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Chapter Text

Marvelous skids to a stop against the wall, chest heaving, and says, “Since when are you so much faster than me?”

“I don’t think I’m that much faster, I’m just using a ranged weapon.” Gai’s panting too, one hand braced on his knee, the other tight around the haft of his trident. “Actually I’ve been thinking about changing up my tactics a little, do you think Don could make me a net?”

“A net?”

“You know, to go with the, uh…” He wiggles the trident. “It’s a classic on Earth. A trident and a net. You tangle the other guy up in it and then…” A vague stabbing motion. “Ker-foom.”

Marvelous winces at the thought. “When did you get so vicious?”

“Well, there’s these notorious space pirates I’ve been hanging out with for the past, oh, three and a half years now, they taught me everything I know about fighting dirty.”

“No such thing as fighting dirty when your opponent wants you dead. Has it been that long? Three and a half years? Sometimes it feels like it’s barely been a week.”

“Yeah, it was three years in June, and it’s…December now? I mean. December-ish. Earth time. Nearly Christmas, actually, I should see if I can find a tree. Maybe we can do chicken for dinner tomorrow.” Gai finally straightens up, slots his trident into its rack on the wall, and holds out a hand to Marvelous. “Speaking of which, I’m starving, we should go eat.”

“Never going to say no to that.” Marvelous lets Gai pull him up, racks his own sword, and then pulls Gai in again, grinning. “So this net, though. What sort of people are you planning on catching in it?”

Gai trails a finger down the lapel of Marvelous’ shirt. “I mentioned those notorious space pirates, right? I was thinking I’d catch one and keep him.”

Marvelous breathes out half a laugh. “You’re almost as good as that as I am.”

“What, catching pirates? Well, I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Would you like a little more?”

It takes them another half an hour before they manage to go get lunch.

Chapter Text

Gai says, slowly, “You’re…a vampire.”

Joe blinks. “A what?”

“You drink the blood of the living.”

“Well, yeah, with permission. What’s a vampire?”

“A person who drinks blood? Although you do go out in the daytime, I guess, and you don’t seem like you’re dead…”

It takes a while for Gai to explain, with a lot of gesturing and backtracking and references to various books and films, but after forty-five minutes or so Joe agrees that yes, vampire seems like mostly an accurate term, “But I’m not dead or anything. That’s just what people from my planet are like.”

The other four have been listening this whole time, fascinated. Ahim’s embroidery sits in her lap, untouched; Luka’s stopped polishing her rings completely. Doc is at least pretending to read a magazine, but Marvelous is just staring.

There’s a long-ish pause, and then Gai says, “Can I. Can I see your fangs?”

“Sure.” Joe rolls his neck and opens his mouth, and the fangs extend, top and bottom.

Ahim covers her mouth to hide a laugh. She and the rest of the crew all know how he loves to show off, he’s told them that his especially attractive teeth were a point of pride back on his home planet. It’s mostly just sort of a curiosity on the Galleon, like how Marvelous can see in the dark and Luka’s knees and elbows can bend in the other direction when she wants them to. it’s not like any of them are really the same species. It must be nice for him to have someone so interested in them.

Gai stares at Joe’s fangs for a moment and then drops onto the couch next to Doc with his face in his hands, mumbling something that resolves after a minute into, “That’s so hot, holy shit, you have no idea.”

Joe preens visibly.

“How do you eat, though.”

“Well, I only actually need to once a week or so.”

“We take turns.” Captain Marvelous taps the side of his neck with two fingers, grinning. “It’s on the chore wheel, actually. Between grocery shopping and checking on the treasury.”

Luka gets up and goes over to perch on the edge of the couch just so she can elbow Gai in the shoulder. “It’s not really a chore. It’s fun, you’ll like it.”

Doc pats Gai’s other shoulder, hesitantly, and Gai sort of crumples over onto him with a weak sound. “A vampire,” he says, and now even Doc looks like he might laugh. “That’s so cool.”

Chapter Text

Ahim is repairing the embroidery on one of Doc’s jackets.

The extraordinary thing, Marvelous knows, is that every single one of the stitches she does has a name. She showed him, once before, her gentle hands sure as they set down line after line of thread. Split stitches and chain stitches and Doradan knots, patterns that she knows by heart or perhaps can see in her mind like he sees treasure maps. She doesn’t even look at what she’s doing half the time–right now she’s leaning against Luka’s shoulder and smiling as Luka reads her something from a magazine, and her hands keep moving.

He sprawls in his chair, knees over one arm and head hanging off the other, and watches upside-down as art blooms on Doc’s lapels, one stitch at a time, and thinks about the way Doc’s going to smile when she hands the jacket back to him. Put it on, admire it in the mirror, show it off to the others, because Doc’s reserve drops away when there’s an opportunity to speak well of someone else.

The common area smells of sugar, too. This is because Joe’s making cake, not for any particular reason today, just for the pleasure of having cake. Gai is helping, making frosting at one end of the table with a wooden spoon while Doc tinkers with a broken hand mixer at the other. The entire room is warm, and Marvelous is drowsy with the sweetness of the air and the mesmeric effect of watching Ahim’s hands at work.

After a long time that might actually be a short time, he tears his gaze away from the growing embroidery and pulls his own Ranger Key out of his pocket to stare at it. It’s light, all Keys are light, but its presence weighs on him. AkaRed set him to the task of finding the greatest treasure in the universe. He’s fairly sure he’s making progress, but there are still moments of uncertainty.

He tips his head back again, Ranger Key in hand, and looks at Ahim leaning on Luka’s shoulder, Doc and Gai working at the table, the flicker of Joe moving in the galley.

Yeah.

Yeah, they’re getting there.

Chapter Text

Gai is surprised to discover that the Galleon has diving equipment, and then further surprised when he learned that as far as his crew mates can remember, it’s never been used.

Luka shrugs. “I don’t know how to swim. My home planet didn’t have a lot of, like. Bodies of water. Well, I guess we had water, but you didn’t want to go in it.”

“Famille had beautiful oceans,” Ahim says wistfully. “But swimming was considered an unbecoming activity for a princess.”

“Marvelous is negatively buoyant,” Joe says, frowning vaguely in the captain’s direction. “He just sinks. I can swim, I guess, but I haven’t in years.”

Don shivers. “I know how to swim. I don’t like to, but I can if I have to.”

Gai pauses and glances over at the helm computers. “When’s the next time we’ll be stopping on a planet with good oceans, do you think?”

“Well, we need to make a stop for supplies sometime soon, there’s a temperate planet with safe water in the Kajiki System, not far from our current location. Why do you ask?”

The water on this planet is oddly green, but otherwise it’s pleasantly Earth-like. The air is fresh and clean, the ocean is a bit warmer than Gai had expected…it’s very nearly tropical, the kind of thing he remembers seeing and envying in classmates’ vacation photos.

He adjusts the diving mask he grabbed from the Galleon’s stores, rolls his shoulders, and jumps head-first off the deck. The others make startled noises, but he barely hears them, hitting the water smoothly and continuing down.

It feels slightly colder now that he’s in the water, but he adjusts quickly, and the Galleon’s diving gear is oddly minimalist but extremely effective. The goggles even keep themselves clear, somehow. He kicks hard and dives deeper, hair streaming out behind him–he’s been letting it grow out, and it feels nice now. The water’s very clear. He could probably see for a few kilometers through it, if he tried.

He doesn’t try. He’s looking for fish.

Finally he spots a likely one, sort of…tuna-adjacent but bright purple and striped with iridescent green. His trident’s on his back, and the net that he got Don to make him; he retrieves them easily enough and grins behind his re-breather. They haven’t had fresh fish in ages. Which makes sense, it’s not easy to find in space.

It’s not exactly a pitched battle. He’s gotten pretty strong, over the years, and the trident and net serve him pretty well. The net’s also got a secondary use; once he’s succeeded, he’ll use it to carry the fish back to the ship.

Even with all the additional strength, the trip back to the surface is still distinctly slowed by the addition of a fish on his back that’s almost as big as he is. That’s probably good. Gai hadn’t realized how deep he’d gone. The water here is so clear that it had been barely noticeable.

Finally, though, he surfaces, swims over to the Galleon, and climbs up the chain Marvelous lowers for him and back onto the deck. The sun’s still warm, the water feels good streaming off his hair and down his back and chest, and–

–and also the others are staring at him. Don says, “Did you. Did you just…?”

He pulls off the diving mask and grins at them, gesturing to the fish on his back. “I got dinner!”

Marvelous, apparently speechless, is looking at him like he just descended from the heavens instead of crawling up out of the water. Don is gaping at the fish.

Luka says, “That might be the sexiest thing you’ve ever done.”

Gai feels his face warm up. “Ah. Well. Um. Thank you. I should warn you, though, it’s…I’m gonna need to clean this before we can eat it, that’s gonna be. A lot less sexy.”

“Nothing you could do right now,” Marvelous says feelingly, “would make you any less hot.”

Chapter Text

Doc’s been quiet for a couple of days now. Not silent, because that’d get everyone’s attention right away, just quiet. At first nobody really notices, they all get in moods sometimes, but when he finally disappears up the ladder to the crow’s nest there’s a moment of silent glancing at each other, and then Joe follows him up.

He’s got his arm folded on the railing, staring out at the horizon. “Do you ever get homesick?”

“Not really.” Joe leans against the railing next to him, close enough to reach but not so close as to be in his space. “I enlisted to get away in the first place. Why?”

Doc shrugs. “Sometimes it just hits me, that’s all. I don’t want to go back, but it’s hard remembering that I can’t.”

“That’s fair.”

The Galleon moves relatively quickly, but thanks to the environmental maintenance fields surrounding the nest, all they can feel is a light breeze as it sails through the air. They pass over roads, lakes, small towns, at one point a city that stretches on for ages before giving way to land again. Animals ignore them; sometimes humans look up and point.

“Night’s coming.”

“I noticed.”

“Luka will probably want to come up soon to look for stars. What direction are we going in?”

Joe frowns briefly. “North, I think. Gai said there was something he wanted us to see.”

“Did he say what?”

“Some kind of light thing, he wasn’t very clear. You know how he gets.”

Doc nods and takes a step over, leaning against Joe’s side. Joe puts an arm around his shoulders and says nothing. Luka comes up a few minutes later and stands on Doc’s other side, counting under her breath as she finds her first ten stars. When she’s spotted the last of them, she links her arm with Doc’s and stares out at the darkening landscape with her chin in her hands.

About ten minutes after that, there’s a minor commotion below, and then Gai and Marvelous and Ahim all come up the ladder one by one, Marvelous reaching down to lift Ahim up the last bit of the way. Doc frowns at them. “Did I actually worry you guys?”

“Yeah, a little.” Marvelous leans against Doc’s back, chin resting on top of his head, and grins. “But Gai also made us come up here for something else, what’d you call it?”

“The northern lights! I’ve always wanted to see them, but I’ve never had the chance before.” Gai leans out dangerously far over the railing to point. “Here, it’s actually dark enough now, I think we’ll see them in a minute.”

They all turn to look where he’s pointing.

Doc makes a choking noise. “Is that a geomagnetic storm?”

“Yeah! Isn’t it cool?”

Doc gapes, dumbstruck, and the sky twirls its skirts and bathes them all in green light. “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never gotten to see one before. I had no idea they looked like this.”

“It seems very appropriate that you brought us up here,” Ahim says softly, reaching over to lay her hand over Doc’s on the railing. “It is your color, after all.”

Chapter Text

It’s cold in space, but the temperature control on the Galleon is currently malfunctioning, and the entire ship is blazing hot.

Doc is lying on the floor next to the console, exhausted from tinkering with the circuits. It’s not the actual climate control devices that are malfunctioning, just their sensors, which is theoretically an easier fix except that they’re small and delicate and require concentration. Gai is sprawled next to him, stripped down to boxers and t-shirt, trying not to melt into the floor as he keeps track of Doc’s tools. Luka’s lying next to him, and next to her, Joe’s gone still on his sit-up board and is staring dully at the ceiling.

Mostly they’re all worried about Ahim, who doesn’t sweat. Gai had thought this was a joke at first–she’s a lady, and ladies don’t sweat–and then later learned that no, Famille was a temperate planet, her species never developed sweat glands. She’s draped over the couch, somehow still looking elegant in a full slip and no other layers as an ice cube melts on her forehead. Marvelous is sitting on the floor next to the couch, his head resting next to her hand.

Doc says, slowly, “I think I’ve got it fixed. I just need…two more minutes…”

“I don’t think Ahim’s going to last two more minutes.” Luka rolls over a bit to look at Ahim, a frown creasing her forehead.

“I am quite all right, Luka, thank you for your concern.” Ahim’s voice is very faint. “I have full faith in Doc’s ability to solve this problem before it poses a serious danger to my health.”

“Thank you, Ahim.” Apparently bolstered by her confidence, Doc finally sits back up and returns to working on the sensors.

As he works, Joe looks over at Navi and says, “Hey, Navi, why is it so hot?”

Even Navi looks a trifle overheated. “That’s not treasure navigation,” it says tartly.

“No, but you’re connected to the ship’s systems, you must know something.”

Navi makes an electronic hmph noise and shakes itself. “Planetary alignment. All the planets in this system are on the other side of their sun currently. Very rare occurrence. Once every two hundred and seventy-seven years. Galleon’s suffering from an overload of solar radiation because nothing is blocking it.”

“That makes no sense.”

“You asked!”

Doc makes a triumphant sound, and there’s a loud click, and the temperature in the common area plummets to the sound of Luka and Joe’s breathless cheering. Ahim’s complexion visibly brightens, and she pats Marvelous on top of the head. “Thank you for sitting with me, Captain.”

He tips his head back and kisses her fingertips. “Of course.”

Gai gets to his feet slowly, shaking himself as if he’s trying to wake up, and says, “We should have ice cream, I’m going to go get ice cream for everyone.”

Everyone’s heads turn towards him as Marvelous says, “We haven’t got any ice cream.”

“No, we do, I made it last night but it wasn’t finished setting. It would’ve just melted before, anyway.”

“…are you telling me we’ve had ice cream this entire time and we haven’t had it yet because it wasn’t set.”

“Well, that and the last time I made ice cream you ate half the batch yourself way too quickly and then complained about your headache for the next hour, so I had to hide it.” Gai scrambles for the kitchen, grinning, as Marvelous gets up and dives for him. “Hey, hey, I’m getting it, calm down!”

Ahim sits up and pops the remainder of her ice cube in her mouth, chewing it up delicately before saying, “Perhaps we can sail around to the other side of the sun and view the planetary alignment while we have our ice cream.”

“That sounds nice.” Luka helps her to her feet. “An astronomical rarity, with ice cream.”

Chapter Text

Gai is cleaning the common area and singing to himself. It’s a song none of them know, something sweet and romantic about his heart being an egg, and he dances a little as he sweeps and dusts. He’s got his hair tied back in a scarf printed with their emblem.

The room is brighter with him in it.

“Where did you even get that scarf?” Marvelous squints up at him as he climbs up onto the back of the couch to wipe some dust off the top of the wall.

Gai beams at him. “I made it!”

“How?”

“Screen-printing.”

“…I don’t think I’ve ever asked, what did you do before you joined us?”

“Worked at a bookstore, why?”

“Are you done cleaning?”

“Just about, did you–”

The duster falls to the floor with a clatter and Gai sort of squawks as Marvelous grabs him and pulls him off the back of the couch. It takes a moment to sort out limbs, especially given Gai’s frankly astonishing quantity of elbow. Once things are under control, though, Marvelous has a convenient lapful of Gokai Silver, who he proceeds to kiss thoroughly.

Doc looks up from his magazine in surprise. “Are we kissing Gai now?”

Marvelous pauses mid-kiss and says, thoughtfully, “Yes. Very serious full-crew activity, actually, get over here.”

Doc immediately drops his magazine. Joe lets go of his chin-up bar. Ahim gets up from the table. Luka, who was already on the other end of the couch, puts aside her paper. Gai lets out a startled, delighted laugh before he’s rendered unable to again. The couch isn’t very big, but somehow they all manage to pile on anyway.

After about ten minutes Gai does manage to say, “What, what brought this on?”

Joe, who’s perched on the back of the couch now leaning over Marvelous’ shoulder, shrugs. “Ask Marvelous, it was his idea.”

Marvelous also shrugs. “It just seemed like the thing to do.”

Chapter Text

The worst of it, really, after all his other happily-committed crimes are taken into account, is that Basco actually misses cooking. There’s no point in it on Free Joker. Sally wouldn’t appreciate it, she only eats bananas and the occasional green thing, and it doesn’t seem worth the bother to do it for just himself. Without anyone else to compliment him, what’s the point?

He’d gotten the job on the Red Galleon with pot roast.

News around the spaceport, some crazy pirate who’d declared that he was going to find the greatest treasure in the universe, and of course that had gotten his attention. Who wouldn’t want to find the universe’s greatest treasure? He’d ship out with the madman, and if some disaster happened to befall them later and leave Basco to stumble back to port alone but rich beyond imagining, so much the better. Even if they didn’t find the treasure he could surely get a ship out of it. So he’d put on his friendly face and gone to apply for the job, and AkaRed had looked him up and down with that faceless mask and said, “What do you have to offer the Red Pirates, Basco ta Jolokia?”

“Well,” he’d said, thinking of what it might take to get a madman to carry him to the jackpot, “I cook a damn sight better than most of the scum in this port.”

