Rich manages to stay mostly inside and to himself the next day, albeit with slightly less dread and self-loathing hanging over his head. He's still not happy about the way things are with Basil, and he's not looking forward to his first check-in with his caseworker, especially considering how clumsy and confused his answers to the post-episode Family Fleet questions have been. But he went out and had fun with Nate, and didn't screw it up, and that's something to hold on to.

He's also apocalyptically sun-burned, and not in the mood to head out to one of the rec rooms or the sundeck looking like a fried shrimp. So really, chilling out in his berth was what he was going to be doing anyway.

His caseworker calls at noon. She's an older woman with weathered tan skin, a lot of smile lines, and hair that's more grey than black. She doesn't look startled when she sees Rich on her comm screen, so presumably she's already aware what she's in for and who she got assigned to, so...that's great. He does his best to smile and swallow his heart down where it belongs.

"Mr Merrill, good afternoon," she says, and settles back in her chair on the other side of the screen, looking him over. "My name is Sara Travis, I'm the Fleet case-manager following your progress. You can call me Sara or Ms Travis, whatever makes you comfortable. Why don't you tell me about your first week on the Reliant?"

Rich does, as much as he can. Does his best not to jitter too much or gloss over anything—he's gotta assume she knows about things like the time he tackled Mitch, and maybe even the fact he snarled at James, so he goes ahead and throws in a contrite mention of those, and isn't surprised when Ms Travis just nods slowly at him.

"You've had good compliance with your social support modules," she says, which is a nice way to put 'good job watching all your puppet shows about friendship'. Rich resists the stupid, anxious urge to make a crack about that, and just nods instead. "Your responses on the questionnaires have been slightly…erratic, though. Some of them are very long and involved, obviously well-reasoned, and some are extremely short and uncommunicative. Can you help me understand why that is?"

Rich tries not to flinch and fails. Erratic doesn't sound like a good thing, nor does uncommunicative, and while he knew he was screwing up, he'd hoped at the same time that it wasn't as bad as he thought.

"I, yeah, sorry about that," he says, tugging nervously at the hem of his shirt. "They just—I can't really—they're weird questions, you know? Like…" He doesn't want to bring it up, but who knows what else she's found out about already; he might as well. "I mean, somebody corners you in the showers with a knife, what the ff—heck—are you supposed to do to de-escalate that, you know? I woulda liked to! That'd be way better! But…And the, the one about forgiving people for a past conflict? I don't think I can, I mean," he cuts himself off before saying I've got fucking scars, I'm not forgiving that. Blows out a long breath and rakes a hand through his hair, trying not to look like he's about to fray apart at the seams.

"Sometimes all I can say is that I don't have anything to say," he finally gets out. "But—I'm trying, when I can. I promise."

Ms Travis watches him silently, and then nods again, apparently to herself. Rich wishes she wouldn't do that, like...like she just made up her mind about something, about him, and he doesn't know what or why.

But all she says is, "Prosocial techniques don't work very well unless both people want them to. It's more important to us for you to think about how you'd apply them now. With people you do know, who would be willing to listen."

A big chunk of the tension strung through Rich loosens and gives way, at that. She's not mad or disapproving, she's not asking him to do the impossible. He can't get a guy with a knife and a grudge to not go for him, but he can totally be chill and not flip out on the people here, be calm and talk through shit and do it Family Fleet style. He can do that.

"How do you feel you've been getting along with your new crewmates, for example?" she goes on. "The Reliant's crew as a whole regularly score well on a great number of social standards. Group cohesion, high morale, synergy..."

"Yeah!" Rich says, giddy with relief. "It's fu—freaking—awesome, over here, it's really nice! Everyone's cool, except for James, he's a douche, but no one lets him get away with it, so that's cool. And yeah, I think I'm doing…okay?" He hesitates, thinking about Basil, but that's not something he messed up by being aggressive or anything, that's just. A thing that could've been cool and wasn't. "I think I've been making some like, some social mistakes, expecting things here to be like how they…were. But no one's been a big jerk about it. So, yeah. I think I'm doing okay."

Ms Travis says, with a warm, encouraging smile, "I would say you're doing better than 'okay', Mr Merrill, considering where you came from." She raises her eyebrows. "We've been reviewing things. Some of your former crewmates are taking their work less…seriously than you are."

Rich twists his mouth. "Yeah, I bet." He could probably name some of the guys giving the most trouble, too.

"I do need to know," Ms Travis says, and hesitates. "...Some of the responses to coursework questions—and some of the things that our other cases have said in their assessment interviews—" she cuts herself off, frowning thoughtfully, then starts again. "As I said before, we're very proud of the Reliant, and we've received some...concerning responses to certain subjects, from the former crew of the Sympatico. 'Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it's not happening,' that sort of thing." She waves a hand, lips twisting like the words are distasteful. "...'Like every ship wasn't doing the same as us'. So we wanted to discuss it with you, since you've been in place on a more successful—more successful-appearing ship. On the Reliant, have you seen any sign of the sort of abuses you experienced on the Sympatico?"

It stops Rich short, because—despite everything he's seen that's so different, he's been assuming the same shit's going on somewhere on the Reliant and the IST department is just free of it somehow. But…now that he looks at what he's actually witnessed, there's nothing to support the notion that the patterns he's used to are happening at all here. He hasn't seen anyone looking hunted or suspiciously bruised, or swaggering and sneering either. Okay, James sneers sometimes, and he tries to swagger, but it's for show and everyone can tell.

