not stupid, of course you wouldn't know her," the teen spits out defensively. "I...wanted to know what the job was like." She crossed her arms. "If you're not still following the IGR's NDAs."

That he could do. Should he? That was probably in the presentation the captain and Violet had given the crew without the teenagers knowing: Acceptable Conversation Topics For Fourteen-Year-Olds. (Arkady had several objections, and not that Park disagreed, but it made the already thorough presentation even longer.)

He'd hated when adults had lied to him when he was growing up. Always subtleties they assumed he didn't understand, or they thought the world would right itself before any of it became his problem.

He is tired of lies. The others can harangue him about it tomorrow if they want.

Daemons

He'd expected the worst in Zone Z. There was plenty of data to be gained from a spare body and its daemon, with no useful intelligence coming from either. He didn't need to be a scientist to list the obvious experimental setups - separation, intercision, simply touching his daemon.

He always had lacked imagination.

Hyeona's gurgling croaks used to be a reassuring rumble. As he had worked overtime, the raven perched on his shoulder. As he had woken up in the morning, her beak pecking at and rearranging his hair. As he'd walked away from Agent McCabe for the last time, her black wings fluffed up just enough to brush against his ear.

He didn't think he could hear any of her calls the same way. Not after they'd been the background music to her pecking his right eyeball out, claws digging deep into his face. The IGR had a fondness for turning allies against each other, and what greater allies were there between human and daemon? He wondered if forcing Hyeona to do that had been a new level of achievement for them, or if she'd simply demonstrated an existing technique.

After, she didn't look at him.

She didn't look at him as they finally left Zone Z, she didn't look at him as he didn't shoot the dwarnian, she didn't look at him as they boarded the Iris. She flew as much as she could, even chose the ground to rest her feet on over his shoulder. There were too many practicalities to discuss in those early days of the renegade life, and that detail, like so many others, was pushed aside. In any case, the facts were simple.

His hands were the cleanest they'd been in decades. Still, his soul turned away.

#we're just gonna batch'em #maybe i'll finally get around to finishing whumptober a month later #so many good prompts......#is this just the agent park edition #maybe so #tscosi /#i...should really back up these ficlets somewhere more searchable/long-term-y #but that is future jaggedwolf's problem #as always #ficlets #tscosi ficlets #fuck is park my fourth fave character now have i done this to myself...#answer: yes #tscosi

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jaggedwolf · 5 years

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Taking Advantage Of Someone With Amnesia

Brian tries convincing himself he's in danger. It should work, even if the short woman peering into each of his eyes with a flashlight doesn't seem like much of a threat. He's also in a medbay? Real low threat levels all around. "Hey," he says, when the woman puts the flashlight away, "Violet, right?" Disappointment flashes over her face before being replaced with a neutral expression, but she nods. That's been happening on a lot of faces ever since the woman with all the guns dragged him in here from- From where? He hadn't had time to ask, and since the last thing he remembered was despairing in his dorm room because he'd found two contradictory sources on the etymology of the Dwarnian word for feather, he doubted he'd figure out that one on his own.

Okay, what did the gun lady say again? "So, I'm 33 years old?" he says, the lie heavy on his tongue. "And I'm on this crew with all of you?" Yeah, this amnesia thing sounds fake. Maybe this was some kind of hazing ritual they put all the juniors through? Violet frowned. "Right, your brain's probably in a frenzy trying to process this. Why don't you take a look at the mirror over there?" He pushes off the cot and does exactly that. Woah. A full beard, which isn't a thing his face can do. His face looks older but like, more relaxed somehow? And there's something about the way he's holding himself too. A comfortable slouch, yeah, but it looks different from the one he's used to - no hunched shoulders, no sense of politely asking everyone in the vicinity to please ignore whatever's happening here. Huh, cool. He grins at himself in the mirror, it's as goofy as ever, and when he looks at Violet she's watching him carefully with a small smile. He hops back up on the cot. Violet's probably got more medical stuff to do. "Any idea how I lost my memories?" "What else did Arkady tell you?" That must be the name of the scary gun lady. He didn't ask, y'know, on account of all the guns. And the scars. And the arms. She didn't seem like someone you wanted to ask too many questions of. "Uh, she said that the war's over and that I don't have anything against Dwarnians, and then she muttered something about the cockpit before disappearing?" Violet sighed but she didn't seem super surprised. A not great thought came to Brian then. "Do I not like the Dwarnians now? Like, their history isn't any worse than humanity's, I'm literally studying their language-" The medbay door slides open. "Crewman Jeeter?" And okay, he feels like it's totally ridiculously cool that not only does 33 year old him seem more relaxed and comfortable with himself, he's also on the same crew as a Dwarnian. The Dwarnian looks nervous, all their eyes kinda squinting at him. He has so many questions. (Like how is said Dwarnian so very handsome, his dumb brain supplies, and he swats the thought away because it is very true and also very not helpful). But he does wanna make a good impression, so in Dwarnian he says, "Hi? I'm Brian, what's your name? The Dwarnian's lips wobble a little. Shoot, did he accidentally say something really rude? This is really basic stuff, Jeeter, get it together. "Arkady told you?" asks Violet. "Yeah," the Dwarnian replies, their eyes still fixed on him. They have nice eyes, but he kinda wishes they looked less sad. "Science Officer Liu, what do we do?" "I," said Violet, looking determined, "am going to use our state-of-the-art medbay tech to take some scans of Brian's brain. You're going to take a walk around the ship while I give Brian a better rundown of his history, and when you get back we'll take it from there." The Dwarnian nodded, only pausing to mention something about a First Mate Patel trying to contact a captain before leaving. Huh, seemed like they had a full crew on board. He stays quiet while Violet does the scans and gives him the promised rundown, only speaking at the beginning so she knows where to start. The xenolinguistics grad school stuff is awesome - he can't believe he'd ever ditch that, even if the money fell through. Neuzo sounds super cool and super terrifying and oh, that's where he and the Dwarnian - their name's Krejjh apparently - met. And then they met the captain and Arkady and- "What?" He bursts out, "okay, Violet, I think it's a little cruel to lie to a guy with amnesia." Violet's smile at this part of her story falters. He presses on, "Like, sure, apparently I was really obvious when Krejjh came through that door but making up an engagement? Not cool." "Wow, is it weird being on the other side of this," Violet says, whatever that means. She chuckles. "I'm not lying, and since you were paying such close attention to Krejjh, I'm sure you noticed they were out of breath and really worried about you?" He had. He grins. "Man, what isn't awesome about my current life?" "The whole being on the run from the IGR bit?" He waves a hand dismissively. "Sure, sure." The medbay slides open again, and this time Krejjh is accompanied by Arkady. She still has a lot of guns and Krejjh is still Krejjh, so Brian feels very good about his decision to focus on Krejjh. They look more settled now. "What's the verdict?" Arkady asks, coming into the room. Brian shifts along the cot away from her. Okay, sure, Violet says they're all friends and apparently older him is used to all the guns. Current him has never even seen a gun fired in real life, so. Violet turns to her terminal, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I need some time to look over the scans, and you need to tell me exactly what happened. Is Sana on her way?" "There's traffic," spits out Arkady, the scar across her mouth twisting as she speaks, "and even she can't jump over the kind here." "Good, we don't need two patients." Arkady rests a hand on Violet's shoulder, squeezing it, and Violet seems to relax into the touch. "Fellas," Krejjh says, "maybe Crewman Jeeter and I could keep outta your hair while you work on that stuff, so he doesn't have to wait in here? If that's okay with you?" Krejjh directs that last question to him, and he shrugs. "Sounds cool to me." Violet and Arkady agree, so he heads out of the medbay and into the hallway with Krejjh. He immediately regrets his decision - what's he supposed to say? Sorry I don't remember our relationship? At least I still think you're attractive? Can I ask you like, a billion questions about the Dwarnian language? Krejjh solves that problem for him. "What does current you know about Dwarnian soap operas?" "Wait, are those a thing?" Krejjh grins wildly. "Oh, Crewman Jeeter, this is gonna be great!"

