Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"So, what do you think of Gurathin?" Arada leaned in to his ear.

Ratthi had found a private place for them to gossip, huddled in one of the alcoves that would bloom with roses come spring, watching the kids run around on the grass while Tano and Mensah cooked over their charcoal oven. Arada was fun to gossip with, because he didn't think she'd ever kept a secret in her life. None of it was shared with any malice, so Ratthi could enjoy the fount of information guilt free.

Honestly, nothing much ever happened here. All Arada's gossip was tame.

The subject of today's conversation was standing awkwardly by Mensah, holding a plate of Tano's fried cheese and aubergine burgers, ready to take it over to the table to be set upon by a horde of kids.

He was stood very stiffly. One booted foot tucked behind the other, as though he didn't want anyone to look at him.

Ratthi sympathised. Being dropped onto a new planet where you didn't know anyone would make anyone anxious.

Ratthi suddenly wondered if Gurathin had left anyone behind on the Rim.

"He seems…" Ratti started, "uncomfortable."

Arada nodded.

"I spoke to him earlier - My hands are freezing!"

She fumbled to grab his hand where he'd stuffed it into his pocket. He absently took both of hers and started rubbing some heat into them. He was still focused on Gurathin.

"- I spoke to him earlier," Arada carried on, "he seemed ok, but not… He seemed reticent."

"You mean, like, secretive?"

Arada shook her head. "I don't… No. Maybe?"

"Where'd Mensah find him?" Ratthi asked.

One of the children ran up from behind and grabbed one of the burgers off the plate Gurathin was holding, and he jumped so hard he nearly threw the whole thing.

"The free planet conference thing? You remember? Hadi went with her."

"Oh yeah…" Ratthi said, as Gurathin finally managed to deposit the plate on the long table, and retreat over to one of the benches away from the main party. "Is that Tano's coat?"

He felt like he recognised the design on the collar.

Arada leaned forwards, as though the extra ten centimetres would give her a better view. "I think it is, actually. It doesn't fit Gurathin."

Ratthi leaned forwards now. It must be catching.

Arada was right. It didn't fit him. The sleeves were too short, pulling up to show the cuff of the green knit-something that was underneath. It finished awkwardly at his hips too, though Ratthi was pretty sure it dropped to the top of Tano's thighs.

"He didn't have a coat?" Arada said.

"He might not have ever needed one," Ratthi said. "Most people live on stations. They're toasty all year."

"Oh, yeah," Arada said. "I'd hate that. No seasons."

"Yeah."

Pin-Lee was making their way over, avoiding the puddles in the grass with big awkward steps.

"He seems…" Arada started and then didn't finish.

"Yeah," Ratthi said. He knew what she meant.

"Are we talking about the new guy?" Pin-Lee settled themself down next to Arada.

"Shhhh!" Arada hissed, "we don't want anyone to hear."

"But he's weird, right?" Pin-Lee whispered.

"Well, didn't Mensah say he was from Corporation Rim?" Arada said. "They do things differently there."

Ratthi could see that. He didn't know much about it, but he knew enough. It was the horror stories that kids on Preservation had shared when he was young.

'Be careful, cos they send ships and kidnap children and send them to work on the mining colonies for only one slice of fake bread a day'.

Kids' stuff, imagined up from the things they heard over the breakfast table as their parents talked about the news.

The truth was probably worse.

Ratthi looked back over at the new guy. He was still sitting alone, arms wrapped around himself, as though he was cold. He probably was, if he wasn't used to winter.

And with a coat that didn't fit.

"He has sad eyes," Arada said.

"He kinda does," Ratthi agreed.

Ratthi was closer to Gurathin's height. Of course, eventually he'd get his own clothes tailored, but that could take some time, depending on what he wanted, and winter was just getting started.

Arada must have had a similar thought, because she asked, "Do you think I should knit him some gloves?"

Pin-Lee wrapped their arm around her. "That'd be super sweet, babe."

"Yeah," Ratthi said, it might not be a bad thing to show him that he was welcome.

When Gurathin opened the door, he expected Mensah, or perhaps Farai. He hadn't had any other visitors, tucked away in one of the annexes of Mensah's farmstead. He had not expected to be met with a stranger.

He thought he just about hid his surprise. Surprise and unease.

He automatically checked his feed, looking for an open network with a feed ID. He wasn't certain he was supposed to do that, or whether it was pushing his freedoms a little far, but he was terrible with names.

Better to claim an honest mistake, than offend anyone.

Dr Ratthi, and an ID corresponding to one of the university departments.

Ah, they had been introduced, one of many new people he politely said hello to over the past few days and then immediately forgotten. Too busy inside his own head.

"Hey!" Ratthi smiled broadly. He was carrying a canvass bag hooked over one elbow. "Gurathin, isn't it?"

"Yes," Gurathin said, before he remembered how to talk like a person. "Dr Ratthi, what… err…"

Saying What do you want? was definitely not the way to make a good impression.

Ratthi seemed to take it as an invitation, as he ever so gently pressed his way past. He was already inside before Gurathin realised he'd taken a step backwards to allow it. "Ummm..?"

"So how are you finding living on Farai's farm?" Ratthi asked.

The way his eyes slid over the interior, Gurathin guessed that he had been inside before. Gurathin wouldn't have presumed to make any changes.

"It's…" Every single word he knew seemed to have deserted him. "Fine. Are you..?"

Ratthi stopped looking around the room, and turned back to him with another huge grin. "Oh yeah!"

He slipped the bag off his arm, and Gurathin would be lying if he didn't tense with the movement, expecting a weapon, before he realised how ridiculous that was.

As if anyone from the Rim gave enough of a shit to send someone after him. As if anyone would have even given him a second thought.

Instead, Ratthi drew out a bundle of dark fabric. He unfurled it with a little flourish.

A coat.

Ratthi held it out, still grinning. "Thought you could use one that fit. Or fit better, at least."

Gurathin didn't move. "Did Mensah send you?"

"I… no?" Ratthi's grin seemed to go a bit fixed, but he still held out the coat. "I saw the other night. You were wearing Tano's, right?"

"How did you know?" Gurathin said, aware that his tone was too sharp, but he couldn't seem to regulate it.

Though he hadn't noticed at the time, he felt suddenly exposed with the knowledge that he had been watched and noted.

It was an old, old habit. He had always been expected to be invisible, unless he was playing a role.

To have been seen was to have been made.

There were no good outcomes there…

Ratthi's smile faltered. "Um, we just recognised Tano's coat."

"We."

Gurathin wanted to sit down. He wanted to sit on the floor and breathe deep in and out. He wanted to count his heartbeats until they slowed.

It occurred to him that he could. He was a mess. He was fucked up. If he was off-putting enough then Ratthi would leave and fetch Mensah.

The idea of having to be rescued yet again made him want to be sick.

"Try it," Ratthi said, gesturing with the coat. "I think we're about the same size."

"I don't have anything to pay you with."

Ratthi's face dropped. "Oh, you don't need to pay me anything."

There was a little note beneath the words that could be offence. Gurathin was fucking this up entirely.

He wasn't sure of the hierarchy here. Mensah said there wasn't one, but that wasn't true. She just didn't see it because it was familiar. Humans lived with hierarchy. It was innate, even if it was subconscious.

Ratthi was close to Mensah, even though he was young. That meant that Gurathin needed to tread carefully with him.

Ratthi just laid the coat over the back of the sofa to his right. "Well, I'll just leave it here, and you can try it later?"

"Thank you," Gurathin said. It sounded empty even to him.

