Fic; The Story About How Submarines are Surprisingly Domesticated, Oceanpunk 'verse
Title The Story About How Submarines are Surprisingly Domesticated
Rating PG for now
Summary Alex and Hank catch up in the Engine Room. Continuation of Oceanpunk 'verse.
Disclaimer Will never own, boo.
Hank and Darwin, as prisoners, were pretty much given free range of Logan’s ship. Hank supposed that there were a very limited number of ways one could escape from a submarine. Also, upon boarding, the fiery-haired Jean had snapped a thin, flexible metal circlet around both of their wrists and intoned, deeply serious, “You try to run; we’ll find you.” As hostage situations went, Hank thought that this was rather benign.
He had spent most of his time helping Logan navigate, even though the coordinates that they were navigating to were just an unmarked blue on every map Hank analyzed, right in the middle of the Pacific Colonies. “We have inside intelligence,” was Logan’s curt response when Hank prodded at the seemingly glaring error. And he couldn’t argue.
Alex didn’t seem to have any limitations placed upon him by Logan, either - he didn’t even have the cuff wrapped around his wrist - yet he seemed to follow one self-imposed rule, which was: never be in the same room as Jean Grey for longer than absolutely necessary. Hank wasn’t sure how this came to be a pattern, as their relationship seemed to him to be one full of complicated push-pull, but on the third day of he and Darwin’s ‘imprisonment,’ he quickly realized why this rule was necessary.
It started, as many incidents did, over the last hard dinner roll in the basket.
Alex reached for it from his position seated next to Hank in the mess hall - a small cafeteria where the crew members ate, that was both cramped and cozy. Immediately, Jean snapped from across the table, “Don’t be rude, Alex. Some of us have only eaten one.” Kitty, a young girl with a knack for cooking, was seated beside Jean, and she turned wide eyes to the older woman. Alex narrowed his eyes, fingers closing around the bread.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like me.” Briefly, hopefully, Hank wondered how Darwin was doing on the brig with Logan. He wondered why he had thought it would be a good idea for he and Alex to join these ladies for supper. A young man named Warren was also at the table, but he was meek and might as well have been invisible.
“You didn’t even ask,” Jean pointed out with raised eyebrows.
“Why should I? It’s just sitting there. Besides, I’ve had a very trying week.”
“Oh, yeah,” the redhead returned. “So floating around and losing your brother’s boat is trying?”
“How about nearly drowning and being taken prisoner twice in one day? Plus, being in your presence is never easy,” Alex responded with a self-satisfied air.
“Well that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t taken Scott’s boat in the first place,” Jean argued.
A beat passed. Alex glared at the piece of bread still in his hands, leaning one elbow on the metal table. “Scott doesn’t care,” he mumbled.
Jean returned, “Scott says he doesn’t care. You know how hard he worked on that boat, Alex.”
Now Alex had turned petulant. His voice took on a distinctly whiny tone. “Just because you care doesn’t mean he cares.”
Jean sat up straighter, taken aback, or at least feigning it. “This isn’t about me -“ she started.
But Alex cut her off: “Yes, it is! It’s always about you. Always comes back to you.” He stood abruptly, tossing the bread onto Jean’s plate. “Have your stupid bread, then.”
Which was when Scott entered the mess, freezing as all heads turned to him, silent. Scott and Alex had similar builds, but the older had dark, brown hair and a sterner look in his eyes. Alex hadn’t mentioned if Scott was a Mage as well. Hank wondered if perhaps it was genetic and hereditary. The blonde glowered. “Alex,” Scott said once, in warning.
For a moment Hank thought he caught the crestfallen look that passed through the younger brother’s features, but just as quickly open anger replaced it. He stormed out of the small cafeteria, deliberately pushing his shoulder into his brother’s as he left. Scott watched him go with tight lips, but did or said nothing else. An uncomfortable silence followed. Hank squirmed in his seat, Alex’s absence from the room like a black hole; he felt compelled to follow his gravity. Scott neared the table and said, “You okay, Jean?” and that did it.