"Some of the stuff I wouldn't see signs for," he says slowly. "Like the shit where I was doing all the work and getting all the demerits—I was in my berth like all day every day. I don't know how you'd track down something like that. But the other stuff, the—people getting shoved around, fights and all that—there's nothing like that here, I don't think." It's weird to say it, weirder to be able to believe it. "They don't do that here, that I can tell," he finishes quietly, in something like wonder. "They're good citizens."

"Mm," says Ms Travis, and nods again, more satisfied this time. "Good." She pulls up a list—flicks down it, flicks a few points away. "And everyone has been...welcoming? You said your new crew has been forgiving when you happen to misstep, but I do need to know. Have there been any inappropriate questions, crewmates disrespecting your boundaries? Your privacy? Curiosity is a natural response to a new shipmate, especially one who has been reassigned in your circumstances, but we don't want you to feel alienated by your new crew. Especially since you've obviously been making a commendable effort to fit in and do the Fleet proud."

Rich finds himself smiling, pleased. She's noticed how hard he's trying, he's doing okay, he's all right. He shrugs. "James is the only one who's pushing boundaries, and I can handle him. I mean, uh, not by—someone usually tells him to fuck off and he does, I mean, so I don't mind his attitude. People are…they've been really nice. Like, I don't wanna talk about the shit they ask about, sometimes, but they're cool about, uh, leaving me be, I think. Nate took me hoverboarding, when—I sort of freaked out around him and I think that freaked him out? But he just, he didn't pry. He was really cool."

"Well, good," says Ms Travis, smiling back at him, and finally closes her screens. "I think that's all we need to talk about today. I'll take a look at your question-sets and we'll try to tailor them more appropriately after your next assignment." She sits back, folds her hands and considers Rich. "Anything else you need to discuss with me? Questions, concerns?"

Rich almost says no automatically, to get this over with, but: "More appropriately?" he asks, hopeful and not sure he should be.

"There's no point making you answer questions that don't apply to your situation," says Ms Travis. "It sounds like what you need isn't a set to assess the mistakes of the past, when it was often not even your mistakes you were dealing with, but a more appropriate set to help you practice the skills you're reviewing and apply them to your new situation. We want to help you and everyone else involved move forward, not set anyone up for failure."

She shrugs, paging through a few screens. "And if we run out of sets for you, I can always add in some of the questions from the under-tens demographic. It can be surprisingly fun, describing what you think the friendliest shape is and quizzing your crewmates on their favorite colors."

Rich snorts a surprised laugh. "Yes, ma'am," he says. "That sounds a lot more fun. I'd tell you my favorite color right now, if that'd help?"

She smiles warmly. "Yes, I think it would."

"It's blue, like greeny-blue. Aqua?"

"I'll make a note of it," she says, and does. "Anything else?"

Rich shifts in his seat, struggling with himself—with the need to know, with the urge to keep his head down and not rock the boat—and then, as Ms Travis is opening her mouth like she's about to sign off, he breaks.

"Ma'am," he blurts out, "Do you know if—if Trimmer's alright? My, he's a friend of mine, from the Sympatico, and I think he got hurt in the fight, but I wasn't allowed to see him and I know we're not allowed to contact each other until we're done with parole—" He holds up his hands as she starts to open her mouth again, babbling now and not sure how to stop. "—And I haven't, I won't! I promise, but can you just, just tell me, his name's Joseph Trimmer, is he…" alive, no, he can't even say that. "Is he...okay?"

"You understand the details of other cases are confidential," she starts, and Rich cuts her off, nodding hastily.

"No, yeah, I know, I don't need details, I just need to know if he's okay or not."

She nods, pulls up a screen that's privacy-opaque from the back. Scans over it, scrolls down and then looks up at him and smiles, and Rich's heart gives a throbbing, expanding lurch in his chest, hope and relief tangling up in him.

"He seems to be doing fine," Ms Travis says. "No complaints at his new residency. His medical file's been closed with no further issues."

Rich sags in relief, running a hand over his hair. "Okay. Okay, that's good. Thanks."

"You're welcome," she says. "Give it a few more weeks like this one, Mr Merrill. You can check on him yourself."

Rich cracks a smile, embarrassingly aware of how wobbly and fragile and openly relieved he's got to look. "Yes ma'am," he says, hoarsely. "Thanks, again, thanks a lot. Uh. You don't have to call me 'mister' anything, it's—you can just call me Rich. If that's okay."

Ms Travis smiles at him. "I'll talk to you next week then, Rich," she says. "Keep up the good work."

"Yeah, see you then, ma'am," Rich says, and slumps all over when the screen blinks out. Rubbing a hand over his face, he lets out a long breath, puts his head down on his desk, then stands up and steps over to flop down on his bed instead. Then he hisses, because his sunburn doesn't appreciate either the forceful impact or that wrinkle in the blankets. He straightens the wrinkle out and then goes flat again much more gingerly.

It's okay, Trimmer's okay. He's not—any of the terrible things Rich has been imagining, separate from him for the first time in years and stressed to hell. There haven't even been any complaints, Trimmer's doing really well.

And Rich is doing okay, he's not in trouble. Pressing his forehead against the bed, he breathes. He's not the problem, he just had the wrong set of questions, he wasn't messing up after all. She said he's been making a commendable effort, so she's happy with him. Keep up the good work. Everything's okay.

He wasn't expecting her to listen like that. He'd assumed they'd already labeled him as a screw-up, along with everyone else off the Sympatico, and that he'd have to work his ass off for years to get past it. For her to accept without argument that he's honestly trying—he hadn't even imagined the possibility.

