Author's Note: Yo! It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry, lots of crap happened/is still happening...between having to put my dog to sleep (wasn't in the mood to write humour, couldn't be helped you know) and piles of schoolwork I barely made the deadline for 30kisses this time, even after getting an extension. But here they return, your favourite space boys and the gang! Thank you all for waiting so patiently, and of course for all your wonderful reviews. Every single one of them always makes my day when I read 'em, and I'm glad you're enjoying the journey thus far.
That being said, while we ARE getting back to Fred and Gene, this chapter is really just setup for the next adventure in the story. Sorry, but it needs to be done. Hope you can enjoy anyway.
Also, about this chapter...Gene is playing a game. A game whose object is for Gene to keep his distance from Fred. Cryptic? Just read on.
Disclaimer: Not mine, and if the Outlaw Star universe DID belong to me the plot would never get anywhere past Fred and Gene getting it on.
News; Letter
In an age where information spreads across the universe faster than the speed of light, news is big business. With the eye of the general public set on the future, it is a simple thing for the ghosts of the past to sneak in under the radar and help shape that bright, dreamlike future for which we all yearn.
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'This is a spaceship. A spaceship. This is a spaceship…'
Gene knew this fact well enough without having to tell himself repeatedly, but his monotonous mantra had long since lost all meaning. Eyes glazed over in stupor, mouth unknowingly agape, Gene simply stared at the titanium ceiling above him, remarkably bored, reminding himself that the quarters were supposed to feel small, that the air was supposed to be stale, that the scenery was supposed to be a sea of never ending black marred by the occasional celestial body…
He rolled onto his side with a groan. How long had it been since his last encounter with a celestial body? A close encounter… with one of those soft, female celestial bodies…
Thankfully, before his line of thinking could further degenerate, Gene was snapped back to the present by a rough slap of coarse paper to his face.
"Ow. What the fuck, Jim?"
"Get up, Aniki!" The paper was removed, and the scowling face of Jim Hawking revealed. "Just because we haven't had a mission in a while doesn't mean you get to slack off in your bunk while the rest of us run maintenance!"
"What are you talkin' about?" Gene glared up at the boy, clearly set on not removing himself from his spot. "That's what Gilliam-bots are for."
"They can't get everywhere, and they can't sign for port deliveries," Jim replied irritably, slapping the thick paper envelope down in front of Gene. "Anyway, this was delivered with our supplies at the last space port. You might want to play it, it's probably another threat from the bill collector's hit men. It's always best to know who you need to run away from."
Jim danced out of range of Gene's swatting arm, blew a ripe raspberry in his direction, and sauntered back to whatever gear bucket with which he was currently amusing himself.
"Little brat," Gene grumbled. He sat up and rubbed his face, slapping his cheeks a few times in an attempt to further wake himself from his daze. He switched on the overhead light, then squinted against the glare from the ivory-coloured envelope and slowly made out the name scrawled on it.
"…Gene Starwindbag."
Gene blinked, then promptly resumed glaring. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
He grumbled as he reluctantly made his way over to the video message player and inserted the small disc that had been enclosed in the offending envelope. His face cleared, however, when the familiar blue robotic suit of the ship repair expert, Swanzo, filled the screen.
"Starwind! I hope this isn't a bad time - or I should say I hope I didn't get you up from any important nap."
Gene's glare quickly regained control of his face.
"Anyway, considering you still owe me for ship repairs until you 'make it big,' I've got some news you'll probably be interested in."
Swanzo's robotic face filled the screen as he leaned into the camera and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "You see, there just happens to be a certain popular young songstress who just happens to be getting bigger every day, and who also just happens to have a group of psychotic stalkers who may or may not be out to kill her, maim her, and divide the body parts between themselves. Just what I heard."
'…Ew?' Gene hoped this was getting to some kind of point other than to make him regret eating lunch today.
"Well anyway, the important part is that this poor darling girl is going whacko trying to up her security – apparently the group of stalkers have sent her pictures of their practice victims – but she's become so paranoid that she tends to fire any new hands before they can punch out of their first day's work. If you're up for a challenge, she's paying out the nose for people she can keep. Not only that, but she's put a five million-wong bounty on the group that's chasing her. Try not to drool on the video console."