“We haven’t got a cook right now. Show me.”

He should have suspected something when he saw how small the crew was, really. Just him, AkaRed, one ludicrously beautiful cabin boy who was probably either AkaRed’s son or his lover, and an oddly-designed mechanical parrot. Three men and a bird to find the greatest treasure in the universe? He should have known from the start that AkaRed was up to something. But the cabin boy had scarfed down the roast like his life depended on it, and AkaRed had said, “Welcome to the Red Pirates,” and for that one moment it had been a good thing.

Actually, Basco realizes now, staring out the front viewport of the Joker, really he should have started getting suspicious when he’d noticed that AkaRed had hired a cook but didn’t eat. And now he’s stuck sailing round and round this disregarded blue planet, chasing after the cabin boy and his pretty bodyguard and the rest of his pack of moon-eyed lovers as he tries to find a treasure that he’s beginning to doubt even exists.

Blue.

What a loathsome color for a planet to be.

Jolok, he recalls faintly, was yellow and orange when seen from space. He misses his home, in quiet moments, with its dry heat and three moons and real gravity. It was, once upon a time, a place he nearly loved, before it was lost to one of Warz Gill’s famous tantrums. By comparison, every step he takes on Earth feels like swimming, humid and overlight. Who could live happily, in this damp place? What worth does it even have?

He’d fallen into the rhythm of the Red Galleon so easily. The sweet domesticity of isolated space travel, cooking and mending and welcoming AkaRed and the cabin boy back from their adventures with all the good cheer of a faithful wife. He’d almost forgotten what he’d joined up for until the night he’d stayed up to catalogue the galley stocks and heard AkaRed going through the treasure chest and talking to Navi about saving Earth.

In all this miserable universe, this man had them running across space to save one planet?

It’s nearly a pity, Basco thinks as he sits in his chair and turns the Rapparatta absently in his hands, that he’ll have to kill the cabin boy. Maybe he should have gone about things a different way, maybe he should have seduced Marvelous instead and just turned him against the old man. Then he’d have someone else around to appreciate his cooking.

Maybe he shouldn’t have betrayed them at all. Maybe he shouldn’t have joined the Red Pirates in the first place.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

God damn them all. AkaRed, the Zangyack, Marvelous and his precious Gokaigers, this miserable wet planet…

Why should he bother to do for Earth what no one ever thought to do for Jolok?

He blows a single, mournful note on the Rapparatta and then turns slightly in the chair from which he captains his crew of one and says, “Hey, Sally. I don’t imagine you’d have any pot roast, would you, if I made some?”

She just stares at him.

Well, if he’s going to have regrets, at least he’ll be the richest man in the galaxy while he has them.

Chapter Text

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you work on your sword out here.” Luka looks fascinated. “Don’t you always do it in your room?”

Joe shrugs. “Doc said if I got oil on my blankets one more time he’d short-sheet my bed, he’s tired of scrubbing them.”

“That’s fair, I guess.” She stares for a moment longer, and then gets up abruptly. “Hey, if I go get mine will you show me what the hell you’re doing? I can never get an edge like you do.”

He blinks up at her, and then nods. “Sure, go ahead.”

She gets her sword and pistol and brings them back, and when Ahim comes in five minutes later it’s to find them sitting face to face on the common area floor, Luka’s sword across Joe’s knees. “You don’t really…you don’t have to find the edge, exactly,” he’s saying, running his fingertips down the flat of the blade. “It shows up for you.”

Ahim sits down neatly on the couch, puts down the basket of embroidery she was carrying, and leans forward to watch them.

“You should talk to Doc about it, actually.” Joe hands the sword back to Luka, held flat across his palms. “Have you seen the kitchen knives, I could split hairs on them. Actually, Ahim–” he looks up at her, “do you know where Doc is, would you get him, please? And tell him I’d like him to show Luka the edge on his cleaver?”

“I believe he’s in the engine room.” She hops up. “May I bring my own sword as well? I fear it’s not in very good condition.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

A trip to the engine room, and then detours to Ahim’s room and Doc’s, and then the kitchen. When she returns with Doc, both of their swords, and Doc’s intimidating kitchen cleaver in tow, Gai is there as well, sitting at Joe’s elbow, the head of his trident in his lap.

“Thanks, Ahim. Oh, good, you brought the cleaver, Doc, would you walk me through how you get that edge? It’s terrifying.” Joe looks around. “Does anyone know where Marvelous is? I’ve been getting on him about giving his sword a look, if we’re all doing this now he should be here too.”

“He’s up in the crow’s nest, we’ve got a nice view of that nebula, you know, the orange one. I’ll go get him.” Luka gets to her feet.

In the crow’s nest, Marvelous leans against the railing and stares out at the orange nebula. There was something in there once, and it takes him a moment to remember–right. The Green Flash Key, on some asteroid. He and AkaRed had roped the asteroid in and found the key tucked into some little crater, and Basco had made them pot roast for dinner.

He’d always liked Basco’s pot roast.

He almost sighs, but not quite.

Luka’s head pops up through the trap door. “Hey, Captain, get your ass down here, we’re having a party.”

He jumps, startled enough that he nearly goes head-first over the railing. “Luka, what the hell–what? What for? Why a party?”

“Nothing really, it’s a sword party, Joe says you’re neglecting yours.” Marvelous wiggles his eyebrows at her, and she grins and aims a punch at his ankle that he only just dodges. “Come on, come hang out, Joe says if we can all get our swords as sharp as that cleaver of Doc’s he’ll make cake.”

“Ok, you could’ve led with that.” He spares one last glance back before moving to follow Luka down the trap door. “What’s for dinner?”

“Not sure, since it’s a party I was gonna suggest ordering from that place on Alpha Centauri but I think Doc said something about pot roast?”

“That’d be nice.” The trap door closes on the view of the orange nebula, and he looks down at the rest of his crew, crowded on the common area floor with their weapons in their laps and their eyes fixed on whatever Joe’s doing with his whetstone. “I like pot roast.”

Chapter Text

Gai is breathing deeply through his nose. “I always wanted to get my ears pierced, but my parents kept saying no, and then I just never had the time for it.” He sounds calm, but his knuckles are white on the arms of Marvelous’ chair. “Are those Ahim’s embroidery needles?”

“No, they’re piercing needles, Doc had some. I did my own ears with sewing needles, but you should’ve seen his face when he found out that was what I was going to use.” Luka rolls her neck and then holds the first needle in the flame of the lighter she borrowed from Marvelous. “He looked like he was going to faint.”

“…why did Don have piercing needles?”

“Because you got those emerald studs near Antares and then you kept looking at my ears,” Doc had said. “I knew you were going to try to do someone’s eventually.”

Luka flashes Gai a smile. “No idea, probably just a Doc thing. Are you ready?”

“… it’s not going to hurt a lot, right?”

“Nah, just sort of pinches.”

Gai takes another deep breath and closes his eyes as Luka puts a cork up to the back of his ear and–

“Ow.” Followed by, “Ok, yeah, that wasn’t too bad.”

“Right? We’ve both had way worse.” Luka glances thoughtfully over at the tray of earrings she brought out with her and then picks up a little silver stud set with a gleaming piece of onyx and slides the post into the hollow piercing needle. “This part’s gonna feel a little weird, hold still.” She pulls the needle through his ear the rest of the way and out, and the stud is left behind, bright on his earlobe as she puts on the back.

“Oh, wow, that did feel weird.” Gai looks to the side in a futile attempt to see his own ear. “Does it look good?”

“Yeah, I’ll get a mirror in a minute.” She grabs another needle, strips the sterile packaging off, and starts to heat it up. “You want another one in this ear, or am I just doing the other one now?”

“Two in this ear would be cool–ow, ok, that one was way faster.”

“It’s easier if you’re not thinking about it, yeah?” Luka grabs another onyx stud from the tray. “And…there. Two in that ear, and then we’ll do one in the other and you’ll be all set.”

A few minutes later, there’s an amber stud in Gai’s other earlobe, and he’s turning his head back and forth to look at all three piercings in the mirror Luka’s holding up. “This is so cool. And also really nice of you, Luka, thank you for doing this for me. And for sharing some of your collection.”

Luka turns slightly pink. “Well. Well, what’s the point of having all this jewelry if I can’t show it off? I can’t wear all of it myself. And, and I have all of these silver pieces, but I don’t even wear silver. So I might as well put it on you.”

He kisses her on the cheek. “Thank you, Luka.”

She blushes harder. “Shut up. Go talk to Doc, he’s got bottles of this antiseptic stuff you can use to clean the piercing while it’s healing, I’ll show you how to do it later.”

Gai gets up and goes to find Doc, and Luka strips off her rubber gloves and turns around, only to bump directly into Joe’s chest.

He grins down at her. “Actually, I was hoping you’d do mine next.”

She gapes at him. “You? Want me to pierce your ears?”

“Well, I used to wear studs in them, but after I enlisted I couldn’t, jewelry was out of dress code, so the holes closed.”

Her eyes light up, and she gives her tray of jewelry a calculating look. “Sit down, I have a pair of little sapphire guys that’d be perfect on you.” She reaches for an alcohol swab as Joe sits in Marvelous’ chair. “You know corundums are one of the hardest gemstones in the galaxy? You could fire a bullet at these things and it’d probably just bounce off.”

“Really?”

“Well, ok, maybe not a bullet, but they’re really tough to break.” She starts to clean off his earlobe. “So if you’re here, should I be ready for one of the others to show up after you?”

“Ahim, maybe, she seemed really interested when I mentioned I was going to ask you about it.”

“Perfect.” Luka reaches for another piercing needle and the lighter. “I’ve had some pink diamond stuff set aside for her practically since she came on board.”

Chapter Text

The captain has been in a foul mood all day. It does happen, very occasionally, but it isn’t good for him, and by the time they’re all finishing dinner Ahim decides that something must be done. It wouldn’t do to put him on the spot while they’re all at the table, of course, that would just make his mood worse. So, she bides her time and waits until they’ve finished dessert and cleared the table and Luka and Joe and Gai are ensconced in a game of poker while Doc reads a book. Then she stands up, smoothes her skirt, walks over to the captain’s chair, and says, pleasantly, “Marvelous, I’ve decided that you may stay with me tonight.”

Marvelous looks up at her, startled, and says, “What?”

“You may stay with me tonight.” She pats his hand. “Since you’re clearly in no fit state to be left by yourself.”

“In no fit–” His eyebrows draw down, as if he’s going to be annoyed with her, but then the tension drops under her steady stare, and he says, “Ok. Thanks, Ahim.”

At the table, Joe is conspicuously holding his hand of cards in front of his mouth, which Ahim appreciates. This is not the moment for Marvelous to feel that he’s being teased, if she’s any judge of his moods, and after all this time on the ship she’s certainly become one. “You’re very welcome, Captain. I think we’ll retire in about an hour.”

At that he very nearly smiles. “Whatever you say, Your Highness.”

By the time an hour’s passed, he hasn’t exactly cheered up, but he’s come out of his brown study enough to play two hands of cards, and to ask Doc what he’s reading without teasing. That’s a good sign in and of itself, and it quietly confirms to Ahim that she’s made the right decision. Sometimes Marvelous just needs someone to startle him a bit, and she’ll appreciate the company.

She stands up and says, “It’s gotten quite late. Captain?”

In her cabin, Marvelous closes the door behind them, and Ahim steps out of her shoes and looks at him thoughtfully before turning her back and saying, “Unbutton me, please?”

“How do you manage to do all these up by yourself?” he says.

It’s not an unreasonable question–this particular dress buttons all the way up the back, from the base of her spine to the top of her neck, just below her hairline. “Generally I don’t,” she says, primly. “I have one of the others do them for me. But when I must do them by myself, I use a hook and two mirrors.”

“A hook?”

“Oh yes. It’s only for the buttons in the middle, of course; the ones at top and bottom I can reach quite easily.”

The buttons are pearls, and Marvelous frees each one from its little elastic loop with great care, her dress opening little by little down her back. She takes care of her cuffs herself, and when she feels him step away from her she steps out of the dress and folds it neatly over the back of her chair, to be washed and steamed tomorrow. Without looking, she reaches back and bats Marvelous’ hands away from his own collar. “I’ll take care of that.”

He’s staring at her when she turns back around. “What’s got you in this mood?”

“I think the question is, what got you in yours, Marvelous?” She unbuttons his waistcoat. “You’ve been walking around looking like a thundercloud all day. No one else was doing anything about it, so I decided that I would.” The waistcoat goes over the back of the chair, on top of her dress, and she starts on his shirt buttons. “Did something happen?”

He looks away from her. “I had bad dreams.” She doesn’t press, but after a moment he continues. “AkaRed dying. Basco dying. All of you dying.”

“All the more reason not to spend tonight alone, then, if you’re having bad dreams.” She folds his shirt, puts it on top of his waistcoat, and considers reaching for his belt buckle but stops herself and instead says, “You may kiss me now, if you like, or we can go to sleep early.”

Marvelous nods slowly. “Is there one you’d prefer?”

There’s certainly one he’d prefer, that’s easy to see. Fortunately it’s rather what Ahim was hoping for. She reaches up to the back of her head and carefully undoes her bow, which causes her hair to fall down around her face in a way that she knows Marvelous finds maddening. “Either one would be pleasant, but I certainly wouldn’t mind if you kissed me.”

She’s always liked the way Marvelous kisses. More than that, she likes the way he holds her when he kisses her, the way he cups the back of her head with one hand like he’s worried that she might break. She’s not as delicate as all that, but he treats her with delicacy nonetheless, which is very charming.

“May I take you to bed, Your Highness?” he says, when he’s pulled back a bit.

She smiles up at him. “Yes, Captain, you may.”

He picks her up by the waist, grinning when she giggles, and swings her around like they’re dancing as he steps towards the bed. Not that it’s a large room; they’re at the bed in not quite two steps, and he sits down in a way that seamlessly transitions into a fall backwards with her on top of him.

“See,” she says, “you’re feeling better already,” and kisses him again.

“I guess I am. There is something that would make me feel even better, though.”

“You’ll have to tell me what it is, then, I was planning to deal with your bad mood one way or another.”

It takes a little doing, since of course she hasn’t finished undressing. She wiggles out of her underwear, only sparing a brief regretful glance as she has to drop them on the floor instead of putting them with the laundry. Her slip, light as it is, can be tugged up easily, and he holds her steady as she climbs up and settles herself, knees on either side of Marvelous’ head.

He looks up at her from between her legs, winks, and then takes a first long, slow lick, and she gasps and grabs the headboard of the bed. “Oh.” He watches her, and in return she obliges him by showing off a bit, a blush coming to her cheeks as her hips rock slightly against his mouth, and she says, “Yes, that’s it–slightly faster, please, that’s–yes, oh, that’s very, yes–”

In the morning, she wakes up curled up mostly on top of him, which suits how they both sleep most comfortably and the small size of the bed. Marvelous is still asleep, but he stirs when she does, and she taps his chin with one finger and says, “No bad dreams this time, I hope?”

He opens one eye. “None at all. Actually, I slept so well that I think I’m going to stay in bed, you’ll have to stay with me.”

She giggles, and then says, with as much seriousness as she can muster, “One of us will have to leave at some point to bring back food.”

“Nah, I’ll call Doc and make him bring us breakfast in–” he catches her look and grins. “Right, no, I won’t do that. What drawer are my things in?”

“The third. Please bring me a glass of orange juice.”

“You’ll have to stop being on top of me first, you know.”

“Yes,” she says, cheerfully, and makes no move to get off of him. “Yes, I suppose I’ll have to move eventually.”

Chapter Text

Doc has nightmares.

Granted, they all have nightmares, but when Doc’s get bad he stops sleeping completely, and then everyone suffers. Sure, the others can cook and clean–well, Gai can cook and clean, and can sometimes persuade the rest of the crew to help. The actual ship, though, is Doc’s domain, and if he’s not functioning, eventually it doesn’t function either. Sometimes, too, if he’s really not sleeping, he starts having ideas for things to make it function better, and the last time he did that they ended up without working showers for a week.

This time, he’s coming up on day three of no sleep, and he’s spent the last two hours since dinner talking feverishly about modifying the cruise drive, and Marvelous starts to get out of his chair with a mutter of, “I’m going to deal with this.”

“Don’t.”

Marvelous turns to stare at Joe. “If he gets into the engines when he’s like this he’ll get us all killed.”

Joe raises an eyebrow. “You think I don’t realize that? You come on a little strong, Marvelous, it won’t help. I’ll take care of it.”

He doesn’t do anything, though, until the others have mostly wandered off to their cabins and it’s just him reading the paper, Doc fidgeting with his adjustable socket wrench and still talking about the cruise drive, and Gai sitting next to Doc looking a bit glazed as he tries to follow along. Then he stands up and says, “Doc, you need to go to bed.”

Doc freezes like a rabbit locking eyes with a snake. “No, no, I’m fine, I was going to stay up a little more.”

“Ok. That sounds fine, that’s sort of what I was expecting you to say.” Joe nods, looks at him thoughtfully, and then continues with, “So are you going to stand up or do I need to carry you?”

Gai makes a startled noise halfway between choking and laughter, and Doc jolts and looks at Joe with a clearer gaze than he’s had since at least the morning. “You wouldn’t really–right, ok, I’m standing up.”

Under Joe’s calm, watchful eye, Doc brushes his teeth, washes his face, and then gets to the door of his cabin and starts to say, “You know what, I’m not actually very–” and stops in the face of Joe’s calm, steady stare. “How long have I been awake?”