Ratthi just nodded, little smile flickering back. "No worries, mate."

It must have been clear just how uncomfortable Gurathin felt, because Ratthi was already edging back towards the door.

There was a point where Gurathin thought that he might have saved the interaction, and then he turned his head in just the wrong way, catching the low autumn sun.

"Oh cool, you're augmented?"

Gurathin froze, as Ratthi crowded him again.

He didn't really know how augments were viewed on Preservation. Certainly, they were rare. Gurathin had seen a few on the station, but no-one on the planet surface yet.

On the Rim, they occupied a strange liminal space. Owned, bodies and minds, the corporations were embedded inside them. One step up from constructs.

But they also earned privileges most other workers barely dreamt of.

They didn't have to worry about industrial accidents or toxins or hard labour. They lived in relative comfort. They were expensive equipment, after all.

He could see where the hate came from, they'd sold themselves inside and out for an easy ride. There were a lot of terms for people who did that, and he'd heard most. 'Fucking splicer' had been spat across a station corridor often enough.

Not that he remembered having much choice in the matter…

But he wasn't there anymore.

He was on Preservation, and with any luck he was a novel curiosity for the moment.

With any luck he could hide in Mensah's little annex until the entire planet forgot that he was here.

Ratthi was too close, but Gurathin made himself stay still.

Ratthi was still talking, empty pointless words. "… always thought about getting a feed implant myself, but you know, I'd have to go offsystem to find someone who could fit it, and it's a faff, you know?" Ratti's warm hand dropped onto his shoulder, just enough to manoeuvre him into enough light that he could presumably get a good look at his dataport. "So cool! What's the data transfer speed?"

"Um," Gurathin swallowed down his discomfort, "a terabyte a second."

"Shit, really?" Ratthi tugged at him again, getting him to lift his chin. "Might have to get you in the lab, I've got a shit ton of gravitational data I need organising and transferring."

"Ok," Gurathin said, on a breath.

Here now in this awful gaping silence, he could hardly believe he'd ever been good at lying. Perhaps he had only ever been good at anything while he was loaded.

He wished he was now. More than anything, he wished that he could slip into the fog where nothing touched him. Where his mind was quiet.

"You alright, man?" Ratthi's hand closed on his arm. "You look kind of pale."

"Fine," Gurathin said.

He apparently wasn't convincing, because he was suddenly being led back to the couch.

"Sit down for a minute, yeah?"

He was pushed until he sat, and then a sudden unnerving flutter of panic surged in his chest. "I'm fine, thank you."

He pulled him arm back from Ratthi's grip, and Ratthi straightened up, expression openly concerned. "If you're sure…"

"I am. I'm fine. Thank you. And thank you for the coat."

His tone was too sharp again. Ratthi stepped back like he'd been slapped. Not a good impression. Perhaps Ratthi would report back to Mensah. One more tick in the 'too fucked up to be a fucking house-guest' box. But he didn't care.

Things would be much, much worse if he had to pretend for a moment longer.

Ratthi was just nodding. "Ok, mate, well, it was good to meet you properly."

Gurathin would have laughed if he could feel anything but the way his heart was pounding against the inside of his ribs.

Ratthi gave an awkward wave as he sidled out of the door, closing it behind him.

Gurathin slid off of the couch and onto the floor, face pressed into his knees as he willed his heart calm down.

That was fucking awful.

When Ratthi made it over to Arada and Pin-Lee's, Arada was leaning over a pot of something that smelt super amazing, and Pin-Lee was laid back on the sofa, reading something with a legal-sounding title, which had made them scrunch their nose up like it was physically hurting them.

Arada looked over as he walked in, face brightening up. "Oh, hey, how did it go? Did he like it?"

Pin-Lee scooched their legs up so that Ratthi could also fit on the sofa. They flung the book over to land with a soft thud on a beanbag across the room. "Yeah, spill."

Ratthi took a deep breath. "Ok, yeah, he's pretty weird."

Chapter Text

Ratthi should leave it alone. He really really should.

Whatever was going on with Gurathin, he had not helped. Maybe Gurathin was just shy? Or weird… Definitely weird. But…

There was something a bit sickly about him. He was thin, but in a way that didn't match his frame. Like he'd lost weight consistently for a long time, or…

That was absolute bullshit. Was that a thing you could even tell? He didn't know.

Gurathin definitely looked sick though. He was pale, and drawn and kind of hollow-looking, and Ratthi didn't know if he could leave that alone. However much he should…

He compromised by going to Mensah, just to reassure himself, mainly. He sat in Mensah's sitting room, sipping tea, while Mensah settled cross-legged on the sofa in front of him.

"Are you alright?" Mensah said, after fifteen minutes of small talk which covered the fact that he wasn't asking the thing he wanted to.

"I went to see Gurathin," Ratthi said.

"Ah," Mensah said, with a smile that edged into wry. She settled a bit more comfortably, so that her, really quite pretty, shawl pooled in her lap.

"Is he dying?" Ratthi asked, before he could stop himself.

It wasn't what he'd intended to ask. It wasn't even something he'd really been conscious of thinking, until he said it.

There was just something so lost and sad and empty about him.

Mensah's expression shifted just a little. Ratthi couldn't read it.

"No," she said. Emphatically. "It's not my story to tell, but he wasn't well when we met. He spent a few weeks in the medbay on the station. But no, he isn't dying."

Ratthi didn't think he was better either, but he didn't say so. "Was that why you brought him-"

"Ratthi," Mensah cut him off. "I'm not telling you anything else. It's Gurathin's choice to disclose what he wants to. I only told you what I did because…"

She trailed off, but Ratthi could imagine what she was going to say. She didn't want rumours spreading.

"I told you that in confidence, because I didn't want you to worry," she finished. "And I will be letting Gurathin know what I've told you."

Ratthi smiled. "I won't tell anyone."

He couldn't quite tell if she believed him, but he meant it. He really did.

Gurathin was having a bad day.

Well, the last fifteen years were filled only with bad days. This one ranked somewhere on the lower end of mid. Worse than he'd had since he'd been holed up on this planet.

He felt empty. Years of nothing stretching out in front of him. Days of feeling like this on repeat.

Worse, he was bored of himself. Bored of all this self pity. Bored of being so pathetic.

The thought of bringing all this to Mensah's door again made him want to die.

I'm sad, please fix it.

He hated himself.

And his left hand hurt. Nothing really. Nothing compared to what he'd already lived through. But it was a constant nagging ache that just compounded all of the self-pity.

He could feel the pull of the augments in thick lines down the threads of his tendons. It felt like his muscles and flesh were peeling back, tugging against the foreign metal. It felt wrong.

Keeping it still meant that all he could focus on was the awful crawling feeling that made him want to tear his skin off.

Moving it made it ache. Sickly. Like a toothache.

He had spent most of the morning standing in the annex's little bathroom, holding his hand beneath the hot water until it stung. At least that made the ache fade for a little while, at least until the burn itself did.

He wanted a fucking painkiller.

Wanted it with a kind of vacant dread that sang in his head. He could walk out of this little annex right now. He could walk towards the town and he could buy whatever the fuck he wanted.

Mensah had given him a currency card, though he knew that they didn't generally use them here. Only for trading with outsiders. There wasn't much on it. Just enough that he didn't have to go begging to her door every time he needed toothpaste or coffee.

It made him feel like a child, given an allowance, but what did it matter, really?

He had nothing. Beggars quite literally couldn't be choosers.

It wasn't like he had any pride left.

