Scene ?: A stage, wreathed in roses.
Rafael has forgotten his lines.
It isn’t the first dreadful moment of forgetting anymore. They’ve already booed his stammering attempts into silence. Now they just murmur and cluck their judgment in the dark, as Rafael stands on the dimming stage with the smell of roses thick on his numbed tongue.
“As he doth bind me yet, a wretched shade,” Rafael murmurs—or thinks he does. The words are formless and too soft, and the audience speaks scornfully over them. “I neither on nor back may freely go. And yet…”
He chokes on the next breath; the smell of roses, the shame. Glances longingly to the wings, to the silent waiting dark, and startles to see a figure there instead. Broad and tall, but not looming or menacing. Kneeling diminished, hidden away from the watchful, uncaring eyes like a child from monsters.
“Line,” Rafael entreats, barely a whisper, and Rich licks his lips and nods, hands shaking. The green of his eyes is warm as sunlight on free open plains—and they’re red at the rims, painted with deep, weary shadows.
“Next summer,” he murmurs, and gestures go on. “Next summer will be—”
–
Scene 1: Rich and Rafael’s quarters.
Rafael wakes to the ever-more familiar warm weight of Rich’s hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, man,” Rich rumbles softly, and even with his eyes still closed Rafael relaxes, because he can hear Rich’s smile. “You wanna get up and do swords with Sol? Or are you gonna sleep some more?”
“Ugh,” Rafael comments, and Rich chuckles. Rafael rolls over, scrubs a hand at his eyes and sleepily considers the dawning light outside of the window, then groans again.
“I know, hon,” says Rich, still sounding so very amused at Rafael's expense.
“The man is formed as finely as any sculpted masterpiece, but whatever god or angel cast that work of art forgot entirely to imbue their creation with the least shred of mercy,” Rafael informs him, and Rich snorts. “He is a crepuscular demon and I despise him.”
“Not the worst thing I've been called,” says a voice from entirely too nearby, and Rafael blurts out an undignified noise of shock and bolts up in the bed to see Sol leaning in the doorway, smirking in such a way as to leave no doubt how much of that he heard. He cocks an eyebrow at Rafael. “Not so awful to look at yourself, Shakespeare, once you bulk up a little.”
He holds up a wooden practice sword and waggles it challengingly. Rafael glowers at him, then swings himself up with all the dignity he can muster and goes to get dressed.
By the time he’s following Sol outside, sword reluctantly in hand, he’s awake enough to realize that Sol’s skin is sheened with sweat and his hair’s a little disarrayed from its tie, as though he’s been practicing his swordplay for a good while already this morning before thinking to fetch a partner. They reach the little courtyard outside Rich’s window and Sol turns to Rafael, ignoring the masks and guards lying scattered on the ground, eyes glittering with a strange and wild light. He barely gives Rafael a chance to prepare before lunging into an attack.
Rafael blocks hastily, and then again as Sol swings his blade fluidly around into another strike, and then has to skip back on his heels, feeling stiff and weak, when Sol comes after him again. His own sword is knocked out of his hands to clatter on the ground, and Sol steps back with a derisive huff.
“I haven’t even warmed up yet,” Rafael says, annoyed. Sol only snorts, pacing back and forth, and as soon as Rafael’s got his blade back in his hand he finds Sol coming after him again: no instructions, no careful demonstration, just liquid speed and merciless dark eyes. Rafael’s blade is knocked to the ground again, and his wrist aches from the blow.
“Stop,” Rafael says, as Sol tries to strike him a third time: he holds his ground with his sword dangling loosely from his hand, jaw raised, and half expects Sol to stave in his throat.
But the man pulls up short, just in time, and steps back with a ferocious sneer.
“What, you scared? Come on, you had plenty of fight in you last night, so fight me already.”
“I’m not here to fight you,” Rafael says. “And I’m certainly not here to stand in for those you’d rather murder—”
“And I’m not here for a therapy session, let’s get moving.” Sol flicks his sword out to hit Rafael a stinging blow across the shin. Rafael skips back with a curse, then turns and hurls his sword into the fountain; he’s unreasonably satisfied that he actually manages to throw the damn thing far enough.
