Chapter Text
You’re not sure why you thought this was a good idea, but you’ve never really made good decisions. You can imagine your father’s horrified face and your papa’s stern disapproval, and your brother’s mocking laugh rings in your ears already, but fuck, man. You aren’t him, you aren’t worthy of praise, you’re the scrawny-ass C-average dumbass who happens to be in the right family. But you’re you, and you want to be you.
So naturally, you’re getting a fuckton of face tattoos. 'Cause that’s smart.
You may be stupid, but you’re not stupid. You know uni-cum-bootcamp won’t kick you out, “unobstructive bodymods” are a protected class. All that’s gonna happen is people are gonna make fun of you, your brother will kick your ass, and your parents will cry. That’s fine, probably. You already got perma-dye for half your hair, a good-looking pink that looks positively disastrous with your natural brunette, just the way you like it.
And besides, Jeremy at the sandwich place is gonna dig it. You asked him about it, he recommended this place, that you’re standing in front of and can’t get yourself to enter yet because holy shit there’s gonna be a needle in your face. Most places do digitized tattoos but this place, this place is the “good stuff,” Jeremy said. Classic. Authentic.
God, you have a fear of needles. What a fantastic fuckin idea. But man, you gotta be brave, right? Right? They’re gonna send you to fight and die in some war (no, crusade, you correct yourself), you might as well get over your bullshit now. Who knows, the whatstherenames probably have needle guns, this’ll build character.
Yeah, that’s what you tell yourself, walking through the doors and thanking Earth that those doors are automatic because wow, you were just about to just stroll into the glass just like that, huh. Fuck.
You’re stupid, and might be just a little stupid.
-- -- -- -- --
Song’s pissed. He’s always pissed, but he hides it well. Fervor and stoicism and zealotry and all that bullshit the uniboot pushes, he’s the fuckin embodiment, but he’s always angry. He wants shit is what’s up, and no matter how much he gets he wants more. Ambition, that’s the value he really holds. If he was one of those heretical Divine dudes he'd pilot that shit.
He wants to know why you skipped today. How the fuck you got out of the barracks this morning without anyone noticing. Why someone saw you at Jeremy’s when you were supposed to be at target practice.
You shrug with your eyes, because he’s grabbed your shoulders and made that difficult. He’s yelling and you’re tuning it out, mostly. He’s like, an inch shorter than you but it feels like he towers over you in every fuckin way, every single fuckin way.
“You’re better than this!” he screams, spit flying into your face. You wonder how his peers would react, seeing him unhinged like this. He always seemed so put-together, he cultivated that image well.
“You can’t keep pulling this!” Yeah, you can, and he knows it and you do and he’s wasting his precious time.
“You need to learn, you have to, you KNOW you can do better, you KNOW it. You’re going to get fucking killed,” he says, and you hear a hint of something in his voice that actually grabs your attention. Worry.
“Yeah, like you’d care,” you snap back like the wonderful little brother you are, and the brief softness in his face disappears as he throws you against the wall, hard.
“I need my unit to be as prepared as possible, and they will assign us to be together. You know how this works. If you don’t come in tomorrow, I’ll make sure you’ll regret it.”
Ah, brotherly love.
-- -- -- --
The first time Jeremy invites you over, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re stupid, you don’t pick up on clues, you’re not good at this shit. You like people and you watch people but you don’t really do people, y’know?
He looks at you one day, smiling as he watches you gobble down a breakfast sandwich like the little glutton you are, and meets your eyes when you look up. “Hey, got a minute?”
“Mmhdghd,” you say through a mouthful of sausagey goodness. “Mmyeah.”
“Cool! Well, uh, I always enjoy our conversations here and you’re one of my favorite customers,” he says, and you raise an eyebrow. Crap, is this place gonna close or something? You brace yourself for bad news, but he just fidgets with a strand of hair as he continues. He’s only a year or so older than you, if that, yet here he is not being in the army and having an adult human job. “Well, I got a new game rig, one of the really good old-fashioned ones, and I don’t really got anyone to play with.”