He'd snivelled and begged before for another hit. Just one more line. Woken, covered in his own piss and vomit. He was pretty sure he'd left his dignity on the floor of some dealer's bathroom, half a lifetime ago.

He had already mapped the route to the nearest pharmacy in his feed. It was twenty eight minutes walk at a steady pace. He could probably do it in half that, if he jogged…

Or he could walk in the opposite direction. Up into the icy hills behind the farm.

He wasn't being monitored. It would be hours before anyone missed him.

Long enough to be done… either way.

He didn't do any of that.

Instead, he pulled one of the blankets out of the stocked hamper that he didn't ask for and didn't fucking deserve, laid on the floor next to the couch and tried to not to think about anything at all.

He'd been wallowing in misery for around an hour when he got a message on his feed.

He felt a wordless swell of panic before he remembered to actually open the fucking message like an adult.

ID_Ratthi: Was going to call in if you're free.

Gurathin read it over a few times as though it was a cypher that he didn't have the code to. His brain not making sense of the words.

Another message.

ID_Ratthi: I'm a couple of minutes away.

"Fuck," Gurathin said, under his breath. Then he looked around at the state of the room. "Fuck."

When Gurathin opened the door, he looked a little wide-eyed. His hair was ruffled as if he'd just run his hands through it several times. He blinked, and then, as if he'd just remembered how to people, said, "Yes?"

"Do you like soup?" Ratthi said, as evenly as he could manage.

"What?" Gurathin said, as if Ratthi had suggested he was going to slap him, rather than offering him some pretty delicious smelling soup.

It was Mensah's recipe. Ratthi was feeling pretty smug about the result.

"Um," he gestured carefully with the container. "I made too much soup."

It was a lie. But it was a white lie.

'You look like you're dying, mate, please eat the fucking soup' was going to go over less well.

"We could eat it together?" Ratthi said. "If you want?"

"Um," Gurathin said, with a half glance over his shoulder. But he was already wavering, and Ratthi was prepared to push a bit, if he had to.

He inched his way forward, enough to get Gurathin to relent and retreat back into the room. Which was a win, as far as Ratthi was concerned. He was going to be Gurathin's friend, and Gurathin was just going to have to accept it.

Walking in, Ratthi immediately noticed that the coat was exactly where he had left it, draped over the back of the couch. He was pretty sure even the folds in the fabric were the same, which just made him kind of sad.

From his reaction, Ratthi had been half expecting Gurathin to shoved it in a cupboard and ignored it entirely. There was something sad in a different way to just have not even touched it. Like he could just dissociate it out of existence.

Ratthi, contrary to popular belief, could be occasionally tactful, so he didn't mention it.

"Do you have bowls?" he asked instead.

Gurathin stared at him for a second. Honestly, the frantic deer-in-headlights look was kind of cute on him, Ratthi could admit that.

"Yes," Gurathin said, a beat too late again, and fled over to the small kitchen area.

He evidently wasn't going to make small talk while he found them bowls and cutlery, which left a weird awkward silence that Ratthi was kind of desperate to fill, but he didn't. Even though he really, really wanted to.

Gurathin located what he needed after a little too long. He didn't know where anything was in his own kitchen, which Ratthi guessed explained the general skinny-sickly vibe.

He brought the stuff over to the little breakfast table by the window, and Ratthi took over because if he was going to follow Gurathin's lead with the whole not talking thing, then he at least needed to give himself something to do.

He served the soup, and Gurathin didn't said a word except 'thank you'. He started eating the soup like he hadn't had anything in days. And Ratthi wasn't going to mention it.

He was not…

"You haven't been cooking much?" Ratthi said, when the urge to comment became absolutely unbearable.

Gurathin looked up but didn't quite meet his eyes. "I've been eating with Mensah mostly, and her family."

That was… Ratthi didn't know… reassuring, he guessed?

He knew, obviously, that Mensah wouldn't have let this guy into her home if she thought he was a threat, but something about the fact that she wasn't just housing him, but letting him come and eat with her family, with her children, meant that she probably thought he was a good guy.

If really, really weird…

"Mensah is a good cook," Ratthi said, because it was true. "I could give you some recipes, if you want?"

"I'm not a child," Gurathin snapped. Sudden enough that it made Ratthi jump.

"Um, that isn't what I meant," he started. He wasn't quite sure where the offence had come from. "I mean… I've never been to the Rim? I didn't know if you could get the same food here… Or… you know?"

Gurathin looked at him, and then ducked his head again. "The food here is better," he said eventually.

Ratthi opened his mouth, and then decided that tact was probably the way to go. Even though it was killing him to not ask.

It was so weird not to just say what he was thinking. Was this what people on the Rim were like? It was exhausting.

"You said, um…" Gurathin started, staring into his soup, "that you had data you were working on? What is it you do?"

Ratthi looked away, mainly because Gurathin had barely met his eyes since he'd walked in. Ratthi knew that he was smiling though, couldn't have kept it off his face if he'd tried.

Because Gurathin had asked him a question. One that hadn't been laced with panic and accusation, and that was fucking progress as far as Ratthi was concerned.

"What do you know about wormholes?"

It turned out that Gurathin didn't know much about wormholes. He did know a shit ton about data management.

He'd also become surprisingly animated while talking about data management.

Which was another thing that was cute.

Ratthi had been having a surprisingly good time. There had definitely been a note of pity in his decision to make 'become Gurathin's friend' his next side quest. He could admit it. He felt kinda bad about it, but also, Gurathin had been actively off-putting, so you know…

But give him something to talk about that he was interested in and Gurathin was a genuinely active conversation partner.

And he was happy to listen to Ratthi talk about maths equations that bored everyone else he knew to tears, so that was pretty nice.

Ratthi had noticed though, the longer they talked, that Gurathin was rubbing increasingly vicious circles into the back of his left hand and wrist, as though he was trying to ease out a knot.

Ratthi nodded towards it. "Did you hurt your hand?"

"No," Gurathin said unconvincingly, his hand disappearing into his pocket.

"Can I look?"

"It's not an injury, it's just…" He trailed off.

"Oh, man," Ratthi said. "I've been there. I've been getting warnings from MedSystem about carpal tunnel for about five years."

Gurathin didn't answer.

Ratthi held out his hand. "It's OK if you don't want to but occupational health gave me some tips."

Gurathin looked at him for another moment, and then slowly pulled his hand back out of his pocket. "It really isn't anything."

As Ratthi's hand brushed against the underneath of his thumb, he felt Gurathin twitch. As though he was a flinch from yanking it away.

Ratthi almost, almost made a joke. That would have been a mistake.

Gurathin was taut. Honestly, he reminded Ratthi of one of the farm cats. Hair-sprung and ready to snap.

He didn't make that joke either.

He was being very, very self-disciplined.

Ratthi pressed very lightly on the back of Gurathin's hand, and Gurathin flinched again, properly this time. It was on the tip of Ratthi's tongue to apologise, before he ran his finger over the edge of something solid, and it chased everything else out of his mind.

He squeezed again, gently, just to make sure. "You have augments in your hand?"

Gurathin gave a tight smile and raised his right. He flexed his fingers so that Ratthi caught the flicker of unnatural movement between his thumb and forefinger. "Both."

Ratthi looked back down at the pale fingers held between his. He met Gurathin's eyes again, just to be certain. "Can I?"

He got one tight nod back.

Carefully, he traced the edge of the augmentation, beneath the knuckle of his middle finger. Index finger. Thumb.

He knew that he was frowning. He'd never been able to hide what he was thinking. He traced a bit further, onto his thumb… onto…

Gurathin made a noise and jerked his hand back.

