Chapter Text
Prologue – Before We Knew
P.D. 324
Seeing as the whole point of sneaking into the break room was to find some privacy in which to cure and/or make use of his insomnia, Eugene was a little irritated to discover it already occupied. Though perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised, given how punishing the shift from Hotarubi-time to Saisei-time had been. He certainly should have guessed who else would be most affected.
Yamagi sat at one of the tables, hunched over a data-pad. Whatever he was reading, it absorbed his attention completely, until Eugene was actually standing next to him.
“Oh! S-sorry.”
“What the hell for?” Eugene pulled out the seat next to him. “Not being able to sleep either?”
“Uh.”
He nodded at Yamagi's pad. “That the specs for the Shiden?”
“Yeah. I need to finish going through them before the tests tomorrow.”
“You know no one's gonna be asking you to do any technical stuff, right? It's all still in the hands of the Chief n' his crew.”
“I know. It's just…” The way Yamagi's shoulders lifted was not the most explicative gesture in the world but Eugene could work it out. Tekkadan needed to prove its worth and being an ignorant outsider in a room full of experts was not the way to do it.
“I get it. But it won't help anyone if you break a spring in your brain trying to cram all this in there.”
“Should I be telling you the same thing?” Yamagi asked, peering at the wall of text on Eugene's own screen.
“No, because looking after all you jerks is my job and that job involves a fuck-ton of stupid rules about shipping lanes and space-flight protocols which I gotta learn so we don't look lame next to the other crews coming in and out of this place.”
“Uh… huh.”
“I figure its win-win. Either some of this goes in or it knocks me out cold.”
They read in silence for a while, each absorbed in their own topic. The regulations remained dull as shit but it was nice to be there, keeping each other company. Unlike some people – Ride, Elgar, Embi, RIDE – Yamagi never worried Eugene when he kept quiet. Quiet was a natural state of being for Yamagi, safe to tune out while Eugene deciphered the Teiwaz rulebook and all its hundred galar words.
Or tried to, anyway.
The text didn't exactly swim on the screen but it seemed to fold back on itself in some kind of boredom Möbius loop, until he realised he'd been reading the same paragraph for five minutes straight. And if he was at the point of applying his recently-acquired knowledge of what a Möbius loop was to the procedure for judging right of way at a space-dock, he was probably long past taking in anything useful.
With a groan, he dropped the pad on the table, startling Yamagi again.
Eugene cleared his throat. “You know, it's late but there'll still be places open. We could hit the town and take our minds off stuff for a while? It's healthy to take breaks.”
Behind his always-too-long fringe, Yamagi's eyes went wide. “Are you… are you asking me to go to a brothel with you?”
“What? No! I just meant – wait, do you want to? 'Cos that'd be fine –” Wouldn't it? What was the age of majority on the Saisei, anyway? “Pretty sure there are places around here with guys as well as girls.” Damnit, he really needed to stop talking. Preferably about three sentences ago. “All I'm saying is, we don't have to sit here totally failing to get anything done.”
“Uh… thanks for the offer but I don't really think that's something I could do.”
“That's fine too! Don't worry about it! Forget I said anything.” Please.
To Eugene's relief, Yamagi nodded. To his horror, he then asked, “Is it fun?”
“What, you mean – uh… sure? Yeah?”
“I guessed it must be. Given…”
Oh. Riiiiight. “Shino went out already, didn't he?”
“Dragged Dante with him as well. Said he was too fired up about getting his hands on the Shiden tomorrow and needed to blow off steam if he was going to get any rest at all.” Yamagi looked down at the specs, smiling that faint, not-quite there smile of his. “I think he's already planning how he wants it painted.”
“Urgh,” Eugene manfully resisted the urge to bang his head on the table. “Of course he is. He does know Naze hasn't finalised how many Shidens we're getting or when, right? We aren't even sure we'll have enough for him to get one all to himself.”
“You know Shino. Always rushing ahead.”
And the thing was, Yamagi sounded so goddamn fond when he talked about Shino. It was the most frustrating thing in the world to see all that affection going to waste because the target of it wouldn't know a hint if one socked him on the jaw.