“I’ll consent to be your student, but I’m done and past done with being anyone’s chew toy,” Rafael snaps. “Are you going to teach me swordsmanship, or are you just desirous of a warm body to vent your spleen onto? Because one of those options will land you a worthy opponent, while the other will land you nothing better than a slap across your scrofulous and thrice-damnable face.”
Sol glares up at him for a moment, so poised for violence that Rafael genuinely believes he’s about to lose a few teeth. Then Sol turns, tucking his wooden sword neatly and fluidly under one arm, walks over to the nearest rose bush, and savagely begins to rip its flowers off with his bare hands.
It’s far from the most drastic spate of destruction Rafael has seen since he came here, from men forced to ill use beyond bearing; there’s something terrible though, about seeing a man so proud and dignified reduced to petty vandalism. It’s not so terrible as the ruin he was reduced to last night, slack and swaying with intoxication—but at least then Sol seemed hardly aware of his own degradation. The crushing shame of the next morning is its own cruelty, as Rafael knows well. He makes no attempt to press Sol further, only waits with a heavy knot in his throat.
Sol tears several dozen blossoms to a scattered mess on the pavement before he slows. Stands for a moment, shoulders heavy and head hanging, and then sniffs hard and scrubs the back of his wrist over his eyes. When he turns back, there are laddered thorn scratches all over his hands, and a smear of red across his cheek; he ignores them, and goes to fetch Rafael’s sword from the fountain.
“Okay,” he says, as though the momentary break hadn’t occurred, and his fingers aren't a horrifying red lacework. “Let’s go through some warm-up exercises. I want to start working out a fitness schedule for you today, if you’re—if you’re keeping this up, if you’re going to put the work in. Might as well make it the right work. You got some long bones for your height, so if we don’t fix your core strength first it’s just asking for trouble.”
“Alright,” Rafael says, and takes the wet sword. “That sounds like a splendid plan.”
It’s less enjoyable in the execution than the apprehension; Rafael had thought general drills were exertion enough, but after only an hour of more focused attention he’s aching in muscle groups he’d forgotten he had. To add insult to injury, Sol’s made him record his own metrics on his data rings, and ruthlessly co-opted his spreadsheet capabilities to chart out a series of day-by-day exercises for the next month, pausing to sadistically test Rafael's flexibility and endurance at every step.
Rich is no real help when he arrives. He insists that Sol wash off the fine net of bloody scratches in the fountain, giving Rafael a halfway decent chance to catch his breath, but then he only remains lounged on the edge of the fountain making encouraging noises, especially once the spreadsheets come out.
Finally Rafael is mercifully granted the cooldown of a few gentle rounds of circular drills: a set pattern of blows and blocks that repeats until one swordsman makes a mistake, then reverses. Sol calls out the moves and strikes with crisp, disciplined precision, and Rafael finds himself genuinely enjoying himself, relaxing into the rhythm of move and countermove. It feels good to be working with a partner again.
They finish once Rafael starts missing more blocks than he makes, and striking too far out of true; he’s exhausted, trembling on the edge of collapse, and when Sol waves him towards the fountain he staggers over and drops to his knees before the edge, dousing his face and his burning arms in the cool water.
“Aw, hey there,” Rich rumbles from far above him, and pats him between the white-hot triangles of his shoulder blades.
“How about you, big guy?” Sol asks. “You want a go?”
“Yeah, okay, but if I win we get some breakfast,” Rich says, getting up. Rafael rolls slowly and painfully over to sit by the edge of the fountain and watch.
It’s not a fight. Rich stands there with the sword like a matchstick in one huge hand, and when Sol essays a tentative strike, Rich’s free hand blurs, catching Sol’s forearm and lifting him entirely off his feet.
“Okay, I win,” Rich says. “Let’s eat.”
“Oh, come on!” Sol says, kicking angrily in mid-air. “The hell is this! This is cheating!”
Rich raises the second sword and gently pokes Sol in the ribs a few times. “Bang, you’re dead. If I put you down, are you gonna walk to the mess on your own, or do I gotta carry you there over my shoulder?”
“I can walk,” Sol growls.