"Sorry," Ratthi said automatically. "Three of your fingers? The bones too?"

Gurathin gave that rigid smile again. "The skin is mine."

"Did… um…"

"Ask your questions?" Gurathin said sharply.

"Did you get injured?"

"No." Gurathin's face was absolutely blank. Ratthi couldn't read anything.

"Is it the same on your right?"

"No," he answered, less thorny this time.

He turned his right palm over this time and flexed again, more slowly this time, so that Ratthi could see the flat rectangular outline sitting in the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb.

"It's nothing," Gurathin said, abruptly, folding his arms tightly. "I told you. The nerve and muscle connections just ache sometimes."

"I can run and grab you some painkillers if-"

"No, thank you," Gurathin said, all prickles again.

A bright neon sign, in fact, saying 'don't fucking ask again'.

"Ok," Ratthi said, and knew instantly it was the right answer as the whole of Gurathin's frame seemed to unclench and crumble into the couch. There was something a little bit desperate about the way he was breathing.

This whole thing had been a lot. Had meant a lot, to Gurathin, at least. And Ratthi didn't understand. It couldn't be clearer that it had cost Gurathin something.

"Why did you let me? Do that, I mean?"

Gurathin shrugged, in a ragged way that made the whole of him shudder. His eyes were closed. "Rather get it over with."

Ratthi frowned. "What do you mean?"

"People will find out."

"Um, mate?" Ratthi almost reached out and touched his arm before he realised that every inch of him was broadcasting warning signals. "I don't… I don't understand. But I didn't mean to upset you."

Gurathin kept his eyes closed for another couple of raw breaths. Then he sat up and met Ratthi's eyes properly. "No, I suppose not."

Ratthi didn't know if he was talking about understanding or upsetting him, but he guessed it didn't matter because Gurathin was smiling, just a bit.

Ratthi felt his insides unclench. Like something awful had just passed them both by… and missed them by centimetres.

Chapter Text

Gurathin had agreed to come over and look at Ratthi's data, which Ratthi was being really chill and cool about despite the fact that it felt like a massive win.

Gurathin had refused to meet him anywhere else. Not for a drink. Not at the park. Not even on the little patch of grass behind Farai's barn, where all the farm cats congregated. In fact, beyond the little bedsit, and Mensah's house, Ratthi wasn't sure he went anywhere else at all. Ratthi only knew that Gurathin actually went inside Mensah's because they both mentioned it all the time.

Ratthi hadn't asked, although he'd really, really wanted to, but he thought that Gurathin actually spent almost every evening with Mensah's family. Which was sweet, and you know… just a little weird…

If Gurathin weren't so painfully and obviously, well… Ratthi might assume that he was sleeping there. Or rather… not sleeping there…

That seemed unlikely…

And he wasn't ever going to get that answer out of either of them, so he might as well just drop it, but he was thinking it.

He was thinking it really hard.

Anyway, that didn't matter because Gurathin was standing awkwardly in the door to his flat, and Ratthi needed to be chill about it.

He wasn't wearing the coat Ratthi had left him, which was just a tiny bit disappointing, but he had made it the fifteen minute walk over, and Ratthi was weirdly proud of him for that.

"Do you want a drink?" Ratthi asked, calmly, even though he felt like he was vibrating out of his skin.

"Um," Gurathin said, and then paused for just long enough that Ratthi recognised that he was weighing whether it was more polite to just accept the hospitality or to save his host the bother.

Ratthi thought he was just about getting the hang of reading him.

"Water?" Gurathin asked, as though it might be a terrible imposition.

"Coming up!"

When Ratthi came back, Gurathin was sitting stiffly at the table where Ratthi had set up a couple of displays.

Ok, so it wasn't going to be a chit-chatty day. That was fine, Ratthi could do that.

Gurathin thanked him for the water, and then didn't touch it. "What did you… want me to work on?"

"Oh yeah!" Ratthi flicked open his display. "I've got so much fucking data, mate, you're gonna love this!"

"Why is all of this on an unsecured network?"

Ratthi looked up from his display. They'd been working for about an hour, and Gurathin had progressively sunk into the chair like a pretzel. His posture while he was working was shit.

"What?" Ratthi asked, as he remembered what Gurathin had said.

Gurathin dug his fingers into the corner of his eyes, like he could physically pry out whatever he was seeing, then dropped them to cover his entire face. His voice came out muffled. "No one on this planet has any network security."

Ratthi knew that Gurathin had been working on something for Mensah. Something hush-hush, but given his specialism, Ratthi would bet it had something to do with Preservation's feed systems.

Ratthi thought about it, and then frowned. "Why would anyone want to steal wormhole data?"

Gurathin dropped his hands and gave Ratthi a look. It was the kind of look that Ratthi got a lot if he was honest.

"To sell it," Gurathin said, as if he was an idiot.

Ratthi laughed. "I mean if they wait six months they can just download it off the data service."

Gurathin's expression got even more incredulous. "You have an open data archive?"

Ratthi nodded. "Yeah, I can show you later if-"

"Why would anyone do that?" It must have been clear that Ratthi didn't understand because Gurathin carried on. "They could sell it."

"How can you sell wormhole data? You can just measure it with a scanner."

"Yes," Gurathin said, testily. "But the government owns the scanner."

"I think the university owns the scanner."

"Ratthi."

Ratthi laughed. "I'm sorry, I'm not being a dick. I just don't understand."

"But it's data." Gurathin put his hands flat on the table. "Doesn't the university own the scanning software?"

Ratthi frowned. "No..? I'm pretty sure it's open source."

Gurathin looked at him like he was insane.

"Anyway," Ratthi said, "what's wrong with my security?"

Gurathin shook his head like he'd just remembered what they were actually arguing about. "It's laughably easy to breach."

"I don't see ho- Hey!" He yelped as his database abruptly closed, and several other windows opened and closed rapidly.

Then a message popped up on his display.

Confirm manufacturer reset?

Warning: This action will result in the loss of all locally saved data.

Ratthi looked up at Gurathin, who was giving him a significant look.

The warning closed, and his database reopened. Just as it was before.

Gurathin looked away from him.

"How did you do that?" Ratthi asked.

Gurathin's expression went tight. He didn't look back. "I've failure tested a lot of systems."

Ratthi could feel his mood shift, almost like a pressure drop. The air around him reacting in sympathy, and suddenly in front of him was Doom-Gurathin (as he'd been calling him inside his head) instead of Happy-Gurathin.

"Ninety-percent of the software you use," Gurathin said, darkly, "is under patent in the Rim. Probably over half of the hardware too. The corporations have backdoor access to everything." He dropped his face into his hands again. "And no one seems to know about it."

"Gura?"

"Hmmm?"

"What's a patent?"

Gurathin looked appalled. It was kind of funny. "Are you shitting me, Ratthi?"

"Kinda." Only kinda though. Ratthi looked back at his display. "I had set a password…"

Gurathin made grabby hands across the table and then snapped his fingers. "Give me the display. Now."

Ratthi handed it over, and, sensing that he wasn't going to be doing any more work for a while, got up and stretched out his spine until it gave a satisfying pop.

Gurathin had seemingly checked out of any kind of social interaction. He had set up both displays in front of him, but his eyes were closed. He was making jerky little movements with his left hand.

"Shall I make coffee?"

Gurathin just grunted in response. Ratthi smiled. That was much nicer than the overly cautious politeness.

"I'll make a coffee."

Ratthi retreated into his kitchen and divvied up some of the actually nice coffee instead of the crumpled packet of instant that he usually drank when he was working.