#the strange case of starship iris #ficlets #tscosi fic #tscosi #brian jeeter #krejjh #starship iris #brian and krejjh #amnesiac brian can't recognized the difference between regular krejjh bravado and krejjh bravado that is plastering over real worry #at a situation they can do absolutely nothing about #:)#so #here we are #when writing this i forgot that brian went to college at 16 so he's only 18 memory-wise here #A BABY #i say from the grand pedestal of 23....#tscosi ficlets

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iffeelscouldkill · 5 years

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Good For Morale

After three and a half weeks of working on this fic and countless distractions, revisions and moments where I had to bribe myself into working on it, it’s finally finished! Here is my longest TSCOSI fic to date, and it’s all about Sana Tripathi. I love that woman.

Of course because I’m me, there’s bonus Arkady/Violet and a bit of Brian/Krejjh, but mostly it’s wall-to-wall Sana Feels and my attempts to get inside her head, understand her character and play out her relationship with Campbell. I really dig their flirty chemistry, and I’m excited to see what their relationship becomes in the podcast :D

This is set post-episode 9, and contains my very vague and bad guesses about things that could happen in episode 10. I look forward to finding out how wrong I am!

Summary: After a daring escape from the IGR, the crew of the Rumor is en route to Telemachus. Sana is preoccupied over an impending reconciliation with Campbell, trying to navigate their suddenly strained relationship, and understand her own feelings towards her old friend.

It would help if she could stop walking in on her crewmates making use of the hammock in the mess hall.

Read on AO3

It wasn’t uncommon on the Rumor to run into Brian and Krejjh being cuddly and sickeningly cute in any given part of the ship.

They spent most of their time either up in the cockpit or in their shared room, but Sana had stumbled across them in the kitchen, the engine room, the medical closet – even her own room during one infamous incident where Brian and Krejjh’s bunk was being fumigated for asteroid ticks. (Brian had apologised profusely for that one).

It wasn’t that they were into public displays of affection so much as they just couldn’t seem to help themselves, thought Sana wryly. And now they were occupying the makeshift hammock she’d constructed out of safety harnesses and string in the middle of the mess hall.

Good for morale, indeed. It wasn’t like she’d ever walked on them doing anything more than PG-rated (not like that time with Arkady’s one-night-stand on Telemachus - god, they were drunk that night), it was just – a little distracting sometimes. Especially at 6 o’clock in the morning, ship’s time, when she’d rather been hoping to eat her breakfast in peace. Sana stood there for a moment, holding her steaming bowl of congee (real congee, not the stuff from the depths of the store cupboard that Arkady sometimes tried to pass off as congee), and settled on a cheerful, “Morning, guys.” One of Krejjh’s pairs of eyes flicked towards her, and they nudged Brian to get his attention. Brian broke away from Krejjh and looked up at Sana, smiling. “Oh, hey, Captain. Didn’t expect to see you up so early.”

“I could say the same about you both,” Sana pointed out. Brian gave his signature loose shrug and a genial smile. “Krejjh’s shift just ended and I was nappin’ in the cockpit, so we both decided to come down here for a change of scene.” “This hammock really does hold weight a lot better than I would’ve expected, all things considered,” Krejjh added brightly. “The more you know!” “That is good to know,” Sana agreed dryly. “Anyway – we’ll leave to your breakfast,” Brian said, hopping up and holding out his hand to Krejjh to help them up. “Aww, but I was comfortable.” Pouting, Krejjh allowed themself to be hauled out of the hammock, keeping their hand intertwined with Brian’s as the two of them left the mess. “See you later, Cap’n!” As the door slid shut behind them, Sana looked thoughtfully at the hammock. After a moment’s indecision, she smiled to herself and sat down, then swivelled to the side and attempted to swing her legs up into the hammock. It was at that moment that the (very hot!) bowl of congee she’d balanced on her lap slid perilously and threatened to spill all over her legs – reminding Sana why she’d stopped using the hammock in the first place.