“You can carry me,” Rafael calls out, much too tired for dignity.
Rich sets Sol down and comes over to scoop Rafael up instead, grinning. “Good thing Carraway doesn’t work after parties,” he says. “You look like you need a nap.”
“I’ll be perfectly well, given some fuel,” Rafael tells him. “And coffee.”
Rich conveys him to the dining room and fetches a heaping tray of breakfast, and Rafael startles himself by inhaling a much larger portion of the overabundance than usual, then savors the single mug of coffee Rich brings him. Sol eats his own smaller portion just as fast, though he takes the time to gripe over his own glass of orange juice.
“Last I saw, a bunch of creeps were dosing you with some crazy rich guy designer drugs,” Rich points out. “You don’t need to throw caffeine on top of your high, you’re a wreck. You need a shower and a fucking nap. Omar and Domingo are still sleeping it off, right? I haven’t seen ‘em anyway. You oughta take a rest day too.”
“I’m fine,” Sol grumbles. “That’s not how discipline works, you make excuses for a good reason you’ll make them for a bad one—”
“You’re gonna have a goddamn nap if I have to tuck you in and kiss your damn forehead myself,” Rich says firmly. Sol, notably, doesn’t argue further, just forks another bite of omelette into his mouth and glares at the far wall. He is, unfortunately, far too fine-featured for wounded dignity to sit well on his lovely face and expressive ears, although he does manage a very becoming portrait of beautiful petulance.
“Seemed like the party went okay,” he says begrudgingly, after a few minutes of picturesque sulking. “The parts I actually remember, anyway. I saw you rubbing elbows with all the suits. You looked…” he hesitates, grimaces, waves his fork in a circle. “Better than the last time. With your guy.”
“You mean the time they had me harnessed up like a farm animal while they tortured Liam right in front of me?” Rich says bitterly. “Yeah. It was a lot better than last time. I even got out before they made me fuck anyone, thank god. I mean, seems like you can take it, but I don’t know about Domingo, and poor Omar would probably die of a heart attack before I laid a finger on him. The kid doesn't even let me help him back from Sandgren’s.”
“I wouldn’t have minded taking you again,” Sol says, with an obviously deliberate lightness. “You’re a better ride than most of those mummified old creeps. I had—I mean, it went alright, I think, when we tried it. Right?”
Rich grimaces and shrugs. “I’m sorry, hon, I was blackout drunk, I don’t remember a fraction of what the boss had me stick where. I had to hear it from Connor that you weren’t mad at me.”
“Of course I’m not mad at you, Christ. Get over yourself.” Sol smacks Rich’s arm, rolling his eyes, and Rich rubs the red mark and smiles sweetly.
Rafael barely registers the byplay, caught up again in the heated image of how it must have looked, Sol and Rich, the two of them moving against one another, flushed and open-mouthed and cleaving hungrily together. Rafael may have avoided his own turn, last night at the party, but Carraway is sure to demand such a show eventually, and Rafael must make himself ready for it. Rafael is eager to be ready for it.
“As for you,” Sol adds to Rafael, “thought you might be in trouble for a minute. More fool me, I guess! ‘Oh please, Signore Lupo, don’t throw me in the exclusion zone!’”
Rafael nearly chokes on his coffee, laughing. “Well. The classic ploys must somehow have earned the title,” he murmurs, and Sol gives his brief, nasal, cawing laugh and doesn’t disagree.
The conversation turns to lighter teasing, then on to some history book from the new collection that Sol’s working through. By the time Rafael finishes his coffee, Sol’s head is drooping over his plate.
“Okay, it's naptime, buddy,” Rich says, and Sol makes a grumbling noise that doesn’t actually have any words in it. Rich takes their dirty dishes back to the kitchen, then comes back and chivvies Sol up from his seat.
“I can walk! I’m okay,” Sol says, batting vaguely at Rich’s hands, then yawns so hard he staggers and almost knocks a chair over.
“Sure you can, tough guy. C’mon, let’s go.” Rich herds Sol out of the dining room and away to the harem wing, his hand spread on Sol’s back for support. Rafael follows behind, trying not to dwell on his jealous and feverish musings.