“Thanks for the meal,” Hank said awkwardly to Kitty, who had prepared the fish stew for the crew. “I’m, uh, going.”
Kitty nodded to him, offering a brief, apologetic smile, as if to say, ‘you get used to it.’ Scott acknowledged him with a tilt of his chin, a movement somehow familiar to Hank, while Jean scowled at the offending roll on her plate. He wished Darwin had been here to diffuse the situation.
As it was, he beat a hasty retreat and nearly ran out into the connecting hall. This hall had on both sides the small dorms of the crew members. At the end was a room that Hank recognized as the Engine Room, towards the stern of the ship. Normally, Hank would have taken hold of the ladder at the end of the rooms and gone up a level, but this time he heard a strange ping, ping, ping coming from somewhere inside the Engine Room, and knew without thinking that it was Alex. His feet stepped over the threshold though his mind tactfully reminded him that only engineers were allowed in the Engine Room. Another part of his mind responded cheerfully that Hank was indeed an engineer, just not on this ship.
He shut the heavy metal door behind him, but left the lock unlatched, trapping the sounds of the engines inside with him. The room was flush with the comfortable (to Hank) sounds of the pistons pumping, steam escaping, valves working. It was unsurprisingly humid, his uniform sticking unpleasantly to him at his neck and underneath his arms within moments. In the center of the room was a small metal walkway, around which the engines were built. Down this Hank walked, listening for the next ping that would lead him to Alex.
He heard it somewhere before and above him, which confused him at first, but when he looked and saw the various short ladders and platforms that were hidden among the pipes he understood that: 1) Alex was on one of those platforms, and 2) Alex had most likely escaped to the Engine Room before. It certainly explained why, in the past three days, there seemed to be times during which Alex simply disappeared from the ship. Ping! went a pipe somewhere in the room. “Alex?” Hank called cautiously.
He sensed Alex tense. The next few moments were silent save for the usual sounds - whatever Alex had been doing to make that noise, he stopped. “Yeah?” he heard in reply, after entirely too long.
“Should you be in here?” Hank asked before he could stop himself, immediately regretting it. “What I meant was, is everything all right?” He gulped, waiting for a response.
“Those are two very different things,” Alex answered, because he’s a smartass. “However, the answer to both of those questions is: No.” This was followed by a ping!
“Okay,” Hank said, startled by and unsure what to do with Alex’s blunt honesty. “Um, where are you?”
“Here.” A blonde head appeared from the network of tubing above Hank to his right. “You gonna talk me down, McCoy?” He sneered, but Hank could tell there was no real venom behind it.
“Is that what usually happens?”
His sneer turned into a grin, playful. “Sure.” Alex withdrew back to the platform he was on, disappearing from Hank’s sight.
“Is that what you want me to do?”
Alex’s voice echoed when he answered. “Nope.”
Hank shrugged, making his way towards what he judged to be the appropriate ladder to climb, following the path up with his eyes before grabbing hold of the textured handlebars. “So…” he started as he began his ascent, wary. “What are you doing up there?”
His voice sounded louder, closer, when Alex replied in a slightly defensive tone. “I like it up here. It’s nice.”
“Why? Don’t you have a room you could storm into?” Hank was trying for light sarcasm; it had been a while since he’d had the opportunity to use it. Unfortunately, Alex didn’t seem to catch on.
“It’s peaceful,” he said, miffed.
“You mean the engines and valves don’t bother you? Most people hate it.” It was true - most people did. Hank knew of many captains and mates who refused to be confined to any ship’s Engine Room for longer than required, preferring to be above deck in the open, scanning the seas, or at least in a room with windows. Hank himself didn’t mind the confined space. The sounds would fade into the background, and the rocking of the ship would lull him into a headspace that made him both productive and sleepy; before joining Captain Lensherr’s crew Hank was quite known for fixing up engines and then falling asleep on the metal walkways.
“Well,” Alex said. “Most people don’t have Visions triggered by touch.” By now Hank had reached Alex’s platform, and he pulled himself up to sit across from the other man. In Alex’s hands was a dull metal ball, hollow from the way it sounded when Alex placed it on the platform.
