Bramble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bramblepatch) wrote2020-03-05 01:42 pm
bramblepatch) wrote2020-03-05 01:42 pm
Entry tags:
Original Fiction: We're Young and We're Bored
(Crossposted from Patreon, SFW, 1,925 words, Gen. Content warnings: teen alcohol use.
This story was released last week for patrons on my patreon, whose generous support makes sure I have all the spellchecking I can eat. If you'd like to support my art and writing, get special bonus material, and help choose next month's featured character, come check out my patron tiers and consider making a small monthly contribution?)
The airlock to the primary shuttle bay irised shut, and Jaz stood and glowered at it for a good six and a half minutes.
She’d have stayed longer – Jazmin Clark’s patience could be impressive, especially when she was using it for something completely petty, and at the moment Jaz was fully prepared to be lurking dejectedly in the corridor when her aunt returned from the job site – but apparently she hadn’t been subtle enough about her “sulk outside the shuttle bay” intentions because after a few minutes the sound of well-clipped claws clicked down the corridor behind her and Idgaf nudged her gently in the side.
“Ya know they won’t be back for at least ten hours, unless something goes seriously wrong, right?” the luptorian asked, with a lot less sympathy in her voice than Jaz could have wished. Of course, relying on tone was always a little chancy when dealing with aliens, but luptorians and humans socially intermingled enough that usually if there were really serious misunderstandings it was because someone was being willfully uncooperative. Humans might have earned their reputation for being recklessly gregarious pack animals, but the vaguely canine saurids had a similar and equally apt reputation of their own.
“Yeah, of course,” Jaz sighed, leaning against the closed door and crossing her arms.
Idgaf fixed her with an unimpressed look, flicking one ear skeptically. “I thought Meli got you an apprenticeship with the scrapper crew,” she pointed out.
The teenager sighed again, more pointedly this time. She wasn’t much good at judging luptorian ages, but Jaz was pretty sure that Idgaf was at least twice her age, or whatever the equivalent of a human in her early thirties would be; relatively youthful, but with more than enough experience and social capital to pull the “theoretically a responsible adult” card if she cared to. Still, she liked Idgaf – she might be a little gruff, but in the weeks that Jaz had been on the Uncertainty, the ship’s bartender had never been anything less than welcoming. Which made admitting why she was staying shipside today a little embarrassing, and while she made the admission, it came out in a mutter. “Got suspended.”
“What was that?” Idgaf prompted. Jaz was pretty sure that she was being teased. Luptorian hearing was better than human.
“I’m on probation, ok,” Jaz groaned. “Messed up a little – might have tried to pocket something I shouldn’t’ve - and Aunt Meli totally could have let me off but she told the captain and Aem Three’s got a stick up her little green ass and bumped me back down to ‘dependent minor’ status for another six months. So I gotta stay on board like the little kids.”
Idgaf blinked. “And you were going to prove ya deserved that special jobtraining dispensation by standin’ here looking sad when the work crew got back?” she asked. “Hey, no offense kiddo, but I can maybe kind of see why you got caught scamming your chem instructor back planetside. You ain’t much good at this.”
Jaz glowered.
The luptorian chuffed, a sound that didn’t quite sound like a human’s laugh but communicated pretty much the same thing, and turned on one clawed foot to head back down the corridor. “It’s not like everyone left onboard is in the creche,” she said over her shoulder. “When you’re done sulking, stop by the watering hole and I’ll get you something to drink, yeah?”
“You mean - ?” Jaz started hopefully.
“Not something out of rating for your species and physical maturity,” Idgaf cut her off with another laugh. “I didn’t memorize all those recreational psychoactives charts for nothin’, ya know.”
Jaz gave it a little consideration, and decided to sulk a little longer. Just to make a point. She wasn’t sure who she was making the point to at this point, but she was damn well going to make it.