From the other room, he heard an indignant splutter. "When did you last back up your hard drive? Ratthi?"

Ratthi smiled again, and pretended that he hadn't heard.

"How does it feel?" Ratthi asked, now that Gurathin was apparently satisfied with his firewalls and antivirus for the moment. He had retreated to join Ratthi on the sofa, hands clasped around a second, reheated coffee. "Being in the feed, I mean?"

Gurathin frowned. He was tapping his fingernail against his mug. "I don't know how to answer that question."

"Can you see it? Like, in your head?"

"No," Gurathin shook his head, "not in the way you mean." He tapped a finger just below his left eye. "I could disconnect these and still work in the feed."

"You have augments in your eyes?" Ratthi said, before he thought to stop himself.

Gurathin's expression went a little flat. He didn't say anything. Ratthi was about to apologise, but then he carried on.

"Your neighbour has a feed camera," he gestured vaguely over to the apartment behind Ratthi's. He had that distant look that he'd had while he was working on Ratthi's display again. "Not a motion sensor. Probably for video calls?"

Ratthi nodded, though he wasn't quite certain whether Gurathin could see him or not. "Her son lives on the Station. I know he calls every three cycles."

Gurathin nodded too, and with a blink, he was back. "I can feel it, like… You can feel when someone is standing in the room with you. Even blindfolded, you would know."

"Mate," Ratthi said, "that is so fucking cool."

Gurathin gave one of those tiny smiles again.

"Can I ask you another question?" Ratthi said.

"Yes, but I don't know if I'll be able to answer," Gurathin put the mug down, and laid back against the sofa arm. He was rubbing at the back of his hand again.

Ratthi wondered if the augments in his eyes hurt too, or… Were his eyes the augments?

Something felt like it shifted in the back of Ratthi's mind, something that didn't quite articulate itself properly into words. He was struggling to imagine someone would choose to remove their eyes.

Ratthi suddenly felt like he didn't want to know anymore about that.

Whatever he was going to say left him, and instead he asked, "How long did you spend trying to decide whether to wear the coat over here today?"

Gurathin's expression was suddenly sharp. That air pressure drop again.

Ok, Ratthi might have fucked up anyway…

And then… the moment passed, Gurathin breathed in like he was letting all of that tension go, and when he met Ratthi's eyes again, there was something ironic about his smile. "I'm easy to read these days."

"I didn't mean anything by it, mate. Really…"

"I know." Gurathin shook out his hand. "I know that. I'll be honest, I don't know… I feel uncomfortable accepting charity."

Ratthi was already shaking his head. "It wasn't charity."

Gurathin clicked his tongue. "You all say that here. Mensah and Farai and Addai. Like it makes you all feel better not to call things what they are."

"You're working on my data," Ratthi said, "and fixing my security, we can call that even." Gurathin looked at him, and Ratthi chanced a smile. "Preservation works on a barter system, you know?"

Gurathin's jaw was still tight. "I would have done that for nothing."

"I know you would," Ratthi said easily. "That's why we can call it even."

Gurathin matched his smile, but there was something empty underneath it, like he had just papered over it. "I wish the everything was as simple as you all think it is."

"I think," Ratthi said, carefully, "that maybe it's as simple as you make it."

Gurathin hummed in a way that wasn't quite agreeing. That was alright. He didn't need to agree right away. Ratthi would show him.

"Can we hug?" he asked, impulsively.

Gurathin looked at him. "What?"

"It's a Preservation tradition," he grinned, "we cut a deal, so now we have to hug it out."

"Um…"

"We don't have to," Ratthi said, letting his tone drop into something serious, "but I'd like to, if you would."

There was a long silence, before Gurathin nodded jerkily.

Ratthi didn't need telling twice. He leaned over and very, very carefully tugged Gurathin over. It was an awkward kind of half hug, but it was definitely another win. Ratthi let him go the second he started to pull away. He knew he was grinning stupidly, but he really didn't care right now.

"Gura," Ratthi said.

Gurathin shook his head. "That's not my name."

"It's what Mensah calls you," Ratthi grinned, and saw the exact moment that Gurathin relented, and he won. "It would make me really happy if you would wear the coat. It's really fucking cold outside."

Gurathin nodded, that little smile was back. "It would make me happy if you backed up your data once in a while."

"Done!"

Ratthi held out his hand like he'd seen corporates do in shows.

The smile got a little bit bigger as Gurathin reached out to shake his hand.

"Did we do that right?" Ratthi asked, to keep that smile on his face. "Two deals in a row."

"Not really," Gurathin picked up his mug again, "but I think I like your way better."

Chapter Text

It had become a regular thing. Ratthi had got used to it. He didn't work from home every day, sometimes he had meetings that needed him at the university, but he usually had a couple of days at home every week.

He had shared his calendar with Gurathin, and if his schedule was clear, Gurathin would wander over around mid morning to sort through his files - and ramp up his security.

It was nice.

They would drink the good coffee, and talk about nothing… Well, Ratthi would talk about nothing. Gurathin would grunt back at him and occasionally offer back a surprisingly deadpan observation.

And Gura kept coming. He was weird, and awkward, and reserved, but that had to count for something. Gurathin must be enjoying it.

Ratthi certainly was.

And then Gurathin stopped coming.

Ratthi didn't think much of it at first. After all, Gura had actual proper work that he was doing for Mensah, and Ratthi had shared his calendar precisely so Gura could decide when and if he wanted to drop in.

Nevertheless, it did start to worry Ratthi just a little bit after the third day he didn't show. Well, Ratthi wasn't sure that he would call it worry… Just a little hint of unease… That grew with every feed message that went unread.

There was just something so… brittle about the way Gurathin looked sometimes, Ratthi couldn't help but…

Well, there was no sense in just worrying, his mum would have said, not when he could just go and check in, but the he'd arrived at Gurathin's little bedsit and found it locked and dark and empty…

And then, well, he had started to worry. Quite a lot.

When Mensah opened the door, she was wearing a long sweater dress that stretched nearly to her ankles. She had the sleeves pulled down over her hands, and something about her looked less made-up than Ratthi usually expected.

Nevertheless, she gave a forced smile. "Ratthi, what can I do for you?"

He tried very hard not to crane over her shoulder. "I just wanted to see if… Well, Gurathin hasn't come around for a few days, and I just wondered…"

He trailed off because the polite smile had dropped from her face.

"Come in," she said, abruptly, and let the door swing open behind her as she turned.

Ratthi followed her into the little sitting room that Ratthi knew she used sometimes when the kids were being a lot and she needed to concentrate. The house was silent today. The room was cosily made up, and Mensah settled back into the nest of throws that she'd apparently just got up from.

One of the cats was curled on the armchair in the corner, its paws over its eyes. This one was Smudge? Ratthi thought anyway. It had been part of a litter of little grey chaos entities which seemed to be identical as far as Ratthi could tell.

There was a Smokey as well, and a Misty, and a Shadow…

"Please," Mensah gestured over to the other side of the sofa, and Ratthi took the seat. He dragged the other end of Mensah's throw into his lap for good measure.

"I didn't know Gurathin had been visiting you," Mensah said, with a kind of faux calm that was making something heavy settle in Ratthi's stomach.

Ratthi nodded, instead of trying to say anything. "He's been helping with my database. Not like, officially, I guess. But he's been dropping around every few cycles, when he feels like it."

Mensah was nodding too. She was chewing at the inside of her lip. "He didn't tell me that."

"Mensah," Ratthi started, and then didn't finish because he didn't have a clue what to say.