“Oh,” Hank said, glad he wasn’t winded from the climb. “That’s how it works for you? I heard it’s not the same for everyone who has the Sight.”
“I’m most sensitive to Visions brought on by touching a possession,” Alex explained patiently, the language he was using indicative of how many times he had explained his Magic to others before Hank. “It has to belong to someone. Sometimes I get Visions regardless. It’s not like other Magic, like Fire or Water Mages. They can control their Magic. I generally can’t.”
Hank nodded to himself, thankful for the explanation. “So that’s why you saw my future that time on the HSS Cerebro,” he processed aloud. “You were holding my pocketwatch.”
He watched Alex’s face change from blank and bored to guarded and closed. “Yeah…” he said slowly.
Quickly, Hank changed tactics. “What’s the most interesting Vision you’ve had?”
Alex picked up the metal ball and dropped it again. Ping! “I don’t know,” he hedged, eyes averted. “I’ve had so many.”
“Any that actually came true?” Now the light sarcasm had turned into teasing, Hank thought. This was new.
Though he meant for it to be a jibe, it only served to close Alex off even more. His shoulders slumped. He said in a low voice, “Almost all of ‘em.”
For a moment Hank was unsure what to do; what does one normally do to cheer people up? He thought it would be juvenile to offer Alex half of his sandwich like he had done for others during his years at Academy. Besides, he had no sandwiches to offer at the moment. Steeling himself, Hank asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Remember when you were telling me about antropy?”
“Entropy.”
“Whatever. Entropy. I said when I See something, suddenly multiple paths open up: a future that follows the Vision, or a future where the people involved actively try to avoid it. It doesn’t always work like that, though. What people do after a Vision, no matter the intent, usually keeps them on the path of the original Vision. There are possibilities for change, but change is actually rare.”
“So…?”
“So that’s why I can’t bring myself to be nice to Jean,” Alex admitted brusquely.
This startled Hank out of his intense study of how Alex’s fingers curled around the metal ball, which was now in his lap. “Um, what?”
Alex sighed. “When they first met, after Scott emancipated, she was real nice, you know. She helped us out a lot, with like food and shelter and stuff. So one night we’re camping out in an abandoned shipyard, and I touched one of her mirrors-“ Alex clamped his mouth shut, breaking off abruptly. His knuckles turned white around the ball.
Hank longed to reach out and uncurl those fingers one by one, to warm his hands between his own. Instead, he asked, “And? What did you See?”
“I Saw…Jean is powerful, you know? Too powerful. I Saw her lose control of that. Of a fire. Mage Fire. I Saw her and Scott get caught in it, and I Saw them die. It was an accident, but. They die in the end. And then-“
Hank waited, breath held. Alex continued after a long exhale. “And then there’s me.”
“You?”
“Yeah. Just me. I can’t - I told Scott, but he didn’t listen - didn’t care! He said he loved her. They wouldn’t let it happen, now that they knew about it.”
“Maybe it won’t happen.”
Alex glanced up sharply, eyes a startling blue, meeting Hank’s own. “Maybe it will.”
And, well, Hank had nothing to say to that. Alex shifted his shoulders and looked unnervingly haughty about Hank’s non-response, and he simply couldn’t leave it at that. He had to say something. “You can’t live being afraid of the future, Alex. It’s going to happen. You might as well make the most of it.”
Inconceivably, Alex burst into laughter. Hank furrowed his brow, certain that he hadn’t made a joke, that time. “Ha! Oh, McCoy. If I had a ship for every time someone told me that, I’d have a fleet larger than The General’s.” He sobered when he realized Hank was not laughing with him. “I ain’t afraid, McCoy,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Just tired.”
“Hank,” Hank said.
“Huh?”
“If you’re not going to refer to me by my proper title,” Hank explained with a vague wave to the stripes at his collar, “then you might as well call me by name.”
“Hank,” Alex drawled, drawing out the vowel sound. A shiver passed up the scientist’s spine.
“Better.”
“Is that what your friends call you?”
“I suppose…”
A self-satisfied smirk appeared on Alex’s lips. “So then, we’re friends.”