Although the Uncertainty sometimes seemed as much a small town as a ship, there weren’t exactly a lot of choices around for fine dining and nightlife. Residents could live off of reheated rations in their own quarters – and Jaz was pretty sure some people did. But if one wanted to actually interact with others, there was the main mess hall, two stories high and always a little more echoey than seemed really reasonable, and there was Idgaf’s bar, a balcony space over the mess hall that could be charitably described as cozy. Not much more cramped than a lot of spaces on the Uncertainty, though – while there were a fair number of humans on board, and a few nonhumans who were even bigger, the majority of the crew were people of smaller species and Jazmin often felt a little out of scale with her surroundings on the ship. The other humans didn’t seem to mind the tight quarters much, though, so she figured she’d probably get used to it sooner or later.
If not, well. In a couple of years her independence wouldn’t be conditional on her aunt and the captain thinking she could handle herself. She could go find her own way, somewhere with broader corridors or a sky. If she wanted to.
It wasn’t the low ceiling that made Jaz almost turn around and leave, though. No, that was the other person already in the bar – taller than a human but much more lightly built, covered in dusty green feathers. She took some small hope from the fact that, turned away from the door and chatting amiably with Idgaf, Gessette didn’t seem to have noticed her entrance – but then Idgaf looked up and waved, and Gessette looked over her narrow shoulder to see who the bartender was gesturing at, and Jaz’s opportunity for escape had evaporated. She made a very deliberate point of not slinking in like she had something to be ashamed of, although she did leave not one but two empty seats between herself and Gessette at the bar and from the amused flick of an ear that Idgaf gave as she set a tall mug in front of Jaz, the luptorian clearly noticed.
Jaz muttered her thanks, and lifted the drink to her lips. It helped soothe her pride a little that the Uncertainty operated under Zodiac Federation laws rather than United Terran Territories laws, and the Zodiac drinking laws were quite a bit looser than in the UTT. Idgaf still wouldn’t serve her anything too strong, but even in full rebellious teen mode Jaz wasn’t much of a heavy drinker and the vaguely cidery drink in her glass had about as much of a kick to it as she wanted in the middle of the afternoon anyway. After a couple of mouthfuls, she sighed, and glanced over at Gessette, and was utterly unsurprised to find the bird-like woman watching her with thinly veiled amusement, because that was just how Jaz’s week was going, wasn’t it?
“Hi, Gessette,” she sighed.
“Afternoon, Jazmin,” the olorite replied – and then addeded lightly to the bartender, “You’ll want to watch your good utensils around this one, Idgaf.”
Idgaf glanced at Gessette, and then at Jaz, who tried not to look like she was trying to disappear behind her cup, although if she could that seemed like a pretty appealing option right now, and laughed another of her alien little laughs in realization. “Oh, damn, I thought you mean you got caught going through your aunt’s handbag or something, kid. You shoplifted from the junk shop? That’s why you got kicked off the salvage team?”
“I mean -” Jaz began, and realized that there was absolutely no graceful way to end that sentence.
Gessette snickered, a surprisingly human sound from someone with a beak. “Ah, no, take a few things from the shelf, I can give a lecture and we all go on with our day,” she said, with a graceful little wave of her hand. “Jazmin is confined shipside because I found her trying to disable the radiation shield on one of the display cases in the back.”
“I didn’t know,” Jaz objected.
“Had a big warning label on the side,” Gessette said patiently. “You think you should run around shipwrecks when you don’t know galactic-standard radiation warning symbols?”
“I mean, she has a point,” Idgaf chimed in, which Jaz thought was extremely unhelpful of her.
“Terran territories uses different symbols. I won’t make that mistake again,” Jaz pointed out, and then thinking better of her words, quickly added, “I’m not going to lift from your place again, either.”
“Oh, I know,” Gessette said. Tilting her head a little to one side, she regarded Jaz with just a little more intensity than was really comfortable, before adding, “Could use a second pair of hands in the shop, if they don’t walk off with anything, you know.”
Jaz blinked. “I- what? Did you forget the part where I tried to steal from you?”