“Nearly three days.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“I noticed.” Joe reaches around him and opens the door. “In.”

The look on Doc’s face finally begins to shade from manic to profoundly tired as Joe quietly harasses him into changing into something soft he can sleep in. By the time he’s done, he’s swaying on his feet, and he mumbles, “If I sleep I’ll have dreams again.”

“No, you won’t. I won’t let it happen. Come on, lie down.” Joe tugs off his own shirt and pants and gets into bed next to Doc, wrapping his arms around the other man and pulling him in close so that his chin rests neatly on the top of Doc’s head. “No dreams.”

Doc yawns against his collarbone. “I don’t think you can sword fight my bad dreams, Joe.”

Joe grins. “Wanna bet?”

He waits for a reply.

Doc is already asleep.

Chapter Text

Don wakes up to three realizations. First, that he actually slept, and well, which is a pleasant surprise after the last few nights. Second, that Joe is in bed next to him, which is unusual but nice. Third, that Joe is still asleep, which is even more unusual, and has a death grip on his arm.

Admittedly this is better than sharing the bed with Marvelous–Don’s woken up under him on more than one occasion, and it’s miserable trying to wake him up to make him move, because he’s heavy. Joe’s got extraordinary grip strength, though.

“Joe,” Don says, making a futile attempt to get his arm free. “It’s morning.”

Joe doesn’t open his eyes. “I’m very comfortable. I always forget how nice your bed is.”

“That’s because I get myself decent sheets and don’t constantly drip oil on them. Come on, I need to make breakfast.”

“Gai can make breakfast, I’m comfortable.”

“And your comfort inherently requires my arm?”

“Yes.”

Don stares at him in frustration for a moment. He still hasn’t opened his eyes. He’s also not smiling, but doing it in a way that makes it obvious that he’s thinking about smiling. That’s absolutely infuriating, and also inexpressibly cute, so Don kisses him. It seems like the thing to do.

It also makes Joe open his eyes, which is helpful. “Are we kissing now?”

“I’m not going to be making breakfast, am I?”

“Not if you’re going to go kissing me like that, no.”

By the time they get out of Doc’s cabin, Gai has made breakfast. In fact, the others are mostly done eating already. Luka whistles raucously when they come in, grinning, and in response Joe grabs her around the waist and swings her around the common area in a series of hastily-invented dance steps, culminating in a theatrical dip-and-kiss that makes Ahim clap her hand over her mouth to stifle laughter.

Luka gapes up at him once her mouth is free again. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I slept well.”

“You sure did, what’d Doc do to you?” She pulls herself upright by grabbing his lapels. “Not complaining, though, damn.”

Somehow, this sets the tone for the rest of the day. They’re on a fixed course towards their next stop, so there isn’t a lot to do on the Galleon other than relax. Luka spends ten minutes leaning against the wall squinting at Marvelous before abruptly sitting down in his lap and pulling his mouth down to hers. He makes a startled noise before getting a firmer grip on her, and the next few minutes for them are entirely occupied by kissing while everyone else maintains a level of polite blindness. Then she gets off his lap and goes to play Mario Kart with Gai, leaving him blinking in surprise.

Shortly before lunch, Ahim decides to do some redecorating in the common area and has Marvelous lift her up so that she can hang a few pictures higher up on the wall. When they’re set, he turns her in his arms and kisses her, and she giggles in delight and throws her arms around his neck. Once her feet are back on the ground she goes over to the couch, taps Gai on the shoulder, and then kisses him on the ear, which causes him to turn bright red and lose the current round of Mario Kart.

From its perch near the front of the room, Navi croaks out, “I’m going to go spend time in the cockpit, you’re all too full of youthful energy or something.”

“Oh, because you’re so old,” Luka says, before kissing Gai’s other ear and then grabbing the passing Doc and pulling him down onto the couch with them.

Doc blinks. “Why are we grabbing me?”

Gai kisses him. “I think because you started this whole thing in the first place.”

Chapter Text

As a rule, Marvelous doesn’t think too much of royalty, but the princess they picked up on the last planet is…distracting.

She is, of course, beautiful. All princesses are beautiful; Marvelous is fairly sure that they take classes in it. She speaks softly and sweetly, and she smiles a lot, although when she thinks no one’s looking she often looks sad. She dresses nicely, and she’s very polite. It’s all very “typical princess”–he’s met a few, the type is consistent.

So why should this princess be different from all the other princesses he’s met? What makes her so cute?

He jumps as Joe says, directly into his ear, “So you’ve been staring at the princess for half an hour now.”

“Goddamn it, Joe, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“If you don’t want me to sneak up on you then you should pay more attention to your surroundings.”

“I’m on my own damn ship, Joe, I shouldn’t have to be on guard constantly.”

“She’s been with us for four days and you’ve been staring at her for most of them, why not just ask her to have dinner with you?”

“Where am I supposed to take a princess for dinner?”

“Marvelous, I know the captain’s quarters have a dinner table in them. Just because we always ate sitting on the bed doesn’t mean that’s the only option.”

Marvelous squints at him. “Are you joking? I can’t ask a princess if she wants to have dinner in my bedroom. What–don’t roll your eyes at me, you jerk.”

“You don’t ask her if she wants to have dinner in your bedroom, idiot.” Joe looks like he’s suppressing a smile. “You act like a captain. You ask if she’d do you the honor of dining with you privately.”

“Why do you know how to act like a captain?”

“Because I was hoping for a promotion before everything went bad.”

Marvelous gives him a long, dubious look, and says, “Ok, if you say so. I’ll give it a shot.”

Even so, it takes him another two hours to do it. That’s irritating–he doesn’t like feeling uncertain of anything, especially not when he’s on his own ship, dealing with his own crew. And he still hasn’t figured out what it is about this specific princess that interests him, what it is about Ahim de Famille that sets her above every other obnoxious royal he’s ever met.

When he finally goes to find her, though, she’s seated neatly next to Doc, doing some kind of fancy embroidery on one of Luka’s jackets, and Doc’s frowning at one of the nav screens and saying, “I don’t recognize this ship’s insignia, I hope they’re not going to be a problem.”

Ahim looks up from her work at the symbol he’s indicating and frowns, her mouth pursing into a little bow for a moment before she says, “They’re a crime syndicate. They used to give my father terrible trouble.”

“Ooh. Really? Are they bad?”

“As I recall, they primarily operate in the slave trade. That’s one of their scouting ships.” She pauses, glances down at the jacket in her hands, and sets down another neat stitch. “If I remember correctly, you said that you needed some new parts for the engine, yes?”

“…I did, yeah. Why?”

“Well, this presents a very clear solution to the problem,” she says brightly, setting Luka’s jacket aside. “When they come within range, I suggest that we pillage them. I hope that’s the correct word.”

Oh, right, Marvelous thinks, as he steps up next to her chair. That’s what makes this specific princess so cute.

This one’s a pirate.

Chapter Text

“Are you making a robot?”

Doc doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “Sort of. Gai gave it to me.”

“Gai gave you a robot?” Marvelous sits down across the table from him, frowning. “He doesn’t normally do tech.”

“No, it’s not tech. It’s a model. Of a robot. It’s from some show he enjoys, I watched a bit with him and the designs are very interesting, so he got this for me. I wish I could see a diagram of how the thing is supposed to work in the show, but it’s a cartoon, so I suppose that’s a bit much to ask for.”

Marvelous nods slowly and leans forward to watch his hands. He’s covered part of the table in plastic frames filled with what Marvelous realizes, after a moment, are the individual pieces of this thing he’s putting together. He clips each piece out with enormous delicacy, slowly snapping together bits of white plastic into a shape that after not too long reveals itself to be a wing. It’s clearly very fussy work; his concentration doesn’t waver at all.

“Really I’m supposed to do this part last,” he says unexpectedly after a few minutes of silence. “But I was interested in how the pieces are articulated, so I decided to do it early. I’ll have to put them aside once they’re done.” He’s fitting in individual feathers, careful and sure. “It’s ingeniously designed.”

“It’s gorgeous.”

Doc actually does look up for a moment, to flash him a smile over the table. “Isn’t it?”

He goes back to his work. The wings are finished and put aside, and more of the robot starts to take shape in his hands. It’s satisfying to watch something be built, but even more satisfying to see Doc relax like this, focused and calm and enjoying himself for once.

At some point he pulls out a sheet of minuscule stickers, working each one up delicately with the tip of one of his little precision-blade knives, laying them down just as delicately on pieces of plastic nearly as small. Now he’s really concentrating. His tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth as he holds pieces up to the light, and his breathing’s slowed down, almost like he’s meditating.

Finally he puts his tools down, the model still half-finished, shaking out his hands and stretching his fingers. His tongue is still sticking out.

Marvelous stands up, leans across the table, and says, “Hey, Doc.”

Doc looks up, blinking. “You know, I think I’d almost forgotten you were there.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Marvelous tips his chin up a bit more and kisses him. “You’re cute when you’re concentrating.” Kisses him again. “You should stop for a while, you’re going to get hand cramps.” A third kiss.

Doc turns bright pink and nods. “Uh. Noted. Yeah, I should. Probably take a break.”

Chapter Text

Hina is asleep on the couch in the Galleon’s common area with Doc’s jacket draped over her like a blanket. There’s a frown line between her eyebrows, and even in sleep the corners of her mouth are turned down slightly. She could have slept in one of the cabins, but none of them can blame her for not wanting to be alone.

At the table, Daiki turns to Doc and says, with cheer that only sounds slightly forced, “Got any threes?”

Doc stares morosely at his hand for a moment and then pulls out a card and passes it over. “Here you go.”

“Wonderful, thanks.” Daiki flashes the card to the table–Three of Hearts–and tucks it into his own hand before saying, “Any kings?”

“Go fish.”

Daiki sighs theatrically and pulls a card from the top of the draw pile. “You know, if this were poker, I could conceivably be winning. Your turn, Joe.”

Joe raises an eyebrow over his hand of cards. “What makes you think you could beat either of us at poker?”

“Oh, it’d be easy. I’d ask you if you got that bounty on your head by being illegally gorgeous, and then while you were blushing I’d cheat.”

Joe snorts. “You wish. That might work on Doc, though, he always gets flustered when we compliment him.”

Doc turns bright red. “Joe! You can’t just, just–hey.”

“What? You have nice eyes, we have to remind you once in a while.”

“You can’t just say that kind of thing to me, though, you know how I get.”

Daiki has to put his cards down on the table for a moment, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Oh, I, don’t mind me, I’m not laughing you, I’m just remembering how easy it used to be to beat Tsukasa at poker when he was Great Leader the first time.”

“The first–I’m not going to ask, I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it.” Joe pauses. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of man to be flustered by compliments, though.”

“No, I’d just unzip his pants and win the game by default.”

A pause, and then Joe nods solemnly and says, “When it was just the two of us on the ship I used to beat Marvelous at poker the same way.”

Doc giggles hysterically. “You never mentioned that before!”

“Well, it’s hard to pull off when the whole crew is playing, if I tried that with everyone then Luka would just pull a few spare cards out of her sleeve while Marvelous was distracted.”

This time Daiki laughs, also semi-hysterical, and then calms down and pulls a flask out of his back pocket. “Drinks, gentlemen? Since we’re acting like this is a normal evening?”

Doc nods enthusiastically. Joe says, with exaggerated calm, “What, this isn’t normal for you?”

Elsewhere, in a space between worlds which is primarily nothingness but for them, two other men sit slumped back to back, heads drooping, eyes momentarily shut against the work they’ve laid out for themselves.

Tsukasa says, very slowly, “I always forget how much I hate dealing with Dai Shocker until I have to do it again.”

Marvelous huffs and nods. “I’ve spent the past week expecting to get knifed.”

“Yeah, that’s what it’s like.” There’s a long, exhausted silence before Tsukasa continues. “I can keep this up for us for maybe another half an hour. Give us both a bit of a breather.”

“Sounds good.” Marvelous tips his head back just as Tsukasa’s doing the same, and they bump into each other, staring in opposite directions at the nothingness and yet still in perfect accord. “You know how to play poker?”

Chapter Text

There isn’t enough good water on the Galleon for decent bathing, Marvelous hasn’t had a chance to restock in a while, and so after first aid his new friend–Joe, Joe Gibken, formerly of Zangyack–has to make do with the sonic shower. He doesn’t seem disappointed when Marvelous tells him this, at least. “If there’s no time limit then it’s already better than military hygiene.”

“Nah, no time limit, not like there isn’t a second one.” Marvelous passes him a towel. “Your clothes are gross, though, we can probably find you new ones once you’re out unless you’re really attached to those.”

Joe looks down at the remnants of his military uniform and says, “Is there a spot where I could burn them?”

Marvelous grins at him.

A quick shower of his own, clean trousers, and then Marvelous sits down to figure out, “Where the hell am I going to find clothes for him? He’s too tall and skinny for my stuff.”

“Basco might’ve left some clothes,” Navi says, and then squawks and tumbles off its perch when Marvelous throws a Ranger Key at it. “Hey, I was just saying!”

“Don’t say that name.” Marvelous scowls. “I’ll find something that’ll work. Something else.”

A soft voice says, “Something that’ll work for what? And who’s Basco?”

“Nobody. Clothes that’ll fit you. That is. Uh.” Joe has emerged from the showers with his towel wrapped around his waist. It’s strictly for modesty, of course, it’s not as if the sonic leaves any trace, and Marvelous is suddenly terribly thankful that he remembered to offer one at all. “I mean.”

Joe pauses and then says, “Is there a reason you’re staring at me?”

Marvelous casts around desperately for a response that isn’t just, you’re not wearing anything and I haven’t even seen someone else naked in at least a year and holy shit you’re gorgeous, and comes up with, “Your hair’s pretty long for a navy man, wasn’t that against dress code?”

“Most of the recruits came from species that didn’t naturally grow hair like this, the dress code didn’t cover it. I put my clothes in the trash.” Joe wanders around the common area, looking over the sparse furniture and minimal decorations, peering curiously at Navi, apparently unconcerned by his general nudity. Right, Marvelous thinks, military man, he’s probably used to bathing and changing around a whole troop of other people. “This is a nice ship. Warm. Navy vessels are chilly. It’s really only you here?”

“Just me and the bird, yeah.”

“Not a bird!”

“Shut it, Navi.”

Navi makes an offended noise and flies away through the cockpit door.

“How’s your neck?”

Joe raises his hand and touches the collar mark, which has already started to heal with the first, pre-shower application of ointment but still stands out red against his skin. “Not so bad. You’re still staring at me.”

Marvelous settles back in his chair, trying to look casual, intensely aware of the fact that he’s not wearing much himself. “I was wondering what your hair care routine is, you look good for someone who’s been on the run.”

“It’s genetic. You’re not looking at my hair.”

Fuck it. “…no, guess I’m not.”

The stray-cat look has come back, Joe still and eyeing him sidelong, and the air is tense in the silence of the common area. Finally, “I’m not going to sleep with you just because you saved me.”

Marvelous makes a face. “I wouldn’t expect you to, I’m not that kind of pirate.”

“But you’re still staring at me.”

“You’re walking around in nothing but a towel, who wouldn’t stare at you?”

Another pause, and then a smirk just as catlike as the earlier wariness. “So I should take the towel off, then.”

Marvelous feels his face go hot and curses silently. “Look, it’s just been me and Navi for a while now, I’m not used to having…people here…” and he trails off as Joe walks over to him with even more of a smirk and a hip sway that he definitely didn’t have earlier. “I mean. I.”

It’s one hell of a kiss. Granted, he hasn’t kissed anyone in a really long time–although he suspects Joe hasn’t either, military life hardly lends itself to that kind of thing–but it’s still a lot. It’s a kiss that’s saying things. Marvelous can hardly focus enough to figure out what those things are, though, so it’s helpful that Joe follows up with, “I’ll take my towel off if you want me to.”

Marvelous blinks several times, makes a few incoherent noises, and then, finally, manages to croak out, “I absolutely do want that, yeah.” He’s never been more happy to have the ship to himself.

Joe kisses him again. This one’s even more of a kiss. “Your hair’s nice too.” His hands are untying his towel.

Marvelous says, weakly, “Thanks.”

Chapter Text

They spend the first three nights in separate cabins. It’s difficult to sleep; Marvelous finds himself lying in his bed and staring at the ceiling, thinking of how strange it is to have someone else on the ship with him. He imagines that he can hear footsteps in the halls. Any second now it’ll be time to get up and go on another adventure. At any moment he’ll wake up to AkaRed’s cheerful bellowing and discover that all this has been one long, bad dream.

On the fourth night, though, he finally succumbs to the frustrations of insomnia and gets up to get something to drink, only for Joe to wander into the common area just as he’s sitting down. He very nearly scowls at his new companion. “So have I been hearing you walking around the past few nights? Or was I actually imagining things?”

Joe shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep, so I was exploring. Lot of empty rooms on this ship. Did I keep you up?”

“…nah. I couldn’t sleep either.” Marvelous holds out his flask. “Rum?”

“Sure.”

They drink in silence together, which is at the very least better than drinking in silence alone. It’s not good rum, though, and finally the faces Joe makes whenever he takes a sip get to Marvelous, and he starts laughing, and Joe starts laughing too. It’s almost what the ship used to be like, when it was still the Red Pirates roaming the stars together, but somehow it doesn’t sting. When he’s got his breath back, Marvelous grins. “Well, if I’ve relaxed enough to laugh like this, I guess I can probably get to sleep now.”