Well, there's no point putting it off. Rich stares up at the ceiling for another second, and then rolls over painstakingly and pulls up his next episode of Family Fleet. Might as well get today done early before he takes an afternoon half-shift. After all, the coursework seems to be helping.

The questions are the same after that episode, but by the next day, they've changed. Just a little, but enough. "What tactics could you use to interact with a person who has a professional disagreement with you?" and "How does your perception of yourself affect your interactions with others?" which are...still not easy to answer, but don't make Rich feel as strange and guilty and ashamed as the old set did. He answers as honestly as he can, and tries not to think too hard about a real person reading his answers and deciding if they're good enough.

-

The day after his call with Ms Travis, he bumps into Basil again.

It's the worst human interaction Rich has ever had. Not in the same directly, uncomplicatedly shitty way that getting knifed or jumped or bent over or clubbed is bad, but...fuck, he doesn't even manage to say anything and it's still awful, it burns.

Rich locks eyes with Basil from across the mess by accident, and Basil freezes, and Rich's face starts heating up, which is probably impressive, since he's still got a vivid sunburn even if it's starting to peel. Basil makes an aborted motion to move toward him, opening his mouth; Rich can feel the panic taking over his body and shutting down his brain, and backs up into the bulkhead like a dumbass. Basil flinches back as well, looking mortified, like he did something wrong here. Rich starts to step toward him, feeling a weird combination of affronted and wretchedly apologetic, and this time Basil is the one who scrambles away, vanishing back out of the door of the mess.

Rich has to go back to his berth as soon as he's gotten hold of his nutrition blocks, just to bury his face in his bed and swear a lot.

Eventually he goes and fetches cleaning solution and a bunch of clean rags and wipes down every surface in his room, from the windows to the bulkhead corners to under the furnishings. He refolds his laundry, moves the few items on his shelves and dresser top, wipes them down, wipes down the surfaces they were sitting on, and puts them back in perfect order. When he looks around, the sense of satisfaction at seeing everything all straightened up and neat lifts his mood a lot.

He still can't think about Basil without feeling gross and stupid and shitty, though.

The next day is somewhat better, not that that's saying much, and Rich pulls it together to call Thena like he promised. He's expecting to have to put her off about how he's doing, since the answer is awful, thanks, but instead she says, "Damn, that's a wicked sunburn! What the fuck were you doing?" and he gets to spend like half an hour talking about hoverboarding and Katrina Chau and hoverboarding in front of Katrina Chau. He wasn't feeling great when he started the call, but reliving the memory and explaining exactly how incredible Katrina is cheers him up more than he thought was possible.

"She said I've got talent," Rich says reverently, and goes on a deranged rant about the number of awards Katrina's won, the moves she's invented, how crazy it is to get a compliment like that from her.

"Uh-huh," Thena says, smirking at him, when he finally winds down. "And how old is this amazing lady?"

"I dunno, like fifty-something, and do not," Rich says, pointing sternly at the comm screen. "This isn't—I'm not crushing on her or anything, this is just immense respect for a fucking legend!"

"Uh-huh," Thena says again. "And you'd totally respectfully turn her down if she hit you up for a good time, right?"

"She's not gonna hit me up, oh my god!" Rich yelps. "I fucking wish!"

Thena bursts out laughing and Rich huffs at her in pretended offense. Then he gets treated to a recitation of her recent conquests until she gets too detailed and he has to cover his ears and yell at her for being gross.

It's a good call. He feels better afterwards.

Basil is actively avoiding Rich as much as Rich is avoiding him, taking night shifts exclusively and staying in his berth whenever Rich is working his morning shift, which would make Rich feel even more like shit if Rich wasn't taking intense pains not to be out and about at night, himself. Either way, Rich manages to get to the mess and back several times without any more awful, awkward staring contests from across the room.

He goes out hoverboarding with Nate again the instant he's invited, the day after calling Thena, and remembers his sunblock this time—as well as how much fun he used to have, just goofing around and trying random stuff out, before he hit fourteen and his mod started kicking into overdrive and he outgrew everything, including a sport that prioritizes lightness and agility. He actually works out how to do a star flip without landing headfirst in the lake, just on accident. Katrina gives him a high-five for that, specifically, and says she'd never seen anyone near his size pull it off, which leaves him breathlessly proud of himself for days.

Slowly, his sunburn is healing, leaving his skin a little less soap-white than it was before. The questions after his assigned videos are less frustrating now, more relevant, if not any easier to answer. The burning knot in his gut that tightened whenever he thought about Basil's face, 'I shouldn't have let you do that'—it's loosening, hurting slightly less.

Which is a good thing, because at the crack of dawn the next day, the Reliant gets a call to the Arcadia and Rich gets a ping from Ben, and when Rich gets up to the top deck for transport, Basil is already there in coveralls and boots, looking as unhappy to see Rich as Rich is to see him. Rich is already feeling worn-thin, muscles aching and stomach knotted acidly on itself, not at all okay with this morning's pathetically insufficient breakfast of two goddamn blocks after spending so much energy yesterday on hoverboarding. The relentless, gnawing anxiety of the hunger's got him on edge even before he sees Basil's startled, unhappy stare and the way he crumples up at the sight of Rich's face, thin arms coming up to wrap around himself.

What the hell is he even doing on a morning call? This isn't an emergency like the So Long was, Rich doesn't think, so what crazy bad luck has him sharing this shift with Rich?

