#thefoundationproject

Fox makes a disgusted sound, sneers down at the offending…. Gift.

‘All expense-paid cruise on the Hondo Ohkana ‘Sights of The Galaxy’ tour!!!!!!’ It proclaims in neon colours and excessive exclamation marks, ‘Very Romantic and Exciting!’

“When’s it say it’s good for?” Ponds asks, like he’s actually contemplating it.

“No.”

Ponds snatches the voucher out of his hands anyway, “Oh good! We aren’t busy that ten-day.”

Fox’s hand twitches, “I am not getting on a fucking ship with fucking Hondo Ohkana, Ponds.”

“Mhm, ‘course not Fox.” Ponds responds absentmindedly, pats his arm lightly in the way that means they are definitely getting on the fucking ship with fucking Hondo Ohkana, “We’ve got a ten-day to pack and get everything in order, that should be enough.” He nods to himself, breezes out of the room with a vague sense of purpose as he flits around the house, presumably for things to take on a ‘very romantic and exciting’ trip.

Fox is going to murder somebody, preferably Hondo, or Neyo. 

He hears the sound of Ponds grabbing the DC-15A’s and he grimaces, ugh, time to find the fucking holdout blasters, those things haven’t been serviced in at least a ten-day, and he needs to check on the blaster packs for the DC-17’s. He can’t remember if he restocked the things after the last time he used them. 

If they’re going on the fucking trip, they’re gonna be well fucking stocked.

(Fox manages not to murder Hondo, but it’s a very near fucking thing.

He does come back from the trip in a much better mood though, other than the twitch he’s developed from listening to Hondo all day. Ponds is annoyingly amused and smug about it. Fox ignores it, like he does every other fucking annoyance in his life. 

He shuts down the talk of another trip like it happening any time in this fucking century before Ponds even opens his mouth to respond. Once was fucking enough thank you.)

__________

Colt closes his eyes, casts a net about his mind for a sliver of patience and finds his supply has dwindled something awful.

When he opens his eyes again both nuisance and potted plant are still there. Gree smiles winningly and Colt smells danger. 

Or maybe he just smells the plant, because that is the thing overwhelming everything else right now. He glares down at it, it looks harmless, mostly, in it’s large pot but already Colt can hear the sounds of flies swarming around.

“That is not a houseplant,” Colt says, relatively tamely in his opinion, given that the overwhelming smell it emits is decay, “that is the type of plant one shoots and hopes doesn't survive the encounter.”

“It’s a very rare and endangered plant,” Gree lies, grin earnest and eyes bright with humour.

“It’s a pile of banthashit dressed up in vegitive form.”

“It’s an Amorphophallus titanum,” Gree corrects, “and it’s very rare, it’s one of the largest unbranched inflorescence in the galaxy that isn’t also carnivorous in any shape or form.”

Colt gives the plant a dubious look, “I’ll believe that when it doesn’t smell like it just ate and digested something.”

Gree shrugs, “It’s possible it’s a type of carrion flower…. but in the name of protecting it from extinction there’s no one I’d trust more than you.”

Colt twitches, he has no clue what a carrion flower is or how that accounts for the way it smells like Colt has a pile of corpses rotting away on his front step, but he does not like it at all.

The worst part is that he can’t actually tell whether this is Gree being serious or him pulling a shithead move. Because this is exactly the type of thing Gree would genuinely do and also the type of thing Gree would do just to fuck with him.

Behind him someone gags and Colt twitches.

“Fine,” he grits out, and Gree’s smile tries for sunshine and comes up partly cloudy and fully shiteating.

“Wonderful, thanks Colt.”

“Please leave.” 

Gree laughs as he leaves and Colt closes the door with a sigh.

“It smells like someone died over there,” Blitz calls out and Colt groans.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Havoc sniggers, “It really does sir, we might have to keep the Little’s away for a few days, wouldn’t want one of ‘em puking.”

Colt winces, that image does enough to convince him of the necessity, the only thing that could be worse right now is over a dozen Little’s sicking up from the smell. “Might be for the best.”

Blitz hums, looking at the now closed door in interest, “How likely is it that he was pulling your leg?”

Colt slumps into his chair, “50/50” he admits and Blitz raises his eyebrows.

“That is almost more concerning. What the kriff did they put in your batch.”

“Mistakes,” Colt grumbles back. This is why he’s the oldest, he’s the only one in the entire batch who managed to wrangle any sense out of his tube and keep it all the way through.

Havoc laughs and Blitz snorts, then looks like he immediately regrets it, “Ugh, Colt your batch is full of sadists I’m not gonna get the smell out of my nose for weeks.”

