#more bean

✨MEN IS TOO HEADACHE✨

As a certified member of Lesbian and Co™️ I couldn't agree more :)

✨👁️👄👁️👌✨

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Thankfully, even with the worst tracking skills in the regiment, finding a man on bedrest was within Bean's level of skill.

The medical bay all of their group had been ushered to was closest to the bridge. The facilities were immaculate, and pristine by any standards. The waiting stool he’d been given was plusher than some household furniture he had come across. Certainly better than the frontline ramshackle fair they were used to.

Marius was being looked at, so Bean had some time to wait. To think. He’d done precious little of it on the way, content to simply listen to whatever Marius had to say and decide then. 

It would be easier, he could just look back on things and sigh that the stern words and rank had convinced him should the job become a nightmare. A way out.

Though now the dataslate was terribly heavy. It threatened to pull him down, to crack the legs of the stool, and drop him to the floor as it stared up at him from his lap.

He could still see her eyes, pained, unsure.

With a hesitant hand, Bean began to look.

He was greeted by the requisitions list. The whole group of them, every name Bean could put to a face and a few he couldn’t, together in a great list. It was throughout, new rations ordered, ammunitions, repairs, and extra items. He recognized a few things that had been asked for but were out of reach whilst on the front lines now bumped to the tops of the list. 

Curiosity got the better of him, and he had to check his own name. 

Percy “Bean” Otebo was listed with all the standard requests, plus three additional items: An Officers uniform jacket, a new set of basic kit tools, and ‘whatever the best long-range rifle the stores have’.

On the one hand, he was thankful new tools were in store. They always had a habit of running away from him, despite Bean's best efforts to keep them in order. The gun was a surprise, but the jacket…

He realized that was added last. Likely before Ostia had sent him away. She must have figured he would look. She did say to.

Bean scrunched his face, rubbing at his flushed cheeks. He’d never worn a uniform before. Or, a fancy one. The tabards, the flak armor, it was a uniform but not anything like what he’d seen the officers wear when they went to deal with the higher-ups. 

The door next to him opened, and a woman draped in the blood-red robes of the Mechanicus stepped lightly out from behind the door.

“Oh, hello Sir.” Her voice was cheery, the disconnect from what he expected versus what he heard nearly had Bean slackjawed. “Your friend in there is a bit… frazzled. But I do believe he’d much prefer your company to mine at present.”

“Thank you, miss” He wasn’t sure what titles were best. All the cogs he’d ever spoken to had been… been… well, not this normal.

“Of course, Sir.” She gave a curtsey. Bean nearly juggled the dataslate as he tried to awkwardly return a bow, but if she minded the crude attempt it did not show on her smiling, freckled face.

As quickly as she’d emerged, the woman was gone, striding away out of the waiting area and back into the corridors of the bustling ship. 

The man couldn’t help but swivel his head, making sure there were no other strange encounters to be had before ducking into Marius’ room.

The white walls were the same as they had been a few days ago. Bare. Clean. The only thing out of place was the man laid up in the bed, a scowl cutting across his face so foul it’d have an Ork running, Bean was sure.

“Ah- Hello Sir.” He saluted.

Marius let the scowl drop, doing his best to sit up. “Bean.” A nod, an acknowledgment. 

He still looked in terrible shape. While Bean had seen Ostia still managing with a slight limp, he had no doubt Marius still needed to be confined here. Bruising still ran up the side of his face, disappearing under a bloodied bandage that obscured one of his eyes. Plaid skin had replaced the once tanned, sun-stained color. The little Bean could make out of the skin on his arms was burned and blistering still.

“Why was… Shouldn’t you have a Chirurgeon looking after you?” 

He’d barely let the words leave his mouth before Marius was grumbling.

“The eye’s gone. I knew that much when it happened. But the cog was saying they could get me a new leg like it's nothing to just hack the damn thing off.”

A shudder ran along Bean’s spine. ‘I knew that much when it happened’ He had, Emperor's Mercy, not seen Marius when the group had first found him. But from the stories… 

“Well Sir, if you need it-”

“No.” His reply was quick. “I’ve seen… I saw how that works. I’d rather limp.”

The reply was final. It hadn’t been Bean's intention to arrive at a sick bay and rile Marius up, so he instead took a seat in the chair at his side. Thumbs running along the dataslate, he figured there was no point in putting it off.

“I saw the Scion, Sir.”