"Hey," Ben says behind him, and gives Rich's shoulder a firm shove. "Come on, kid, you're blocking the hatch—let's get moving if we're moving."

Rich steps out of the way, trying to avoid looking at Basil, but of course they have to take a deck-hopper over to the Arcadia, and while those seat two people, a third one can fit comfortably behind the cargo shelf as long as they hold on tight to the roll-bars, so there's no excuse for Rich to maybe take one over by himself. Ben takes the driver's seat without discussion, and Rich hangs back, unsure if it'd be more of a dick move to take the passenger seat or ask if Basil wants it and make him talk to Rich to answer.

Basil solves the problem by glancing at Rich briefly, worried and uncertain, and then putting his head down and going straight for the back of the hopper, climbing onto the rear skids, and fitting his hands into the grab-loops on the back roll-bars. Ben looks at Rich and raises impatient eyebrows.

Rich sighs to himself and takes the passenger seat.

It's a fast, quiet ride over; Ben gives them the briefing on the way. Apparently someone who thought he was a whole lot more clever than he actually was went and tried to adjust the ship's cargo loading automation to go faster, and they managed to screw their little project up so badly that they crashed the entire collision-avoidance system for the lift machinery in the receiving bay, including the protocol that keeps them from plowing into people, which is not great for anyone's ability to turn any of the machines off. So now there's several metric tons of forklifts floating around and slowly bumping into each other all over the place, and causing some serious issues with the ship's structural integrity.

The Arcadia's an agriboat, one of dozens of repurposed cargo freighters that serve as the Fleet's farming space. The enormously long, broad top deck that used to hold shipping containers has been given over to dense, orderly ranks of fruit trees: delicious-looking citrus and apples and pears that sway in the sweet morning breeze off the lake. The lower decks of any agriboat are for calorie-efficient root crops engineered to thrive in dense vertical stacks under the eerie purple glow of ultraviolet light-strips, as well as storage, maintenance, living quarters, and shipping bays.

Ben drops the hopper neatly into one of the only open spaces on the top deck of the Arcadia, where a harried-looking crewmember in gardener's greens waits to grab Ben's arm and give him an update on the situation they're here to straighten out. Basil hops off the back and shuffles over—glances at Rich again like he's hoping he won't be noticed, and then looks away fast when he sees that he absolutely has been.

Rich is distracted a minute later, because when he looks around the deck, admiring the way morning sunlight slants in a thousand shades of green through the orchard's rustling leaves, he sees a familiar face closing in fast through the ranked tree trunks.

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"Hey, Technician Merrill," says a guy in grimy, ill-kept mechanic's blacks, giving an unfriendly knife-sharp smirk that Rich last saw in one of the dirty, dimly-lit passageways in the bowels of the Sympatico. "Long time no see."

Rich doesn't bother to smile at all. Doesn't snarl either, doesn't let himself clench his fists or step between Burton and Basil, even though god, he doesn't like that combination. Burton was one of the main guys who liked to take shots at Trimmer whenever he thought he could get away with it: he's a violent, opportunistic scumbag who can smell fresh meat like a hungry lamprey and has just as little mercy. Rich is sure he caught sight of the guy during that last, desperate mess of a fight before the ship got shuffled, even if he didn't wade in anywhere himself. Burton's a grade-A dangerous asshole, but he was smart enough not to get sucked too far into that maelstrom of bad decisions and vengeance, unlike Rich himself.

"We're here to help your ship out, Mechanic Burton," Rich says, as civilly as he can. "Heard you needed some extra hands over here."

He doesn't even mean it as a dig, but Burton obviously takes it as one. He sneers, jerks his head down at the deck.

"Loading bay, tweak," he says, and turns his back on Rich as a further insult, heading toward the hatch. "Lower deck."

"...Right," says Ben, and by his tone he's even less thrilled than usual. The gardener who's been briefing him grimaces, meets Rich's eyes with a sort of resigned sympathy—yeah, that sure was Burton, all right. The guy's got purple irises and a starry scatter of phosphorescent spots across his pale cheeks, glittering in the dappled shade, and Rich nods silent sympathy back. That sure was fucking Burton.

Ben stares after Burton with narrowed eyes, then raises an eyebrow at Rich and jerks his head at Burton's back; Rich grimaces and then puts his head down and heads for the loading bay.

It's not a hard fix, apart from the fact that there's a lot of chasing around all the big, dirty, trundling forklifts that the Arcadia employs, and hopping on-board to restart their connection to the terminal. Ben stays in the command terminal's little office, debugging code right at the source and fixing whatever the Arcadia's dumbass technician broke, and hopefully multitasking and tearing a good few strips off the guy at the same time. Rich and Basil go running around trying to climb into each of the aimlessly-wandering forklifts.

There's some initial awkwardness, before they work out the obvious solution where Rich catches and holds the forklifts that need debugging and Basil scrambles into or onto the machines to flip up the manual access terminals, tear out the rotten code, and get them rebooted with a clean copy. He was always so smart, and it still raises something heartsick and jealous and ugly in Rich's chest to see Basil's obnoxious, child-genius brilliance tempered into such a mature, experienced competency. Basil shuts down machine after machine without a moment's hesitation. It takes him less than a minute each time to parse the intricate convolutions of malfunctioning code he's untangling.

It'd take Rich hours to even read through the issues Basil's unknotting in seconds with a fluid, careless confidence. It's an extra kick in the teeth to realize that probably the reason Basil got pulled for this, when it's so far outside his normal shift, is the plain and simple fact that this problem needed to be fixed as fast as possible, and Basil's an actual genius. Ben is the head of department, Basil is a genius, and Rich is...there.