The second time it happened was only a week later. This time, it was Sana who’d been needing a change of scene. She’d been more or less cooped up in her room since they’d returned from the supply run on Thalassa. Her isolation wasn’t deliberate; she’d just been trying to prepare herself for– well. Anyway, she’d gone down to the kitchen and raided what was left of those “strange flavor” Chinese snacks Violet had bought to see what they tasted like (the rest of the crew hated them, but Sana kind of liked them) and wandered into the mess to find– It was Violet and Arkady this time, Arkady lying in the hammock with Violet propping herself up on her hands above her. She was giggling, and Arkady was looking up at her with an expression that Sana had never seen on her best friend’s face before. It was fierce, loving, and protective all at once; there was a sort of longing there, but also a having, and a wonder at the place she’d found herself, all at the same time. Sana thought that it must be what coming home looked like. The sight caused an unexpected stab of loneliness to run through her. She was beyond thrilled for her best friend, really – it was about damn time that Arkady had got her ass in gear and acted on her very obvious feelings for their resident Science Officer. The entire crew had cheered when Violet grabbed Arkady and kissed her during the Rumor’s break-neck escape from New Jupiter and the IGR. Sana was pretty sure she’d cheered loudest of all. But… It was one thing to see (and hear) Brian and Krejjh acting coupley around the ship and know that she could still knock on Arkady’s door in the dead of night sometimes and complain about the futility of romantic relationships, or get a little drunk and confess to her best friend that she was afraid of being alone, and have the two of them make a pact that they would always be there for each other. It was another thing to be reminded that she was the only one on the ship that hadn’t found someone. She began backing out of the room, but Violet must have caught the movement on the periphery of her vision. She looked up, and blushed bright red as she realised that they had an audience. “Oh! S-Sana, hi!” Arkady twisted around underneath Violet and attempted a wave, completely unselfconscious. “Hey, Captain. Look, we’re using the hammock! I can feel my morale improving already.” “Right,” said Sana distantly. She knew she sounded strained, but couldn’t quite figure out how to make her voice… not be. “That’s good. Don’t let me interrupt.” She turned and left the mess hall.

Arkady watched Sana leave, then turned to frown at Violet. “What was that about?” Violet sat back on her heels, looking concerned. “Sana has been really withdrawn lately. I feel like I’ve hardly seen her since we left Thalassa. Has she spoken to you?” Arkady shrugged as best she could in her horizontal position. “Not really.” She mentally reviewed the last several days – and then remembered the cargo that they’d picked up on Nereid.

“Oh, right. We’re due to call on Campbell in Telemachus, and it’s gonna be the first time that Sana has seen him since we skipped out on our stop to go rescue you, and then, y’know... accused him of double-crossing us. I guarantee she’s stressing about it.” “Crap,” said Violet, and Arkady fought off a smile at Violet’s mild curse words. Then again, she’d also heard her curse fluently and extremely impressively in Mandarin when Arkady came in bleeding from a gunshot wound to the side, so she supposed it was all relative. “But surely he gets it, I mean – our lives were under threat. There was no possible way to know who was after us. And Sana was just trying to protect her crew.” “Yeah, but you know Sana,” Arkady said wryly. “She takes this stuff to heart. And she and Campbell, well… they go pretty far back.” Violet nodded, biting her lip. Her mouth was red and tempting, and Arkady would have loved to wrap the intimate moment back around them and carry on, but she couldn’t leave Sana to get lost in her own head and overblown sense of responsibility. “I should go after her,” she said regretfully. “Not to ditch ya right in the middle, but...” “No, it’s fine, this is important. You should go and talk to Sana,” said Violet. She leaned down to press a quick kiss to Arkady’s mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”

How the hell did I get so lucky? Arkady wondered, staring up at Violet. It was only when Violet asked, “What?”, her cheeks growing pink again, that she realised she’d been gazing in silence for about a minute with a dopey smile growing on her face.

“Nothing,” said Arkady hastily, scrambling out from under Violet and hopping to her feet. “Wish me luck – I’m about to go and talk about feelings.”

“You’ll live,” Violet told her drily.

Sana had only been sitting down on her bunk for a few moments when her door slid open to admit Arkady. She looked up in surprise.

“Arkady,” she said, frowning slightly. “Look, you didn’t need to come after me, Violet-”

“Is this about Campbell?” Arkady asked, wasting no time in getting to the point.

“Is what about Campbell?” Sana asked. She knew better than to play dumb with her best friend, but to have answered Arkady’s question with anything else felt like too much of an admission. That she was more preoccupied than she’d been letting on.

“You barely leaving your room, acting closed off, freaking out when you walked in on Violet and me just now. Given that you’ve walked in on me in way more compromising positions-” Arkady smirked at the memory, “I figured something else was bothering you. And we’re due to land on Telemachus in just a few days.”

Sana sighed. “Yeah, it’s been on my mind.”

“Look,” said Arkady, sitting down next to Sana. “You were doing what you thought was best for your crew. We had no other suspects! We sure as hell weren’t going to jump to ‘invisible robots in the air’ as the obvious source of our leak. Sometimes you just have to make a call – Campbell of all people should understand that. If he doesn’t, fuck ‘im. We can find other contacts.”

“I know,” said Sana. “I’m not second-guessing my decision; I know it was the right one. But Campbell isn’t just another customer. I want to fix things with him. I’m just not sure how.”

“He agreed to take our cargo from Nereid, though, right? Was he hostile when you spoke to him?”

“Not exactly.” Sana thought back to the short conversation that she’d had with Campbell not long after their flight from the IGR.