Already halfway through wiping the sides of his mouth, Gene yanked his hand back down and clamped it to his side with a clenched jaw. "A-as if! Stupid old man…" he muttered.
The image of Swanzo appeared to debate something within himself – or really, the eyes of his robotic suit stared blankly, glowing dully into the screen in silence for a few moments. Finally, his ever-present assistant, Mikey, called indistinctly from off-screen and snapped Swanzo to attention. "Almost done, I'll be right there!" he yelled over his shoulder.
"Listen, Gene… I'm only telling you about all this because Hilda trusted you. Not just that; you were the last person she trusted, and she trusted you with that ship you're on. If there's anyone who can pull off a stunt this crazy it's you, Gene–"
Half the screen was suddenly taken over by the stern face of Mikey the mechanic. He lifted his protective goggles and peered into the camera. "Hm? Hey Swanzo, this that video message to that Starwind freeloader? Hey Starwind, you better be on your toes! Swanzo's gone and bet the entire refurbishing of a prime piece of garbage that was once a spacecraft on you getting this security gig. If you lose and we go out of business, you'll have more than loan sharks and space pirates on your asses!"
Mikey spared one more glare into the screen over Swanzo's sudden reversion to his native Corbanese tongue. Back on the Outlaw Star, Gene gazed on, not entirely amused.
"A-anyway," Swanzo continued quickly, working past his translator glitch, "the contact info is at the end of this message, you can call them anytime, good luck and good hunting and no need to thank me!"
The two faces of the mechanics froze momentarily, then the image faded to grey, displaying only a few lines of text – a name, a number, and an address.
There were so many things Gene wanted to do all at once; showing remarkable restraint, he first paused to copy down the contact information and remove the disc from the message displayer before chucking it as hard as he could against the farthest wall. The almost weightless projectile did nothing to vent his ire at being played, however, so he grabbed the nearest Gilliam bot and launched it in the same direction as the disc.
At the satisfying clanks and bangs (and only mildly horrified yell) of the small robot, a grin crept its way across his face. Only one thought remained in his mind now:
FIVE MILLION WONG!
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Fred hummed quietly to himself in the galley as he worked steadily at the pile of clean laundry in need of repair, his current display of an insistence to be a crew member that pulled his weight. While he was perfectly capable of performing the fastest inventory check out of anyone on all of Sentinel III, he hadn't been able to pass up the opportunity to manhandle Gene's unmentionables.
His humming grew just the smallest bit louder as he began work on one of those particular articles of clothing ('Scraps of cloth!' he thought joyfully to himself). There was only a small tear in the seam near the top…plenty of time to add a little something extra, unnoticed….
Jim wandered in with a fistful of papers. "These were in storage, Fred; they've all got your name on them, so I didn't want to throw them out."
Fred looked up and beamed. "Ah, thank you, James. Just leave them on the table, I'll look through them when I'm done here!"
"Uh…y-yeah, sure." Jim balked at the grin on Fred's face. It was one he had seen before – and it was usually associated with something uncomfortably… Fred. He carefully arranged the papers on the farthest edge of the table as Fred hummed away, smiling to himself. Before Jim could back out of danger, however, he was almost bowled over by an equally happy (and dangerous) looking Gene.
"A-aniki! Watch where you're going, you almost trampled me!" Jim yelled.
"Then stop being such a tiny shrimp!" Gene retorted quickly. "Where's everyone else? MEL! BEAST-GIRL! SUZUKA! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?"
Aisha responded first, with a loud yowl and quick stomp into the galley. Melfina and Suzuka came in together, the latter obviously unconcerned with such goings on. Melfina asked over the din that was Aisha, "What's wrong, Gene?"
Gene turned immediately from the angered Ctarl-Ctarl and smirked at the room at large. "We have a mission."
"Oh, finally!" Jim said, sinking into a chair at the table covered with clothes.
"This is good news," Suzuka said, deigning the occasion worthy of her input.
"Aw, finally! I thought your ass was permanently glued to your bed, it's been so long since we did anything worthwhile…" Aisha trailed off, then burst out laughing at her own joke.