Well, still, at least Rich is necessary to pry the last few machines apart with brute strength and a steel pry bar, which is more than a little satisfying. It's always nice to get the chance to use his strength for something important and useful, with no risk of breaking anything he shouldn't. The first machine Rich tears open, Basil stops and stares at him like he did when Rich lifted the fish, flatteringly wide-eyed and impressed. Then he realizes Rich has caught him looking, and turns around to get back to work so fast he literally trips over his own feet. He then spends the entire rest of the time with his face pointed anywhere Rich isn't. So, that sucks.

By the time they finish up, Rich is sore, cranky, and starving, and is more than happy to finally give the Arcadia's small crew complement of mechanics the go-ahead to come into the loading bay. They can sort out the machines that can be reused right away from the ones that are bashed up enough that they're gonna need to be transported to the Reliant for more extensive repairs.

"Good work, boys," Ben says, which gives Rich a warm little glow. Ben doesn't hand out praise that easy. "I'm gonna go drop a mission completion report. You two just…" he glances from Rich to Basil and back, then finishes with a dubious lift of his brows, "...sit tight, and be cool."

Rich nods obediently. Basil huffs softly, rolls his eyes at Ben's back, and then goes and sits down near the loading bay doors, unzipping the front of his coveralls and scrubbing sweat off his face with his sleeve, leaving a cute, dusty smudge on one freckled cheek. He squints out over the water, rubbing at his temples like he's got the start of a burnout headache going. Rich takes a couple halting, nervous steps forward, thinking he might…he's not sure, but maybe offer to get him some water or something. But Basil glances back over his shoulder, then goes wide-eyed, hunches up, and stares fixedly back out at the lake, exactly like he's hoping Rich doesn't come any closer or try to strike up a conversation.

Well...fine. Okay, fine. That'll make it easier to be cool. Feeling hurt and stupid and mad and really stupid, Rich heads to the exact geometric opposite corner of the landing bay to sit tight. He fetches up next to the crates of carefully-stacked outgoing goods, and studiously ignores the urge to snag one of the incredibly beautiful deep-red apples from the top of the nearest container. He's had fruit before, he used to eat fruit all the time before he started getting all his pay docked on the Sympatico, but there's so much fruit here.

He's hit that stage of hunger where it hurts enough he can't ignore the discomfort, a relentless aching drive to go get some calories however he can manage, and it's hard to fight off the wicked little thought that no one's counting every piece of fruit here, or would get all that mad if one of the guys who just spent three hours playing boarding games with their stupid forklifts maybe helped themself to like, a bruised apple, which no one else wanted anyway…but he's on parole, the caseworkers are still sorting out the Sympatico's genuinely antisocial crew from the ones who can be rehabilitated, and the last thing Rich wants is his caseworker calling him up about how he got dinged for petty theft the second he got within arm's reach of something worth swiping.

So Rich is standing there, carefully ignoring Basil and focusing on the different colors and textures of all the fruits he can see from his vantage point, and doing a real good job of not eating any of them, when he hears footsteps.

He's hoping it's the sound of Ben coming back, or the Arcadia's mechanics reluctantly returning from their extended break, but some part of him knows as he starts to turn that that's not his luck. Some part of him is bitterly unsurprised to see Burton come down the stairs, hands shoved in his pockets, a familiar look of anticipatory, vicious intent on his face. He's not a bad-looking guy, or he wouldn't be if he wasn't such an absolute shitwheel. He's sturdy and dark-haired, with a livid scar on one tanned cheekbone, souvenir from shortly before the ship was disbanded. It's not the scar that makes him an ugly bastard. His expression does that itself: a sharp, watchful sneer, like he's looking for the softest possible spot to sink his teeth in.

"The fuck are you doing here, Merrill?" is the first thing he says, low and poisonous. "I thought I'd never have to see your oversized case of ugly again." He's seen what Rich can do—he's staying out of arm's reach, like usual. But he's also long since picked up that Rich doesn't like fighting, or at least not the punishments that always ensue, which is inconvenient. He was always good at pushing until just before Rich was about to snap, and then getting in one last dig and taking off like it was his idea all along.

"We got called out here," says Rich, as even and calm as he can manage. Some part of him is aching to tense up and bristle, show off how much he's not willing to take Burton's shit right now. Except he is, he will, he's trying. "I don't know if you noticed, you had kind of a situation going on down here."

"Nothing we needed you to come stick your big crooked nose in, tweak," Burton snarls.

In Rich's head, inanely, a little voice that sounds a lot like Olivia Owl says, "Sometimes people say things because they want to be mean. But we don't have to be mean back, do we?" And under the flare of rage at Burton's insults, there's the fear, the echoing memory of striking out blindly and feeling bone give way under his fists. The last fight before Rich woke up to the announcement that the whole rotten mess of his ship was coming apart at the seams.

"Well, Burton," he says, every word burning on the way out of his mouth as he clamps down the rage, "I'm sorry you feel that way. Unfortunately, I don't control where I get called out to, so we're going to have to make the best of things for now."

"Yeah right you're sorry," Burton says, and steps closer, apparently emboldened—or infuriated—by Rich's lack of reaction. "The fuck did they do to your balls on that floating scrapheap? Haven't seen you bend over and take it like this since—"

"Hey," Basil cuts in, because apparently Basil can ignore Rich but not Burton, which is just fantastic.