“Computer. Outside call. Sana Tripathi to Ignatius Campbell.”

“Attempting connection!” chirped ELLA, and this time, Sana just about suppressed her flinch at hearing Emily Craddock’s voice coming out of her computer. It was going to take her a little while to stop associating it with everything that had happened.

“Sana.” Campbell picked up immediately. Sana had timed the call for late evening on Telemachus, when she’d known Campbell would be available, but she was still gratified and a little relieved. “What’s happening? I heard about what happened on New Jupiter. Are you safe? Is your crew safe?”

“We’re all fine, Campbell,” Sana replied. She tried to keep the weariness from her voice, but didn’t think she’d succeeded. After a moment, she admitted, “Just tired.”

“I’m… glad to hear that,” said Campbell slowly, and there it was – the awkwardness she’d expected. Sana held back a sigh, and tried to think of what else to say. Campbell beat her to it.

“You know, you could have called. If you’d needed… anything. A hiding place. Somewhere to rest. Supplies. I… I know I said that there wasn’t much point in us talking – I said that in the heat of the moment. But you should know that you can always call.”

“I do know,” Sana told him. She might have felt uneasy about having accused Campbell of double-crossing them, but she still knew that if they’d needed a friend, or someplace to lie low, Campbell would have come through for them. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you, Campbell – but it wasn’t safe. We were on the run, and the last thing I wanted was to lead the IGR to your door.”

“Oh,” said Campbell, in a tone that Sana couldn’t identify. “I see.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you,” Sana emphasised again, because she felt that it was worth repeating. “I knew… I know that you didn’t sell us out to the IGR.”

Campbell was silent for a little while, and Sana wished that she could see his expression. Most state-of-the-art intergalactic comm systems had holotech that would allow you to view the person on the other end, but nothing about the Rumor was state-of-the-art. It hadn’t seemed like a function worth splurging on, especially as they preferred for many of their contacts not to be able to identify them.

“Okay,” Campbell said eventually. “I appreciate that. Did you manage to find the source of your leak?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was… unexpected,” said Sana. “It’s kind of a long story to explain over a call, but… I could tell it to you in person.”

There was another pause. “Are you guys near Telemachus?”

“We’re actually just about to call in on a contact in Nereid,” said Sana. “They’ve got some cargo that I think you might be interested in.”

“Oh,” said Campbell again, a flat note in his voice. “So, this is a business call.”

“I was hoping it could be a catch-up between old friends,” Sana said cautiously.

Campbell said nothing, and Sana began to wonder if their relationship really was beyond repair. It hurt that something like this could have come between them; when you were a group of smugglers on the wrong side of the law, true friends were few and far between, but she’d never hesitated to count Campbell as one of them. He was allowed to call her Sana; most of their contacts would have been swiftly excommunicated if they’d tried. (She still called him Campbell, despite his insistences, but that was one of those friendly-banter parts of their relationship that she’d always enjoyed, and she thought he did too).

She’d met his family, and the nephews he adored; he’d met her crew. But maybe none of that mattered as much as she’d thought.

She resisted the urge to prompt Campbell or check whether the connection was still active. Finally, Campbell said, “Nereid isn’t exactly in the neighbourhood. You’d have a pretty long trek to get out here.”

Sana stiffened. “If you’d rather we didn’t make the trip-”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Campbell cut in quickly. “But you’d be going pretty far out of your way just to call in on little ol’ me. What’s the cargo?”

“Four cases of Nereien chocolates,” said Sana. “I got them at a pretty good rate.”

“Those are my favourites,” Campbell said, and she could hear the surprise in his voice. “They’re rare, too.”

“Call it a peace offering,” Sana replied.

“You don’t need to make peace with me, Sana,” said Campbell. “You never did.”

This time, it was Sana’s turn to say nothing. After a few moments, Campbell said, “Call me when you’re on the approach, and I’ll come meet you at the landing site.”

“I…” Sana had been about to say, ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ but she wasn’t sure how it would be received. She settled for, “Thank you, Campbell. I’ll be in touch. Sana Tripathy out.”

“It was hard for me to get a read on him,” Sana told Arkady. “There were a lot of awkward silences, and… I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He told me before that he wasn’t angry at me, and I believe him, but he seemed… disappointed, maybe? Or, not disappointed, but… like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I guess I can’t blame him.”

Arkady’s mouth twisted, but she said, “Honestly, I think you’re over-thinking this, Sana. If he says he’s not angry, and he’s still willing to trade with us, then what’s the issue? Things are bound to be kind of awkward, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything else going on here. You guys can clear the air in person once we land on Telemachus.”

Sana sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s just-” She hesitated, and then forged ahead with the other thing that had been bothering her. “Remember how you said that Campbell seemed friendlier than usual, when we called him to ask for new IDs? Almost like he was… hitting on me?”

“Yeah,” said Arkady with a smirk. It faded as she put two and two together. “It seemed suspicious, combined with the fact that we didn’t know who our leak was – evidence pointed to Campbell being the source. But if he wasn’t, then…”

“Then I guess he was just… hitting on me?” Sana said uncertainly. “And I don’t really know what to make of that. You’ve always teased me about how friendly we are, about how one day I’ll ‘ride off into the sunset to grow tomatoes with Campbell’-”

“Okay, I said that one time,” said Arkady. “But in general – yeah. You guys are close. Closer than the rest of us. I’m friendly with him, and he and Krejjh have that weird spicy-food rapport, but that’s all through you. You guys are the ones who have the… connection. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t have gotten half the discounts that we did over the years if it wasn’t for you.”

“So… What do you think I should do about it?”

Arkady laughed. “The hell if I know! Shit, Sana, you remember who you’re talking to, right? Arkady ‘one night and run’ Patel? I have no idea how Violet and I are even still together.”

Sana laughed as well, and felt the knot that had settled in her chest after she’d walked in on Arkady and Violet finally begin to ease. She’s still your best friend, she thought. She’s still Arkady. She hasn’t left you.