“Shit dude, we don’t get that stuff in the barracks so I can’t help with that,” you say, missing his point because of course you do.
“Nah, dude, I just, I was thinking if you wanted maybe you could come over to my place? And we could play together?”
You blink. Once. Twice.
“Sorry if that was weird, I know like, we aren’t really technically friends and stuff but I figured you might want to--”
“God, if you’re not my friend I don’t have friends,” you interrupt. “What time you thinking?”
He flushes a bit, and nods. “9 tonight? That’s short notice but my roomies are out.”
“Yeah,” you say, crumbs littering your doofy smile.
You probably should have expected the whole making out on his couch part, looking back.
Your hands tangle in his auburn hair and your face flushes. God what is happening, what even is fucking happening why is he doing this what did you do to deserve it? But it feels nice and it’s good and he makes happy sounds when you grab at his back and push your mouth into his so you do it. You feel his stubble scratch against yours, and try to focus on that instead of other things of his pressing against you which feel good and which you definitely don't make an effort to feel a little more closely.
You finally pull away after what seems like too long and not long enough, panting and sweating and acutely aware of the fact that you're perched atop your very attractive friend.
“You’re good,” he says lamely, laughing as he stares up at your fucked-up, tattooed face with a nose that’s too small and acne that never cleared. “God, you’re pretty.”
“Liar,” you say, and stick your tongue out. You can feel heat pulsing from both of you and the game is long-forgotten, the controllers knocked off the couch and music playing faintly in the background. You haven’t kissed anyone since middle school, there’s been no time (even in your wasted time) and no one wants to anyway. No one.
“Hey, you okay?” Jeremy interrupts your emo musings, concern furrowing his sweaty brow. “I can stop if you want.”
“Nah,” you say simply, and go in for a kiss. You miss his lips and hit his nose and he laughs and you laugh, and for a moment you forget the bullshit of the world and lose yourself in his embrace, lose yourself in his kisses, lose yourself in...other stuff of his.
This happens at least a dozen more times before you get the orders.
-- -- -- --
Sleep detachment. Fuck. This is the real deal. They’re gonna put you in a pod and put you to sleep for transit to some goddamn warzone and there’s nothing you can fucking do about it.
You reason with yourself (what a task). You’re gonna be transported to fight, for the Earth, right? You’re gonna protect Jeremy and Dad and Pops and you’re gonna make sure threats are quashed and stuff. That’s what you’ve been training for, that’s what they expect, and you’re gonna do it because it’s the right thing.
Yep.
Three hundred is a big fucking number. Three hundred days is a long time. Three hundred months is longer than you’ve been alive.
Three hundred years…
You try not to think about it until the day it happens.
-- -- -- --
You didn’t dream. You wake up and it’s like you were in the back of the train and dozed off, except the train is a lifepod in a bigass spaceship and instead of dozing for a few hours and missing your stop you just spent three hundred fucking years and are now in enemy space with your brother and a ton of people who’re way better than you but hey, you know how to people and you can fight pretty good and your mind’s good with tech and you’re Song’s brother.
This is it then, huh. For the glory of Earth. These assholes in the Divine Fleet or whatever have it coming to them, anyway. God, you almost forgot the name of the place you’ve been trained to fight against. If Song had telepathy you’d be toast before fighting one of the giant evil robots. Yeah, you know that part. Giant robots that are not under human control and A Big Danger.
You listened to the briefings. You know what you’re facing.
God, you’re going to fucking die, aren’t you? This sucks.
You want to go home and your veins ice with panic for a brief moment, but soon your pod opens in full and you’re met with your brother’s face. His eyes are filled with venom and conviction, and you try your best to match them. He looks unconvinced.
This is what you’ve got to do to make sure home is there for you when you go back. If you go back.
That’s just how it goes, for Earth. It’s what you have to do. It’s the price you pay.
Man, it sure is easy to accept that when you’re not the goddamn currency.