Mensah was smoothing out the fabric of the throw in little self-soothing strokes. On a whim, Ratthi reached out and took her hand. She squeezed back. Hard.

"Gura, was taken into the medcentre last night," she said, on a shaky breath.

The heavy thing in his stomach dropped just a little harder. "I… what happened?"

But Mensah was already shaking her head. "I can't tell you."

Her voice cracked and she took a couple of deep breaths. She was tapping the thumb of her free hand in a slow rhythm, and well, Ratthi recognised box breathing well enough.

After a few moments of him unconsciously matching her breath rate, Mensah started again, and her voice was steady. "He was admitted last night. I can't give you any medical details. It would be a breach of privacy."

"But is he alright?"

"Out of danger," Mensah said, evenly.

"So there was danger?"

Mensah sighed. "Ratthi, I really can't tell you anything else."

She was still squeezing tightly against his hand.

"Can I see him?" Ratthi asked.

"That's really up to him," Mensah said, "but I'll ask him."

"Thank you," Ratthi said, as he tried to sort out what was happening in his head.

"What are you thinking?" Mensah asked, in that calm way she had.

"I don't know."

"Ok," Mensah said easily, and then just let it lie.

"Was it…" Ratthi started. "I know you can't tell me, like… But is it the same thing as before? You know?"

Mensah looked at him for a couple of breaths, and then away, like she was trying to figure out how to answer. "Yes and no," she said. "Connected, I suppose. But no, not a… a… reoccurrence."

That was an… odd choice of word, but Ratthi didn't call her out on it.

"Is he-"

"Ratthi," Mensah cut him off, "please don't ask me to say anything else."

"Ok," Ratthi squeezed her hand. "Are you alright?"

"Not really, no."

"I know you can't tell me, but have you got anyone you can talk to?"

Mensah nodded. "Farai and Tano know some of it at least. Gura gave permission right at the start, and, well, he's talked to them a little." Mensah gave a little wobbly smile. "You know, you've grown up a lot. I can't believe sometimes that you were that gangly postgraduate who used bring his calculations to meetings written on the back of his hand."

"Honestly, I still do that sometimes."

Mensah gave his hand a little shake. "Gura is very lucky to have you as a friend. And so am I."

Ratthi didn't know what to say to that, but it made something warm spill around the awful heavy lead in his gut. "Do you want company today?"

Mensah gave a snatched smile. "That would be nice. Farai is working, and Tano took the younger kids out to… well, I didn't sleep much… I was out late."

"At the medcentre."

"Yes."

"I'm glad," Ratthi said, and then didn't know what he was glad about. "That you were…"

Mensah was nodding, her eyes closed. "I'm glad too." She drew in another one of those shaky breaths. "I keep thinking, what if I hadn't…"

"But you did though."

Mensah nodded again. "Yes. Yes I did."

Ratthi squeezed her hand again. "There's a weepy romance I've been meaning to watch."

Mensah smiled wetly. "I wouldn't have thought a weepy romance would be your thing."

"What can I say? I'm a man of eclectic tastes."

"How weepy?"

"It has a happy ending, I checked."

"You big softie." Mensah smiled again. "Alright then."

Mensah only made it about two thirds of the way into the film before she slipped further down into the couch and fell asleep.

That was just fine as far as Ratthi was concerned.

Smudge had come and curled up on his lap, kneading claws into his knees, and Ratthi only cried a tiny bit when the trio finally shared their kiss in the pouring rain.

Gurathin didn't agree to let him visit in the medcentre, and it was almost a week before he messaged him in the feed to let him know that he was available for Ratthi to come round.

And Ratthi wouldn't say that he dropped everything… but his schedule did definitely clear itself pretty quickly. He also may have jogged a little bit on his way over, sending Gurathin a message in the feed when he was around five minutes away.

When he knocked, Gurathin opened the door uncomfortably quickly, in a way that said he'd probably been waiting behind the door.

Ratthi had planned something to say. Something polite. 'Hey, man, hope you're feeling better'. What came out was "Mate, you look like shit!"

He really did. Ratthi hadn't seen him for maybe ten or twelve cycles, but the little weight he'd put on over the previous couple of months had all but gone. Ratthi guessed that he hadn't had that many reserves to fall back on.

He looked older. Angular.

It gave him a hard look. Spare and pale and grim.

It didn't suit him.

Gurathin didn't miss a beat, just very drily said, "Thank you, good to see you too."

"Sorry," Ratthi said quickly, following him back into the bedsit, "sorry, I just…"

He didn't know what to say, so he let the apology hang there. Gurathin didn't come to his rescue, and so the silence just sat between them.

"I'm sorry," Gurathin said, eventually. "I missed our work meetings."

Ratthi laughed before he could stop himself. "Don't be daft! You were in hospital!"

Gurathin grimaced and took a seat, one of the single ones that were over by the window. One where Ratthi very much could not sit next to him. "Still," he said.

"How are you feeling?" Ratthi asked.

Gurathin raised his eyebrows. "Like I look, apparently."

"Sorry." Ratthi really should learn to think before he spoke.

Gurathin gave a dismissive kind of half wave, which drew Ratthi's attention to the dark bruising on the back of his hand. From an IV, he'd guess. The blood had pooled oddly around his augments, and Ratthi could see the clear edge of the metal implants he'd felt before.

He dragged his eyes away from it. "What happened?" he asked. "I mean, if you want to tell me…"

"What did Mensah tell you?"

"Nothing. Just that you'd been admitted."

Gurathin looked away, nodding. "Please," he gestured to a packet on the table in front of the couch. It looked like a packet of cake bites, wrapped up in beeswax paper. "Farai brought them but I don't…" He rubbed his hands across his face. "I still feel sick."

Ratthi sat down on the couch and took one. It was coconut, and it was pretty great. He didn't tell Gurathin that he should probably eat one too.

"I was stupid," Gurathin said, abruptly. "It was stupid."

"Gura-"

"Not my name."

"- you gotta cut yourself some slack, man. You were sick."

Gurathin swallowed tightly. "That isn't… It isn't…"

And that solid lump of lead that Ratthi had been ignoring ever since he'd talked to Mensah… ever since he'd realised that it'd been multiple days since Gura had returned a message… that awful weight that he wasn't acknowledging… turned itself over in his stomach.

The one that he wasn't going to acknowledge, not unless Gurathin said it.

"Gura," Ratthi said again, and this time Gurathin looked at him, "Mensah said it was bad-"

Gurathin gave a half-shrug, like he could cut him off, but Ratthi was more persistent than that!

"- I'm really glad you're ok."

Gurathin scoffed, something dark and ironic. "I haven't been ok for twenty years."

Looking at him, Ratthi believed him.

"Do you…" Ratthi started, and then decided he needed to ask the question. Now was not the time to be a fucking coward. "Do you think it'll happen again?"

And Ratthi heard the pause. The awful gaping hole before Gurathin answered.

"No," he said.

And it was a lie.

Ratthi had never been more sure of anything. "Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked, on a whim.

Gurathin gave that kind of half-shrug again. "Not really."

That was what Ratthi had thought he'd say. But Ratthi had always been pretty persuasive. He leaned forwards, put his game face on.

"Not to sound like a bad movie," he said, "but I know a place."

Gurathin looked at him. Expressionless. Or, Ratthi was beginning to think, very deliberately showing nothing.

Ratthi lifted his hands to forestall whatever refusal was coming. "Hand on my heart, a personal Ratthi-guarantee - no people."

Gurathin didn't feel anything.