Rich means to give Basil a sharp 'go away kid, this isn't your fight' look, but he has an awful suspicion that his face does something he didn't intend, because Basil meets his eyes and looks taken aback, then worried, then even worse: determined.

"Hey," Basil says again, stronger this time. "How about you go get some work done and leave Rich alone?"

It would work on James, but Burton's...not James. He gives Basil a scathing look up and down and then snorts derisively.

"Yeah, kid?" he says, and he's not at all shy about stepping into Basil's space, leaning right up into his face. "What are you gonna do about it if I don't, huh?" He grabs the open front of Basil's coveralls, pulls it to one side. Sneers. "...Sing a song at me about friendship?"

Basil's—fuck. Basil's wearing his soft, faded-looking Family Fleet shirt, the one with a big picture of Ivanna Inchworm in all her green, googly-eyed glory, and the slogan Everybody Counts! printed underneath in thick, childish lettering. Basil glances down and flushes a little, but he still shakes Burton's hand off his coveralls and glares at him.

"Look, we came here to help," he says, instead of answering that, and Rich shakes his head sharply at him over Burton's shoulder, grimacing, but Basil resolutely goes on, "Rich is a good guy, you can't talk to him like that."

"Oh yeah?" say Burton, and god, this is everything Rich was hoping to avoid, that dawning glee in the guy's voice, the sly, hateful sweetness he puts on a second later. "He's been good to you, Freckles? He treat you nice? He let you have that big hungry mouth of his, yet? Or maybe he sweet-talked his way into yours—"

"Burton," Rich grinds out, each syllable a low rumbling threat. There's a sharp, vicious ringing in his ears, dread and rage and hatred and something awful, like shame. He can see it in the way Basil glances up at him: This was your crewmate? You're like that? And Rich isn't, he's not, even with that screwed up menacing soldier tweak growl of his buzzing against his ribs and spilling out through his teeth, but—

"Oh, don't be shy, kid," Burton goes on, deliberately ignoring Rich, and takes another swipe at Basil's coveralls, trying to get a hold of him as he shrinks backwards. "You can tell a grown-up what the big bad tweak's been up to after lights out! He lend you around after he got hold of you, earn himself some extra favors on his shiny new boat fulla buddies? Or is he acting so goddamn sweet with me right now because it's put him in a good mood, having his own private baby bitch to drain off that freak monster hose he got?"

"Hey," Rich snaps, and he lets himself growl aloud this time, the full-throated Hastings growl that makes even the biggest, nastiest bastards think twice about making him mad at close range. He knows he shouldn't, shouldn't get too scary, knows it'll just confirm Burton's gross ideas, but he can't stand back and let Basil, who's open-mouthed and appalled, deal with Burton by himself.

Anyway, it's not like it matters what Burton thinks anymore, Rich just...desperately needs him to not be saying shit like this to Basil. He steps forward sharply, grabs Burton's shoulder and pulls him around, standing taller, holding himself the way he knows makes people nervous.

"Leave him the fuck alone," he growls, as deep and serious a warning as any soldier mod ever managed, knowing he's more than three hundred pounds of monster and ready to cave someone's skull in like an egg. People break a lot easier than forklifts, and he tore those apart like wrapping paper. Burton wrenches at his grip, going wide-eyed and frightened, and Rich lets him take his shoulder back, but doesn't step out of his space. Keeps reminding him how bad Rich can mess someone up if he's pushed into it.

Rich tells him, "I don't care if you wanna talk shit about me, but you leave my crew out of it or we're gonna have a problem."

"Oh, we've got a problem," Burton sneers, and he must be confident that Rich's balls have been that thoroughly removed, because he ducks back and to one side to fix a vicious smile back on Basil, who's starting to look badly freaked out. "Hey, you might wanna find somebody else to sell your ass to for protection, Freckles. I know this freak looks like a real dangerous motherfucker when he gets all action star about shit, but you should've seen this guy back on our boat. He'll get on his knees for anyone who'll feed him some dick."

That's it. Rich dives for him, and Burton scrambles back out of his way, ducks past another punch and laughs, breathless and vicious. "Knew you were in there somewhere, Merrill!" he says, victorious, and keeps backing up, tries to duck sideways and makes a grab for Basil, a hostage play. Rich makes an incoherent noise of fury and lashes out at him again, barely remembering to pull it in time, loosening the fist that could've shattered Burton's jaw. His open hand thumps into the solid meat of Burton's shoulder instead, shoving him back with enough force to make Burton sway and stagger away. His smile curls back from his teeth.

"Fuck off," Rich tells him, breathing hard. "That was a fucking warning shot, Burton; leave me alone, leave my crew alone, go back to whatever hole you crawled out of."

"Freak," Burton sneers, and reaches into his jacket. "You're gonna regret that."

Rich jerks back, expecting a knife, but Burton pulls out something small and black and blunt—the size of a knife, but cylindrical the whole way along, striped and shiny at one end from electrical tape.

"Rich?" says Basil, high and tight and scared, drawing Rich's attention for a split second too long. Burton dives for him, and Rich moves fast enough to catch his wrist but Burton twists in his grip and presses the thing he's holding into the inside of Rich's forearm.

Rich is faintly aware of the noise he makes, the visceral shuddering sound a Security stun baton always drags out of people as all their nerves rebel against them at once and their muscles lock tight. He loses his grip on Burton's arm, hits the deck on his knees with bone-rattling force, then yells as Burton plants a foot on his chest and topples him backwards.