"Alright, SHUT UP." Gene furrowed his brows at the chorus of rude responses, but even they weren't enough to quell his excitement. "This is a big one, maybe the big one. The job itself pays enough to not be disclosed publicly, and then there's the bounty on a group of crazy stalker fans–"
"Wait a sec," Jim said, sitting up straight. "This…this couldn't be the Gelia Banson case, could it?"
"Uh?" was Gene's reply.
"Come on, Gelia Banson! She's only the biggest hit this side of the galaxy in ten years! It's all over the news how she's got crazy stalkers, she's even had to cancel concerts when they threatened to show up…"
Gene raised an eyebrow at his young partner in not-quite-crime. "We have the news on all the time, hoping for a lead on a bounty or job. I've never heard of this Jelly chick before in my life!"
Jim glared fiercely, but couldn't hide the flush of pink on his cheeks. "Y-you probably just don't pay close enough attention! Everyone knows who she is – right, Mel?" He turned to the girl, almost desperately.
"Eh?" Melfina blinked innocently at suddenly being brought into the conversation, then smiled at the boy. "Oh yes, I know who she is! She's the one you always listen to when you're stuck doing inventory for Gene, or when you're helping Gilliam do maintenance in the vents, only then you sing along, and not too badly I might add–mmph!"
Her eyes widened in surprise to find Jim's hand suddenly clamped firmly over her mouth, but the damage had already been done, and Gene was already doubled over in laughter.
"Ha ha ha! Singing in the vents! Ha ha, y-you of all people should know how easy sound goes through those damn things!" He held his sides, letting loose a round of loud guffaws.
"S-shut up, Aniki!" Jim removed his hand from over Melfina's mouth and pointed an accusatory finger at the laughing man. "It's no worse than what you sing in the shower every damn morning!"
"Hey, those are classics that everyone should sing in the shower," Gene said, suddenly quite serious. "And way to get us totally off the point, Jim. Anyway, we're gonna be hired guards for this singer chick who gets off on firing people the day she hires them, so you all better look sharp! If we hold the positions for long enough we'll just have to sit back and let those beautiful five million-wong crazies come to us, and then it'll all be ours for the taking!
"Gilliam, get ready to move fast. Mel, these are the coordinates," he handed her a page printed off hastily by the contact he'd phoned before running into the galley. "Jim, stop grumbling about your pop star girlfriend and go lock down all that crap in storage; take Aisha with you, she'll probably get in the way up here."
"WHAT?! THAT'S IT! GENE STARWIND, I SWEAR ON THE BLOOD OF MY HONOURABLE CTARL-CTARL BRETHREN–"
"We know, we know, come on Aisha before you damage the ship and we can't fly into a spaceport. Again." Jim sighed, shoving the irate catgirl down into storage and falling in after her.
"…Aaand Suzuka's already disappeared, of course," Gene said, mostly to himself. "Good thing we never need her to do anything around the ship, or we'd never get anywhere."
"Done!"
Gene whipped around, startled; he hadn't even noticed Fred throughout his entire spiel, as the man had been all but buried beneath laundry. He blinked rapidly a few times, then assumed his usual I'm-dealing-with-Fred-Luo pose – head down, arms crossed, and frowning. "What's done?" he asked out of habit more than any kind of curiosity.
"This!" Fred said happily, beaming with pride as he held up Gene's favourite pair of briefs. The tear at the waist had been repaired perfectly, but…
"You…you embroidered on them? Why would you do such a– wait. Those are words! WHAT DOES IT SAY?"
Fred gave a knowing chuckle. "Just the truth: 'I got into Gene Starwind's pants.'" Fred gave the dark briefs a little shake for effect. "See? It's a joke!"
Gene's mouth opened and closed rapidly as he tried to figure out which levels of his rage and embarrassment were low enough to be put into verbal form. He settled for 'blind' and flushed a fiery red that Fred found rather charming. "….FRED! DO YOU KNOW HOW DEAD YOU ARE?"
"Oh, don't be so excitable, Gene," Fred replied, waving a dismissive hand and carefully folding the offending underwear. He paused to think for a moment. "At least, not in this situation," he amended.