“Don’t do yourself down,” she told Arkady. “You and Violet are great together. I know you guys will make it work.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” said Arkady drily, and Sana knew that this was her way of deflecting the conversation away from a route she wasn’t yet ready to go down. “But, back to you and Campbell.”

Sana sighed. “It’s probably a moot point, anyway. Even if he was, well, flirting with me… I’ve probably messed it all up. Nothing kills a potential romance like accusing the other person of collaborating with the IGR.”

“So, uh,” Arkady shifted uncomfortably, which Sana knew was a sign of her gearing herself up to tackle Feelings. “Is this a potential… romance? Or… was it?”

“Maybe?” Sana admitted, shrugging. She could feel herself blushing slightly. “I mean, it’s Campbell. You joking about us settling down always seemed like… a joke. But he’s – funny, and sweet, and the world’s most devoted uncle. And he’s never let us down. I didn’t think he’d sold us out because I didn’t trust him, I thought it because I know what horrors the IGR is capable of.”

“I thought it because human beings are assholes,” muttered Arkady. Sana raised an eyebrow at her. “Okay, not the point, I know. Look-” She shifted uncomfortably again, like she was sitting on hot nails, with a pained grimace to match. “If things go… well… with Campbell, and he doesn’t hate you – which I bet you now that he won’t, because it’s you – then you can decide what to do from there. Maybe try just… asking him out to dinner?”

“Ah, romantic tandem eating,” Sana joked. “What could go wrong?”

“Hey, at least Campbell’s not a Dwarnian,” said Arkady in amusement. “He’s not gonna go inviting the rest of the crew.”

“God, it’s a miracle those two ever got it together,” Sana said fondly, enjoying the temporary change of subject. “You might think you’re bad at giving love advice, but I guarantee that you’re better at it than Krejjh.”

She expected Arkady to laugh, but instead she looked thoughtful. “I think you’d be surprised, actually,” she said, but refused to elaborate, no matter how much Sana needled her.

True to his word, Campbell was there waiting for them when the Rumor touched down on Telemachus. Sana’s conversation with him on the approach had been brief, but friendly, which gave her hope. Now that she was listening for it, she thought that he sounded warmer when talking to her, compared to the way that he addressed the rest of the crew. But maybe she was reading too much into things.

He was standing a safe distance away from the landing point, one hand in his pocket. As the hatch popped open and began to lower, he raised one hand in a cheerful wave, grinning broadly.

“Well, he doesn’t look mad,” Arkady muttered to Sana. “Unless he’s planning to kill us with kindness. Also, is it just me, or is he kinda dressed up?”

Sana had been thinking the same. Campbell was wearing what looked like a black leather jacket, and a pair of dark jeans that appeared brand new – a far cry from his usual worn overcoat and patched cargo pants. He was wearing the same heavy, steel-toed work boots as ever, but she could have sworn that he’d cleaned them up a bit.

They weren’t the only ones who’d noticed. “Campbell’s looking sharp,” Brian commented cheerfully from behind her. Sana glanced over her shoulder to find him smiling expectantly at her.

“Uh, yeah, I guess he is,” she said. Krejjh looked between the two of them, obviously trying to grasp the unspoken subtext of their exchange. As Sana descended the ramp, she heard them whisper with a characteristic lack of subtlety,

“Oh! Is this a human courtship ritual?”

“Maybe, dude,” said Brian, and Sana fought off the urge to cover her face with her hand. Instead, she called out, “Hey, Campbell.”

“Sana,” he said as she came closer, and there was definitely a warmth in his voice and in his eyes that hadn’t always been there. “It’s good to see you. How was your trip? Did you have any problems at the checkpoint?”

Sana shook her head. “The credentials that you sent ahead for us worked like a charm, thanks. We probably shouldn’t hang about here for too long, but as of right now, the IGR isn’t actively on our tail.”

“Well, thank heaven for small mercies, then,” said Campbell drily. “Follow me, and we’ll get- uh, is the rest of the crew staying on the ship?”

Sana looked behind her and saw that the rest of the crew was still clustered at the top of the ramp, watching them. Krejjh was grinning madly.

“Oh, for the love of God,” Sana muttered. Obviously, someone had come up with the bright idea to give them some ‘alone time’, and they were all being fantastically unsubtle about it. “No, they’re coming,” she told Campbell, shooting Arkady a look that said Get over here, or else.

Arkady sauntered down the ramp, closely followed by Violet and Krejjh, with Brian bringing up the rear, his arms piled high with the boxes of chocolates that they’d picked up on Nereid. “Hey, Campbell. How’s it been going?”

“Pretty uneventful, apart from aiding and abetting the odd fugitive here and there,” Campbell said with a wry smile. “How about you?”

“The same. Totally uneventful,” Arkady deadpanned.

“This trip is the most exciting thing that’s happened to us all year,” Brian put in, brightly.

“Well, I can’t tell you how honoured I am,” joked Campbell, as Krejjh snickered. Campbell’s gaze landed on Violet. “And you must be the new recruit.”

“Violet Liu. It’s nice to finally meet you, Mr. Campbell,” said Violet politely, shaking Campbell’s hand.

“Likewise. I’d tell you to call me Ignatius, but even Sana refuses to, and I’ve known her for six years,” said Campbell ruefully. “Still, just ‘Campbell’ is fine. Anyway, as you said, Sana, we should probably keep moving – if you’ll all follow me, I’m parked nearby. It’s a five-seater, so we might have to get creative with the seating arrangements.”

“I can sit on Krejjh’s lap,” Brian offered, and Sana thought she caught a brief look of disappointment on Arkady’s face. She smirked.

Everything seemed completely normal between the six of them that evening, from the ride in Campbell’s car to going out for dinner and drinks. Campbell had a knack for picking the most unlikely hole-in-the-wall eateries that looked terrible but served almost unfairly delicious food, a different one each time.