It hurts, an all-over searing buzz of pain that Rich was hoping he'd never have to feel again, and he can hear Basil yelling somewhere in the distance but he can't get up to do anything about it. Can barely remember how to breathe, or think, in the ringing aftermath of the hurt. He tries to move, to scream, and gets hit again, jabbed right at the base of his skull, and everything whites out.

"Shut the fuck up, shut up!" Burton is shouting, when the whine in Rich's ears dies away enough to hear. "He's not dead, bitch, but you're gonna wish you were if you try to call Security, I'll hunt you down and—"

"Hey!" says another voice—different voice, one of Burton's guys? Fuck, if he gets backup—Rich twitches, shifting, trying to push himself upright. Whatever black-market rip-off baton Burton's carrying, it doesn't pack the punch Rich is used to: it hurts, and his limbs feel wobbly and weak, but he's conscious and he can move, even if he has to fight for it. As he struggles to get control of his arms, the new voice is getting closer, light and sharp and angry.

"Oh, great," Burton says, and kicks Rich once in the gut, hard and nasty. Rich wheezes and curls in on himself, trembling all over, thoughts as jerky and out of control as his muscles are. It's so hard to focus, it hurts, he's gotta help, it hurts, he's gotta get up and help. "Back off, Beaker, this is none of your fucking business."

"Like hell it's not!" says the new voice. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"

"Liam?" Basil says. "Liam! He hurt Rich, he's got some kind of baton!"

Rich gets an eye open, vision blurry and swimming, and sees a small hazy shape striding across the landing bay, a white jacket and a shock of bright blue-green hair. Looks like—is that a kid? How did a kid get an engineer's lab coat? Having Basil there is bad enough, if Rich has to protect an actual kid at the same time he's screwed.

"Burton," the kid says, and he sounds pissed. "Put whatever you've got down before I make you put it down!"

"Oh, wow, baby, I'm fucking terrified," Burton laughs, joyous with malice and contempt, and the kid makes a noise like an angry cat. Rich gets up on his knees, panting; Burton glances at him, settles the baton more firmly in his grip and leers at him. That look says clearly 'I'm looking forward to hitting you again, hurting you is gonna be fun,' and it sends an awful, sickly pang of icy fear shooting through the rage.

"I'm gonna—" Basil starts, breathless and squeaky, terrified.

"You're gonna stay where you are and keep your mouth shut," Burton snaps.

"Call Security, Basil," says the blue-haired kid, and Rich's head snaps around to stare.

"No, don't!" he says, still wheezing. His eyes are clearing, muscles spasming randomly in his face and limbs as the jangling jolt of the baton wears off, and he can see the proportions are all wrong for a kid. The guy's slight and fragile-looking and not a kid and practically vibrating with rage.

"No, go ahead," the guy says, "I can handle this ugly piece of work."

Burton's threats aren't what Rich is worried about, but Burton talks right over his protest, drowning him out. "Everybody knows what you can handle," Burton says, goading, and the blue-haired guy's attention snaps back to him. "You want me to back off, it's not just gonna cost you a blowjob this time, babydoll! Should've taken the deal while the deal was good!"

"Fucking call me that one more time, you dense, delinquent piece of shit!" snarls the blue-haired guy, "I wouldn't take a deal from you if you were the last person on Earth, you—"

"Uh, fuck," says Basil, strangled, and takes a breath, and Rich can tell he's about to make the call.

"Basil, don't," Rich gasps, "don't call Security, they'll make it worse!"

Basil stares at him, alarmed and confused. "But if I don't, he's gonna—" he starts, then yelps and breaks off, flinching back as Burton jabs the cut-off baton in his direction with another laugh. "Fuck, come on—Liam, man, calm down—"

"Yeah, listen to your baby buddy over there," Burton laughs, and leans down mockingly, emphasizing his size. He's not a tall guy, only average height, but he's still more than a head taller than the new guy with blue hair and Rich is all-too-aware how experienced Burton is at leveraging that size difference on anybody smaller than him. "What do you really think you can do to me, babydoll? Gonna throw a tantrum, you spoiled little sex-toy—?"

A lot of stuff happens all at the same time. The little guy gives a wild, furious shriek and dives for Burton. Basil starts to scramble forward with his hands outstretched like he's trying to get between them, and Rich forces himself upright in one jerky rush of motion, holding out an arm to keep Basil back. He grabs the blue-haired guy and hauls him back so fast and hard his feet leave the deck, tucking him safe and close to his chest. The stun baton misses him by an inch, and Rich moves fast before Burton can recover from the swing, getting inside Burton's reach to pull back an arm and sink his fist into Burton's gut.

Burton goes over like a tree, letting out a squeaky whistling noise like a balloon losing the last of its air. Rich kicks the sawed-off stun baton away; Basil runs over and snatches it up by the handle, holding it at arm's length and looking frankly terrified.

"Lemme go!" snarls the guy Rich just saved, and squirms against him, breathing hard. Rich cautiously loosens his grip, suddenly and keenly aware the guy's small enough that Rich's hand wraps around a significant chunk of his ribcage. "Lemme go, I'm gonna fucking kill him!"

It's a familiar sentiment, but not at all what Rich was expecting to hear from a tiny guy in an engineer's coat, and he stares in startlement at his squirming armful.

"No," he says, rasping and hoarse. "We're not gonna kill him. We don't—no one does that out here. Right?" Unsure about everything right now, he looks over at Basil for confirmation, confused and miserable with the full-body headache of nerve disruption.