Joe nods. “Reasonable.” And then, “You want company?”

It feels like it takes a long time for Marvelous to make himself say, “I’d like that, if you feel like keeping me company.”

It’s not like they haven’t had their hands all over each other plenty during the daytime, but it’s different at night. It’s different in a bed, for that matter, instead of making out like awkward teenagers on the couch in the common area. It’s different with Joe’s hair spread out on Marvelous’ pillow and his back arching and his nails drawing lines down Marvelous’ back with every thrust. And it’s different afterward, too–the clean-up is no less awkward, but the awkwardness fades when Joe is the one who says, first, “You mind if I stay?” and saves Marvelous the trouble of asking him to.

“I’d like that,” Marvelous says again, as he did earlier, and settles back against Joe’s chest, lets Joe wrap an arm around his waist. “But if you snore I’m going to kick you out.”

“I won’t snore if you won’t,” Joe says into his hair, and is asleep in moments.

Luka doesn’t sleep, Marvelous notices after two nights, and he can tell because he can hear her wandering the corridors after they’ve all turned in. He wonders if she’s looking for things to steal, but then he hears the faint creak of the steps up to the crow’s nest and knows that isn’t it.

He and Joe haven’t shared a bed since they brought her on board. Didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, she already seems so ready to run away. Granted, it doesn’t seem to have helped much. She’s still so goddamn nervous.

Robe on, flask in one hand, and he runs into Joe at the foot of the stairs. “So you heard her too.”

Joe grins at him. “I can’t sleep in my own damn bed anymore, anyway, it’s too cold.”

Marvelous rolls his eyes, and they go up to the crow’s nest together.

Luka glances at them, but doesn’t say anything, just takes the flask when Marvelous holds it out to her and drinks half of it in one impressive pull. She wrinkles her nose as she’s passing it back. “That’s really cheap rum there.”

“Don’t give me shit about it, Joe’s the one who makes it.”

“Ooh, home-brewed. Bet you fifty zagins that I’ve got a better recipe, you gotta let me at your distilling rig tomorrow.”

“I’ll take that bet. You make better rum than me, you get fifty zagins and I’ll make cake, but you have to keep doing it after that.” Joe takes the flask from Marvelous and leans against the railing at Luka’s elbow. “Couldn’t sleep?”

She scowls up at the expanse of stars. “The bed’s too soft. Anyway, it’s weird having my own room. Could get used to it, but it’s weird.” The flask passes around again, and this time she only takes a sip. “When I was a kid we only had the one bed, and it was real fucking cold, so it was either you sleep huddled up or you freeze.”

Joe huffs. “Yeah, I know how that goes. Half of the reason I joined the navy was it meant I got my own bed.” A pause. “Bed in the captain’s cabin is a decent size, though.”

Luka looks at him sidelong. “You’re coming onto me by offering me his bed?”

“I mean, if I didn’t then he was going to, he’s like that.”

“Hey,” Marvelous says mildly, “don’t talk about me like I’m easy.”

“Like you’ve ever even tried to play hard to get.”

Marvelous drinks the rest of the rum in a gulp and throws the empty flask at Joe’s head. Joe catches it one-handed, and Luka lets out a stifled giggle. “This is a pretty fucking roundabout way of asking if I want to sleep with you.”

“Not as if you’re sleeping when you’re by yourself. Anyway, everyone needs company sometimes.”

“Company. Fair point.” Luka nods slowly. “That what you’re offering?”

“Yeah.” Marvelous elbows her gently. “That’s the basic point of all of this, isn’t it? Not being alone?”

The best part of the night isn’t seeing Joe look up at him from between Luka’s thighs and wink as she curses sulfurously and pulls his hair, although it’s pretty stirring. Weirdly enough, the best part actually comes after that, much later after, when Marvelous goes to turn out the light and finds that she’s already fallen asleep, wrapped around his arm. Joe’s only half-awake, face buried in her shoulder, one of his legs thrown awkwardly over hers.

She snores. It’s awful. Unbelievably, Marvelous realizes that it’s also incredibly cute.

Doc’s been living by himself for a while now, so at first they don’t think he’s having any trouble sleeping. That is, until there’s a clatter in the middle of the night and Marvelous and Joe both start up from a sound sleep. They find Luka in the corridor half-dressed and scowling, gun in one hand and her mouth curling around something incredibly rude in a language Marvelous can only swear in. The door to Doc’s cabin is open, and the bed is empty, but there aren’t any signs of attack otherwise. Navi’s all a-twitter when they try to ask her about it, but she hasn’t seen anything either.

Turns out, when they find him in the engine room tinkering with the distilling rig, that it’s not that Doc’s a good sleeper, it’s just that he walks quietly.

“Scared the fucking daylights out of me,” Marvelous growls at him.

All Doc does in response is yawn. There are, Marvelous is slightly embarrassed to see, dark circles under his eyes that have definitely been there for a while. “I have some trouble with insomnia. Your distiller needed so many repairs, have you seriously been making rum in this?” There’s a wrench on the floor about a meter away from him, which was apparently the source of the clattering.

Luka shrugs. “Not like it’s good rum. I mean, it’s better than what he used to make,” with a jerk of her head in Joe’s direction, “but it’s not great.”

“Well, it’ll be nicer now that I’ve fixed it. If I can order a few more parts I can make it work much better, actually.”

“How about later, when it’s not the middle of the night.” Joe squints at him. “You haven’t slept at all, have you?”

“Not in a couple of days, no.”

“All right, come on, you need to sleep.” Joe holds out a hand, which Doc grabs after a moment of confused blinking, and pulls the other man up. “Will it help if you’ve got someone with you?”

More confused blinking before Doc says, “I don’t know, I haven’t slept in the same bed as another person in ages.”

“Then congratulations, it’s time to find out, because either I’m going to make sure that you sleep or I’m going to knock you out myself.”

Doc protests mildly, but he’s clearly exhausted. He doesn’t even seem surprised when they go to the captain’s cabin instead of Joe’s, and he falls asleep in the circle of Marvelous’ arm, with his head on Marvelous’ chest, barely a minute after they get him into bed. Luka promptly colonizes Marvelous’ other side instead of going back to her own room, and Joe drapes himself comfortably over Doc’s back and falls asleep nearly as quickly as Doc did.

“You’re gonna need a bigger bed,” Luka mumbles into Marvelous’ skin.

“I’m starting to think that, yeah.” Marvelous shifts a bit to get comfortable and drifts off to sleep to the chorus of two kinds of snoring–Luka’s noisy, Doc’s soft–and Joe’s familiar dead silence.

His tolerance for the snoring, at least, is well-rewarded in the morning, when they all wake at roughly the same time and Doc shows a surprising amount of initiative by immediately climbing on top of him, to Luka and Joe’s appreciative noises.

Faint music wakes Marvelous up, and he extracts himself from Luka’s death grip and goes out to the common area to find Ahim seated on the couch, singing quietly to herself as she embroiders the cuff of a white glove. She looks up at the sound of his footsteps and her forehead wrinkles in concern. “I’m sorry, Captain, did I wake you?”

“Yes, but I don’t mind. Couldn’t sleep, Your Highness?” He finds his flask next to his chair. “Mind if I sit with you?”

She pats the couch cushion. “You may.”

He sits down next to her. She smells faintly of flowers; he suspects it’s because of something she keeps with her clothes. “What were you singing?”

“An old ballad, from Famille. It used to be one of my favorites when I was young.” She’s returned to her embroidery, eyes fixed on the fabric in her hands as the needle moves in tiny flashes of silver. “The Queen, my mother, used to sing it to me when I couldn’t sleep.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“What’s it about?”

“A young man who’s been poisoned by his sweetheart. Which I suppose is an odd thing for a little girl to enjoy as a bedtime song, but it’s very prettily written.”

“Huh.”

“Do you sing at all, Captain?” She doesn’t look up from her work.

He grins and takes a sip from his flask. “I know a few songs, I guess, but I don’t know that I’d want to sing any of them to a princess. They aren’t really for polite company.”

The corner of her mouth twitches up. “Really? What are they about?”

“Well, there’s this one about a hedgehog–”

So of course she persuades him to sing it to her. He does so as quietly as possibly, but by the time he’s three verses in the others have woken up anyway, probably because of her delighted giggling. Joe and Doc lean in the door of the common room; Luka’s flung herself into the captain’s chair with a grin. Marvelous tosses her the flask when she waves at him, but keeps singing.

It’s a long song, and after five more verses he says, “Your Highness, if you don’t stop me I might keep going all night.”

Ahim nods, smiling faintly, and says, in the primmest possible tone, “Some women find that an appealing quality in a man.”

Luka chokes on her mouthful of rum. “Did the princess just make a dirty joke?”

Ahim doesn’t say anything, but her smile gets a bit wider.

“Wow, all right.” Luka tosses the flask back to Marvelous. “I’m actually impressed.”

Marvelous catches the flask, unscrews the cap, takes a swig, and then offers it to Ahim. “So do princesses drink rum?”

Finally Ahim puts aside her work and takes the flask from him, sniffing delicately. Her nose wrinkles, but she takes a tiny sip anyway, and then shudders hard. "They do, but I think…not this rum.” She passes the flask back with a sidelong look. “If you’re trying to seduce me, Captain, I’d recommend offering better liquor.”

“I don’t do my seduction with liquor, Your Highness. Although I can’t blame you for not liking this stuff, it’s not great. Granted, it used to be way worse, before Luka started making it and Doc fixed our distiller, but it’s not great.” He accepts the flask back, screws the cap on, and tosses it to Joe.

“You make the rum, Miss Luka?” At Luka’s wary nod, Ahim lets out a satisfied noise. “I have a few bottles of a very delicious Famille fruit liqueur that might improve the flavor of the finished product, if you’d like to try that. And also a family recipe that I managed to save. Famille was famous for its fine liquors, you know.”

Luka makes an interested noise. “I’ll give it a shot, if you’re offering.”

“I am. I’d rather see the recipe go into good hands than be lost.” Ahim covers a long yawn with one hand. “Oh. Oh, I think I may finally be able to go to sleep.” Another yawn. “Tell me, Captain, I’ve been having terrible trouble getting comfortable in the bed in my cabin, is the one in yours any better?”

Joe’s eyebrows shoot up. Doc makes a tiny choking noise as Luka holds back a laugh. Marvelous blinks. “Your Highness, are you trying to seduce me?”

“Yes,” she says, looking pleased with herself. “I’ve never tried to seduce someone before, is it working?”

“I’d say so, yeah. Anyway, my bed’s decent enough. Tends to get pretty crowded, though, is that going to be a problem?”

Ahim glances thoughtfully around the room at the other three before saying, “Not at all, that sounds quite nice.”

Marvelous stands and bows to her, hand over his heart, before offering his arm. “Well, in that case, shall we, Your Highness?”

She stands and takes his arm, still looking pleased. “Yes, I think we shall.”

Fortunately Doc built a new bed for his cabin not long ago, so when the other three follow them it doesn’t actually cause that much crowding. In fact, the extra hands are helpful–Ahim’s clothes have so many laces and fastenings that it’s a group effort to get them off her even before Marvelous stops helping entirely in favor of dropping to his knees on the floor in front of her and ducking under her layered skirts. Doc is red-faced by the time Joe and Luka finish getting her undressed, as it’s fallen to him to keep her upright while she gasps delightedly at the feeling of Marvelous’ mouth. He doesn’t seem unhappy about the situation, though, given the enthusiasm with which which he’s kissing her back.

She also solves the problem of who goes next to whom quite neatly by curling up entirely on top of Marvelous to fall asleep when the time finally comes. She’s not heavy at all, and she smells nice, so he’s hardly going to complain about it. The others nestle in comfortably around them and it’s good, it’s a good thing, it’s better than he could have ever dreamed of.

Gai doesn’t even move onto the Galleon immediately. He’s got an apartment of his own, which is somehow strange to contemplate, that a crewmate might live elsewhere. After a few weeks, though, he shows up with bags and an awkward smile on his face. “I…I can still stay with you guys, right?”

Marvelous says, “Obviously, your room’s over next to Doc’s, what the hell took you so long?”

There’s a visibly relieved sag to Gai’s shoulders. “Well, I had to get in touch with the management company, and it took a little while to talk them into letting me break my lease. Plus I figured it’d be polite to actually give notice at work instead of just disappearing on them.”

He unpacks and settles in and it’s like he’s always been there. He’s been doing half of the cleaning and cooking anyway, he’s just been sleeping in other people’s rooms or passing out on the couch.

But really, he hasn’t always been there, and after a couple of nights Marvelous makes a point of staying awake until he hears footsteps in the corridor and then goes out. The others fall in behind him, and when they get to the common area Gai looks up from his glass of water and immediately winces. “I didn’t wake you all up, did I?”

“No, it’s pretty much a Gokaiger tradition at this point.” Joe flops onto the couch next to him, grinning, as Luka goes looking for the flask. “Nobody can sleep when they first move here, it’s just an adjustment thing. So if you’re new, you get a couple of days to get the hang of it, and then we all come find you.”

Gai nods slowly. “And then what?”

“Then you get to try some of the rum Luka makes in the engine room.” Marvelous grins and passes him the flask.

They all watch as Gai takes his first sip, shudders, and then blinks. “That’s delicious, wow. It sort of tastes like apples.”

A sleepy cheer goes up around the room, and Ahim nods in satisfaction. “It’s much better than it used to be.”

The flask goes around the room a couple of times. When it returns to Gai for the third time, though, he shakes his head. “No more for me, thanks. I don’t drink much, I haven’t got a tolerance.”

He’s leaning against Marvelous’ shoulder, warm and comfortable, and Marvelous takes a moment to weigh his occasional sudden shyness against the other part of this accidental tradition before saying, “It’s pretty strong anyway, none of us ever drink a lot of it. You think you’d sleep better with company?”

Gai blinks and turns bright red as everyone else tries, with varying levels of success and politeness, not to stare. “I mean. Maybe? I like…company. The bed in my cabin is pretty small, though.”

“Yeah, but mine’s huge, you’ll fit just fine.”

“That. That sounds really nice.”

It’s been constant fights since they got to Earth, and they’re all exhausted, so getting back into Marvelous’ cabin and from there into his bed is a little trickier than usual, but they manage it. Nothing much happens apart from a few sleepy kisses traded back and forth as they try to figure out the most comfortable way to position everyone. True to how this always works, too, Gai’s asleep moments after he manages to actually relax, and the others follow shortly after.

This is balanced out by the fact that Gai’s definitely a morning person, which Marvelous hadn’t considered, but which they all get a forcible reminder of when Luka and Gai wake everyone up. He opens one eye to see what all the racket is, grins, and mumbles, “You know, it’s nice to have a big bed.”

Chapter Text

They drop anchor and the first thing Doc says is, “We need groceries.”

Luka groans. Joe says, quietly, “I have weapons maintenance to do.” Marvelous doesn’t respond at all, because he’s asleep in his chair.

Ahim, though, stands up immediately. “I will accompany you.” She’s already pulling on her gloves. “I also need to make some purchases, I’ve fallen behind in the ship’s mending. Gai, I’m going to require a large amount of fabric, will you also come with us, please?”

Gai beams at her. “I’d love to!”

The door slams open, and the whole room is filled with the delighted howl of, “We’re gonna be rich!”

Urak scowls. “Zou, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Bounties! Bounties on the hoof!” The door shuts, and Zou slumps back against it, panting, a wide grin on his face. “A red galleon just docked down at the port.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“You’re shitting me. There have to be other red galleons out there, you can’t have just spotted the Gokai Pirates.”

“Saw the insignia on the mainsail. Plain as fucking day. And get this, they’re split up, three of them went to go shopping. If we play this right, we can snag all of them and be swimming in zagins.”

There’s a long pause as Urak’s eyebrow goes up and up and up, and then he says, “You’re fucking serious. The Gokai Pirates are actually in port.”

“Would I lie to you?”

The eyebrow goes up further. It’s well past the crown of Urak’s head now.

“Right, yeah, I’d lie to my head-mother if there was enough money in it. But look, I got a picture.” Zou fumbles in all four of his sleeves before producing his portable comm unit and pulling up the screen. “See, right, there’s the ship–”

“Fuck. That is the Gokai Galleon.”

“I told you–and there’s the three who got off.” A few button-presses, and three bounty notifications pull up along the side of the screen, each picture matching the face of one of the people disembarking. “So that one there’s Don Dogoier, he’s a famous coward–”

Doc frowns at the various fish on ice in the market stall. “None of this looks like the best of today’s catch.”

The fishmonger just gives a rippling shrug. “Should’ve shown up earlier if you wanted the best of it.”

“That would’ve been impossible, we just arrived in port.” Doc stares at the fishmonger thoughtfully for a moment. “In any case, I know that’s not all you’ve got, where’s the good stuff?”

“And that one there’s the crown princess of Famille–”

“The planet with all the vineyards, the one where rich idiots used to go on vacation? Didn’t that one get destroyed?”

“Yeah, ages ago. Anyway, she’s cute for a hominid, I guess, but from the looks of her I’m surprised she can even lift that little umbrella she’s got.”