“It’s probably seeped into the clothes at this point,” Havoc agrees and Colt groans.

(When Shaak comes home she takes one look at the plant and can’t seem to decide whether to grimace or smile.

“Apparently,” he drawls, “it’s a very endangered plant that’s been entrusted to my care.”

A burst of laughter ripples out into the room and Shaak smiles, hand covering her lips as her shoulders shake minutely, Colt forgets about the death plant for a second as he looks up at her, heart stopping for a moment in the split second it takes her to swallow her laughter back down and he wants nothing more than to pull that sound out from her again.

It takes him a minute to realize that at some point he’d started smiling. He can’t seem to stop it, but there are worse things to find himself unable to stop doing.

“It’s commonly known as a type of carrion flower,” she tells him finally, laughter lacing her tone, “otherwise known as a corpse flower for the smells they produce. It is not endangered, though there are those who agree that it might not be too much of a loss if it was.”

Colt groans. Shaak giggles and Colt finds himself forgetting for a second to plot his revenge.

Maybe Gree will get off a bit lighter this time, if only because Colt got to hear that bright laughter. 

He hums, “Plant it far, far, far away from the house?” Shaak smiles, presses a kiss to his forehead.

“That, my dear Colt, sounds like a brilliant plan.”)

__________

Gree gives the box a look of suspicious distrust that makes Barriss giggle and Decker snicker. 

It’s a big box, about the size of his torso and Gree has seen that bland, even smile too many times before to trust the contents of the box.

“Fox,” he warns and Fox’s grin goes sickeningly sweet.

“Gree, Baby Brother Dearest,” he drawls and Gree can hear the capital letters what the fuck, “I put my heart and soul into this you know, I’m hurt, really I am.”

That, Gree thinks sourly, is the worst load of banthashit he’s ever heard, and he’s had to listen to ‘scientific lectures’ given by people who read maybe one Edupad and then promptly forgot all of the information in the Edupad and decided whatever half-remembered thing left was Fact and Truth and refused to listen to Reason…. or sources and cited works.

Gree was very annoyed about that one, he’d put Effort into that paper thank you very much and he’d taken the class to learn things, not whatever that had been.

Fox wiggles the box in his hands around, expression pleasant and smile sharp.

Gree sighs. At least, he assures himself as he takes the box, it won’t be as bad as whatever happened after Fox and Ponds had come back from Neyo’s…… Gift.

Maybe.

The box is squishy. Boxes are not supposed to be squishy.

Gree has a Bad Feeling about this. He raises an eyebrow, Fox doesn’t even twitch.

Behind him Barriss is watching the exchange with wide, mirth filled eyes and a hand covering her mouth. Decker has long since lost the battle of keeping his snickering quiet and the rest of Gree’s so called loyal troopers of Green company watch with rapt attention.

He sighs again, loud and long-suffering, Fox’s smile never shrinks a shade less than serial killer pleased.

Gree unwraps the wrapping flimsi with ease, and then stares with distant horror at the plasti-cling underneath it. Not a box, no, plasti-cling.

It’s layered.

Gree twitches and reaches for one of his vibroblades.

“It’s very delicate,” Fox informs him, just as he gets the vibroblade out of it’s holder.

“Oh?” Gree asks, really quite pleasantly given the plasti-cling is so layered he can’t see a damn thing through it.

“Extremely,” Fox confirms, deadpan. Behind him Barriss giggles uncontrollably and Decker is flushed with laughter and gasping for air and the others aren’t much better. 

“Do they always do this?” one of them whispers incredibly poorly, Gree twitches, Fox eyes him with that malicious amusement that cements his place as youngest forever in Gree’s head.

“Always,” Barriss whispers back, giggling still and Gree’s heart warms for a second before his impending humiliation via gift settles in again.

“I knew the Commander wasn’t only, you know, learny, but I always thought he was sane.”

“Oh he’s sane,” Cooker reassures, “far as we can tell their entire batch is just, Like That.”

“But this is Torrent lev—” Fox’s face gives an unpleasant twitch that Gree sympathizes with.

Torrent, ugh.

“Shhhh,” the rest of Green hisses and Barriss hides her head in her hands as she laughs.

“We don’t compare them to Torrent, makes them touchy,” Draa mutters, as if he isn't half the reason Gree goes into interactions with Torrent prepared to have engineering go on another crazed building spree. He has a hunch that they feed on each other, the engineers, and it's their own special kind of crazy that Gree is half fascinated by and half resigned to.