"Yeah," says Basil, still squeaky with horror and holding the baton like he's afraid it's going to explode any second now. "Y-yeah, no, no killing, Liam. We, we're gonna call Security and report him for—for carrying a weapon, and—assault."

"No!" Rich says, a lot louder this time.

"Fuck," hisses the guy Rich is holding, and finally goes still, chest heaving fast and fragile against Rich's palm. "Hhf. Okay." He slumps, limp in Rich's grip, and then starts squirming again, pulling himself around and up in Rich's arms until all of a sudden they're face to face. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Rich stares at him, startled. "I," he starts. "N...no?"

He was pretty clear it wasn't a kid he was holding, but he's completely sure now. The guy's got a golden-tan, fine-boned face with piercing grey eyes and long dark eyelashes. He's startlingly gorgeous, and really close to Rich's face right now. Wild curls of vivid, blue-green hair are close enough to brush Rich's skin.

"Okay, that's good," the guy says, and reaches a small, pretty hand up to pat Rich's shoulder. "We really have to call Security, though, that asshole can't get away with this. He's got to be taken into custody and probably thrown off the Fleet. Okay?" He nods encouragingly at Rich, grey eyes fixed on his, and Rich is caught by the thought of Burton gone, off the Fleet forever.

It keeps him struck and hesitating long enough for Basil to say, "Yeah, Security, I got it—Uh, Arcadia, Security alert to...to the loading bay, lower deck?"

"Security alert confirmed," says the soft voice of the Arcadia. "Please remain calm. Officers are en route."

"You can put me down," says the guy. "I'm…" he sighs, huffs out a breath. "I'm not...actually gonna kill him, I'm...good. I'm good now."

"Right, yeah," Rich says, and hastily sets the guy's feet on the deck. It's hard to stop staring, he's just that ridiculously good-looking, but Security is coming and Rich was just in a fight, and it doesn't matter that he pulled all his blows when he threw the first punch anyway, what was he thinking? He looks around wildly, breathing faster. He's in so much shit now, and there's nowhere to go, there's never anywhere to hide from Security—

"Hey," says the blue-haired guy, worried now, and cranes up on his toes to grab Rich's arms, pulling him down until he can get his hand on Rich's cheek. "Whoa—Basil, what's his name?"

"Rich," says Basil, still small and shaky. "Rich…Merrill?"

"Rich," repeats the little guy, and the hand on Rich's cheek pats a few times, just sharp enough to get his attention. "Hey, Rich, hon, look at me. You're okay."

Rich snorts, hysterically. "Yeah, okay, but I'm sure not gonna be in a second! They won't, they never ask questions, they just go straight for their clubs and it doesn't—" he stops, gasping for breath and shaking all over and they're not even here yet. "Please I can't do this again, please, man, you gotta—can I just—hide? Can you hide me?"

"Hey—hey, hey," says the blue-haired guy, and gives him a gentle little shake. "Rich. Nobody is going to hurt you. They're not, I swear. We saw what happened, this was self-defense, and if anybody tries to shock you for defending yourself I'll make them sorry for it. You're safe. Breathe for me, hon."

It catches Rich, startles him into obeying, staring bewildered down at the guy and trying to slow his breathing. I'll make them sorry? You don't make Security sorry for anything, that's not how it works. But he says it with such certainty. Rich doesn't know what world this guy lives in, but some part of him still desperately wants to believe him.

He glances over at Basil, gives him a helpless what the fuck look. Basil blinks at him and then edges closer tentatively. When Rich doesn't make any move to stop him, Basil closes the last couple of feet at a jerky half-run and plasters himself up against Rich's side, wrapping an arm around his back and squeezing. He's trembling, or maybe Rich is trembling, or maybe it's both of them—Basil curls over and hides his face in Rich's shoulder. Rich can feel the prosthetic hand clenching hard against his back through the work glove.

"Shit," Basil says, very quietly. "Holy shit."

"He didn't get you, did he?" says the blue-haired guy, and gets his other hand on the back of Basil's neck, squeezing comfortingly. "...Welcome to the Arcadia, by the way. Glad you could join us!"

Basil gives a watery little giggle and unwinds himself reluctantly from Rich to lean down, hugging the guy hard. "Hey, Liam," he says, and bumps his jaw against the guy's temple, taking one long, shaky breath before letting go.

Liam pats him on the arm, smiling up at him. "I'm surprised to see you working at this late hour!"

Basil huffs at him. "I am actually capable of being awake and functional in the daytime. Ben drafted me for an extra half-shift because I'm the fastest at untangling code, so…What're you over here for today?"

"I wanted to check on the new cultivars I gave them last week!" Liam says. "Gotta make sure they're taking good care of my babies, you know."

A distant sound comes echoing down the stairs—Rich tenses up before he even recognizes it, and when he does the panic comes welling back up hot and fierce. Boots on the stairs, Security on their way. Liam glances at the entrance to the loading bay, down at Burton, who's still lying there wheezing and occasionally cracking an eye open to glare, and then back up at Rich.

"Okay," Liam says, and pushes down on Rich's shoulders. "Sit down, here, just...sit down, okay? For me? Just sit there and breathe. I'll do the talking."

Rich swallows hard and nods, lowers himself carefully to his sore knees, and raises his hands automatically as the Security officers come jogging in.

"Hello, boys," says Liam, and glances down at Rich, reaching over to give the back of his neck a brief, comforting squeeze. "Mechanic Burton assaulted these visitors from the Reliant, and I need him taken into custody, please."

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