Sana mostly sat back and observed as the others chattered and dug in, watching Campbell’s eyes crinkle as he drew Violet into conversation, watching as he pulled a bottle of hot sauce out almost unseen and passed it to Krejjh, who crowed and immediately began to empty it over everything. She watched Arkady teasing Brian over his bizarre food combinations, goading him into trying a strange-looking tropical fish that sat in the middle of the table.

At one point, she caught Krejjh looking at her enquiringly with one of their pairs of eyes, the other pair fixed on Violet as she attempted to – slightly tipsily – explain some complex biological concept. She smiled to let them know that she was fine, and quickly reapplied herself to her food.

She had a tendency to forget how astute Krejjh really was, and how much they tended to play up the ‘dumb alien who doesn’t understand human social conventions’ for effect. Maybe Arkady was onto something.

The truth was, she was enjoying just seeing her crew get the chance to take a breather. They hadn’t really stopped since their flight from the IGR, not daring to stay put for long on any one planet or moon – even once they were fairly sure that the Regime had given up pursuing them, too busy trying to contain the unfolding situation on New Jupiter.

They’d never been able to feel safe anywhere. Until now.

Thinking this, she looked up at Campbell, only to find him already watching her with a smile on his face.

When it came time to buy the next round of drinks, Sana volunteered, making her way to the bar and attempting to get the bartender’s attention. After she’d finally succeeded in making their order, she leaned on the bar – and jumped as Campbell came up next to her.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to catch you off-guard,” he said apologetically. “I called your name, but the patrons of this place’re… not the quietest.”

Sana laughed a little. “It’s fine. Guess I’m still a little on edge.”

She smiled up at him, and there was a pause. Again.

“I, uh, I thought you might want a hand carrying those drinks,” Campbell said.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” said Sana. The bartender was beginning to line the drinks up on the bar for her, still filling the enormously tall glass belonging to Krejjh, because Dwarnians processed human alcohol in very different ways (and quantities). If Sana wanted to speak to Campbell in private, now was the time.

“Listen, I-” she began at the same time as Campbell said, “I was wondering-”

“Oh, uh, you go first.”

“No, please.”

Okay then. Sana gathered her courage – ridiculous, that this should feel more intimidating than facing down the Fowleys - and asked, “Will you go to dinner with me tomorrow night?”

Campbell looked momentarily surprised, then chuckled. “And here I was about to ask you how long you’re planning to dock on Telemachus, as a roundabout way of working up to the same question,” he said. “Yes. I’d love to have dinner with you, Sana.”

Sana let Campbell be the one to choose the restaurant, conceding to his more up-to-date knowledge of Telemachus and his excellent taste in eateries. The following night, sat across from Campbell in a cozy little restaurant with her mouth full of the best beef rendang she’d ever eaten, she knew she’d made the right choice.

“Campbell, this is incredible,” she enthused, not even caring that her mouth was full. Campbell laughed, digging into his own bakmi goreng.

“How do you always know such good places to eat?” Sana demanded. Campbell shrugged.

“I didn’t get where I am without knowing how to make connections, and you’d be amazed at how much more open people are to doing business after a plate of really good food,” he said. “But I’m also not gonna pay through the nose for them to get blinded on moonshine and puke it all up later that night.” Sana almost choked on her mouthful as she started to laugh. “So, I look for establishments that don’t charge too much. And mind their own business.”

“So, you’re picking up the tab for tonight, then?” Sana asked playfully.

“I figured we could haggle,” Campbell replied, deadpan, and Sana laughed again.

She’d been worried about a dinner with just the two of them becoming stilted and formal, but so far it had been anything but. Determined to avoid the clichéd “outfit crisis”, she had dressed more or less the same as she did on the ship, minus her trusty wide, yellow tool belt with its hundreds of pockets, and a few engine oil stains. She missed its reassuring weight around her hips, though she was wearing a wide black belt to make up for it, with a vest and her signature knee-high boots (or as Arkady called them, her “space pirate boots”) over a loose green blouse and neopolyfibre jeans.

Arkady had performed an exaggerated double-take when she saw Sana. “Wow, Sana, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a wrench in your pocket before,” she said with mock surprise.

“That’s not true,” said Sana lightly. “Remember when we infiltrated that ball held by Commander Grandwin on Qilin?”

“No,” said Arkady deliberately. “I don’t remember. I’ve repressed it. That corset was hideous.”

“You looked good in it.”

“I couldn’t move in it! And I had nowhere to put my weapons. I had to strap a gun to my garter.”

Violet, who had been listening in on their conversation while brewing a pot of coffee, suddenly looked very interested. “Sorry, you strapped a gun to your what?” she asked in amusement.

“Uhhh…” Arkady froze, torn between playing to her girlfriend’s clear interest and denying any recollection of the incident in question. Sana winked at Violet.

“Tell you what, after we set off from Telemachus I’ll find us a nice formal ball to go to, and Kady can give you a real-life demonstration.”

“You’re dead to me,” Arkady hissed at her. Sana waved cheerfully at her and left the kitchen.

When Campbell had seen her, the first thing he’d said was, “Is it clichéd if I say you look nice?”

Sana grinned. “A little, but sometimes clichés are good.”

She’d been expecting at least a few minutes of awkward small talk at first, but no sooner had they sat down at their rickety little table than Campbell said,

“So, you’ve met my buddy Red Gregor – was he favouring his left leg, by any chance, when you saw him?”

“Uhh…” Sana tried to cast her mind back. Most of what had happened on Elion was a blur of her breaking the speed limit while Arkady tried to coach Violet through the Carmen Gambit, but she remembered Red Gregor after a bit: a thin-faced man who looked to be half-Chinese, half-Latino, and spoke with a strong Irish twang. He had, in fact, walked with a slight limp.