To the best of Eugene's knowledge, the crush didn't impact Yamagi's work beyond making him put in more time than he should on maintenance – and who didn't overwork in this nonsense family of a company Orga had built for them? It still felt like something a deputy-boss should deal with. Like, no way was 'facilitating hook-ups' in the job description, but looking out for the welfare of Tekkadan members was and this kind of fell under that, if for no other reason than watching Yamagi oscillate between starry-eyed and vaguely depressed was just plain exhausting.
He coughed. “Look, Yamagi, the thing about Shino is –”
He's the most oblivious idiot in the universe but he's not gonna mind if you just come out and tell him how you feel, is what Eugene intended to say. He didn't actually get the chance, however, because the oblivious idiot in question chose that precise moment to fall through the door.
With impressive reflexes, Dante managed to save him from face-planting on the floor. Shino lolled in his grip, looking very surprised to be there. Then he spotted the others.
“Heeeey! Eugeeeeeene!”
Eugene's brain slowly processed the sight. Were those bruises on Shino's face? And what the hell was he holding?
“So,” Dante began, heaving Shino vaguely upright, “turns out Pub Always doesn't skimp on the alcohol in its cocktails.”
“It was soooo pink!” Shino enthused, attempting to sling an arm around Dante's shoulders and missing. “They made a drink just for me!”
“And he thanked them by downing three in a row.”
“It tasted soooo good!”
“And then he tried to, uh, keep going –”
“Needed to burn off a woman with energy!”
“Right. Only we passed by this alley and –”
Rage suddenly contorted Shino's face and he lurched further into the room, as if intending to start a fight with thin air. “These guys were beating on a little girl!”
“I mean, they were clearly trying to intimidate her. Which Shino obviously didn't like.”
“An' I thumped 'em good!”
“Well… you scared them off. I heard one of them call us Tekkadan,” Dante added with an apologetic look at Eugene, “so they must have thought it'd be trouble to get involved with us.”
“We're famous!”
“Anyway, they cleared out and the girl shoved that thing into Shino's hands and ran for it.”
“S'a ball!” Shino concluded happily, holding it out for inspection.
It was. A shiny green ball, somewhere between twenty and thirty centimetres wide, with a faint pattern of curved lines across its surface. Eugene didn't have a clue what it was supposed to be. Some kind of sculpture? A toy?
Shino swayed and Eugene automatically took the ball away from him before he could drop it. “Sit down, for fuck's sake. What the hell were you thinking?”
This was directed mostly at Dante, who at least in theory knew better when it came to doing dumb shit in bars. He shrugged helplessly. “I'd have tried to stop him if I realised he'd end up like this.”
“Damnit – OK, you're gonna help me pour enough water into him there's a chance he won't embarrass us all tomorrow. And you, work out what this thing is and whether it's gonna be a problem.” Eugene pushed the ball into Yamagi's hands and headed for the drinks dispenser to make good on drowning the alcohol out of Shino's system.
He made it exactly one step before Shino's arms wrapped around him from chair height.
“Don't get so mad, deputy-boss! You're waaaay more fun when you're not trying to be Orga.”
“Which one of us is being like Orga right now?” Eugene grumbled, trying to work out how to get free without one or both of them ending up on the floor.
“You're so tense these days.” Shino rammed his head under Eugene's armpit, clumsily nuzzling into his side. “It's OK, we don't mind if you're not that cool. You're fine just the way you are!”
“Will you – let go!”
“I'll… I'll take this over here,” Yamagi said, clutching the ball to his chest and backing away.
Shino stopped rubbing his ear on Eugene's shirt and hugged him closer with a contented sigh. It was actually sort of… sweet, in a totally weird kind of way. “You should've come out with us. Relax a bit. Get some girls, have a good time.”
“Yeah, 'cos you had such a great time.” Twisting as much as he could, Eugene tried to assess the damage to Shino's face. “Look at you. Thought you were supposed to be good at hand-to-hand?”
“They cheated. Started making the ground go all tilty.”
“That was you, dumbass. Where's that water?”
“Here.” Dante hurried over, two cups in hand. He hovered for a second, clearly trying to work out how this operation was supposed to go.
“Shino,” Eugene snapped.
He blinked up at him. “Yeah?”
“Drink this water.”
“M'not thirsty.”
“Drink it. That's an order.”
“Fiiiiine.” Reaching out one arm, he grabbed the first cup and emptied it down his throat. Mostly. A not exactly small amount ended up slicking down his neck and soaking into his tank-top. Maybe they should have used a straw.