Gessette laughed. “Tried to steal most valuable thing in my shop, you mean? Just made tiny little mistake of overlooking that the box kept it from cooking you,” she said. “Still, good eye for light goods. Better eye with a little training. Plus this way you stay in my line of sight more.”
“I was hoping to get back on salvage detail in a few months,” Jaz hedged, although there wasn’t any real certainty behind her words.
“Why?” Idgaf asked. “I mean, no offense kiddo, but you’re not exactly the grizzled spacer type. I’d have thought you’d prefer to deal in salvage after someone else dug it out of the side of a moon or wiped the exploded former owner off it.”
The olorite nodded sagely. “Always better to let someone else handle the messy part, I think,” she said. “And is basically the same skillset as a fence. If you intended to return to a life of crime after we’re done with you, I mean. Useful.”
Jaz looked from Gessette to Idgaf and back to Gessette. “I feel like I’m getting set up. Am I getting set up.”
“Hey, don’t look at me, I’m just here to serve drinks and color commentary,” Idgaf said. “And I’m not looking for an assistant.”
“Don’t need answer immediately,” Gessette added. “Shop’s not going anywhere, and neither are you for a while.”
It was true, wasn’t it? And maybe that was the thing – Jaz may not have been the only kid on board, but she was currently the only adolescent without some kind of work-training or intensive independent study thing going on. She knew herself well enough to predict that, without something to occupy her she’d be trying to pull some even dumber stunt within a month. “I mean, I did lose my work-training permissions, I might need to get my aunt’s permission or something,” she said begrudgingly.
“Tell Meli I asked for you special,” Gessette replied with a shrug.
Jaz still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the offer was a little too good to be true – especially considering her recent history with the junk shop – but if it was, she kind of thought she’d have an easier time figuring out what Gessette’s angle was by sticking close to her.
And maybe there was a corner of her mind that really hoped there wasn’t an angle. Independent business owners on vaguely disreputable salavage ships could certainly afford some idiosyncrasies, and, her quite reasonable frustration upon finding a teenager trying to crack open some radiation shielding aside, Gessette had always seemed friendly and reasonable to Jaz.
The teenager sighed. “I’ll ask,” she conceded. “No promises beyond that.”
This story was released last week for patrons on my patreon, whose generous support makes sure I have all the spellchecking I can eat. If you'd like to support my art and writing, get special bonus material, and help choose next month's featured character, come check out my patron tiers and consider making a small monthly contribution?)
The airlock to the primary shuttle bay irised shut, and Jaz stood and glowered at it for a good six and a half minutes.
She’d have stayed longer – Jazmin Clark’s patience could be impressive, especially when she was using it for something completely petty, and at the moment Jaz was fully prepared to be lurking dejectedly in the corridor when her aunt returned from the job site – but apparently she hadn’t been subtle enough about her “sulk outside the shuttle bay” intentions because after a few minutes the sound of well-clipped claws clicked down the corridor behind her and Idgaf nudged her gently in the side.
“Ya know they won’t be back for at least ten hours, unless something goes seriously wrong, right?” the luptorian asked, with a lot less sympathy in her voice than Jaz could have wished. Of course, relying on tone was always a little chancy when dealing with aliens, but luptorians and humans socially intermingled enough that usually if there were really serious misunderstandings it was because someone was being willfully uncooperative. Humans might have earned their reputation for being recklessly gregarious pack animals, but the vaguely canine saurids had a similar and equally apt reputation of their own.
“Yeah, of course,” Jaz sighed, leaning against the closed door and crossing her arms.
Idgaf fixed her with an unimpressed look, flicking one ear skeptically. “I thought Meli got you an apprenticeship with the scrapper crew,” she pointed out.
The teenager sighed again, more pointedly this time. She wasn’t much good at judging luptorian ages, but Jaz was pretty sure that Idgaf was at least twice her age, or whatever the equivalent of a human in her early thirties would be; relatively youthful, but with more than enough experience and social capital to pull the “theoretically a responsible adult” card if she cared to. Still, she liked Idgaf – she might be a little gruff, but in the weeks that Jaz had been on the Uncertainty, the ship’s bartender had never been anything less than welcoming. Which made admitting why she was staying shipside today a little embarrassing, and while she made the admission, it came out in a mutter. “Got suspended.”