Hank smiled. Alex smiled. It was a little awkward. Hank thought that Alex was kind of like those puzzles he used to complete in his family’s study when he was a child, like hundreds of pieces that fit together to create beautiful seascapes or winding maps and constellations. Only, Alex’s puzzle was missing some pieces - pieces for Childhood and Dreams and Things He Would Bring with Him to a Deserted Island. That was all right; Hank quite liked puzzles. He was reasonably sure that he was missing a few pieces, himself.
Meanwhile, in the Captain’s quarters, Logan and Darwin were enjoying their cigars. Logan sat on his chunky, unmade bed stuffed into a corner, while Darwin lounged in the armchair opposite. Despite his gruff appearance, Logan’s room was surprisingly cozy, though that may have had something to do with the pictures of many women on his walls.
“So what’s happening on Stryker Island?” Darwin asked, because it hadn’t been asked before.
“Rescue,” Logan said around his cigar.
“Who’s being rescued?”
Logan pointed to a spot behind Darwin’s shoulder. He craned his neck to see a picture of a pretty young girl with pale skin and chestnut brown hair. What stood out was the streak of white that ran through her hair. “That your girl?”
Logan huffed. “She’s a baby.”
“Age is just a number,” Darwin returned.
Logan quirked an eyebrow, effectively silencing him and bringing an end to that conversation. He may have been sharing a cigar with the man, but Logan still had the authority to throw him off his ship and into the deep, endless ocean. Not that he really worried about that. He would ask about the girl some other time. “So what do you do? Fire Magic?” Darwin commented, opening up another vein of conversation. He crunched his cigar; it was high quality.
“I’m a Healing Mage. And other things.”
Now it was Darwin’s turn to quirk an eyebrow. Logan noticed his incredulous look. “I mostly Heal myself. I’m kind of immortal.”
“Huh,” Darwin said. “What d’you know.” He sat back, thoughtful. He wondered how many different kinds of Magic there were out there. It seemed that the more he encountered Mages, the more types there were. The more they tried to categorize them, the more they defied categories. Darwin wondered if maybe there was a category of Mage that could describe what he could do, after all.
-endstory.
Rating PG for now
Summary Alex and Hank catch up in the Engine Room. Continuation of Oceanpunk 'verse.
Disclaimer Will never own, boo.
Hank and Darwin, as prisoners, were pretty much given free range of Logan’s ship. Hank supposed that there were a very limited number of ways one could escape from a submarine. Also, upon boarding, the fiery-haired Jean had snapped a thin, flexible metal circlet around both of their wrists and intoned, deeply serious, “You try to run; we’ll find you.” As hostage situations went, Hank thought that this was rather benign.
He had spent most of his time helping Logan navigate, even though the coordinates that they were navigating to were just an unmarked blue on every map Hank analyzed, right in the middle of the Pacific Colonies. “We have inside intelligence,” was Logan’s curt response when Hank prodded at the seemingly glaring error. And he couldn’t argue.
Alex didn’t seem to have any limitations placed upon him by Logan, either - he didn’t even have the cuff wrapped around his wrist - yet he seemed to follow one self-imposed rule, which was: never be in the same room as Jean Grey for longer than absolutely necessary. Hank wasn’t sure how this came to be a pattern, as their relationship seemed to him to be one full of complicated push-pull, but on the third day of he and Darwin’s ‘imprisonment,’ he quickly realized why this rule was necessary.
It started, as many incidents did, over the last hard dinner roll in the basket.
Alex reached for it from his position seated next to Hank in the mess hall - a small cafeteria where the crew members ate, that was both cramped and cozy. Immediately, Jean snapped from across the table, “Don’t be rude, Alex. Some of us have only eaten one.” Kitty, a young girl with a knack for cooking, was seated beside Jean, and she turned wide eyes to the older woman. Alex narrowed his eyes, fingers closing around the bread.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like me.” Briefly, hopefully, Hank wondered how Darwin was doing on the brig with Logan. He wondered why he had thought it would be a good idea for he and Alex to join these ladies for supper. A young man named Warren was also at the table, but he was meek and might as well have been invisible.
