#offcuts

“I call shotgun on the shower!” Felix yelled, bounding up the stairs of the Unreliable two at a time.

The boss made an irritable noise but they didn’t argue and he heard the familiar sound of the captain’s chair creaking as they settled into it. They were probably going to contact the Doc anyway, he thought. They usually did whenever they returned from a mission.

They’d been on Monarch almost a week, beating back the bandits who were attacking the supply routes and delaying the rations making it out from Stellar Bay to rest of the settlements. It had been heavy going, but with the support of the Iconoclasts they had eventually cleared the route. Felix had hoped they’d have been due some sort of reward on return to the city but instead Jaq had spent several hours in meetings with Mr Nandi and Zora, and rather than hang around listening to them talk politics he had drifted over to Left Field to catch up on the tossball league. There were games on tonight he didn’t want to miss.

He stripped off rapidly and dove under the showerhead before the water had finished warming up. He shivered and puffed out his cheeks, working to scrub the marauder blood from his skin. The pressure wasn’t as good as he’d gotten used to on the Hope but it would suffice in washing out the stains and the smell of sulphur from his hair.

By the time the steam had started to rise in the bathroom and obscure the mirror, he was done and out, wrapping himself in a thread-bare towel before darting down the corridor with soggy feet. SAM would get to the puddles before Jaq was done chatting, he could still hear their voice echoing up from the cockpit, and very faintly in the background, the familiar laugh of Doc Welles.

He was glad to be back aboard the Unreliable but Felix did miss the Hope, more than he’d expected. At first he’d been disappointed when Jaq had told him he was staying behind and missing out on the adventures they were having but he’d discovered it was actually pretty good fun getting to rebuild the abandoned facility and help out with experiments. That and it was nice hanging with the younger lab techs and watching tossball with them.

Oh, shit! If he was quick he might catch the end of the Hammers game before Rangers v Backers kicked off.

Felix bounded down the hallway and into the mess, snagging a case of zero-gees from the fridge and a bag of spacer-chips. It sounded like Jaq was still finishing up their conversation so he flicked on the aetherwave and flopped down on the sofa.

It was nearing the end of the first quarter when Jaq finally emerged from their room. They dropped down beside him and Felix passed them a bottle of zero-gee that had grown lukewarm in the time it had taken them to freshen up.

“Everything ok with the Doc?”

He sure hoped so. The old man was surprisingly fun to be around, always ushering Felix over when he had a cool new chemical to show him or something really weird happened with an experiment. And Phineas never made him feel stupid, even when he had to ask for the super long science words to be explained. The Doc would get all excited and break it down for him so he could understand and Felix was starting to get a grasp on some of the processes that went on in the lab.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Jaq replied taking a long swig on their drink. “One of the door mechanisms had jammed in the crew quarters and apparently the team of four bio-chemists he sent to fix it couldn’t figure out the wiring.”

Yeah, Felix could imagine that all too well. In his time aboard the Hope he’d discovered half those lab-coated so-called geniuses couldn’t figure out how to build a bunk or salvage the workable bits from an old air-scrubber.

Jaq snorted and took another swig. “Anyway, Phin wanted me to talk him through the electrics whilst he had the panel open. He’s fixed it now.”

“That’s good. He’ll be disappointed he missed the Hammer’s game though.”

Jaq gave him a confused look.

“Phin watches tossball? I thought he hated it,” they said, as a crunching tackle sent a chorus of cheers up from the crowd watching in the stands and Felix punched the air.

He reached for the chips and stuffed down a handful before nodding. “I’ve been teaching him the rules. He seemed real surprised how much maths is involved. I never really thought of it like that, but anyway, he’s kinda starting to get the plays. I think.”

“Huh. And he supports the Hammers?”

Felix frowned. “Well, yeah, obviously. I said he had to pick a team and he asked who your team was and I said you backed the Hammers but that was a real bad choice because their twenty-eighth back has been injured all season and they don’t have a good defensive play and – oh come on, ref!”

The replay showed the towering Rizzo’s fifth back hurling the Backers forward off the ball.

“Anyway. I did warn him but I guess it makes sense he’d pick them, to avoid rows and stuff. I mean, I could never date anyone who didn’t support the Rangers. No offense, boss.”

There was a sudden spluttering noise from beside him and when Felix finally dragged his eyes away from the aetherwave Jaq was wiping frothy suds from their mouth with a damp sleeve. They gave another cough before taking a tentative sip.

“We’re not . . . dating,” they said eventually and Felix didn’t miss the red glow to the back of their neck.

“Oh, really?” That didn’t make any sense. “But you talk over the secure transmission all the time and he’s always real happy afterward, like bobbing around the lab and humming and stuff.” Felix scratched his head and turned back to the game in time to see a two man tackle go in on a forward who’d begun a promising darting run at goal. He winced as the player hit the deck with a thud picked up clearly by the mics.

“Really?”

Jaq didn’t seem to be paying attention to the game and Felix really wanted to concentrate on it but they were being kind of weird so he nodded. “Yeah, and he talks about you all the time. It’s always, ‘Jaq did this’ and ‘Jaq said that’ and ‘Jaq’s a big hero.’”

It was kind of fun actually. Phineas always wanted to hear all the cool adventures the crew had been on and he never seemed to get tired of Felix talking about what life used to be like aboard the Unreliable. He’d always listen intently and chuckle at things or ask questions about the boss and the others. Well, mostly the boss, now he really thought about it.

“You really aren’t . . . like . . . a thing? But didn’t he stay in your bed that time?” he asked with a grimace. He liked the two of them and it was nice to think they might be happy together but he really, really didn’t want to think about them smashing asteroids. Gross.

Jaq’s neck was about as red as a landing beacon at this point and Felix decided it was best not to look in their direction.

“I told you before, the camp bed is uncomfortable,” they muttered.

Felix shrugged and went in for another handful of chips. Jaq really didn’t seem interested in the food and they’d finished their beer but were still picking at the label on the empty bottle, swilling the last of the dregs.

“So, you think . . ?

The Rangers’ forward pack were beating their way through the Wednesday zone now, repelling backs left right and centre. He fidgeted in his seat, gripping the edge of the sofa as they battered through the last defensive line on the way to the goal . . .

“You think he might be interested in me?”

Felix whooped, diving out of his seat and spraying crumbs across the floor. “What a shot!”

He punched the air, grinning with elation before dropping back onto the sofa. Jaq didn’t seem very excited about the goal.

“Sure, boss. Trust me, I’ve watched loads of serials, I know what a proper romance looks like.”

Felix drained the last of his zero-gee whilst the teams set up for the restart. If Rangers kept this up then he would be collecting his winnings from Left Field tomorrow morning before they got back to work. He was contemplating whether he might be able to afford a new souvenir jersey when a sudden thought occurred to him.