“What was that?” Idgaf prompted. Jaz was pretty sure that she was being teased. Luptorian hearing was better than human.
“I’m on probation, ok,” Jaz groaned. “Messed up a little – might have tried to pocket something I shouldn’t’ve - and Aunt Meli totally could have let me off but she told the captain and Aem Three’s got a stick up her little green ass and bumped me back down to ‘dependent minor’ status for another six months. So I gotta stay on board like the little kids.”
Idgaf blinked. “And you were going to prove ya deserved that special jobtraining dispensation by standin’ here looking sad when the work crew got back?” she asked. “Hey, no offense kiddo, but I can maybe kind of see why you got caught scamming your chem instructor back planetside. You ain’t much good at this.”
Jaz glowered.
The luptorian chuffed, a sound that didn’t quite sound like a human’s laugh but communicated pretty much the same thing, and turned on one clawed foot to head back down the corridor. “It’s not like everyone left onboard is in the creche,” she said over her shoulder. “When you’re done sulking, stop by the watering hole and I’ll get you something to drink, yeah?”
“You mean - ?” Jaz started hopefully.
“Not something out of rating for your species and physical maturity,” Idgaf cut her off with another laugh. “I didn’t memorize all those recreational psychoactives charts for nothin’, ya know.”
Jaz gave it a little consideration, and decided to sulk a little longer. Just to make a point. She wasn’t sure who she was making the point to at this point, but she was damn well going to make it.
Although the Uncertainty sometimes seemed as much a small town as a ship, there weren’t exactly a lot of choices around for fine dining and nightlife. Residents could live off of reheated rations in their own quarters – and Jaz was pretty sure some people did. But if one wanted to actually interact with others, there was the main mess hall, two stories high and always a little more echoey than seemed really reasonable, and there was Idgaf’s bar, a balcony space over the mess hall that could be charitably described as cozy. Not much more cramped than a lot of spaces on the Uncertainty, though – while there were a fair number of humans on board, and a few nonhumans who were even bigger, the majority of the crew were people of smaller species and Jazmin often felt a little out of scale with her surroundings on the ship. The other humans didn’t seem to mind the tight quarters much, though, so she figured she’d probably get used to it sooner or later.
If not, well. In a couple of years her independence wouldn’t be conditional on her aunt and the captain thinking she could handle herself. She could go find her own way, somewhere with broader corridors or a sky. If she wanted to.
It wasn’t the low ceiling that made Jaz almost turn around and leave, though. No, that was the other person already in the bar – taller than a human but much more lightly built, covered in dusty green feathers. She took some small hope from the fact that, turned away from the door and chatting amiably with Idgaf, Gessette didn’t seem to have noticed her entrance – but then Idgaf looked up and waved, and Gessette looked over her narrow shoulder to see who the bartender was gesturing at, and Jaz’s opportunity for escape had evaporated. She made a very deliberate point of not slinking in like she had something to be ashamed of, although she did leave not one but two empty seats between herself and Gessette at the bar and from the amused flick of an ear that Idgaf gave as she set a tall mug in front of Jaz, the luptorian clearly noticed.
Jaz muttered her thanks, and lifted the drink to her lips. It helped soothe her pride a little that the Uncertainty operated under Zodiac Federation laws rather than United Terran Territories laws, and the Zodiac drinking laws were quite a bit looser than in the UTT. Idgaf still wouldn’t serve her anything too strong, but even in full rebellious teen mode Jaz wasn’t much of a heavy drinker and the vaguely cidery drink in her glass had about as much of a kick to it as she wanted in the middle of the afternoon anyway. After a couple of mouthfuls, she sighed, and glanced over at Gessette, and was utterly unsurprised to find the bird-like woman watching her with thinly veiled amusement, because that was just how Jaz’s week was going, wasn’t it?