Andy is awake when they arrive at the dormitories, wandering sleepily about tidying his cobbled-together shrine. He seems to be doing little but moving the pieces around, and he looks absent, still, but he's awake enough to recognize them when they come in, and even to sigh at Sol.
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“Finally coming down, huh?” he says, and Sol sneers at him distractedly but doesn't bother to stop him when Andy takes his arm and guides him off to sit on the edge of his bed. “Naptime, pal.”
“I'm not sleepy,” Sol insists grumpily, and bats him away. “We can't all pass out on command, leave off.”
Andy rolls his eyes. “Alright, okay, sure, you're fresh as a daisy, champ,” he says, and looks back at Rich and Rafael. “…Cards, then? We can play for points.”
Sol lasts a hand and a half of cards before he's dozing on Rafael's shoulder.
“Thanks for running him around today,” Andy says, dealing out another round. “Way he was bouncing off the fuckin’ walls all night, I thought he was gonna break his stupid little brick of a skull on something, and I’d bet good silver he doesn’t remember half the stupid bullshit he was saying.”
“It’s not a problem,” Rich says. “He’s good company.”
“He’s a menace,” Andy says, but fondly.
“I can hear you,” Sol grumbles into Rafael’s shoulder. He makes a vague effort as if to sit upright, and can’t quite manage it—Rafael’s heart turns over uncomfortably in his chest as a fine-boned face nuzzles roughly against his neck.
“Christ’s nuts, I need a shower. You need a shower. You smell like Satan’s armpit.”
“And whose fault is that, maestro?” Rafael asks, and gets only a scoff for his trouble.
The thought of showering with Sol would have provoked some heat if Rafael were called to imagine it, but in practice he mostly spends his time keeping Sol from falling over and cracking his skull. Rafael might have hoped for a few bold touches or lingering looks; Sol’s attempts to conceal his appreciation of Rafael’s body have been far from successful, after all. But instead Sol keeps his eyes and his hands largely to himself, not quite shamefaced but… reserved, perhaps. Shy, or possibly just professional, as he ever is with a sword in hand, making no move to take advantage of the close physicality of their situation.
As he rinses his hair, there’s a heart-stopping moment where his balance wavers and Rafael moves instinctively to his shoulder, and for a second Sol is all but in his arms, iridescent hair falling slickly into his dark, startled eyes, water beaded on his lashes. Then he pulls away with a sharp noise that’s half a laugh and half an awkward cough, and turns himself deliberately away from Rafael’s eyes.
He’s solid enough on his feet that Rafael can at least allow him the dignity of drying off and changing by himself. If Rafael darts a few covert glances at the toned muscles of the man’s back as he dresses, he can hardly be blamed for that, he feels. Especially since on one of his glances he finds Sol half-turned as well, finally stealing a hungry, furtive look at his ass. Still, they manage without falling on each other like wild beasts, and thus duly appointed and smelling much sweeter, they step back out to the light.
Rich and Andy have settled in to play some sort of collaborative pattern game; Rich looks confused and Andy looks tired, and both of them look frustrated. Rafael sets his folded dirty clothes down as Andy says, “You’ve got to know some egalitarian culty little boat commune’s the exception though, pal, not the rule. All those crusty old suits aren’t looking at your new best friend and seeing baseline, they’re seeing Black. You’re not—”
“I might be half euro-descent, but I’m not white,” Rich says, voice rasping with a rising growl. “I go to a party and they treat me like a fuckin’ animal, they talk about me to my face like I’m some kinda crazy attack dog. At least in the Fleet, us comprehensive tweaks still count as human! All the other white guys at the party sure the fuck don’t see one of them, they see a fuckin’ Hastings mutt in a shock collar with a dick that’s a civic goddamn utility!”
Rafael falters, but Sol is evidently accustomed to this argument, and to Rich’s thunderous frustration; he rolls his eyes and breaks from Rafael’s side to lean on Rich’s shoulder, surveying the board. “Coglione like that aren’t drawing lines where they play bigot,” he says with bleary impatience, as though he’s said it before. “The only line that matters to them is one where the guys on the other side can’t punch back.” He gives Rafael a startlingly shrewd glance, dark eyes narrowed and glittering. “...Unless there’s somebody around to do a whole play about how damn hard you can punch.”