“You didn’t even ask,” Jean pointed out with raised eyebrows.
“Why should I? It’s just sitting there. Besides, I’ve had a very trying week.”
“Oh, yeah,” the redhead returned. “So floating around and losing your brother’s boat is trying?”
“How about nearly drowning and being taken prisoner twice in one day? Plus, being in your presence is never easy,” Alex responded with a self-satisfied air.
“Well that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t taken Scott’s boat in the first place,” Jean argued.
A beat passed. Alex glared at the piece of bread still in his hands, leaning one elbow on the metal table. “Scott doesn’t care,” he mumbled.
Jean returned, “Scott says he doesn’t care. You know how hard he worked on that boat, Alex.”
Now Alex had turned petulant. His voice took on a distinctly whiny tone. “Just because you care doesn’t mean he cares.”
Jean sat up straighter, taken aback, or at least feigning it. “This isn’t about me -“ she started.
But Alex cut her off: “Yes, it is! It’s always about you. Always comes back to you.” He stood abruptly, tossing the bread onto Jean’s plate. “Have your stupid bread, then.”
Which was when Scott entered the mess, freezing as all heads turned to him, silent. Scott and Alex had similar builds, but the older had dark, brown hair and a sterner look in his eyes. Alex hadn’t mentioned if Scott was a Mage as well. Hank wondered if perhaps it was genetic and hereditary. The blonde glowered. “Alex,” Scott said once, in warning.
For a moment Hank thought he caught the crestfallen look that passed through the younger brother’s features, but just as quickly open anger replaced it. He stormed out of the small cafeteria, deliberately pushing his shoulder into his brother’s as he left. Scott watched him go with tight lips, but did or said nothing else. An uncomfortable silence followed. Hank squirmed in his seat, Alex’s absence from the room like a black hole; he felt compelled to follow his gravity. Scott neared the table and said, “You okay, Jean?” and that did it.
“Thanks for the meal,” Hank said awkwardly to Kitty, who had prepared the fish stew for the crew. “I’m, uh, going.”
Kitty nodded to him, offering a brief, apologetic smile, as if to say, ‘you get used to it.’ Scott acknowledged him with a tilt of his chin, a movement somehow familiar to Hank, while Jean scowled at the offending roll on her plate. He wished Darwin had been here to diffuse the situation.
As it was, he beat a hasty retreat and nearly ran out into the connecting hall. This hall had on both sides the small dorms of the crew members. At the end was a room that Hank recognized as the Engine Room, towards the stern of the ship. Normally, Hank would have taken hold of the ladder at the end of the rooms and gone up a level, but this time he heard a strange ping, ping, ping coming from somewhere inside the Engine Room, and knew without thinking that it was Alex. His feet stepped over the threshold though his mind tactfully reminded him that only engineers were allowed in the Engine Room. Another part of his mind responded cheerfully that Hank was indeed an engineer, just not on this ship.
He shut the heavy metal door behind him, but left the lock unlatched, trapping the sounds of the engines inside with him. The room was flush with the comfortable (to Hank) sounds of the pistons pumping, steam escaping, valves working. It was unsurprisingly humid, his uniform sticking unpleasantly to him at his neck and underneath his arms within moments. In the center of the room was a small metal walkway, around which the engines were built. Down this Hank walked, listening for the next ping that would lead him to Alex.
He heard it somewhere before and above him, which confused him at first, but when he looked and saw the various short ladders and platforms that were hidden among the pipes he understood that: 1) Alex was on one of those platforms, and 2) Alex had most likely escaped to the Engine Room before. It certainly explained why, in the past three days, there seemed to be times during which Alex simply disappeared from the ship. Ping! went a pipe somewhere in the room. “Alex?” Hank called cautiously.
He sensed Alex tense. The next few moments were silent save for the usual sounds - whatever Alex had been doing to make that noise, he stopped. “Yeah?” he heard in reply, after entirely too long.
“Should you be in here?” Hank asked before he could stop himself, immediately regretting it. “What I meant was, is everything all right?” He gulped, waiting for a response.