Ahim adjusts her grip on her parasol and nods cheerfully. “Yes, this is precisely what I’m looking for. I’ll require, hm…eight meters of the pale pink silk, ten meters of the light white cotton and seven of the heavy, and four meters of both in black, four meters each of the blue, red, and green satins there and three of the silver, and–oh, lovely, is that a wool there? Five meters of the yellow wool. And six meters of that canvas, the undyed one.” As the cloth merchant’s assistants scramble to begin cutting, she taps her chin with one gloved finger and then says, “And tools and notions, where do you keep those?”

“Right over here, Your Highness.” The cloth merchant has a look on their face like they’ve just struck gold as they start pulling out trays. “Was there anything in particular you were looking for?”

“Who the hell is…” Urak squints at the bounty notice and reads, haltingly, “Ekarry Gae?”

Zou shrugs. “No clue. Some hick they picked up recently, barely has a bounty to speak of. Looks like he weighs fifteen zagrets soaking wet.”

To his credit, Gai only stumbles slightly when he’s been loaded down with Ahim’s packages. Then, looking across the market, he brightens. “Hey, I can’t read that script, but that looks like a grocer, am I right? The one next to the vegetable stand?”

Ahim peers at the stall he’s pointing to. “Dry goods and confections, it says.”

“Even better! Here, Don’s still haggling with the butcher, let’s walk over there together, I’m going to get ingredients to make some candies for us. I haven’t had a chance to make candy in ages. Don’s going to want to buy vegetables anyway, he can meet us over there.”

“So this’ll be a breeze, then. They’ll have to go back through the port outskirts to get to their ship, we’ll get the drop on them…” Urak frowns at the map Zou’s pulled up before tapping a spot, “here, it’s got some good cover. Worst case scenario, we get three decent bounties.”

Zou nods enthusiastically. “Best case scenario, we can use them as hostages to draw out the other three and then we’ll be in for the real money.” There’s a symphony of popping noises as he cracks his knuckles, all twenty-eight of them. “We’re gonna be rich.”

Laden with groceries, fabric, and two different packages of magazines and books, Doc, Ahim, and Gai make their way back to the Galleon. It’s been a long shopping trip; the planet’s first sunset has nearly begun. Ahim hums cheerfully as she walks, parasol propped on her shoulder. “This has been a lovely day, I look forward to the work ahead of me.”

There’s a footstep behind them, and an unpleasantly damp and crackly voice says, “Isn’t going to be anything ahead of you, Your Highness.”

All three of them stop dead. Doc and Gai both turn slightly to look behind them, conveniently placing their backs to Ahim’s as someone else steps out in front of her. This one doesn’t sound nearly so wet, but does have four arms and three legs, so it’s sort of a different concern. “Nothing but a Zangyack prison cell and then execution.”

And Gai immediately, palpably relaxes. “Oh. You’re interested in our bounties, right?”

The damp one, whose single eye is a vomitous shade of orange, says, “Obviously.”

Doc sighs. “I guess we should have expected something like this.” He glances around for a clear spot and then, when he finds one, carefully sets down his bags. “They have gone up since the last time we made port here.”

“What in the hells made you three decide to go out without your scary buddies?” says the one with four arms.

“Oh, dear.” Ahim sets down her parasol and her own bags next to Doc’s, and then helps Gai put down his before taking off her white lace gloves. “I’m afraid you’re very mistaken, sir.”

An eyebrow arches up and up, past the top of the damp one’s head, as it says, “Mistaken? About what?”

She beams at it. “You seem to think we’re not the frightening ones.”

“Yeah.” Gai rolls his neck. “It’s sort of funny, actually.”

Doc sighs. “Funny, they say. I need to get this meat into the refrigerator, I don’t have time for this.”

Navi shrieks, “They’re back!” and Marvelous doesn’t quite rush to relieve Doc of his packages, although he does move at a speed slightly above a walk.

“What the hell happened to you?” he says, eyeing the smudge of dirt on Doc’s cheek as he takes the packages of meat. “Is that blood in your hair?”

“Oh, it’s definitely blood, but don’t worry about it.” Gai is unloading folded lengths of fabric into one of the cabinets at Ahim’s cheerful direction. There’s a long cut on his forehead, and another one in the sleeve of his jacket, neither of which he seems concerned by. “It’s not his.”

Chapter Text

“Whose house is this?”

“Mine.”

“Bullshit.”

Their second meeting is going better than the first did, although not by much. It helps, at least, that they both arrived bearing peace offerings—Tsukasa with wine and homemade cookies, Marvelous with chocolate and a bottle of extraordinarily good rum that tastes of spice and apples and which Tsukasa nearly chokes on a sip of when he learns that it’s made in a spaceship’s engine room. With food to hand and introductions behind them, things are easier, but the atmosphere is still tense. They both wish they were elsewhere and dealing with something less apocalyptic.

“I assure you, it is. I don’t live here, but it’s my house.” Tsukasa takes a chocolate and inspects it lazily, turning it in his fingers as if it might be a puzzle and not a sweet to eat. “I grew up here with my sister.”

Marvelous raises an eyebrow. “So where’s she?”

“I don’t know. She left a few years ago and didn’t tell me where she was going.”

They’re both uncomfortably silent for a moment, not looking at each other, and then Marvelous scowls and leans forward to tap the sheaf of papers on the table between them. “So do your guys have the tech we need to get everyone in one place or what?”

Dai Shocker has the tech they both need to collect people. Tsukasa has specs to pass on to Marvelous to make it possible for him to cross Worlds easily, without the effort it’s taken so far for him to do the tiny bit of traveling he’s already managed. They eat the cookies and the chocolates but don’t have dinner, drink a third of the rum and all of the wine. By the time they’re done figuring out how to do things the light is getting dim, and when they finally sweep the papers aside, Marvelous takes another drink directly from the neck of the rum bottle and says, “Been meaning to ask, is that seriously what Great Leader is supposed to look like?”

Tsukasa shrugs, glancing down at himself and brushing a speck of dust off the sleeve of his jacket. “You’d have to ask my past self. You don’t think it suits me?”

“No, that’s not–” Marvelous looks slightly embarrassed, and it’s a strange expression on him. “It’s a good look. I was just expecting something more evil and less…sexy.”

A raised eyebrow. “You think I’m sexy.”

Marvelous shifts uncomfortably in his chair and doesn’t reply.

Tsukasa looks him up and down thoughtfully. “I see you haven’t changed your look at all. Not that that’s a bad thing, your usual outfit does look very nice on you.”

“I’m not going to dress like a Gill. It’s bad enough that the commanders keep looking at me like I’m one of them.” There’s a tightness at the corners of Marvelous’ mouth. “It makes my skin crawl.”

“It doesn’t do that to me.” Tsukasa’s stretched out on the couch—lounging, really, or maybe that’s just the eyeliner he’s wearing making him look languid and sleepy. “That’s the worst of it, really. That part of me remembers when I loved being their Great Leader, when it was all I ever wanted in the world. Maybe if it wasn’t so fuzzy I’d be able to fight it off better.”

“Well, if you liked it so much, why’d you stop in the first place?”

“I forgot.”

“Bullshit, you don’t just forget something like–”

“I forgot everything. I walked through the wrong curtain and wiped my own memory. I still don’t have all of it back, you know,” and he takes a sip of wine. “It’s unlikely that I’ll ever get all of it back. It’s…fragmentary. And some fragments are stronger than others.” He looks up at Marvelous through his eyelashes. “But then, you wouldn’t know anything about that. You’ve never been anything but a hero.”

Marvelous sneers at him. “You sound like you think that’s a bad thing.”

“Do I?”

The tension that’s been building snaps into sudden movement, Marvelous standing and stepping over the coffee table and grabbing the collar of Tsukasa’s jacket, much as he did the first time they met. “Are you trying to provoke me or something? Is that it? Because if you want me to hit you or whatever then you should just say so, we can fight if you want to fight.”

“See, this is exactly what I mean. I offer you a taste of what it’s like and you just lose your temper.” Tsukasa sounds just as relaxed as he has been, but his pupils are blown wide, and his cheeks are flushed. “You don’t really know what it feels like, how effortlessly simple it is to be cruel. It’s like a drug.” He runs his fingertips down the front of Marvelous’ waistcoat, and Marvelous realizes that he’s dropped his glass, red wine soaking into the carpet ignored by both of them. “Your evil empire looks at you and sees someone who’s one of them, and you can hate them for it without considering the alternatives. Mine looks at me and sees their prodigal son returned home to lead them again, and it would be so easy to be that for them. To relax a little bit and start enjoying myself.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “And I know that I would. I remember enjoying it before. It would feel so good to stop caring and become the man I was.”

Marvelous stares down at him and doesn’t let go of his collar. “That’s…terrible.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You feel like that all the time?”

“Most of the time, at least, when I’m there. Of course, I’m not there now, but being here is sort of a dress rehearsal for the whole thing, isn’t it? So I have to keep the character in mind, and he always wants me to relax and put him on again. You’re lucky, you know. That’s what I was saying. You haven’t got that waiting in your heart.” He presses one hand flat to Marvelous’ chest, over where Marvelous’ heart would be if he was human, slightly off from where it actually is. “You don’t have to spend every waking moment on guard against yourself. But I remember it.”

The look he’s giving Marvelous is complicated and confusing, a mixture of fury and self-loathing and that languid indifference that’s apparently the Great Leader thing, and then under that there’s this smolder, which might be another kind of fury or might be…not that.  His fingertips curl against Marvelous’ chest, and Marvelous’ grip tightens on his collar. “Yeah? You remember it?” His own voice comes out sounding strange. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

“I’ve got some ideas.” The wine is going to stain the carpet, spreading like blood through the fibers. Tsukasa’s fingers curl a bit more as he grabs onto Marvelous’ shirt. “Captain, I’m going to ask you for something now that I’ll never ask of anyone again.“

“Yeah?” Marvelous is breathless, the anger he was feeling shifting just as bafflingly as the look on Tsukasa’s face as it turns into something else. "What’s that?”

“Make me forget.”

The last time they’d met, Tsukasa had bitten him. Now, feeling the phantom ache of it in his lower lip, Marvelous drags Tsukasa up by the front of his jacket and doesn’t bite, although it’s a kiss with enough teeth in it that the classification could be argued if anyone were inclined to do that. Wine and rum and sugar in his mouth, already an inadvisable combination before the even less advisable addition of Marvelous’ tongue. “You’re a brat,” Marvelous says against his lips. “If you’d wanted to fuck, you could have just asked.”

“You’ve seen where I grew up,” Tsukasa gasps out between kisses, gesturing around them with his free hand. “What does that tell you about me?”

Marvelous rolls his eyes, mutters, “Rich kids,” and shoves him down onto the couch cushions.

For a while the talking stops. There’s no room for it in what they’re doing, between Marvelous’ mouth on the side of Tsukasa’s throat, a bruise forming under Tsukasa’s teeth on Marvelous’ collarbone, the slide of vinyl on cotton as Tsukasa’s legs wrap around Marvelous’ waist. The wine dries in the carpet to the sound of their harsh breathing.

Finally, “Two things.”

Tsukasa stares up at him, the fury somewhat faded but the smolder not at all lessened by the fact that his jacket’s been unzipped and his curls are mussed and his mouth is red from kissing. “What.”

“First. Where am I supposed to find a bed in this place?”

“We don’t need—”

“Yeah, I do, actually, this couch might be the least comfortable piece of furniture I’ve ever been on. And it’s too narrow. Second. What are we doing here?”

“I told you already.”

“Yeah, you wanna forget, blah blah blah, that doesn’t tell me shit. What do you want, Decade? Like, if you don’t know, that’s fine, but be honest about it.”

“Be honest, says the pirate.”

“I can just leave, let you figure out your bullshit by yourself.”

A moment’s further staring before Tsukasa says, “We can talk upstairs.”

“Upstairs” turns out to mean a bedroom bigger than the entire house Marvelous grew up in, with a bed that he’s certain could fill the captain’s cabin on the Galleon entirely, although maybe that’s just a matter of perspective. The bedclothes are absurdly soft when Marvelous falls back against them; he can feel it through the back of his shirt, his waistcoat left with his coat on the chair downstairs.

Tsukasa climbs on top of him, hungry mouth and grasping hands and eyes full of banked fire, and tries to kiss him again, so Marvelous grabs his hair to stop him and says, “You said we’d talk.”

“I was hoping you’d forget about it.”

“I’m not the one who’s supposed to be forgetting things here. What do you want? You want me to fuck you?”

A slow, luxurious eye roll, accompanied by the most unreasonably attractive sneer Marvelous has ever seen. “Great Leader never lets anyone fuck him.”

“So you want me to fuck you, then. Talking to you is like trying to get a straight answer out of a goddamn cat, you know that? Are all Riders like you? Where’s the lube, by the way—don’t try to say you don’t need it, I don’t fucking care, I’d like some.” He ignores the second eye roll, settles at the head of the bed while Tsukasa retrieves lube from a bedside table drawer.

And—fumbling to get rid of the ridiculous pink-and-black jacket and pants, and then with a condom, the lube, and Tsukasa murmurs in Marvelous’ ear, “I’m the only Rider like me. Remember that,” and sinks down, and Marvelous chokes out, “Fuck.”

Another one of those slow, smug smiles. “I thought that was the point, Captain.”

“Oh, shut up.”

But he remembers the request that started off this whole thing in the first place, that soft “Make me forget,” it echoes in the back of his head as he tips Tsukasa back onto the bed and fucks him hard enough that the other man’s probably going to ache for days. Which doesn’t seem to be a problem, if the way Tsukasa’s nails are dragging down his back is any indication. Maybe Tsukasa’s forgetting, as desired, and maybe he isn’t, but either way it’s a pleasure for Marvelous to lose himself in this for a moment.

Hand on the nape of his neck. “Harder.”

“If I go any harder I could hurt you.”

“And?”

“I’m not into that.” At the eye roll, “If you’re going to bitch and moan about how I do things I can stop and you can fuck yourself.”

Tsukasa gets a startling, wicked gleam in his eyes. “Rather fuck you.”

Marvelous feels his face heat up. “Yeah, we can do that too.”

“Oh, the fearsome pirate is blushing now, that’s so cute.”

“Fuck you, Decade.”

The wicked gleam vanishes as quickly as it appeared, and somehow that seems like a good thing, like Tsukasa snapping back into himself from wherever he’d gone for a moment even as he’s saying, “So?”

There’s more fumbling, the remainder of Marvelous’ clothes going off the edge of the bed in a different direction from where Tsukasa’s got thrown, a fresh condom, additional lube. Tsukasa’s fingers are surprisingly gentle, given that the rest of him seems to be all sharp edges right now, and he presses his forehead to Marvelous’ as he’s sliding in. “You feel good.” His voice is very quiet. “This feels good.”

Marvelous bites back laughter. “It’s supposed to.” And then, at the look on Tsukasa’s face, “Maybe you should do shit that feels good more often.”

Tsukasa doesn’t answer him, and they fuck in a silence only interrupted by their own harsh breathing and the creaking of this house that no one lives in.

Finally, after what seems like way longer than usual, Marvelous comes with one hand on his own cock and his other arm around Tsukasa’s shoulders, and Tsukasa makes a startled noise and comes shortly after that, and they break apart breathless and silent.

Calling what happens then “afterglow” would be an injustice to the concept of afterglow, but at least the atmosphere is no longer tense and hostile. They sit for a few minutes, not looking at each other.

Marvelous says, when the quiet is too much, “So did you forget?”

The only thing Tsukasa says is, “No.”

“Yeah, didn’t figure you would.”

“Neither did I.”

A pause. “You look like you need to sleep more.”

Tsukasa’s eyes flicker towards him. “Are you saying you want to sleep with me, Captain?”

Marvelous shrugs. “I’m saying this bed’s pretty comfy and if we’re going to save the fucking world then you should probably be doing it on a full night’s sleep. The bad guys can live without their new bosses for one night.”

A moment, and then a half-smile, and Tsukasa says, “Not bad logic. I should probably listen to you, anyway, you probably have a better idea of how to feel good than I do. Sentai get all the happiest endings.”

Marvelous shrugs and pulls the covers back. “You might be surprised, I’ve talked to a lot of Sentai. Now get in bed, asshole, we both need to sleep.”

They fall asleep together, in a bed bigger than anyone’s ever needed in a house that nobody lives in, and Marvelous, at least, sleeps without dreaming.

Chapter Text

“So where are you from, anyway? What planet, what system?”

“Lot of questions for such a quiet guy.”

“I don’t know, I don’t think they’re unreasonable questions to ask if we’re going to be traveling together.” Joe stares at the cabin ceiling, still slightly bleary from sleep. “I’d like to know more about you.”

“…yeah, guess that’s fair.” Marvelous shifts, looking away uncomfortably when Joe looks at him. “Lynx System. One of those heavy-gravity planets that’s mostly mines, you know the ones. Not sure if it actually had a name, it was pretty small.”

“Was?”

“It’s gone now.”

An uncomfortable silence, in which Joe considers mentioning that he was never part of any of the planetary-destruction squads and then changes his mind because it wouldn’t help. Then again, it might not have even been destroyed by Zangyack. Mining planets like those are notoriously unstable, it could have just shaken to pieces. He wonders if Marvelous was there when it happened, and how he got away.

“So what about you, navy boy?” Marvelous rolls up onto one elbow to look down at him, eyebrows raised challengingly. “Where’d you come from before you enlisted? Somewhere big and fancy?”

Shrug against the bedsheets. “Hightide. Aquarius System. It’s…normal-sized, I guess. Not really a very interesting place.”