Rafael opens his mouth, and finds he has no answer for that. Sol gives a complex, half-bitter twist of his lips and flicks an ear. “Told you, I heard some of it before I blacked out,” he says. “You’re a goddamn shark, Shakespeare.”
He turns back to Rich, before Rafael can marshal any manner of response to that. “Anyway, out here they’ll start with your skin and move on quick to how many sins they can make up to pin on you, and lucky us, we got some of the brands of devil-blood you can tell at a glance. You get used to it. You bet when I was a kid, the only thing these ears were better for than hearing a fight coming was starting the fight in the first damn place.”
“Aw, hey,” Rich murmurs, all his rumbling ire collapsing into a low, chuffing croon now that he’s got someone else to feel sorry for. His big pale hands gather Sol in close, stroking up and down that finely muscled back, and Rafael finds himself caught sharply between two different directions of vicious jealousy.
“Go to hell,” Sol says, the ungrateful bastard, and shoulders the pity off with magnificent distaste. “Don’t you dare give me that, that damn look. I worked my ass off to get a college scholarship, fixed my accent, learned un po’ di Italiano, and all the guys who wouldn’t spare a clipped quarter for a little mixed mutt from the wrong side of the river changed their damn tunes to Mediterranean aesthetic and elite cosmetic mod. I’m not that kid anymore and nobody’s going to damn well look at me like it, not even you.”
“Okay,” Rich says, still gently, and pets him some more. “Yeah, hon. For sure. We all know you’re pretty badass, okay? You haven’ gotta fight us about it.”
“Like you'd even know which end of a dueling sword is up,” Sol mumbles, and slumps as the brief burst of inner fire leaves him, coaxed gently down into Rich’s grip. “I fought my way all the way up to patrician. How's that for a good play on a bad hand?”
“Not bad at all,” Andy allows. “For all the good it does you out here! Just goes to show, huh? You can get it made, in the greatest city on Earth, and then you take one step out in the sticks and fall ass-first into hick warlords who don’t give half a fuck about Roman titles, and lykoi clans playing Mother of Rome like they’re not just as inbred as half the baseline gentry around here. Anybody from a place with actual culture knows what real power’s about, but they’re down here putting gold leaf on a turd and calling it A.N.N. grass-fed tenderloin.”
Rich looks entirely baffled by this turn of phrase, but Sol gives a harsh caw of bitter laughter. “Christ above, yeah, the continental lykoi bloodlines would damn well savage anyone who compared them to our American wolfdogs.”
“Landside’s all backwards and fucked up though,” Rich says, and when both New Yorkers turn to glare at him he only balks for a moment before setting his broad jaw rebelliously. “Well, it is! You just said how they’re assholes about tweaks where you live too—”
“That’s different,” Sol growls.
Rich gives a dubious grumble. “Where I’m from,” he says, “people get treated like people.”
“And look at all the good it does you out here!” Andy repeats, with bright, poisonous cheer, and lays down a card with decisive force. “We can argue who’s got it better at home all we want. We’re not home. And around here, ass-deep in post-apocalyptic Revelationist bullshit, the closer you are to pure white, the more human they’ll treat you.”
“Pure being the word,” Rafael murmurs, in response to Rich’s wordless, saurian grumble of dissatisfaction. “If you didn’t have Hastings blood, or if the signs of it weren’t so well-known, perhaps…”
“Perhaps you’d get parties off too, like how I get lumped in with Garnet and Connor,” Andy says. “You think I came out this pretty the old-fashioned way? Hell no. A couple of my moms handed down a whole sample flight of cosmetic mods. But none of the shit I’ve got coded in is famous, none of it’s impossible for a normal guy, I look like I could be one of them. So, I get to be an after-party kind of fucktoy. Carraway’s good ol’ boys like a chance to cut loose and feel like real big men, but fuck knows somebody would get their feelings hurt if they saw their lykoi buddy sticking his monster dick into real people.”
“We’re all real people,” Rich mutters.