“Those are two very different things,” Alex answered, because he’s a smartass. “However, the answer to both of those questions is: No.” This was followed by a ping!
“Okay,” Hank said, startled by and unsure what to do with Alex’s blunt honesty. “Um, where are you?”
“Here.” A blonde head appeared from the network of tubing above Hank to his right. “You gonna talk me down, McCoy?” He sneered, but Hank could tell there was no real venom behind it.
“Is that what usually happens?”
His sneer turned into a grin, playful. “Sure.” Alex withdrew back to the platform he was on, disappearing from Hank’s sight.
“Is that what you want me to do?”
Alex’s voice echoed when he answered. “Nope.”
Hank shrugged, making his way towards what he judged to be the appropriate ladder to climb, following the path up with his eyes before grabbing hold of the textured handlebars. “So…” he started as he began his ascent, wary. “What are you doing up there?”
His voice sounded louder, closer, when Alex replied in a slightly defensive tone. “I like it up here. It’s nice.”
“Why? Don’t you have a room you could storm into?” Hank was trying for light sarcasm; it had been a while since he’d had the opportunity to use it. Unfortunately, Alex didn’t seem to catch on.
“It’s peaceful,” he said, miffed.
“You mean the engines and valves don’t bother you? Most people hate it.” It was true - most people did. Hank knew of many captains and mates who refused to be confined to any ship’s Engine Room for longer than required, preferring to be above deck in the open, scanning the seas, or at least in a room with windows. Hank himself didn’t mind the confined space. The sounds would fade into the background, and the rocking of the ship would lull him into a headspace that made him both productive and sleepy; before joining Captain Lensherr’s crew Hank was quite known for fixing up engines and then falling asleep on the metal walkways.
“Well,” Alex said. “Most people don’t have Visions triggered by touch.” By now Hank had reached Alex’s platform, and he pulled himself up to sit across from the other man. In Alex’s hands was a dull metal ball, hollow from the way it sounded when Alex placed it on the platform.
“Oh,” Hank said, glad he wasn’t winded from the climb. “That’s how it works for you? I heard it’s not the same for everyone who has the Sight.”
“I’m most sensitive to Visions brought on by touching a possession,” Alex explained patiently, the language he was using indicative of how many times he had explained his Magic to others before Hank. “It has to belong to someone. Sometimes I get Visions regardless. It’s not like other Magic, like Fire or Water Mages. They can control their Magic. I generally can’t.”
Hank nodded to himself, thankful for the explanation. “So that’s why you saw my future that time on the HSS Cerebro,” he processed aloud. “You were holding my pocketwatch.”
He watched Alex’s face change from blank and bored to guarded and closed. “Yeah…” he said slowly.
Quickly, Hank changed tactics. “What’s the most interesting Vision you’ve had?”
Alex picked up the metal ball and dropped it again. Ping! “I don’t know,” he hedged, eyes averted. “I’ve had so many.”
“Any that actually came true?” Now the light sarcasm had turned into teasing, Hank thought. This was new.
Though he meant for it to be a jibe, it only served to close Alex off even more. His shoulders slumped. He said in a low voice, “Almost all of ‘em.”
For a moment Hank was unsure what to do; what does one normally do to cheer people up? He thought it would be juvenile to offer Alex half of his sandwich like he had done for others during his years at Academy. Besides, he had no sandwiches to offer at the moment. Steeling himself, Hank asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Remember when you were telling me about antropy?”
“Entropy.”
“Whatever. Entropy. I said when I See something, suddenly multiple paths open up: a future that follows the Vision, or a future where the people involved actively try to avoid it. It doesn’t always work like that, though. What people do after a Vision, no matter the intent, usually keeps them on the path of the original Vision. There are possibilities for change, but change is actually rare.”
“So…?”
“So that’s why I can’t bring myself to be nice to Jean,” Alex admitted brusquely.
This startled Hank out of his intense study of how Alex’s fingers curled around the metal ball, which was now in his lap. “Um, what?”