"…ARGHHH!" Gene stomped his way over to where Fred sat and ripped the underwear from the overly-pleased man's slackened grip. "Of… of all the stupid–! How could you– right in front of everyone…!" He shook the shorts in Fred's general direction as he tried to make himself coherent. Had Gene been in his right frame of mind, he probably would have thought better of what he did out of desperation to get Fred to understand the gravity of what he had done:
Shoving the tautly-spread shorts in Fred's face (strike one), Gene cried, "These were my lucky shorts!"
Fred cocked his head to the side, staring at the underwear in question as it was nearly forced against the tip of his nose. "Oh? Why are they lucky?"
"Because I wore them the very first time I had– I, uh, I mean…um…."
(Strike two.)
"Oho…" Fred raised an appraising eyebrow, one that had rejected hundreds of shipments of sub-standard goods in its lifetime. A slow smile spread across his face. "That's it, then," he said cryptically, turning back to his mending.
Gene was taken aback by the sudden change in demeanor of the other man. "W-what's it, then?" he asked, feeling inexplicably panicky.
'A pair of briefs; that won't be hard to show up, as far as keepsakes go…' Fred was in his own world; his thumb and forefinger were already rubbing at his earlobe when he realized that Gene had spoken. "Hm? Oh. Nothing to worry your handsome little head over, Gene!"
He beamed at the nervous-looking redhead, but as he did something odd happened. Quite suddenly, the weight of the years he had been after the man to which that red hair belonged pressed, not down, but up, starting somewhere in the pit of his stomach and rising up to swell his heart. But it didn't stop there; it was as though he was being swallowed from the inside by this feeling, this realization. He had always longed for Gene, always wanted him, always loved him in one way or another, and always seen him as a lost cause. How, then, had this feeling grown into such a monstrous force inside him without his knowledge? He had often thought he was fighting a losing battle; so how long had this… hope… been accumulating? Did this mean… was he actually getting closer…?
"Oh…" He had breathed the sound of such a glorious epiphany without noticing.
"…Fred?"
Gene's voice sounded different, too, Fred thought before remembering to answer him. He blinked, realizing he had been staring off into space through Gene, who had a strange look on his face. "What?"
Gene threw him an annoyed look, which suited him better. "Don't 'what' me! You're already in space, try to keep your brain from wandering into a different part of it, huh?"
Fred smiled, giving a little nod. "If the Captain orders," he said, picking up the shirt to which he had meant to be attaching new buttons.
Gene snorted in exasperation, but stayed decidedly quiet about the odd things he had seen reflected in Fred's face only a few short moments ago. He had seen them, or something like them, before in the face of his father. The senior Starwind hadn't voiced what thoughts had brought such peace, such realization, such sorrow to his face, either. But where sorrow had tainted the visage of his father, a childlike clarity had colored Fred's.
Jim sprang out from the doorway to the galley. "Aniki! Everything's strapped down in the cargo hold, including Aisha. She was getting in the way… By the way, Gilliam says he can't account for one of the worker bots. You didn't take one out for anything, did you?"
"Nope. No idea where it could be," Gene deadpanned. "But great! We'll be outta here in no time now, and on our way to fame and fortune!"
"Wouldn't be the first time you said that," Jim replied, though he still looked undeniably excited. "I'll go tell everyone we're gonna be speeding up."
Gene nodded and watched him go. He glanced back at Fred, who continued his work silently but serenely. He watched for a moment, then said in what he hoped was his normal voice, "You gonna be alright in here?" Fred didn't have a seat in the cockpit, after all.
"Of course, Gene!" Fred smiled at him again; not his usual upbeat smile for the customers, but one that showed the honesty in his dark grey eyes. Gene forced himself not to stare, not to try and decipher the meaning of being on the receiving end of such a look, and only nodded before turning about and heading towards the front of the ship.
He wondered, now that he had a few moments to himself to do so. What had just happened back there? What kind of serious thoughts could be brought about by an argument about underwear?
He felt another pang for the fate of his beloved lucky shorts. He had no idea how they could be connected to the change in Fred, or if they really were connected at all. Either way, he had to admit (even if grudgingly) to himself, it was nice to see that lining of sadness – hopelessness? – gone from his friend's face. He hadn't realized that it had always been present until it was gone.
'Hope it stays gone,' he thought idly as he crossed the threshold into the cockpit.
(Strike three – going by, unnoticed.)