There’s a tense pause before, “Did you say you’re an Aquarian? Does that mean you have…?”

Joe frowns. “Do I have what?”

“How the fuck have I been making out with you for the past week and not noticed if you have fangs?” Marvelous pounces on Joe, grabs his chin, and kisses his mouth open, running the tip of his tongue over Joe’s teeth as Joe makes noises that alternate between annoyed and enthusiastic. And then, “Ow,” and he pulls back and sucks a bead of blood off his own lower lip. “Seriously, how did I not notice those before?”

Underneath him, Joe lets out a breathless laugh. “Well, it’s not like I’m just, just going to walk around with my teeth out, that’d be–that’s inappropriate.”

Marvelous raises an eyebrow. “You’ll hang out in the common area in nothing but a towel, but you didn’t want to flash me your teeth?”

“I didn’t want to start a fight.”

The other eyebrow rises, and then there’s eyebrow wiggling, which makes Joe snort with laughter as Marvelous says, “I’m not asking to see them because I want to fight you, Joe.”

A beat, and then Joe grins broadly as his incisors grow longer. “Here you go. Satisfied?”

“Oh, not hardly.” Marvelous kisses him again, lips now tasting of blood from the cut he managed to give himself. “No, I’m pretty sure I need to know everything about you now.”

Chapter Text

Doc draws the short straw and says, “Ok, but if Ms. Ulshade offers to show him her dinosaur again I’m not going with them.”

Marvelous’ eyebrows shoot up. “Why not?”

“Because she means it, and that dinosaur is alarming.” Doc shudders. “It has so many teeth.”

“Doc, when a beautiful woman asks you if you want to see her dinosaur, the answer should always be, ‘yes, ma'am.’”

“You want to see it so bad, you ask her.”

Gai emerges from the crew quarters fixing one of his earrings and blinks. “Did I miss a crew meeting?”

Marvelous grins at him. “Doc was just talking about how interested he is in Ms. Ulshade’s dinosaur.”

Gai frowns. “If you’re going to use a title you should really call her Dr. Ulshade, she did finish her degree.”

“Right, yeah, I think we sent her a card. Anyway, Doc would love to see her dinosaur, if you spot her at the Expo you should let her know.”

Doc glares at Marvelous, which gets a confused look from Gai, and so it’s fortunate that Ahim chooses that moment to link her arm with Luka’s and say, “So, shall we go?”

The annual Sentai Expo is, as always, busy. The team splits up almost as soon as they get there, mainly because Ahim is immediately flagged down by a group of Pinks and Whites and detaches herself from Luka’s arm with a quiet apology and a quick distribution of cheek kisses. Then Luka spots the LupinRangers, Yellow Lion catches Joe’s eye and waves him over, and Marvelous splits off to talk to Shiba Kaoru, as usual, and so it takes a bit for Gai to realize that Don’s sticking to him like a burr.

“We passed Spada back there, I thought you’d want to go say hi.”

Don shrugs. “We’ll catch up later.”

“Didn’t you want to get his paella recipe the next time we saw the Kyuurangers, though?”

“I guess? It’d be good to have, I need more seafood recipes.”

“Then why not go talk to him? Not that I don’t love spending time with you, but it’s not as if you need to babysit me.”

Don makes a little frustrated noise and doesn’t meet Gai’s eyes.

It clicks. Gai’s jaw drops. “Are you actually babysitting me?”

Another frustrated, worried noise. “Not…exactly?”

“Is that what you guys were drawing straws for? I saw Joe putting them away, you can’t try to tell me you weren’t doing that.” Gai frowns. “Have I done something that makes you all think I need a, a minder or something?”

Don shoves his hands deep in his pockets. “Well…”

“No, look, I’m not, like, mad, but I would like to know. It’s really cute when you blush like that, by the way.”

There is a pink flush creeping up Don’s cheeks, and when Gai mentions it that just makes it worse. He’s still not looking up. “Listen. I mean. We worry about you.”

“That’s really sweet of you. Why, though?”

“Because you…” Don looks away completely. “You tend to wander off, and none of us want you to get lost.”

Gai blinks, and then stifles a snort of laughter. “What makes any of you think I’d wander off and get lost? I can’t remember doing anything like that.”

Don clears his throat. “Well, for one, there was the time you and Lupin X were trying to sneak onto that strange train that showed up with the Timerangers–“

"The Zero-Liner.”

“Yes, that one. Where were you even going, by the way?”

“Yuuto was going to take us to a wrestling show.”

Finally Don looks up at him, one hand emerging from a pocket as if he wants to ask a question but then dropping so that he can instead begin to count on his fingers. “And then there was the time you and StarNinger had that selfie contest and somehow ended up in the Himalayas.”

Gai feels himself blush. “That was one time!”

“Sure, but you never managed to tell us how you guys got to the Himalayas.”

“I–don’t know.”

“That just, you realize that just proves my point, right?” Don counts out a third finger. “Then, there was the time you wandered off and we found you refereeing a…duel? Between the Magirangers and one of those American teams?”

“…that was a good time, actually.”

“They almost lit the building on fire.”

“They would have lit the building on fire if I hadn’t been refereeing.”

“You got distracted when you were interviewing DekaMaster and didn’t pay attention to where you were walking and you almost got on a spaceship with him.”

“He would’ve brought me back.”

“Gai, please understand that we’d all rather he didn’t have to bring you back.”

Gai shifts awkwardly, taking in the anxious look on Don’s face as a few other, similar incidents come back to him. “I worry you guys that much?”

Don nods fervently. “Constantly.”

“How long have you all been assigning someone to keep an eye on me at gatherings?”

“This is the…” A pause as Don stares into space, clearly counting in his head. “…third time?”

“Well, I promise not to wander off on you this time.” Gai links his arm with Don’s and grins. “We can go back and say hi to Spada, if you like. And then after that I think I saw my cousin hanging around near the Lady Shiba, you mind if we track him down?”

“ShinkenGold?” Don eyes him nervously. “He’s not going to make me try experimental new rolls again, is he?”

“He might! I like taste-testing his stuff. Oh, right, and you wanted to find Dr. Ulshade and ask her about Plezuon, right?”

“Please no,“ Don says as they head back towards where they last saw Spada. “It’s really fine.”

Chapter Text

She doesn’t quite presume to practice with him, but she practices near him. The same yard, but different spaces in it, proximal but not overly close. They do forms in silence, honing their ki to a razor’s fineness, and the patterned movements are soothing, for lack of a better word.

She comes to rest after one form–not a notably long or complex one–and feels weight on the back of her neck. And she’s a beautiful woman, she’s never been modest, she knows what it is to be watched. Not what it is to be watched by him, though. “Is there something I can do for you, my lord Rio?”

He says nothing and turns away.

But he was watching.

Later, and being alive in the way that she is alive is…strange. Her heart no longer beats in a human rhythm.. She does not hunger, or thirst. All objects collect dust, though, and so she must bathe, and after bathing and dressing must arrange her hair again. Comb, brush, braid, coil, tie, all with the precision of practice. Like a form, although the only thing this one hones is her vanity.

She is watched. He’s pretending not to watch her, but he’s watching nonetheless, and she blushes. “Is there something you need, my lord Rio? Anything at all?”

After a moment he shakes his head, which is both a longer pause than she’d expected and more acknowledgement than she might have hoped for.

Much, much later, they have three days remaining and the whole of the Hall to themselves. They train together in, for the most part, silence. Their ki is no longer a razor, it is microfilament, so refined that it might cut anything and leave no trace until the material shatters or the blood begins to pour. Fortunately it’s human ki once again, but they’ve made it so much more as well.

She comes to rest after one exercise, not notably long or complex, and says, softly, “Why are you staring at me, my lord Rio?”

He’s standing very close, mouth open as if he has something to say but can’t quite remember what, and then he kisses her. It’s so much. It’s enough. It’s the only moment they’ll ever have, and also the only moment that’s ever existed.

He says, “You have good footwork,” and they return to training.

Chapter Text

Makito wanders into the library mid-morning with a slip of paper in hand and begins running his fingers along the shelves as he searches for a book, and then stops, frowning. “Hey, did someone organize these? Who did this?”

Kai doesn’t look up from his homework. “Who did what?”

“Organized the books.”

“Oh, yeah, that. Houka’s boyfriend.”

“Houka has a boyfriend who organizes books?”

“What about my boyfriend?” Houka says as she comes into the room. “Which boyfriend?”

Kai gestures vaguely in the direction of the bookshelves. “The one who was here this morning. He organized the books.”

She blinks. “That wasn’t my boyfriend, why would you think he was my boyfriend?”

“Because I…saw a guy in the house that I didn’t know?”

“And you just assumed he was my boyfriend? Rude.”

“To be fair, normally if there’s a guy in the house we don’t know, it is your boyfriend.” Makito ducks easily under the swat Houka aims at his head and then freezes. “Why was someone we don’t know in here?”

“I don’t–ohh.” Houka’s eyes go wide with delighted realization. “Oh, I know who you mean. That wasn’t my boyfriend, that was Tsubasa’s boyfriend.”

Makito actually jumps, which is unfortunate, since he’s in the middle of pulling The Joy of Magitopian Cooking off the shelf and nearly drops it. “Tsubasa has a boyfriend?”

Kai has by now completely abandoned his studying. “Wait, Tsubasa likes boys?”

Of course, this is when Tsubasa comes into the room, face in a book and earbuds in his ears, and yells in alarm when Makito’s hand lands on his shoulder. “What the hell, Makito, you startled me.”

“Houka says you have a boyfriend.”

Tsubasa turns bright red. “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a, a guy I met who I’m friends with. He’s like…eight years older than me. He’s teaching me how to read cards.”

This is finally what makes Urara look up from the household accounts, which she’s been absorbed in for some time. “Wait, why are you learning how to read cards? I do fortune-telling.”

Houka grins. “He’s learning to read cards because he met a cute boy telling fortunes outside the public library and he wants to spend more time with him.”

“Nobody’s answering my question.” Kai scowls. “Since when does Tsubasa like guys?”

Houka rolls her eyes. “Since like two years ago, there was that whole awkward dinner conversation, keep up.”

Urara’s forehead wrinkles. “Tezuka-san is a fortune-teller? You never mentioned that.”

“And he organized the books over here.” Makito looks the shelf over thoughtfully and then nods. “I like him. Tsubasa, you should introduce me to him. Urara, you said his name was Tezuka?”

Tsubasa groans and buries his face entirely in his book. “I hate all of you.”

Kai makes a protesting noise. “What’d I do? I am so confused.”

The other four all start speaking at once. Conveniently, however, at this point the mirror lights up, and Mandora Boy’s piping voice cuts through the noise with, “Um, everyone? Hades Beast!”

Everyone’s heads go up, and Tsubasa’s face breaks into a broad grin. “Awesome. Fantastic. Let’s go kick its ass right now and not talk about the boyfriend I don’t actually have.”

“Sounds good!” Makito claps him on the shoulder. “And maybe later you can invite him over for dinner and I can meet him.”

“Shut up.”

“Let’s go!“

Chapter Text

“–so the Zyurangers were the first team to ever go past five members, but Big One from J.A.K.Q. was the first unique sentai ever to join his team late. And for a while the Kyouryugers were the biggest sentai, but now the Kyuurangers have them beat, especially since some of the Kyouryugers are part-time. I’m kind of wondering if we’re ever going to see a team bigger than the Kyuurangers, twelve is so many–”

“Gai, my dear?”

Gai blinks. “Yes?”

Ahim pats his forearm gently with the hand not holding her needle. “I very much appreciate your company and assistance, and I don’t wish to dampen your enthusiasm at all, but this section takes a great deal of concentration. May I wait to hear the rest of this?”

“Oh! Sure, of course.” He peers down at what she’s working on, careful not to jostle the embroidery frame he’s holding steady. “Is that Warz Gill?”

“Yes, this is part of the Fall of Zangyack tapestry I’m working on. When it’s done it should go all the way around the common area.” She puts down another neat stitch in gleaming silver thread. “You chronicle Super Sentai history in your way, and I chronicle our history in mine.”

“That’s great, will you tell me more about it later? When you’re not working?”

She beams at him. “I would be happy to.”

The net whooshes through the air, and Luka runs out of the way just in time, skidding across the practice room floor and stopping herself against the wall with one foot. Across the room, Marvelous has taken up a defensive posture, gun in one hand, sword in the other, watching warily as Gai pulls the net back.

“See,” Gai says, spinning his trident as he scans the room, “I’m starting to think that this might be a multi-volume project, at least two parts. Because there are a lot of non-human sentai, with a lot of different stuff going on,” and he dives for Marvelous, who dodges, “and from what I’m hearing it might be getting even weirder. And then there’s that, like, recurrence thing, where there are those themes that keep cropping back up? Like how there are four different dinosaur teams now?”

“Yeah, I’d,” Marvelous dodges again, and then has to duck under a swing from Luka, “I’d noticed about there being lots of dinosaurs.”

“Right? Or there have been three different teams of ninjas, although I guess that’s kind of different, since they’ve got some lineage stuff going on there.” Gai deflects a blow from Marvelous’ sword. “They don’t just, just happen, where it’s like, surprise, more dinosaurs. I mean, it is surprise, ninjas, but that’s just how ninjas are, that’s the whole ninja thing–oof.”

The breath goes out of his lungs as Luka knocks him onto his back on the floor and sits straddling his chest, sword raised. “Do you ever stop talking?” She sounds minimally annoyed, which is, for her, nearly as good as a declaration of love. “You’ve been going for forty minutes now.”

He grins up at her. “You love listening to me talk, though.”

“I hate that you’re right.”

“You really do love listening to him talk, too,” Marvelous says, dropping his sword and gun on one of the tables in the corner, “it’s incredibly cute.”

“Says you, I’ve seen how dopey you get when you think he’s not looking.”

Marvelous sputters. “I do not get dopey.”

“Hey,” Gai says, still pinned underneath Luka, “if we’re done sparring then one or both of you should kiss me. Foolproof way to make me stop talking, I promise.”

Marvelous and Luka both blink, and Luka says, “Since when do you just ask for kisses like that?”

Gai shrugs. “We’ve been together for ten years, I feel like at this point I should be able to.”

“Did you know,” Gai says sleepily, “apart from the Gouraigers and Beet and Stag Buster, there haven’t been any insect-themed Sentai? I feel like there ought to be more.”

Doc frowns, just as sleepy. “What about Stinger?”

“Scorpions aren’t insects, they’re arachnids.”

“Right, right…”

“Although that’s a good point, he’s still kind of related to them. Also I guess insects are more of a Kamen Rider thing.” Gai stifles a yawn. “Shit, do I need to put in a chapter about Kamen Riders?”

“Guys,” Joe says, reaching to turn off the light, and then to pull up the blanket, “it’s late, go to sleep.”

“But. Joe. What if I need a chapter on Kamen Riders?”

“You might need a chapter on Kamen Riders,” Doc mumbles into his collarbone.

Joe lets out a sigh that’s half laughter. “You can figure that out in the morning. Go to sleep.”

“You know, you’d think people would stop making super-computers given how frequently this happens.”

Doc pauses in the middle of aiming. “Does it happens that often? Super-computers going off the rails and turning evil?”

“Oh, yeah, often enough.” Gai nods enthusiastically as he spears a heavily-pixelated trooper, which explodes in a cloud of digital confetti. “There was Messiah, you know, the Go-Busters fought him, and Kamen Rider Ex-Aid’s whole thing was evil computer stuff, and there was that Venjix guy…”

“Venjix?” Ahim cocks her head curiously. “I don’t recall him, which Super Sentai fought a being named Venjix?”

“Oh. Uh. It’s. Really complicated, actually. And I will…I’ll…explain later, I promise. It’s–you remember the Go-Ongers? And that thing where I was finding signs that the multiverse is way bigger than we originally thought? Well–no, we don’t have time, we’ll talk about it later, it’s a really long explanation.” Gai pauses, staring into space, and then absently destroys another Pixel Trooper. “Actually, it might be a whole other book.”

The kaijin commanding the Pixel Troopers shrieks in frustration. “Do you ever shut up? Blah, blah, blah, you talk nonstop, I’m shocked your colorful friends aren’t deaf by now!”

“No need to be rude,” Gai says, mildly. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

“In fact, do you mind?” Ahim glances over at the rest of the crew. “This fellow is being very unpleasant, I think perhaps it’s time we got out the Buster.”

The kaijin lets out another, somewhat more startled shriek.

“Great idea, Ahim.” Marvelous reaches for his Ranger Key as the Buster begins to materialize in their hands. “We can’t go letting people think that anyone can go telling Gai to shut up.”

“I love you all so much.”

“We know, Gai, we love you too. Now shut up and help me aim this thing.”

Chapter Text

Takeru sleeps fitfully and dreams of, of all things, ebi nigiri, fresh-pressed and eaten by moonlight in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Why he’s in France is unclear, but the sushi is good, though the rice has maybe too much vinegar.

He wakes up, but takes a few moments to realizes it, because he still smells sushi vinegar. Is he still dreaming? Did the room change?

No, it’s just Genta, half of his clothes smell of sushi vinegar due to years of small spills. Takeru turns over to go back to sleep.

Wait.

Genta’s still in Europe, isn’t he?

But he’s too tired to stay awake, and so he drifts off even as he’s trying to figure out if Genta’s actually there.