Alex sighed. “When they first met, after Scott emancipated, she was real nice, you know. She helped us out a lot, with like food and shelter and stuff. So one night we’re camping out in an abandoned shipyard, and I touched one of her mirrors-“ Alex clamped his mouth shut, breaking off abruptly. His knuckles turned white around the ball.
Hank longed to reach out and uncurl those fingers one by one, to warm his hands between his own. Instead, he asked, “And? What did you See?”
“I Saw…Jean is powerful, you know? Too powerful. I Saw her lose control of that. Of a fire. Mage Fire. I Saw her and Scott get caught in it, and I Saw them die. It was an accident, but. They die in the end. And then-“
Hank waited, breath held. Alex continued after a long exhale. “And then there’s me.”
“You?”
“Yeah. Just me. I can’t - I told Scott, but he didn’t listen - didn’t care! He said he loved her. They wouldn’t let it happen, now that they knew about it.”
“Maybe it won’t happen.”
Alex glanced up sharply, eyes a startling blue, meeting Hank’s own. “Maybe it will.”
And, well, Hank had nothing to say to that. Alex shifted his shoulders and looked unnervingly haughty about Hank’s non-response, and he simply couldn’t leave it at that. He had to say something. “You can’t live being afraid of the future, Alex. It’s going to happen. You might as well make the most of it.”
Inconceivably, Alex burst into laughter. Hank furrowed his brow, certain that he hadn’t made a joke, that time. “Ha! Oh, McCoy. If I had a ship for every time someone told me that, I’d have a fleet larger than The General’s.” He sobered when he realized Hank was not laughing with him. “I ain’t afraid, McCoy,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Just tired.”
“Hank,” Hank said.
“Huh?”
“If you’re not going to refer to me by my proper title,” Hank explained with a vague wave to the stripes at his collar, “then you might as well call me by name.”
“Hank,” Alex drawled, drawing out the vowel sound. A shiver passed up the scientist’s spine.
“Better.”
“Is that what your friends call you?”
“I suppose…”
A self-satisfied smirk appeared on Alex’s lips. “So then, we’re friends.”
Hank smiled. Alex smiled. It was a little awkward. Hank thought that Alex was kind of like those puzzles he used to complete in his family’s study when he was a child, like hundreds of pieces that fit together to create beautiful seascapes or winding maps and constellations. Only, Alex’s puzzle was missing some pieces - pieces for Childhood and Dreams and Things He Would Bring with Him to a Deserted Island. That was all right; Hank quite liked puzzles. He was reasonably sure that he was missing a few pieces, himself.
Meanwhile, in the Captain’s quarters, Logan and Darwin were enjoying their cigars. Logan sat on his chunky, unmade bed stuffed into a corner, while Darwin lounged in the armchair opposite. Despite his gruff appearance, Logan’s room was surprisingly cozy, though that may have had something to do with the pictures of many women on his walls.
“So what’s happening on Stryker Island?” Darwin asked, because it hadn’t been asked before.
“Rescue,” Logan said around his cigar.
“Who’s being rescued?”
Logan pointed to a spot behind Darwin’s shoulder. He craned his neck to see a picture of a pretty young girl with pale skin and chestnut brown hair. What stood out was the streak of white that ran through her hair. “That your girl?”
Logan huffed. “She’s a baby.”
“Age is just a number,” Darwin returned.
Logan quirked an eyebrow, effectively silencing him and bringing an end to that conversation. He may have been sharing a cigar with the man, but Logan still had the authority to throw him off his ship and into the deep, endless ocean. Not that he really worried about that. He would ask about the girl some other time. “So what do you do? Fire Magic?” Darwin commented, opening up another vein of conversation. He crunched his cigar; it was high quality.
“I’m a Healing Mage. And other things.”
Now it was Darwin’s turn to quirk an eyebrow. Logan noticed his incredulous look. “I mostly Heal myself. I’m kind of immortal.”
“Huh,” Darwin said. “What d’you know.” He sat back, thoughtful. He wondered how many different kinds of Magic there were out there. It seemed that the more he encountered Mages, the more types there were. The more they tried to categorize them, the more they defied categories. Darwin wondered if maybe there was a category of Mage that could describe what he could do, after all.
-endstory.