“Yeah, and so what,” Andy says, and scoops all the cards up to deal four new hands. “C’mon, rubberneckers, sit back down. Rich, drop the squeeze-toy. Let’s have one more round before anyone passes out, I’m feeling lucky.”
Rich sighs and sits back and lets Rafael recover Sol from his arms. It takes less than a single round before all the wakefulness Sol won in the shower abandons him once more and he’s dozing on Rafael’s shoulder, warm and clean and remarkably pleasant. Rafael finds himself not much better, after all his earlier exertion, and when Sol finally lapses into a true sleep, leaning heavy on Rafael, it seems only sensible to give in to the pressure and tip sideways onto the bed, closing his eyes.
Andy and Rich are laughing softly, but Rafael is warm and comfortable, and he didn’t get the sleep he’s accustomed to last night. He’s due a cat-nap if he wants one.
Rafael is aware of big hands shifting him, and then Sol makes an annoyed sound and abruptly the heavy heat of his body is nestled against Rafael’s, the silken fall of his hair and soft flutter of his breath brushing Rafael’s collarbones. His discontent subsides almost at once as Rafael drapes an arm over him, and Rafael has barely the time to hear Sol’s pleased, drowsing sigh before sleep sweeps him away.
–
LOG: BEAKER VILLA, HARTFORD, EARLY OCTOBER
Things suck really damn bad for a while in the aftermath of the surgery. Basil can’t even tell Mitch about it—won’t tell Mitch about it, not until they’re back in the Fleet and all of this is done and Mitch can’t panic and come running out here to throw himself on the fucking rocks. He makes Lee swear on their life they won’t rat him out, and keeps his arm off-screen in his next video call, and lies through his teeth about the landside bug he caught and how he’s already getting better.
Madam Beaker hardly seems to notice he’s had part of his body chopped off. Cygnus is sympathetic, but his sympathy is so absurdly macho it feels like someone trying to plug a hardware wire into neuralware implants. Lots of reassurances of how tough Basil is and how he can obviously kick this problem’s ass to hell and back. Like if he’s macho enough he’ll drag Basil straight into the kind of action movie he and all his cousins live in, and they’ll rub some dirt on it and slap each other’s backs and shoot their way through every problem straight to the end credits. Even Lee doesn’t seem to know what to do for him except try to joke about it, and brush past the topic when that doesn’t work.
Commander Bane is the first person to come to Basil, sit down, and say, “That looks like it hurts, kid.”
Basil doesn’t tear up about it, because he’s not a kid, damn it. No kid could have gotten this far. But it does hurt, and not just his arm, and there’s something about the steady, quietly perceptive way she watches him that feels so much like Rich for a second.
“I’m handling it,” Basil says, with a lame wave of his new hand to underline the bad pun, and Commander Bane nods solemnly like she didn’t notice it at all.
“Well,” she says, “if you ever need anything, let me know.”
There’s nothing more she can give him, but he appreciates the concern enough to choke out, “Thanks. You’ve been great so far, ma’am. It’s just been a lot. We’ll get through it, though.”
She nods again, then hesitates for a second like she wants to say something else. Whatever it is, she doesn’t put it to words, just nods again, rests a hand briefly on Basil’s shoulder, and goes back to her soldier business.
She visits him once a day, after her morning briefing with Madam Beaker, before Basil goes out to start on his research for the day. She never stays long, just reciting a few bland, sterile pleasantries like she’s reading them off a script prompter, but every time there’s a weird moment where Basil can tell she’s holding something back.
On the fourth day, when she hesitates, Basil says, “What do you want to know?”
Commander Bane goes still and startled the same way Rich does when somebody’s noticed he’s upset and he’s floored by the novel concept that anyone might care to observe him.
“What?” she repeats.
“Whatever you keep wanting to ask me, all this time. Let’s hear it.”
Commander Bane isn’t all like Rich; she doesn’t wave him off and sheepishly slink away, just nods slowly, accepting that Basil's got her dead to rights and rethinking her strategy.
“You know my son,” she says obliquely.
“Yeah, we’re acquainted,” Basil says, sounding the word out just a little sarcastically, with the full landside complement of consonants.
“Is he…” she trails off, then shakes her head and makes an aimless, incoherent gesture. “What’s he like? Who did he grow up to be?”