His alarm wakes him up, but it shuts off before he can reach it, which is confusing. There’s a grumbling sound next to his ear, and then Genta slurs out, “Too early. Way too early. Still on French time. Take-chan, whyyyyy is your alarm so loud and early.”

“I have a lot of stuff I have to do. Business for the family. Classes.” Takeru rolls over, smushing his face into Genta’s shoulder, and then freezes. “Wait, you’re not supposed to be back from France for another two weeks. Am I still dreaming?”

“Nope, I got everything finished up early and Jii helped me change my flight. It was supposed to be a surprise, but then the plane got delayed and I got in super late and you were asleep and I was really tired so I just lay down next to you. And now I’m going back to sleep.” Genta pulls the blanket over his face. “I hate jet lag.”

Takeru pulls the blanket off his face again, to his weak protests. “No, look, you can’t just show up back from France after being away for two years and go straight to sleep.”

Genta sets his mouth stubbornly, eyes closed. “I can and I will.” The blanket goes back over his face.

Takeru squints at him irritably for a moment and then gets out of bed and starts getting dressed. “Well, if you need to sleep you need to sleep.” He starts counting down from ten in his head.

He doesn’t even get to seven. “Hey,” Genta says plaintively, eyes still closed, “don’t I get a kiss or something? Welcome home, Genta, you were in France for two years, how did you manage to get even sexier?”

“You said you needed to sleep, though.” Takeru buckles his belt and starts hunting for a shirt.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t also need a welcome-home kiss or ten.”

“No, you’ve got jet lag, you should rest.” He finds a shirt, pulls it on, and then glances over at the kuroko who’s just materialized in the doorway. “I forget, what’s my first appointment for the day?”

The kuroko shakes his head.

“…what’s that supposed to mean? I’m sure I’ve got stuff this morning.”

Another head shake.

Takeru frowns. “Did…did Jii change my schedule?”

A tense pause. A nod.

“It was part of the surprise with Genta, wasn’t it.”

A slightly more relieved nod.

Takeru thinks about it for a moment and then nods back. “Please tell him I said thank you, and that I’ll see him at lunch. And have someone bring some breakfast for us.”

The kuroko nods and vanishes quietly away.

On the bed, the blanket stirs, and then Genta’s arm emerges as he sleepily punches the air. “Yes. I win. I get welcome-home kisses. And then I need to tell you about some of the stuff I came up with over there, do you think Japan’s ready for an escargot roll?”

“Maybe, but it might be a hard sell.” Takeru says, pulling his shirt back off. “So are you going to come out for welcome-home kisses, or do I have to get under there with you?”

Chapter Text

Tatsuya is a little bit drunk.

There’s a reason for it, but Ayase can’t remember why, possibly because he’s had a few drinks himself. It’s because of some holiday, he knows that much, Tatsuya keeps telling them about all these different Past holidays that nobody apparently remembers when they’re from. There are so many holidays, how did they lose so many holidays? What happened in the intervening thousand years that made them lose so many holidays?

What was he thinking about?

Right. Tatsuya. Who has had a little too much to drink, and is thus sitting on the couch next to him, head resting on his shoulder, humming some popular song that Ayase’s heard on the radio. Ayase feels like maybe making him move would be a good idea, but that would take a lot of energy, and he’s busy watching Shion–who’s stone cold sober, of course–trying to teach Domon and Yuuri some kind of complicated card game. Yuuri is only lightly tipsy, so she’s doing all right, but Domon is having trouble not showing everyone his hand.

The humming stops, and after a moment Tatsuya says, “I remember…once, in university, the one time I got Naoto to come to a party with me I had to carry him back to his place. Because he’s a lightweight.”

Ayase glances down at him. “And you’re doing so much better.”

“No, you don’t get it, he’d only had one drink.” Tatsuya grins. “He was so mad when he woke up.”

“You should drink some water.”

“Yeah, but then I’d have to get up, I’m comfy. You have comfy shoulders.” A slow blink. “And you smell good.”

“I was fixing cars earlier, Tatsuya, I smell like engine grease and sweat.” Ayase scowls faintly. He’s already changed and showered and he can still smell it, it might not ever come out of his hair.

“That’s…that’s sexy, though. You get how that’s sexy, right?”

Ayase’s ears are suddenly burning. “Tatsuya…”

“You smell good. And you have nice hair.” Tatsuya shifts over a little bit; now he’s distinctly snuggling, not just leaning against Ayase’s side. “And you’re hot.”

“Tatsuya–”

He had something he was going to say. He’s sure he had something he was going to say, something about how everyone’s in this room all together and it’s not just them. Which is important. In fact it’s probably extra important given that Tatsuya’s lips are now pressed against the side of his neck. But it’s also very difficult to get the words in order, given that Tatsuya’s lips are pressed against the side of his neck. Makes it hard to concentrate.

In a truly amazing feat of timing, Shion chooses this moment to turn away from the card game and say, “Hey, are you guys sure you don’t want to learn how to–oh,” and then politely covers his eyes. “I was going to ask if you wanted to learn how to play but maybe you’re busy?”

“Mm,” Tatsuya says into the side of Ayase’s neck.

Ayase says, “Tatsuya, we are. There are. Everyone’s looking at us.”

“Ok,” Tatsuya says, sounding unconcerned, and doesn’t move his face or the rest of him. “They don’t get to kiss you, though.”

Yuuri is visibly stifling laughter as she reaches for a bottle of water. “Maybe you should, maybe you should hydrate a little bit, Tatsuya.”

“I’m fine, it’s cool. Ayase smells good.”

“Ayase smells like engine grease and sweat,” Domon says, quietly switching his hand of cards for Shion’s while Shion and Yuuri have their backs turned.

Ayase feels Tatsuya frown. “Why are you smelling Ayase?”

“Oooook. I think I’ll take that, please, Yuuri.” Ayase leans forward, despite Tatsuya’s weight against him, and takes the bottle of water, twisting the cap off and pressing it into Tatsuya’s hands despite his grumbled protests. “You need water.”

“I’m fine,” Tatsuya says, taking a sip of water, still leaning against Ayase’s side. “It’s fine. This is good water.”

“I’m glad. Stop kissing me in front of everyone.”

Another, “Mm,” from Tatsuya, now back to resting his head on Ayase’s shoulder and not kissing the side of his neck. “Can I still kiss you when we’re not in front of everyone?”

Shion, turning back to the table and the card game, puts a hand over his mouth to stifle a giggle and then lets out a dismayed squawk of “Domon,” when he picks up his hand of cards.

Ayase stares fixedly at the wall, because if he looks down at Tatsuya right now he’ll crumble completely. “…yes. Now drink your water.”

“Ok, Ayase.”

Chapter Text

Ryunosuke takes a sip of his tea and says, “You really haven’t seen any of the others since?”

Takeru shakes his head. “I’m not totally isolated, I see Kotoha fairly frequently.”

They’re at a cafe, and they’re drinking tea and having some kind of pastries, and Takeru’s going to kill Jii. The theater class had been his idea, and Takeru’s been enjoying it, but having Honda-sensei walk in with a guest lecturer who’d introduced himself and then looked across the room and frozen and said, “Takeru?” hadn’t been a surprise he was prepared for.

Not that he’s unhappy to be seeing Ryunosuke. No, of course he’s happy to be seeing one of his friends.

Jii could have warned him, though.

A nod from Ryunosuke, who’s been smiling in this sort of strange, gentle surprise ever since class ended and he came over to say hello. “Kotoha, really? What’s she been up to?”

“Teaching music lessons to primary school students and taking care of her sister, mostly, but she and the prin—Moth—Kaoru have gotten really close.”

“What, really?”

“Well, Moth—Kaoru’s lived a very sheltered life, she’s never gotten to have…friends. She wanted to learn how people actually live when they’re not constantly studying to defeat ancient evils, and Kotoha’s her age, so Kaoru got me to call her—”

“She didn’t want to call herself?”

“She’s very shy. And she asked if Kotoha would teach her how to go grocery shopping.”

Ryuunosuke blinks. “I bet Tanba hated that.”

Takeru grins. “He was furious. Especially because she wouldn’t let him come with them.”

There’s an odd noise that Takeru realizes after a moment is Ryuunosuke stifling laughter. “I almost wish I’d gotten to see that conversation.”

“You really don’t, I think Tanba actually damaged my eardrums with all his screeching.” Takeru takes a sip of tea. “So now they meet up every few weeks to do something ‘normal’ together,” air quotes over the top of his teacup, “and sometimes we all have dinner. Last time Kotoha took her to the movies, I think.”

“That’s wonderful.” Ryunosuke reaches for the warm teapot in the middle of the table and gestures for Takeru’s cup. “May I?”

“Yes, please–Kaoru’s very happy about it, I think she likes getting to be a person with a life.”

“What about you?”

Takeru frowns. “What about me what?”

Ryunosuke pauses in the middle of bending over his own cup and looks up at Takeru through his eyelashes in a way that makes Takeru feel off-balance again. “Do you like getting to be a person with a life?”

Takeru stares into the air past Ryunosuke’s head for a moment before saying, “I’d like to like it. But I don’t think I’m very good at it.” A long, awkward pause, and then he coughs. “So, uh. What have you been up to? You said the troupe’s doing well, but what about you? Do you have a, a girlfriend or anything?” Ryuunosuke makes another one of those surprised noises, and he frowns. “What, was that funny? I promise I’m not making fun of you.”

“No, no, it’s not—you thought I’d have a girlfriend?”

“Is that strange?”

“Takeru, I’m gay. I thought you knew.”

Takeru almost jumps. “What? But, I thought you and Mako—I mean, at least, I thought you were interested in Mako.”

Appropriately enough, Ryuunosuke turns briefly pink. “Mako’s an exceptional woman, but—no. I mean, even if I were interested in her like that, she wouldn’t have me. And in any case, she was clearly in love with you, which I’d…thought you reciprocated. Are you all right?”

Takeru is choking on his tea. “You thought I was…with Mako?”

Ryunosuke’s turn to frown. “Weren’t you?”

“No. I mean, not that she isn’t very, she’s, she’s extremely—I wouldn’t have with any of you.” A hurt look flickers across Ryunosuke’s face, and Takeru immediately regrets his phrasing. “I mean. Look, I thought I was. Going to die. And I was lying to everyone. I wouldn’t—I couldn’t have done that to anyone. Least of all you.” He means the “you” generally, any of you, but Ryuunosuke looks away from him, cheeks reddening, and Takeru has a sudden, vivid realization of how it could have been taken. He very nearly clarifies and then…doesn’t. And isn’t entirely sure of why, except that it seems important not to clarify, to let the statement be specific.

There’s an awkward, shy silence in which they drink tea and eat pastries and fail to make eye contact, and then Ryunosuke says, very quietly, “I should get home, I have early rehearsals tomorrow.”

Takeru blurts out, “Can I drive you? I mean, on the, like how we got here from the university, on the motorcycle.”

“Yes, please.” Ryunosuke’s still not quite looking at him, or at least not directly, just out of the corner of his eyes. “I’d like that.”

They pull up outside the Ikenami house, and Ryunosuke lets go of him and pulls off the spare helmet and says, “Would you like to come in?”

Takeru lifts the visor of his own helmet so he’s at least audible. “I–sorry, I don’t think I can, I have some kind of meeting tomorrow that I have to attend with Jii, I should get back as soon as I can.” A beat, and then he twists around to look at Ryunosuke, still perched on the back of the bike. “But, um. Would you like to have dinner with me next week? Tuesday, at seven? Not at the compound, at, at a restaurant.”

“I’d like that,” with a shy smile. “Which restaurant? Should I meet you there?”

“I’ll…I’ll pick you up, it’ll be a surprise,” as he quietly resolves to ask Jii or Kotoha or someone for restaurant recommendations.

“That sounds very nice, then. I should be here at the house then, but if my schedule changes and I’m somewhere else then I’ll text you.” Ryunosuke smiles, and then his shoulders set, like he’s deciding on something very serious. “I should get inside, Takeru, but–one more thing?”

Takeru blinks. “Sure, what is it?”

The thing is, Takeru’s never kissed anyone. There had never seemed to be a point to it before. His job wasn’t to look for romance, just to live, and eventually die, for Shiba Kaoru. Now he’s actually head of the Shiba Clan and he’s taking extension classes at the university and he’s trying to be a person with a life and Ryunosuke is kissing him, which is somehow both unexpected and completely reasonable, and he has no idea what to do.

He’s pretty sure he makes a surprised noise, and then he relaxes and tries to follow Ryunosuke’s lead. They’re at a bad angle with him twisted around like this, anyway, so it doesn’t last very long, and then Ryunosuke sits back a bit, red-faced, and says, “Um.”

Takeru blinks several times. His own face feels pretty warm. It’s not bad, though. Kissing’s not bad. Kissing Ryunosuke’s not bad. “I, uh. That was. I…hope I wasn’t too bad at that?”

Ryunosuke stares at him and then lets out a slightly hysterical laugh. “You were fine. Please excuse me, I don’t know what came over me.”

“You’re not excused. I mean, it’s fine. I mean, no, look, I’d. Can we try that again?” Takeru shakes himself. “Maybe next week after dinner? I think I might be better at it then.”

Further laughter, less hysterical and more genuine. “Yes, I’d like that.”

Chapter Text

“No, really, you couldn’t have–not in every room in the ship.”

“Every room.”

“Even the engine room?”

“Just the once. We were having an issue with the climate control, it was warm in there.” Marvelous grins. “My back did hurt afterward.”

Ahim sets down her embroidery very suddenly and everyone looks over at her, startled. In Marvelous’ case this leads to nearly overbalancing and falling off the couch, since he’s lying with his feet propped on the wall and his head hanging off the seat.

She says, “I think we should have a party.”

More staring. Doc says, slowly, “What, uh, what’s the occasion?”

“The occasion,” as she begins to fold up her work, very neatly, “is that we defeated Zangyack on Earth at least six months ago and since then we’ve barely been off the Galleon for anything but grocery shopping. I’m aware that traveling to the Zangyack home world is a lengthy and dangerous journey, and that the search for us is so rigorous and our bounties have increased to such a degree that extended shore leave isn’t a good idea at the moment, but everyone requires some variance of routine.”

There’s some generalized nodding from the others as Marvelous’ eyebrows rise toward the floor. “So you think we should have a party.”

“Yes.” She nods firmly. “With games.”

Everyone is staring as Gai says, “I feel like I know this game.”

“You may, it’s very simple.” Ahim is still focused on what she’s doing, which is carefully balancing a large golden coin on its edge on the back of a chair. “You challenge someone, and all you’re trying to do is knock the coin down before they manage it. Whoever manages it first gets a forfeit of their choice from the other, and then the loser makes the next challenge.”

Marvelous grins, reaching for his hip. “That sounds easy enough, I’ll just–”

“No weapons.” Ahim’s expression is just as serene as ever, but her tone is sharp. “That would be cheating. And you do have to be at least a meter away.” She pauses, and then produces a piece of blue dressmaker’s chalk from somewhere and marks a spot on the floor. “Here, I believe this should a good place from which to aim.”

“Well, it’s your game.” Marvelous is, in fact, pouting a bit. “So why don’t you go first? Challenge someone.”

“If you like.” She looks pleased at the suggestion. “I think I’ll challenge…Joe. And as the challenger I will of course go second.”

Joe nods, frowning faintly. “If you like, Ahim.” He steps up to the mark, digs a smaller coin out of one of his pockets, and flips it. It sparkles in the air for a moment before landing flat on the back of his hand, and then he flicks his middle finger at it and sends it flying at the golden coin on the chair.

And misses by a hair.

“Damn.” Joe squints at where his coin lies, on the floor well past the chair. “I was sure I had it. I guess that makes it your turn, Ahim?”

“Thank you very much.”

She steps up to the mark and gives the coin a considering look, and then reaches up and very carefully slides a hairpin out of her bun. Joe’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

“I’m very good at this game.” She smiles sweetly, pinching the hairpin in her fingertips as she takes aim. “On Famille, before Zangyack began attacking, I was considered quite a prodigy. Although of course the adults I played against had generally been drinking, so that may have biased their judgments of the situation.” A pause, a shift in angle, and she throws her hairpin like a dart.

It strikes the coin squarely in the center, sending it clattering onto the seat of the chair as Luka lets out an impressed whistle. Doc stares. Joe, Gai, and Marvelous all clap as Joe says, “Damn, all right, you win. What’d you want for forfeit? I assume there’s some kind of ca–”

The kiss she gives him would probably be best described as “solid.” Certainly she has an iron grip on the collar of the shirt that he definitely stole from Marvelous; certainly their mouths are pressed together very firmly. When she pulls back, he just blinks, looking dumbfounded, as she says, sweetly, “Why, Mr. Joe, sir, didn’t anyone ever teach you that it’s rude to make impertinent assumptions about a lady’s intentions?”

He blinks at her more.

She lets go of his collar and pats him gently on the cheek. “It’s your challenge now.”

“Um.” A slow, dazed nod. “Right. Right.” He goes and collects the coin he threw as she’s resetting the large one on the back of the chair and putting her hairpin back in. “Gai. Challenge.”

Gai nods. “Do you, uh, do you need a second to get your breath back–”

“I’m fine.” Joe shakes himself. “I’m good. Besides, I. I challenged, you go first.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” A beat, and then Gai grins as he’s pulling out a pen. “Do I get a kiss if I win?”

Joe flashes him a smile. “Beat me first and we’ll see.”