“Sure, I think he said it was prosthetic?”

“It is,” Campbell confirmed. “But what’s really funny is how he got it…”

After Elion, though, it didn’t take them long to get onto the topic of the “leak” aboard the Rumor. Campbell said, “Listen, I swear I’m not bringing this up because I’m angry with you, because I’m not-”

Sana tensed, and put down her fork. “Honestly, Campbell, you have every right to be,” she said. “I… I should have trusted you more. It wasn’t that I didn’t – it was that I was afraid of what the IGR might do to get their way. If it hadn’t been for my crew, I could’ve-”

Campbell held up a hand and shook his head. “If I didn’t know by now that you’d do anything to protect your crew, I’d be a damn fool,” he said. “I got that. And maybe if I’d been more level-headed… I could’ve helped you guys in some way. I know; you said it wasn’t safe. But I’ve had some time to think about this, and it bothered me, thinking that maybe I could have done more.

“What you said, about the people I care about – my nephews – and what I’d be willing to do to protect them… You were right. I really don’t like to think about what I’d be willing to do.” Campbell’s voice wavered slightly, and he cleared his throat. “But I also know that they’re not the only ones I’d… do almost anything to keep safe.”

Sana looked at him uncertainly. Campbell shook his head.

“That came out – that wasn’t what I meant to say. Look, I know I sounded angry on our call, and I know you’ve convinced yourself it’s because you all ‘screwed me over’ and did me out of what I was owed, and that I’m somehow keeping score.” Campbell said all this not angrily, but with a quiet intensity that nevertheless made Sana a little nervous.

“But that’s not it. If I was angry, it was because this is what the IGR always does – it sows fear, paranoia, and distrust. Even among people like us. And I was angry because… because you were light years away from me, in some kind of trouble, and there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do to help you.”

But I also know that they’re not the only ones I’d… do almost anything to keep safe. Campbell’s words suddenly made sense to Sana, and her mouth opened in surprise. Before she could say anything, Campbell said,

“I know you don’t think of yourself as someone who needs help or protection. And I’d never try to force it on you, but... You should know that it’s not always about favours and deals, owing someone or being owed. Sometimes, it’s just about people caring about you.”

Sana’s throat closed up, and she looked down at her mostly-finished bowl of food. The truth was that he was right; before a few weeks ago, she would have baulked at the idea of needing protection from anyone. She let Arkady watch her back, but that was different. She looked out for Arkady as much as Arkady looked out for her, even if Arkady didn’t realise it. Not all kinds of protection involved putting yourself between someone else and a bullet.

She’d always prided herself on being tough and self-sufficient. She’d built her reputation up from nothing; she had to be. She hated to be in anyone’s debt, because in her experience, you never knew when and how they might choose to collect. As a woman – above all, a brown woman – trying to make her way in a cutthroat world, she had to be that much more invincible.

But she thought about the way that Arkady had shoved her shoulder into Sana’s on the Gay Louisa to get her out of range of one of the security bots. She thought of the way, on New Jupiter, that Violet’s mouth had pressed into a line and she’d pressed Sana down into a chair with surprising strength and held her there while she treated her injury. She thought about seeing Brian wielding a gun for the first time, his face intent, and of Krejjh gunning the ship into overdrive to get all of them to safety.

Maybe she was learning that it was okay to let her friends look after her too.

“I’ve overstepped – I’m sorry,” said Campbell in a rush, and Sana looked up at him, coming back to herself. “I shouldn’t have-”

“No, you haven’t overstepped,” said Sana quietly, and he stopped. “I… think you’re right. And…” Campbell waited as she gathered her thoughts.

“And I think I understand what you were trying to tell me before,” she finished. “About not keeping score. It’s hard for me to make an exception to those rules, but… I can try.” She gave Campbell a half-smile. “I’m not used to being on the receiving end. Of having other people try to protect me. But maybe I’m beginning to get that it’s a two-way street.”

“I’m more than willing to help show you,” said Campbell, with such quiet sincerity that Sana felt herself blushing.

“Thanks.”

Sensing the need to lighten the tone a little, Campbell said jokingly, “Of course, don’t think this gets ya out of bartering the next time you have cargo to offload.”

“Why would I miss out on the chance to take advantage of your atrocious negotiating skills?” Sana returned easily. Campbell snorted in spite of himself, and then pretended to clutch at his chest as if mortally wounded.

“You’ve cut me to the quick, Captain Tripathi.”

“You were right about something else, too,” Sana said, remembering. “Not that any of us would have guessed, in a million years…”

At Campbell’s look of confusion, she explained: “On our call, you said – something like, ‘You’re flying through space. We’re light years apart, and we’re talking. Someone from three hundred years ago wouldn’t be able to comprehend it.’ You were talking about other possible explanations for our leak, and as it turned out, that was it. That was the explanation.”

Campbell raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to need something much stronger for this story, aren’t I?” he asked, gesturing to his glass of wine.

“Significantly,” Sana agreed.

They got through several glasses of a strong local spirit (it had nothing on engine-room moonshine, but was strong enough for Sana to feel its effects) as Sana told the whole story: about the swarm, Emily and Alvy’s discoveries, Thasia and the Other Violet, the way they’d pieced everything together, Violet’s Plan B, and their final confrontation and flight from the IGR. She spoke in low tones, their conversation easily drowned out by the loud chatter of the other patrons.

Campbell listened spellbound, occasionally swearing quietly (or not-so-quietly) in response to a development in the tale. He had always been a good audience – normally she and Arkady would take it in turns to tell stories about their exploits, Arkady mostly contributing sarcastic commentary at first until the moonshine loosened her up enough that she would take over narrating, Krejjh chiming in at appropriate – or inappropriate – moments with an exclamation or an oddly specific detail.

It felt strange to be telling it on her own, but enjoyable, too. When she described Violet grabbing Arkady and kissing her as they fled New Jupiter, Campbell stared at her in disbelief for several seconds and then wheezed with laughter.