“A good man,” Basil says immediately. He doesn’t even have to think about it. “I mean, he’s gotten, uh, he’s been through it, y’know, so he’s pretty jumpy, but people like him, he really pulls his weight. More than his weight.”
Commander Bane nods again. Pleased to hear it, Basil thinks. And she should be. Fuck. Basil’s been working so hard on everything around the thought of Rich, he hasn’t let himself so much as picture the guy. It hurts at least as much as it feels good, thinking about him, talking about him—but she’s still listening, waiting intently.
“He makes people better,” Basil says, and swallows around a sudden, cramping knot in his throat. “Like, he doesn’t know how not to. Default setting. He thinks people can be better, anybody who’s not actually stabbing him, he thinks they wanna do their best, and help out, and be… be good. And you gotta, when somebody is that sure you’re great. You gotta try.”
He sniffs, trailing off, feeling… too much stuff, guilty and warm and worse and better all at the same time—and then glances up self-consciously at Commander Bane and sees her looking at him with pale, stark devastation.
“Yes,” Helen says, and scrubs her raw, scarred-up knuckles over her red-rimmed eyes. “Yes, I know how you mean. His father…”
She locks up for a second, lips thin and jaw set, and then clears her throat and goes on, “Athena’s got all that madman’s grace and fire, God help us both, but I wondered if his heart got passed on. You know, when Rich was five, he wanted to be a polar bear when he grew up? That was the year he really understood that he would be my size, when he was grown. He didn’t know that polar bears were any different from his teddy bear, just bigger and whiter, so what he really wanted was to be everyone’s friend, and protect them. He loved to pretend to rescue the Infinity’s babies from drowning, all the time, and carry them to safety, it was his favorite game. He would even carry around the ship’s cat. He thought if he could save everyone, he’d never run out of friends…”
“He won’t,” Basil says. “We’re going to save him back.”
Helen nods, scrubs at her eyes again. “I didn’t want my children to be soldiers,” she says, low and urgent, like this is some deadly, horrible confession. “May God forgive me. I don’t want to know what kind of man my little polar bear would have been, if I’d taken him for Mars and raised him right.”
“You could’ve come back,” Basil says despite himself, and she doesn’t look at him. His throat’s a ragged knot. “You could’ve just come back. Just to tell him—to tell him why.”
“Why?” Helen repeats, and gives a chuffing, bitter little laugh. “He wouldn't understand. None of you could.”
That’s probably what Basil’s parents told themselves too. He wouldn't understand, he's just a kid, and we adults, we professionals, we walking wounded fuckups couldn't possibly justify how bad we’re about to hurt the stupid little boy left waiting for us to come back... He swallows a decade of desperate, childish hurt, and says, “I mean, you’re helping us find him. He’d want to know, I think,” in a level, calm, grown-up voice that only shakes a little bit.
“Madam Beaker is helping you,” Helen says, and there’s a twist to her lips that Basil can’t read. “And I’m in her service.” She hesitates, then says like she’s admitting something, “We share an interest in the Fleet’s ongoing security. That’s why I made inquiries here and took the position. She watches the shore, she keeps an eye on… things. But…”
Helen looks at her tattooed knuckles, smearing the faintest sheen of tears over the letters. Sing, Muse.
She says, quotes: “‘We who were born to drill and die; the unexplained glory flies above us. Great is the battle-God, great, and his kingdom—a field where a thousand corpses lie.’ No, kid. There are things you and your great Lady’s free people don't get to know.”
Basil doesn’t know what to say. After a scalding moment of silence, he asks, burning with embarrassment, “Do you want a hug?”
For a second, she looks as though she’s going to nod. She looks like she wants to nod. But instead she shakes her head sharply and strides away.
Alone, Basil wraps his arms around himself, one shaking, one hard and dead, and sits there for a while.
Smashwords as well as your (but not Amazon yet except for After the Storm), under the series title, Stories From The Michigan Fleet. The early access ebook of Run Aground is only! The final, polished version of the ebook will come out November 2026, when the webnovel finishes posting. If you missed book one, After the Storm, you can . And check out our !