“Hi, Gessette,” she sighed.
“Afternoon, Jazmin,” the olorite replied – and then addeded lightly to the bartender, “You’ll want to watch your good utensils around this one, Idgaf.”
Idgaf glanced at Gessette, and then at Jaz, who tried not to look like she was trying to disappear behind her cup, although if she could that seemed like a pretty appealing option right now, and laughed another of her alien little laughs in realization. “Oh, damn, I thought you mean you got caught going through your aunt’s handbag or something, kid. You shoplifted from the junk shop? That’s why you got kicked off the salvage team?”
“I mean -” Jaz began, and realized that there was absolutely no graceful way to end that sentence.
Gessette snickered, a surprisingly human sound from someone with a beak. “Ah, no, take a few things from the shelf, I can give a lecture and we all go on with our day,” she said, with a graceful little wave of her hand. “Jazmin is confined shipside because I found her trying to disable the radiation shield on one of the display cases in the back.”
“I didn’t know,” Jaz objected.
“Had a big warning label on the side,” Gessette said patiently. “You think you should run around shipwrecks when you don’t know galactic-standard radiation warning symbols?”
“I mean, she has a point,” Idgaf chimed in, which Jaz thought was extremely unhelpful of her.
“Terran territories uses different symbols. I won’t make that mistake again,” Jaz pointed out, and then thinking better of her words, quickly added, “I’m not going to lift from your place again, either.”
“Oh, I know,” Gessette said. Tilting her head a little to one side, she regarded Jaz with just a little more intensity than was really comfortable, before adding, “Could use a second pair of hands in the shop, if they don’t walk off with anything, you know.”
Jaz blinked. “I- what? Did you forget the part where I tried to steal from you?”
Gessette laughed. “Tried to steal most valuable thing in my shop, you mean? Just made tiny little mistake of overlooking that the box kept it from cooking you,” she said. “Still, good eye for light goods. Better eye with a little training. Plus this way you stay in my line of sight more.”
“I was hoping to get back on salvage detail in a few months,” Jaz hedged, although there wasn’t any real certainty behind her words.
“Why?” Idgaf asked. “I mean, no offense kiddo, but you’re not exactly the grizzled spacer type. I’d have thought you’d prefer to deal in salvage after someone else dug it out of the side of a moon or wiped the exploded former owner off it.”
The olorite nodded sagely. “Always better to let someone else handle the messy part, I think,” she said. “And is basically the same skillset as a fence. If you intended to return to a life of crime after we’re done with you, I mean. Useful.”
Jaz looked from Gessette to Idgaf and back to Gessette. “I feel like I’m getting set up. Am I getting set up.”
“Hey, don’t look at me, I’m just here to serve drinks and color commentary,” Idgaf said. “And I’m not looking for an assistant.”
“Don’t need answer immediately,” Gessette added. “Shop’s not going anywhere, and neither are you for a while.”
It was true, wasn’t it? And maybe that was the thing – Jaz may not have been the only kid on board, but she was currently the only adolescent without some kind of work-training or intensive independent study thing going on. She knew herself well enough to predict that, without something to occupy her she’d be trying to pull some even dumber stunt within a month. “I mean, I did lose my work-training permissions, I might need to get my aunt’s permission or something,” she said begrudgingly.
“Tell Meli I asked for you special,” Gessette replied with a shrug.
Jaz still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the offer was a little too good to be true – especially considering her recent history with the junk shop – but if it was, she kind of thought she’d have an easier time figuring out what Gessette’s angle was by sticking close to her.
And maybe there was a corner of her mind that really hoped there wasn’t an angle. Independent business owners on vaguely disreputable salavage ships could certainly afford some idiosyncrasies, and, her quite reasonable frustration upon finding a teenager trying to crack open some radiation shielding aside, Gessette had always seemed friendly and reasonable to Jaz.
The teenager sighed. “I’ll ask,” she conceded. “No promises beyond that.”