The anger melted away. The one good grey eye was quick to watch Bean “How is she?”

He couldn’t stop seeing her, just as she was before he’d left. Unsure. “She’s up.” 

The lines on his face softened. The exhalation of barely held air. 

“She… She told me to talk to you. About the records.”

Marius didn’t respond at first. He rolled over onto his back, painfully slow. The rise and fall of his chest were labored, but rhythmic. 

Finally, Marius closed his eye. “What do you want to know?”

Bean thought for a long moment.

“Whatever you think I should, Sir.”

If the answer caught the man off guard, he didn’t reveal it. The gentle hum of the lights, and the sounds of movement outside, were the only things to listen to for a long time.

“I served her father.” Finally, Marius spoke. His voice was halting. Raspy. “I served her father for so many years. He elevated me, even though I had not right for such a role.

“I remember him so well. He was in some ways her opposite: Gadriel hardly went an hour without smiling. He was a charismatic leader, and personable. His people loved him.”

There was the slightest of waverings to the final statement, an undercurrent Bean couldn’t place, but he made no move to pry.

“His death was a mistake. It was a tragedy. The man, the Knight, the weapons; The houses best all gone in the blink of an eye. A miscalled orbital strike.”

This story Bean had heard, at least in part. His parents had told stories about the destruction of BASTION, the Knight which had ruled before Ostia and WARDEN. It had apparently been a sight to see, gilded and gleaming in the sun, gold, and silver.

“I know the trip back was months, but I don’t remember a damn day of it. One minute I was there, at the crater, the next Lady Fealene was there, the kids were there, and all I could do was stammer apologies like a fool, and she…”

He swallowed hard. As things progressed, he told the story with a fevered pitch. Now it was also laced with bitterness. “She told us that Lucelle had succumbed to Illness, from the stress. And that Ostia had taken the ritual alone in the night in honor of her Father.”

Lucelle.

“That… Lucelle isn't the knight?” The churning in Bean's stomach was a storm. He prayed his assumptions were wrong.

Marius shook her head, pulling his face from the ceiling. Tears rolled down his cheek. “She lied to us. And… And we wouldn’t have known if the knight hadn’t started talking.”

It was not common knowledge, the situation in which the ruling houses actually were able to use the Knights. Growing up it had been myths of gallant deeds and blessings which allowed the nobles to wield such weapons. The Emperor's will itself made manifest some said. As he had stepped closer and closer to the Scion, all the gilding on the old tales had tarnished before his eyes.

Bean purposefully pulled his hands off the dataslate, forcing them to grab at his tabard instead. He felt likely to break the thing. “She didn’t say?”

“Fealene was-” The anger that Marius held bubbled to the surface, the vitriol apparent.

“Ostia.” Bean was quick to cut him off. “Ostia. She never-”

His response was barely a whisper. “No.”

There was no comprehension. No understanding is possible of what those events would do to someone. Let alone a child. The looming dread slowly settled in his bones, his shoulders, pulling him deeper into the understanding that their King had labored under this for years in silence.

“Why?”

Marius just shook his head. If there were answers to that question, they wouldn’t come from him.

Time passed in the thick stillness. The grief that played out across the lines of the veteran's face was a terrible thing. Bean wished for wisdom, for knowledge or understanding on how to fix these wounds that time had not.

But he could not know. His life had been idyllic. His parents still wrote him, his brothers still drew breath, it was through exemplary skill he’d ended up here, sitting at the side of a grief-stricken man and their seemingly broken King.

Though he knew he didn’t have the skill, he did know what his answer was.

“ I should… I have a lot of reading to do, Sir.” 

A twinge of surprise cut the grief-stained face. “Ah, you are a foolish lad, then. To decide to get wrapped up in this.”

“I think you both could use the help, even if it’s from a fool.”

Bean smiled, and though sincere it didn’t quite reach his ears.

The ghost of a smile touched Marius. He nodded, relaxing back into the bed. 

Before he left, Marius had insisted Bean take the numbers of two particular entries of note. But otherwise the man was left with little words.

Bean was hardly offended. He himself had little left to say. His fingers numbly traced the slate, mind wandering, trying to reconcile the planet he’d grown up on with what he now knew.

The walk back to his room was uneventful. The hallways were busy, but no one paid him any mind, and his thoughts circled around again and again. 

And when he blinked, he saw only amber eyes.