He knew that wasn't normal. He'd had a succession of doctors and psychiatrists and friends asking him, 'How are you feeling? What are you thinking?'

Nothing.

The answer was nothing.

He had done. He must have. He had done it, after all.

They'd asked him if he intended to try again. He'd said no. It was the truth.

He couldn't imagine caring enough to try again.

Now he just felt shockingly apathetic… or rather it should be shocking.

He felt nothing at all.

He was tired. More achingly awfully tired than he thought he had ever been. Even when he had been forced awake for days on end while the stims left his system, he'd been miserable. He'd wanted it to end. But there had been an end goal. He had felt stubborn and so fucking angry. He'd had claws to dig in, and a well of spite to draw on.

Now he was spent.

There was nothing but guilt over what he had done to Mensah, and a vague resignation that he now had to live with that.

He and Mensah had talked.

She didn't blame him. She should, but she didn't. So he would just have to blame himself. And he would, when this odd dissociation burst and the reality hit him, like the world's shittiest comedown.

Ratthi was talking about nothing. A sweet little white noise undercurrent.

The air was icy, with each breath it scoured the inside of his lungs. A kind of pure sandpaper cleanse.

"I should go outside more," he said. Nonsensically. Cutting Ratthi off.

"Yeah," Ratthi answered, after a beat. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea, mate. Call me, yeah, if you want company?"

Gurathin nodded. And breathed. And felt the contrast of the ice inside his lungs and the warm cocoon around his chest. Wrapped up in Ratthi's coat. In the gloves Arada had given him. In Farai's scarf.

Ratthi led them to a bridge, over a thin stream. A sleek asymmetric metal arch. Glass on one side as a windbreak, and thick slatted wooden boards to sit against.

There were broken ice sheets sliding down the stream, cracking against the riverbed.

Ratthi had been right, Gurathin couldn't see anyone on the paths on either side of the river.

"I come here a lot," Ratthi said, from behind him. When he turned to look, Ratthi had hitched himself up cross-legged onto the slatted wood. "It gets busy in the summer, but in the winter, there's usually no one here."

Gurathin found that he was nodding, joining Ratthi on the seat.

"I come here when I need to make my brain shut up for a bit," Ratthi said. "Sometimes when I'm thinking too many things at once, I can't focus." Ratthi gave a huff of a laugh. "That sounds mental."

"No," Gurathin said. He let all that ice fill his lungs again. "I didn't… I wasn't paying attention. You might have to send me coordinates."

"Will do," Ratthi said easily. "I can show you again too. Any time."

"Thank you."

Ratthi rubbed his hand together, through his gloves, like he was warming his hands up. Gurathin was about to apologise for dragging him out here, but Ratthi spoke before he could.

"Is there anything you like to do? Outside of work?"

Gurathin didn't know. Was there? There must have been. Once. At one point he must have been a complete person. Before his life became consumed, and the only goal he had for any day was to not be sober at the end of it.

"I like to be useful," he said.

Ratthi pulled a face. "Yeah, but there's being useful and there's…"

Whatever Gurathin was doing, apparently.

"Have you ever read the Guild of the Trident series?" Ratthi asked, suddenly.

"What?"

"It's a book series."

Gurathin wasn't sure he'd ever heard of it. "I don't really read fiction."

"Why?"

"I don't know," he said, and then realised that he did. "It wasn't productive."

For so long his life had been designated into work, the things that he needed to do to keep himself alive and sane and able to work, and distractions.

Slowly the Rim had bled the distractions out of him, until he was a pure kernel that made only profit.

Ratthi didn't say anything to that. His poker face was abysmal though.

"You can borrow them, if you want," he said, after a pause that stretched out too long. "You'd be doing me a favour, honestly. No one wants to here me nerd out about them anymore. I need someone who'll let me talk about how cool Fruinine is."

"Fruinine?"

"The Eternal Queen," Ratthi said, like it was obvious. "She rules the Fairy Realm, well, the good bit of the Fairy Realm, and she's always coming into the mortal plane and giving people missions and stuff. She has a massive sword, and she comes in and rescues the heroes at one point and pulls them back to Fairy so they can heal up. It's super cool."

"She sounds like Mensah," Gurathin said, before he realised that he probably shouldn't have, but Ratthi was grinning.

"Yeah! She kinda is." He uncrossed his legs and stretched them out, leaning back far enough that Gurathin was slightly concerned the glass might give way beneath him. "I'll grab you the first one on the walk back, and you can try it. No pressure though, I won't, like, be hounding you about where you're up to."

"Much."

Ratthi threw his head back and laughed like it was the funniest thing Gurathin had ever said. "Yeah, ok, maybe I will a little bit."

Gurathin found that he was smiling. It was impossible not to in the face of such good humour. Perhaps one day, his brain might remember to feel it too.

"Can I ask you to do something?" Ratthi asked, when the silence had grown comfortable and peaceful again.

"Alright."

"You know, like, if you start feeling like…" Ratthi stumbled over the words. When Gurathin looked at him, he was fiddling with the zipper of his coat, not looking back. "Like you might be feeling sick again?"

Interesting euphemism. Gurathin let it sit there.

"Will you message me, yeah?" Ratthi said, hatefully sincere.

It was an easy enough promise to make, in the midst of all this gentle apathy.

"I will," he said, and meant it.

"Good." Ratthi breathed out in a rush. "Thanks."

He shuffled a little closer, just so that Gurathin could feel the solid press of him through both their thick coats.

It felt… grounding, in a way…

"Are you getting cold?" Ratthi asked. "Do you want to head back?"

"No," Gurathin said, because he understood what Ratthi meant, about this place. It was a good place to just not think about anything at all. "Let's stay here for a bit."

"Yeah." He felt Ratthi press a little bit closer. "Sure thing, mate."

Chapter Text

"So…" Ratthi said, quietly, "how did Gura get a cat?"

They were sitting on the little paved area at the back of Mensah's house, making the most of the spring sunshine. The door to the house was propped open as Tano and Gurathin ferried platters and trays as Farai cooked a small mountain of food. The kids would all be joining them along with Mensah's in-laws and Bharadwaj, who had just returned from an off-world survey. Ratthi was looking forward to catching up with her.

Ratthi and Mensah were sitting in rattan armchairs in the sun, drinking raspberry tea. Her right ankle was bandaged and propped up on a stool, casualty of an ill-fated trip up a fell to collect some environmental readings. She had leaned in conspiratorially when he'd arrived. "I'm on strict instructions," she'd said. "I'm not to get up from this chair if it's not to fill my plate. Farai's orders."

Tano had appeared in the doorway in an instant. "Bubs, it's the doctor's orders, and you know it."

Mensah had just winked at him.

Ratthi thought Mensah probably deserved to take it easy for a bit.

Farai ran the kitchen like a military operation, which meant that Gurathin had barely said hello before he'd been back to silently running back and forth with bread baskets and tea urns. And every time he passed into the house, the (really quite huge) white cat gave a mew and booped his leg.

The cat was both the fluffiest and rangiest Ratthi had ever seen. It had hissed at his approach, and then stared watchfully until he was safely seated and out of petting distance.

Mensah glanced back at the cat and smiled into her tea. "Are you coming to me for gossip?"

Gurathin hadn't returned with a scowl on his face, so Ratthi assumed he hadn't heard. "Honestly," Ratthi whispered, "Gura doesn't give me anything."

Mensah smiled again. "He just showed up one day. Attracted by Freya, I'd guess."

Ratthi smiled. "Freya is… prolific."