“So Arkady finally found someone who can give as good as she gets?” he asked, shaking his head. “I thought I sensed… something last night, but I wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into things.”

“It can be hard to tell, with Arkady,” Sana agreed. “But honestly, I think the less she talks about it, the more it… matters.”

Eventually, the conversation reached a natural lull, and Sana realised it was almost midnight: they’d been out for almost four hours.

“Campbell…” she began, and then stopped.

“I know, it’s late,” said Campbell, recognising the double-tap on her comm that told her the time. “I guess we should call it a night.”

“Would you like to come back to the ship?” Sana asked him, feeling almost shy. It wasn’t uncommon for Campbell to walk with them back to the Rumor after a night of drinking, usually helping Brian to support Krejjh’s weight while they sang Dwarnian battle hymns with the words in the wrong order. (Or so Brian told her, anyway). But this was a little different. “Or, if you’d rather head home, we can-”

“I don’t have anywhere to be,” said Campbell with a smile. “Lead the way.”

Neither of them said anything much as they walked back to where the Rumor was docked, ducking down various side streets and doubling back on themselves just in case they were being tailed. Sana didn’t sense any immediate danger, but it would just be sloppy not to. She kept her hand within easy reach of the micro-blaster tucked just inside her vest.

The ship was dark when they approached, but Sana doubted that any of the crew was asleep just yet. She used her radio key to unlock the door, and the ramp quietly lowered down to the ground.

The lights on the Rumor were motion-activated, and Sana had always liked the way they gradually turned on when she came back to the ship at night, like they were welcoming her back. In the days when she’d been a crew of one, it had been a comfort.

Sana expected they’d find the crew gathered together in the mess hall, but as she and Campbell walked through the ship’s corridors, there was no sign of anyone. Sana was slightly suspicious – it wasn’t like any of them to go to bed this early. Surely none of them could have known that she’d bring Campbell back to the ship?

“So… When do you think was the last time you actually came on board?” she asked Campbell, to break the silence.

Campbell hummed thoughtfully. “It’s been a good three years. I see you’ve made some upgrades here and there.”

“Yeah, and we even got a new coffee maker, finally,” Sana said drily.

“Oh God, I remember that ancient old thing you used to have. Didn’t Arkady salvage it from a skip on Astraeus?”

“Something like that.” They paused outside the kitchen. “Would you… like a cup?” Sana asked.

Campbell raised one eyebrow and gave her a roguish smile. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was an invitation, Captain,” he said.

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, Campbell,” Sana said, turning away so that Campbell wouldn’t see her blush, and leading the way into the kitchen.

“Call me Ignatius,” Campbell said, unexpectedly.

Sana paused in the middle of stretching up to reach the only two (thankfully) clean cups left in the cupboard. It seemed like a small thing, but names carried a lot of meaning, a lot of weight. She’d thought long and hard about the name Sana Tripathi when she’d chosen it, after the uprising. It had represented a new start, new possibilities.

She knew that Campbell, like everyone else in their line of work, had other names that he often went by. But he’d only ever been Campbell to her.

“All right… Ignatius,” she said, trying it out. Campbell smiled at her, warm and fond.

They carried their cups of coffee into the mess hall, and Campbell raised his eyes as he caught sight of the hammock strung up on one side of the room.

“That’s also new. Are those… safety harnesses?”

“Admittedly, not my finest piece of engineering,” Sana admitted. “It was meant to be for morale.”

“Does anyone actually use it?”

Sana felt her face warm again as she considered how best to answer that question. “From time to time.”

“Can I try it out?” Campbell asked playfully.

“Sure, it should hold your weight.”

Campbell set his coffee cup down on the ground by the hammock and cautiously sat down on it, and when it didn’t give way under his weight, swung his legs up and lay down fully.

“This is actually pretty comfortable,” he said in a tone of slight surprise. “The holes are a little unnerving, but it’s a solid hammock.”

“Thanks. I really should take it apart and put the safety harnesses back, but I think the crew like it.”

“I would say ‘Who needs safety harnesses?’, but I know how Krejjh flies,” joked Campbell. “Can it hold two people?”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was an invitation,” said Sana. She smirked at Campbell, and then added, “Ignatius.”

Campbell’s eyes darkened, and he sat up and reached out a hand. Sana took it, and allowed Campbell to pull her down until – with a little manoeuvring – she was lying next to him on the hammock.

Their bodies were pressed flush against each other, and Sana was sure that Campbell could feel her heart pounding against his chest. Campbell reached up and gently smoothed a piece of stray hair away from her face.

“Is this okay?” he asked in a low rumble. “Are we moving too fast?”

“This is just fine,” Sana replied, and kissed him.

Campbell’s hand came up to gently cup the back of her head as he kissed her back, sending an almost electric thrill through her. Sana extricated her hand from between them and laid it against Campbell’s cheek, kissing him more intently now, inhaling faint notes of aftershave and cologne.

By the time they broke apart, the hammock was swaying gently. Sana smiled at Campbell, feeling a little punch drunk.

“This honestly feels like it’s been… a long time coming,” she said.

“I think it has,” Campbell agreed. “Do you, uh… Should we relocate to somewhere less public?” At such close quarters, Sana could see him blushing slightly.

She thought about it, and the not insignificant chance that one of the crew – who most definitely were not asleep – could walk in on them at any moment.

“Let’s stay here for a little while longer,” she said. “I think it’s only fair that I get to have a turn.”

#TSCOSI #The Strange Case of Starship iris #Sana Tripathi #Sana/Campbell #Arkady Patel #Violet Liu #Arkady/Violet #Brian Jeeter #Krejjh #Brian/Krejjh #the mess hall hammock #strikes again #sad congee for sad spacers #a nod to Rather Be by knightinbrightfeathers #for some more notes see the AO3 version of this fic

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