Gai’s thrown pen goes wide. This time, however, Joe’s flicked penny strikes true, causing the coin on the chair to let out a bell-like ringing sound as it falls. Luka frowns. “What kind of coin is that, anyway? I don’t recognize it.”

“It’s a Famille fifty-crown piece.” Ahim beams at her, going to reset the game. “One of my most precious possessions–oh my.”

Having recovered from his shock, Joe has clearly decided to follow Ahim’s lead, and then some. His arm is around Gai’s waist; the kiss involves a dramatic dip that very nearly tips them both over until Marvelous gets a hand under Gai’s back. When Gai’s got his mouth back he says, weakly, “Right. Ok. So I get a kiss if I lose.”

Joe shrugs. “I don’t know, I considered making you polish my boots, but the kissing seemed more fun. Anyway,” pulling him upright again with only a little help from Marvelous, “your turn to challenge someone.”

Gai shakes himself and says, “Luka.”

Luka snorts. “I will make you do my laundry if I win.”

“Luka, I do your laundry already, Don and I do everyone’s laundry.”

“By hand.”

“Well, I’ll just have to win, then.”

Another, more amused snort, and then Luka steps up to the mark, pulls a ring off her pinky, and hurls it point-blank at the coin as everyone holds their breath.

She misses.

“Fuck.”

“Language,” Ahim says absently, not actually seeming bothered.

“All right, my try now.” Gai glances down at the pen in his hand and then tosses it overhand onto the table. “This didn’t work last time, but I think I have something that will.” He digs in the pocket of his jeans and pulls out something small and white.

Everyone blinks. Doc frowns. “Gai, we were supposed to give those back.”

“I tried to, I went to Aba Red and asked if he wanted it.” Gai hefts the Abare Killer key in his palm, gazing down at it as if it might tell him something. “But he said that he thought I should keep it. Since Dr. Nakadai gave it to me himself, sort of. I still have Time Fire too, Time Red couldn’t even look at it, and Mr. Geki said he thought his brother would want the Dragon Ranger powers staying with someone who would use them more.” A solemn pause, and then he tosses the Abare Killer key into the air, sending it flipping end over end and then catching it again and holding it like a dart. “Anyway, Abare Killer loved winning, so I figure this gives me a good chance.”

He hurls the key and it strikes true, with a tk that somehow also manages to sound like a little self-satisfied, “Hm,” and knocks the coin entirely off the chair and onto the floor.

Luka makes a faint, astonished noise, allows Gai to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and then grabs his scarf and kisses him with significantly more thoroughness. “If this is what we’re all doing you should kiss me right.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Don’t call me that. Doc, get over here.”

Doc’s hands are shaking so badly when he throws the loose button he’s been fidgeting with that it goes very wide, bounces off the wall, and has to be caught by Joe before it can roll away entirely. Luka rolls her eyes, throws a ring from her other hand, and knocks the coin down with ease.

Doc sighs. “So, laundry by hand, then–mmph.” And, a moment later, once Luka lets go of him, “Oh, ok.”

“What?” Luka isn’t quite smiling now. “I’m just playing along.”

Marvelous says, “I’m starting to feel a little neglected–”

“Marvelous?” Doc’s fidgeting with the button again. “Challenge.”

“Oh. Good.” Marvelous reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his own Ranger Key. “Anyone want to bet I’ll be the first person to win when it’s not my challenge?”

“I’ll take that bet.” Ahim smiles up at him. “If you lose to Doc now you owe forfeit to everyone.”

“Done.” He nods to Doc. “In fact, I’m so sure I’ll win that I’ll let you go first, even though it’s supposed to be me since you challenged me.”

Doc’s starting to look more relaxed, but at this he goes tense again. “All, all right, if you like.” He steps up to the mark and throws the button.

It looks like it’s going to bounce off the wall again, and it does–but this time it hits the coin on the way through, knocking it to the floor as Marvelous’ jaw drops.

Doc, also looking shocked at his own success, says. “Um. So you owe everyone.”

“Well, he owes you first.” Joe sounds like he might start laughing. “Since it was against you.”

It’s a chaste kiss, really, Doc’s never been big on public displays of affection, and Marvelous seems fine with that. Then, a turn, and a theatrical bow to the rest of the crew. “I owe a forfeit to you all, and obviously I’m going to pay up, but I have a question first.”

Gai frowns. “What’s your question?”

“Ahim.”

Ahim is suddenly visibly tense. “Yes, Captain?”

“Where is it?”

There’s a long pause as everyone turns to look at Ahim, and after a moment she starts to blush and produces the Magi Pink Ranger Key from one of her sleeves. “I will admit that I may have affected the outcomes of some throws slightly in order to prolong the game.”

Doc gapes at her. “Ahim, where did you even get that?”

“I called Miss Houka personally. Navi helped.”

Marvelous’ eyes go wide, and he turns and shouts, “Bird! Did you help Ahim rig this whole thing?”

“Not a bird!” is the screech from steerage. “I just made a phone call! Did a little transit! Nothing suspicious! She’s gotta give it back now!”

Everyone’s still staring at Ahim, whose blush has spread to the tips of her ears. “She said, and I quote, ‘get it, girl, hell yeah,’ and then had to hang up because one of her boyfriends was calling.”

Doc still looks like he’s reeling. “Why, though?”

“We were in a rut. A lively party always cheers everyone up.”

“…admittedly I am in a much better mood than I have been for the past few days.”

She beams at him. “I’m very glad to hear it. And,” to Marvelous, “don’t think this renders our agreement invalid, you still owe forfeit.”

Marvelous lets out a long sigh, looking not at all unhappy. “So are we sticking with kisses or should I start taking my clothes off? Wait, what are you whispering about?”

Luka glances up from the hastily-convened huddle and says, placidly, “Choice of music.”

“I am not dancing for you.”

“If you didn’t want to then you shouldn’t have made that bet with Ahim.”

Marvelous sighs again, although at this point he can’t even successfully pretend to be irritated. “Ok, fair. That’s fair. I don’t know why I ever bet against her anyway.”

Chapter Text

A glove bounces gently off Satoru’s face right before he hears Sakura mutter, “Shit.”

He reaches for the glove, bats it away by accident, and pushes up and off of his chair to go after it. “Something wrong?”

“Well, I want to go out and fix that sensor, but the gloves for my EVA suit keep getting away with me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got one of them right here.” This time he does catch the glove, pushes off a wall, and drifts through the air towards the main cabin of their tiny spaceship. He snags the other glove on the way in, where it’s drifted around behind the food storage unit. “And there’s the other.”

Sakura hangs upside-down in the air at the other end of the room, looking irritated. Their EVA suits aren’t very bulky, but they are just big enough that it’s a little bit comical to see her bare hands emerging from the cinched sleeves, her head poking out “above” the oversized shoulders. Her ponytail hangs down below her, spread out like a fan or a halo. She waits for a moment and then raises her eyebrows. “Is something funny?”

He grins at her. “I just feel like I remember a time a while ago when our positions were reversed.”

A pause, and then she nods. “I do remember that.”

Almost two years ago now, well before they’d recruited Masumi and Natsuki, and even Souta had been laid up with a broken ankle so it was just the two of them on that mission. Pitch dark, pouring rain, halfway down a mountain that was bad climbing even under the best of circumstances, and the tiny Precious they’d been hunting had to be carried in Satoru’s breast pocket because they couldn’t box it until they were back at sea level and safe to carry something large. He’d slipped, fallen, slid an agonizing few meters down and stopped himself by sheer luck right before he could go over an edge. Well, all the way over the edge–by the time Sakura had gotten to him, he was hanging from it by his knees, head down towards almost certain death if he lost his grip. He remembers her hands on the side of his face when she’d gotten to him, standing on the ledge below him and carefully shining a flashlight into his eyes as she said–

“You’re looking unusually distracted.”

“It’s a nice memory.”

Her eyebrows, which had been lowering, shoot up again. “You had a concussion, two cracked ribs, and a gash on one of your legs that needed ten stitches.”

“Sure, but it was thrilling, wasn’t it?”

She makes a snorting noise. “Adrenaline junkie.”

He kicks off the door frame and floats to her, gloves in hand, and gestures. “Why did you decide you wanted to come to space?” he says as he’s doing up the cuff fastenings at her left wrist. “You never seemed interested before.”

“Why did you decide you were going to go alone?” Her nose wrinkles in irritation as he moves around to help her get on her other glove. She’s still floating upside down. “You know perfectly well that prolonged extreme isolation is bad for your mental health.”

“Where’s your helmet?”

A roll of the eyes. “I can put on my helmet by myself, Akashi.”

He spots the helmet floating nearby, snags it, and drops into a crouch so that he can look her in the eye properly. She looks up at him, wrinkles transferring from nose to forehead as she goes from irritated to puzzled, and he says, very quietly, “I do know that prolonged isolation is bad for my mental health. I’m glad that it’s you here with me.”

Her cheeks immediately flush pink, and her mouth sets. “Chief–”

“If I kiss you right now, would that be all right? Or will you kill me in my sleep later?”

Worsening flush. “If I was going to kill you here I’d just put you out the airlock and report it to headquarters as a tragic accident.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Am I? Or are you just asking to kiss me to make fun of me?”

“You came to space with me, I figure that’s up to you.”

She stares up at him, brows drawing down in something that’s either confusion or frustration, and then says, “If you don’t make up your mind about whether or not you’re going to kiss me I will airlock you.”

Satoru’s never kissed someone when they were upside-down before, and finds that it’s logistically a little tricky. Sakura doesn’t exactly have a prominent chin, but his nose bumps into it nevertheless, and of course if either of them moves too much in their current zero-gravity state then everything could get very awkward. His fingers splay on the sides of her face to hold her much as he remembers her once holding him, and her heavily-gloved hands come to rest on the top of his head, and her lips part hesitantly against his.

He’s not sure if the kiss actually takes a long time or if it’s just that being in outer space makes his sense of time a little odd, but eventually she pulls back and says, very calmly despite her still-pink cheeks, “Give me my helmet, please, if I don’t repair that sensor soon it’s going to be an issue.”

“Have I mentioned how nice you look in your EVA suit?” he says as she’s gathering her ponytail out of the way and fastening her helmet tightly.

She snorts again, but she’s smiling very faintly. “Chief, I don’t really think this is the time to tell me about how nice I look.” Finally she pushes gently off his shoulder with one hand to right herself. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time for it later.”

Chapter Text

There’s a faint clink behind Swan, and she doesn’t even look up from her work, she just says, “I know I shouldn’t be up this late, but I’m making progress on these upgrade designs, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to make me get some sleep.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Doggie never quite sounds as if he’s suppressing laughter, but Swan can hear the signs anyway. She ought to be able to, after so many years. “In fact, I brought you coffee.”

“Ohh, now that’s an entirely different story.” She turns in her chair, accepts the coffee from Doggie–in a broad-based mug that won’t tip over, she notes with approval–and then turns back to her sketches. “Anyway,” after she’s taken a happy sip, “I know just as well that you’re not supposed to be up this late either, not after your last heart exam.”

There’s a slightly guilty silence.

“You were hoping I’d forgotten about that.”

“…perhaps a bit, yes.”

She takes another sip of coffee and doesn’t turn around again, so that he can’t see her smile. “I try not to ever forget things like that. So how are the kids? Last I saw they were getting patched up after the firefight.”

“They went out for yakiniku together. Tetsu tried to come in here to invite you, but I told him you’d bite him if he interrupted you while you were inventing something.” An uncertain pause, and then, “I’ll admit, that might have been the wrong thing to tell him, he didn’t seem too put off by the idea.”

“That boy…” She sighs and then, frowning, realizes that one of the leg panels on this new powered armor design needs to be shifted over. “Damn. Could you hand me the kneaded eraser over there?”

Doggie passes it to her and she sets about fixing the position of the panel, nose wrinkling as she focuses on carefully erasing each line and redrawing them bare millimeters to the left of where they’d been. She can feel him watching, calm gaze on the back of her neck, and it’s comforting, knowing that after all these years they can still have silence together. It’s something she’s always liked about his company.

Once the panel’s been redrawn, though, it throws into sharp relief a whole host of other small issues, and she makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “Maybe I am up too late.” Another sip of coffee, which is starting to cool a bit, although not unpleasantly. “I feel like I’ve been looking at this thing for six hours.”

“Seven.”

“No.”

“Seven and a half, really. Nearly eight. Long enough for me to catch Ban sneaking out of Hoji’s room for the third time this week when I was getting you the coffee.”

She chuckles into the mouth of her coffee mug. “They’re young, what else would you expect?”

Doggie lets out a little amused whuff noise. “They’re all adults. And we’re not so old.”

“Speak for yourself.” She spins in her chair, drains the last of the coffee, sets aside her mug, smiles up at him. “I am enjoying my descent into stately old-ladydom.” He stands and offers his hand, and she takes it and lets him help her up, wincing as one of her knees pops a bit. “Mostly. I’m mostly enjoying it.”

Doggie keeps looking down at her. “You still look just like you did when we first met.”

Her feathers ruffle a bit, but she just smiles. “And you’re still a rascal, you’ve only gotten better at hiding it.” She pulls her hand free of his, reaches up to take his face gently in both hands, and rises up on her toes to kiss him on the side of his nose. “Come on, old man. It’s late, and we’re not as young as we used to be.”

Chapter Text

“Mm. So do you like being a treasure hunter?”

“I wouldn’t call myself a treasure hunter, that implies I do it for profit. I’m a Precious recovery specialist.”

Luka raises an eyebrow, leaning on the bar with her chin in her hand. “Ok, sure, recovery specialist, is it fun?”

Sakura looks thoughtful for a moment and then says, “I enjoy my work, yes. Why?”

Something is happening over at the bar. Marvelous can’t quite tell what yet, but whatever it is, it’s definitely entertaining. Luka goes on a charm offensive once in a comet’s orbit, and seeing her pull out all the stops for Bouken Pink of all people is fascinating.

At the bar, Luka leans forward and rests her fingertips on Sakura’s wrist, just above the band of her changer, and at Marvelous’ elbow, Akashi makes a faint distressed noise before gritting out, “I’m glad they’re getting along.”

Eiji pats him on the arm. “So she hasn’t forgiven you yet.”

“I’m not entirely clear on what she’s angry about, so no.”

Marvelous eyes Akashi. “You and Pink are actually together?”

“I thought we were.”

Luka’s eyes light up. “Oh, so you’re a rich girl.”

“Despite myself, yes.” Sakura tilts her head to the side thoughtfully, sips her drink. “Does that bother you?”

“Nah, I like rich girls. I thought you were a special ops type before you went into…recovery work, though.”

“I like to have useful ways to spend my time. Staying at the family home and sitting on my hands never struck me as especially productive.”

“Fair enough.” A slow sip of golden brandy, and then Luka grins again, eyes flicking to one side briefly to take in their audience. “So what about special ops? You like that? Get any interesting scars out of it?”

Sakura’s eyebrows shoot up. “So you’re the kind of girl who’s interested in scars.”

“If they’re cool, yeah.”

Eiji’s hand, Marvelous is fascinated to note, is still resting on Akashi’s forearm, with the casual possessiveness that Marvelous has seen other people direct at their wallets, jewelry, and expensive firearms. He doesn’t seemed bothered by the flirtation happening over at the bar–or at least, he hasn’t been. Now he’s sort of choking a little, and Marvelous turns to see that Sakura has grabbed Luka’s chin and is inspecting her face closely.

“Luka must really like your Pink,” Joe says, as Souta is reaching out to clap Eiji’s shoulder comfortingly, “I saw her cut a guy’s hand off once for touching her face like that.”

“She’s very likeable, really, once you get past the intimidation factor.” Souta flashes Joe a grin. “We’ve been working together for years, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who’s so.”

Joe waits a long moment for an answer before prompting, “So?”

“So. So. Uh. So.”

Joe follows his wide-eyed line of sight to–Luka, having freed herself, leaning in close to whisper in Sakura’s ear.

“Sooo, do I actually get to kiss you, or did you just want to get Bouken Red’s attention?”

“You know, at first I was just irritated with Akashi, but I’ll admit that after such an interesting conversation I’m reconsidering my plans for the evening.”

Masumi reaches over and pinches Souta on the ear, hard. “Snap out of it.”

Souta does not snap out of it. He’s too distracted.

Marvelous looks from the daisy chain of agonized Boukengers at their table over to Masumi. “You don’t seem distracted by the ladies at all.”

“I’m gay.” Masumi shrugs and drains half of his soda in one long sip. “Like, Sakura’s a hell of a woman, if she asked I wouldn’t say no, but mostly that’s curiosity.”

Nearby, Natsuki looks up from where she and Ahim are roundly beating Doc and Gai in pool and beams. “They do look nice together, don’t they?”

Muted sounds of agony from Akashi, Eiji, and Souta. Gai just nods. “Yeah, it’s nice seeing Luka really click with someone.”

“Hm. What kind of plans did you have for the rest of the evening?”

Luka smiles a tiny, pleased smile. “I think that’s for us to know and them to wonder about, don’t you?”

“She is a bit abrasive usually, isn’t she?” Ahim lines up her cue, shoots, and sinks two balls at once. “I wonder where they’re going–oh, dear, are the gentlemen all right?”

“They’ll be fine.” Marvelous slings one arm around Akashi’s back and the other around Eiji’s, resting his chin comfortably on Akashi’s shoulder. “I figure it’s a learning experience.”