Note: So. I won't be updating for a while… there's this book I'm gonna be reading, here in a couple of days. :D

(In the meantime, I made a fanmix thingee! It's on my LJ; the link is on my profile.)

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Try as he might, Alek simply can't get his hands clean. The engine grease is maddeningly stubborn, and the Leviathan doesn't have the proper facilities for a thorough scrubbing.

He shouldn't even try; the black grease is insidious as well as stubborn, working its way into every crease and crack. Indeed, many masters of mechaniks are perfectly happy to surrender and walk about with black-grimed fingernails and knuckles for the rest of their lives.

But the part of him that is still very aware of his imperial heritage – the part of him that still expects his mother to catch him out playing soldier – itches at the idea of not being clean.

So he stands over the washbasin in his cabin, vainly attempting to clean his fingers, at least, before he has to use them for eating. It's a form of madness, he's sure. He doesn't even have a proper bit of soap. All he's doing is rubbing the skin of his hands raw.

"Oi, catch!" a voice says from the door, and Alek half-turns just in time to see Dylan toss a small, lumpy brown rectangle. Startled, he does manage to catch it nonetheless.

"All I could find," Dylan says apologetically, coming into the cabin. "If Newkirk asks, you've no idea where his barking soap went, aye?"

"I didn't mean for you to steal it," Alek says. He turns the chunk of soap over in his hands, secretly fascinated. It's rock hard, deeply cracked here and there, and not at all like the soaps they used in the palace. Those were chosen by his mother. Perfumed. Soft. Delicate. This is Air Service issue; it shows.

Dylan shrugs. A sly smile appears. "I'm sure Newkirk didn't mean for me to nick it either. But it'll be ages before he misses it."

Alek wets the soap in the basin and, with much effort, works up a thin and begrudging lather. "Thank you."

"Anytime," Dylan says. "The engines are running fine, then?"

"Now they are, yes." He rubs his hands together, hard and fast, trying to get one particular streak of grease lifted. The grease remains; his skin is getting chapped and red. "I see why Klopp doesn't bother. This is never going to come clean."

"Keep at it, Clanker. You might have it off by this time next year."

He chuffs a little, in mingled annoyance and amusement, and keeps scrubbing. After a moment, he glances up at his friend. Dylan is watching him – more specifically, watching his soapy, black-streaked hands – with a peculiar expression, one that's both intense and unfocused at the same time.

"Dylan?"

The other boy blinks and snaps out of his reverie. "Oh," he says. Clears his throat and offers a lopsided smile. "You know. Just… trying to remember if I've done the rounds with Tazza yet."

Alek frowns. For some reason he thinks Dylan isn't being honest, although why his friend would lie – and about what – he has no idea. He thinks about it for a moment longer, then dismisses the suspicion altogether. Eight hours hanging over the side of the Leviathan, fighting the engines; no wonder he's imagining things. "Have you?"

Dylan shrugs and moves toward the cabin door. "It all blurs together after a few days, doesn't it? Better to do it twice, I suppose."

"Right. Thank you again," Alek says, lifting the soap. His fingernails are still caked with black gunk, he sees, and can't suppress a sigh. "Not that it's helping."

"Aye, it's a world of hard choices," Dylan says, grinning again, holding up his own begrimed hands. "Up to your elbows in oil with the Clankers, or up to 'em in clart with us."

Alek laughs, Dylan leaves, and Alek resumes his attempts to clean his hands.

Eventually he gives up. He has to; the Leviathan's cooks don't serve food all night. He shakes his hands over the basin, dries them on the towel, and makes a mental note to return Newkirk's soap. (Preferably without Newkirk being aware of it.) Then he goes off to eat his dinner with engine grease under his nails.

His mother, he knows, would be horrified, but he likes to think that his father would understand.