Farai craned around the kitchen doorway. "Freya is getting spayed, because Freya is a one-cat ecological catastrophe."

The little grey cat in question was currently sunning herself on the grass about twenty feet away, steadfastly ignoring the sound of her name.

Mensah laughed. "We did need them to breed, but if Freya has any more litters, we're going to have a serious genetic issue in future generations."

"You should get Arada to study her!" Farai shouted from the kitchen. "She's a fucking evolutionary miracle!"

Mensah nodded towards the white cat sitting watching attentively from the doorway. "This one wasn't particular happy with the…" Mensah smiled, "high energy nature of my house. He never wanted to come inside when the kids were there."

"And he picked Gura?"

Mensah hummed, a little, under her breath. "You think that's surprising? I don't, really."

"He's not exactly friendly."

"Neither is the cat," Mensah said, and Ratthi snorted out a mouthful of tea. "He has a calm energy."

Ratthi laughed and lowered his voice. "Dr Paranoia has a calm energy? I had to listen to three lectures just this week about data security." He held up his fingers to emphasise it, because Mensah had just taken a sip of tea, and he intended to pay her back. "Three! Who the fuck is stealing gravitational data? Are quasars employing corporate spies now?"

He was gratified to see Mensah splutter and cough around her tea. She sat back, rubbing at her chest. "Don't," she coughed again, "they've been fretting about me all week. I don't need to add an overzealous heimlich manoeuvre to my injuries."

"Truce," Ratthi saluted, and made her laugh again. He sat back, cupping his mug. "Don't get me wrong, Gura's great, I love him, but I'm just surprised."

"He's reliable. Predictable," Mensah smiled, just a bit ironically. "Usually."

Ratthi thought about it. "I guess…"

"Cats appreciate that." She took another sip of tea. "I would definitely pick Gura to have with me in a crisis."

Ratthi looked at her, and he knew that what he was thinking was written clearly across his face.

"I think Gura does crises well," Mensah said, and then her smile turned a little rueful. "The rest is… difficult sometimes."

They heard Gurathin's soft footsteps returning, and when he exited, he gained white shadow trotting after him.

"What are you calling him?" Ratthi asked, as Gurathin tried valiantly not to trip over the bundle of fur that had decided now was time to weave between his legs.

He deposited his tray of drinks, and then turned to look at Ratthi like he was mad. "Cat."

Ratthi laughed. "You can't just call him Cat."

"Why not?"

"Because he needs a name!"

Gurathin looked at the cat, as though it might have a better answer. "It's an animal," he said finally. "It doesn't have a concept of names."

"But what if you need to call him?"

Gurathin looked back at him. "I don't call it. It does what it wants."

Ratthi heard Mensah stifle a laugh.

"Still," Ratthi said, "everyone needs a name."

"I don't think it cares."

Ratthi sputtered, playing up his indignation because it was funny. "I care! Don't you love me?"

He realised he'd made a mistake the second he said it, because Gurathin's entire body went tense. "You name it," he said, after a second. "If it's that important."

"Hey, I'm sorry-"

Gurathin had already ducked back into the kitchen.

Ratthi was half on his feet before Mensah caught his arm.

"Leave it," she said, softly. "He's ok. He just needs a minute."

"I didn't mean-"

"I know," she said. "He knows too. You can talk about it later if you need to. But right now you'll both make it worse."

Ratthi knew that, but he hated not being able to fix something. Particularly something that was his fault.

"How was the conference?" Mensah asked, which was not a subtle redirection, but Ratthi took it as the out it was, and launched into one of the few anecdotes that didn't end with him in someone else's bed.

When Gurathin returned, around half an hour later, and finally released from Farai's employment, Ratthi could admit that he did seem to have worked through his reaction to Ratthi's poorly judged joke.

He came out, with a mug of iced tea and an apologetic look. Ratthi decided not to say anything, which took a heroic amount of self-control, because his instinctive reaction to conflict was to fall over himself apologising and wanting to hash out a solution.

Which worked… on occasion…

It was not Gurathin's preferred conversation style.

Gurathin's preferred method of dealing with everything seemed to be ignoring that it had ever happened… which was a method, Ratthi supposed.

Gurathin sat himself down on a low wall nearby, and the white cat immediately joined him, sitting just within touching distance and watching Ratthi and Mensah with indifference.

"Has Farai released you?" Mensah said, easily.

Gurathin smiled wanly. "With a whole twenty-five minutes to spare."

"Well, you did offer, darling."

The cat looked up at Gurathin with big eyes and blinked at him in a way that was incredibly cute.

Mensah must have noticed too. "I think Cat suits him," she said.

"It kinda does," Ratthi allowed. "I think he wants pets.

"It doesn't." Gurathin shook his head. "It doesn't like it."

Given the hissing from earlier, Ratthi could believe it, but Cat was looking at Gurathin like he hung the moon.

Gurathin was watching Cat back, a faint frown beginning to cross his face. "I'd never seen an animal before I came here."

"What?" Ratthi said. He looked at Mensah, who either wasn't surprised or was doing her best to act like she wasn't.

Mensah had an excellent poker face. Ratthi envied her.

Gurathin was looking at him questioningly.

"What do you mean?" Ratthi asked. "That you hadn't seen an animal before?"

"Animals aren't allowed on Port FreeCommerce," Gurathin said, holding his hand out to let Cat nudge at his palm. "I suppose they're a security risk? I don't know. It's a breach of indenture to have one."

"Had you never left Port FreeCommerce?" Ratthi asked.

Gurathin shrugged. "I'd travelled to other stations in the Rim. A few free ports. A few colonies." He tucked his hands into his lap. "The extraction colonies don't tend to be… um…" He frowned, as though he was thinking.

"Habitable?" Mensah murmured.

Gurathin nodded. "Viable for life. They don't have native species. Just sealed colony pods."

Ratthi frowned. "Isn't that expensive? Wouldn't it be cheaper to colonise planets with a breathable atmosphere?"

Cat booped Gurathin's leg again, as he gave a smile that was entirely empty. "Too many runaways, I'd guess. Security is expensive. Loss of productivity is expensive too."

Mensah's jaw had gone tight. She wasn't looking at either of them, was staring into the middle distance, chewing at the inside of her lip.

"Runaways?" Ratthi asked, when he eventually decided that he had to know, however much he didn't really want to.

Gurathin met his eyes for a long few seconds. "I think that you don't understand what indenture is." He dropped his hand into Cat's fur again, and his expression softened just a little. "That's a good thing." His gaze flickered over to Mensah, still looking away. "Let's not talk about this now."

"So, how is having a pet?" Ratthi asked.

"It's not a pet," Gurathin answered. "It does what it wants."

"And what he wants," Mensah cut in, with a forced smile, "is to sleep on your bed every night. Face it, darling. You're stuck with him now."

"I think you know something about that," Gurathin said, and shot back a smile which once again reignited Ratthi's speculation that there absolutely had to be something going on between them. There just had to be…

The silence that followed was fond, and almost literally crackling with tension. It was unbearable.

"Well," Ratthi said, when he absolutely couldn't stand it for another second. He stood up and sauntered over to where Gura was sat, and slumped down next to him on the wall. "You just gotta accept it, man. You're just too damn lovable."

Cat clearly saw what was coming and skittered away out of touching distance, with a cursory hiss.

"Bring it in, man."

Ratthi leaned over, arms wide, and gave Gurathin just enough time to sputter "Ratthi, no. Ratthi-", before Ratthi tackled him gently into a hug, and rolled them both back off the wall and onto the warm grass.