“My point stands.” 

Gree grits his teeth, narrows his eyes at Green Company as a whole to no avail, turns a raised eyebrow to Barriss in a last attempt at gaining control of a situation he’d lost all hold over the moment Fox had walked up to him with a ‘gift from the bottom of my heart, Gree’.

His cold dead heart maybe. Gree is plotting his revenge already.

He puts the blade back with mechanical motions, feels around for the beginning of the despised plasti-cling, seriously who made it Gree has complaints for them, and begins the arduous task of unwrapping it all.

Who let Fox have this much plasti-cling.

(Over 10 hours of nonstop focus later the last of the plasti-cling has finally been ripped away and Gree stares at the new puzzle cube. Ugly and about the size of his palm. Much, much smaller than the wrapping he’d been given, nearly the size of his torso.

Gree makes a strangled sound that he will forever deny, Draa. 

The plasti-cling sits around him tauntingly, viciously victorious in all it’s piled glory.

It takes 3 days for Green Company to stop laughing about it. It does not take 3 days for them to stop sharing the holopics and vids they took, that takes much longer.

Barriss is Gree’s favourite now, everyone else is awful and everything they say is lies, and Fox has been demoted to all the way to being the baby.)

__________

Neyo tilts his head, grin bordering manic, “That, is the ugliest piece of garbage I’ve ever seen.”

Colt smiles, “It’s high class art.”

“It looks like someone took cans of paint and dumped them on the nearest patch of dirt they found.” 

“The texture adds value.”

“It’s chunks of dirt and grass.” Neyo hisses in delighted outrage. 

Colt waves a hand, voice disinterested and all ‘above all this nonsense’ like, “Very classy. Made with only the best of intentions.”

Neyo giggles, “It looks like actual manure, I hate it.”

“I got it just for you,” Colt simpers, like the little shit no one ever believes he is, “I saw it and just knew you’d connect to it.”

Neyo cackles, “This is awful, you’re awful, I’m hanging it on the wall and telling everyone you painted it.”

Colt raises an eyebrow, “No one will believe you.”

He’s right, it’s awful. Neyo pouts, “I could convince them.”

No he can’t, but that’s besides the point.

Colt hums, “mhm, I’m sure you could kih’vod.”

Neyo flicks at Colt’s wrist and wilts, “This is harassment.”

“Whatever you say Ney’ika.”

“You’re a bully.”

“Mhm.”

“I can’t believe anyone thinks you’re responsible.”

“That is because I am.” Colt says, putting Neyo in a headlock, they both ignore the way Neyo tenses up for a fraction of a second before he relaxes, sulks, digging his elbow into Colt’s side.

It’s the first time Colt has given him such a blatantly awful gift. Neyo cackles and something shakes loose in his chest. His throat feels grossly tight and the stupid shitty canvas covered in dirt and paint sits leaning against the wall innocently.

Colt makes the same even face he uses on the Little’s when they’re being hilarious and he can’t afford to tell them or when he’s about to say something completely karking stupid because no matter how much he likes to tell everyone he’s the oldest he totally isn’t. 

Neyo slips out of the headlock, giggles through the knot in his throat and rolls his eyes.

“You’re deluding yourself and everyone around you.” he tells Colt. Colt has only ever been responsible by necessity, and never once in all of Neyo’s memories of him, has he been anything less than an absolute shithead just like the rest of them when there was no necessity.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“I’m not arguing with you like a first-cycle.”

“Are too.”

“Neyo.”

“You’re the one who gave me the shitty painting.”

“It’s high class art you bastard.”

Neyo preens, “Thank you, still the worst thing I’ve ever seen though. Might hang it up in the front room, just to really bring it all together.”

Colt sighs, aggrieved. Neyo has no sympathy for him, really if you’re gonna play the game you gotta be in it to win it. It’s not Neyo’s fault that the trashy, awful, horrible dirt, grass, paint mixture splattered onto canvas happens to be horrifyingly tasteless. Neyo loves it. It’s gonna make Fox so mad.

(“Neyo,” Vaughn asks, staring at the wall, “why is there a, what even is that, dirt? On canvas?”

Neyo straightens up, grins wide, “Colt painted it. Out of the love in his heart and the limited talents he was decanted with.”

Vaughn raises an eyebrow, “That’s lovely and everything, why is it hanging in our front room.”

“It is horrifically awful and I love it and Fox and Ponds are coming over tomorrow.”

Vaughn laughs.

The next day, Ponds takes one look at it and giggles, “Fox, Fox come here, you’re gonna hate it.”