Dante mutely handed Shino the second cup.
“Haro! Haro!”
The contents of the cup spilled over Eugene's boots and Yamagi shot across the edge of his vision, leaping away from the next table over like it was a landmine about to go off because the ball –
The ball was flapping.
Two little lights had turned on halfway up and panels on either side were swinging open and shut, like pointlessly small wings. They clapped against the casing, a counterpoint to the thing's insistent, high-pitched squawking.
“Haro! Haro!” it bleeped, rolling across the table-top in dizzy circles.
Shino launched himself out of his chair. Eugene was not sure what he intended to do. Grab the ball? Knock it away? Whatever, he'd forgotten a few important things in his rush. Like the fact he was still drunk. And still had one arm around Eugene's waist.
On the plus side, being on the ground might offer some protection if the ball was about to explode.
“Harrrooooo… Harrrrrrrrooooozt –”
Silence.
Eugene shoved a hand into Shino's face, levering him off. His knees were now soaked along with his boots and he was going to have a few bruises of his own come tomorrow. But: no explosion.
The ball had stopped moving, flaps shut tight once more. Now he'd an idea of which part was 'up', he could tell it was leaning at an angle. The lights were still there, like a tiny pair of eyes. They flickered and died as he watched, leaving unbroken green metal.
“What the fuck was that?” he demanded once it was clear nothing else was going to happen.
“I think I turned it on.” Yamagi approached the table, hesitating with every step. “Err. Sorry.”
“What do you mean, turned it on? What the hell is it?”
“I don't know. I was trying to get it open but…”
“Did it hurt you?” Shino asked urgently, reaching towards Yamagi, which was about as smart as everything else he'd done that evening given he was balanced precariously on his hands and knees.
Yamagi blinked. “No? I think I just triggered some kind of automatic response.”
“So it's a machine?” Eugene edged closer, ready to retreat if it came back on. “Some kind of drone?” He'd never heard of a drone that randomly started flapping and shouting nonsense.
“I have no idea.” Putting out a finger, Yamagi prodded the side of the ball. It rocked gently and settled back to the same angle. No other reaction. “Do you want me to try opening it again?”
“It sounded like it ran out of power.” Dante was still standing there with an empty cup in his hand. “Is there a charging socket?”
“Not that I can see.”
“What's 'harrow'?” Using Eugene as a prop, Shino hauled himself upright.
“Will you – let go – and how should I know? Anyone else?”
Dante looked blank. Yamagi shook his head and hunched down to peer at where the eyes had been. Shino flopped against Eugene like a heavy, lumpy cloak. “Weird ball.”
Eugene couldn't even argue. “OK… well, uh… I guess it's not going to be a problem if it's batteries are flat.”
“I could take it down to the Chief's workshop,” Yamagi suggested. “He might know what it is. Or at least have the tools to get it open.”
Was that a good idea? Probably, in terms of making sure the thing really wasn't going to be a problem. On the other hand, Eugene wasn't certain how Teiwaz would react to them turning up with some drone they'd been handed by a kid in a back alley. Plus, what about the guys who'd been trying to get hold of it? Most of the people on the Saisei were in Teiwaz and Orga would kill him if he dragged Tekkadan into an internal conflict by accident. Assuming Naze didn't get there first.
Shino's chin landed on Eugene's shoulder, his energy finally giving way to the booze. He was starting to drool.
“Leave it until after the tests,” Eugene decided. “Dante, help me get Shino to bed.”
Straightening, Yamagi scooped the ball off the table. “Do you want me to bring some more water for him?”
“Nah, we'll handle it.” Because Eugene had a pretty good idea of how undignified 'getting Shino to bed' was liable to be and felt oddly determined not to inflict that on someone who was, you know, fond of the blockhead. “You just put that thing somewhere safe and go get some sleep too.”
And with a bit of luck, they'd make it through tomorrow without incident, Tekkadan would stay first in line for Teiwaz's new mobile suits, and Eugene would get to go back to Orga with a big fat 'I told you so' over how well he could handle missions solo.
Or it would be a total disaster and he'd have to explain how Shino's inexplicable attachment to the colour pink nuked their good standing with the Jupiter mafia.
One of those two.