Author's Note: Written for Yuletide 2018.

OVERLAY/Uncover:

I hate bein' alone. That invasive silence just permeates through the air and leaves you alone with your thoughts. There's that background hum of the drives, the livin', breathin' essence of this ship. I spent near all my life on ships; I can tell Macedon from Shiva from Genghis Khan most of the time, but when I got no company but me and my own headspace, sometimes it slips a little and one timeframe becomes another.

Part of me's pleased, then, when the captain puts Jos in my q after the Genghis Khan incident. I guess he figures it's safest for both of us. Jos and I ain't flavour of the month at the moment, between the pirates and the strits. Jos says they'll come round, but I know better. Unlike Jos, my ties have never been forgotten on the ship; there's always someone side-eyein' me, waitin' for me to stab 'em in the back. As if I would. Or could.

On that alien outrider, I thought I'd lost Jos, again. It's good to have him in sight, a reminder that my closest friend in this crew is still here – even if he might not see it that way! But he hasn't complained, and that's somethin' for Jos. He sleeps. He still edges around me, as if my touch is fatal and he can't risk ever drawin' near, but I get it. It ain't personal. It's just Falcone, brought back to the forefront of his mind by that recent encounter. The bastard's dead, but the wounds he leaves in you fester and hollow out their own place inside you, a permanent scar; I don't need nobody to explain that to me.

Jos ain't the only one whose memories are being reignited after our little stint on Falcone's ship, though. I see Jos' face, a bruised pallor of a portrait, and my mind whirs and the hum of the drive shifts into something else.

There was a time when none of this mattered. I was carefree, born into a comfortable existence where the future was a certainty. We got to actually be kids, but we were learnin' a trade; get old enough, and you'd be takin' on jobs like everyone else. A merchant probably seems like a small world, but it's giant to the eyes of a kid.

Jos used to follow me about on Mukudori. Sometimes it was cool; he could be funny, and he was easy to entertain. One Hallowe'en, we played hide and seek around the ship. I had this mask, bone-white and expressionless, as close to a strit as the Hub could understand, and he'd shriek and run off. Once, I surprised him so much he jumped and smacked his head on the bulkhead. I thought it was hilarious. Strits and pirates, they weren't real, just bogeymen whispered into an ear. Be good, Evan, or the strits'll get you.

Other times, it could be annoyin'. I didn't want him taggin' around after me; I wanted to hang out with my own brother, Shane. He was like a heart-throb of the ship, with long locks of blond hair that I used to try and copy –

( - whoosh, a shift in the drives. Snippets of a voice: " – too proud – ". A grip on his hair, a knife pressed to the top of his head. Gulp. This was it – dead in space – eyes closed… a tinkle down his back, that long blond hair he was so proud of scattering like stardust – No. -)

…Anyway, Shane got on real well with everyone, and had great ideas for games. He thought Jos was alright, and a lot of the time we did play, but he didn't wanna always be babysitting. We ran off, sometimes, and Jos'd run to catch us like it was a game. He was fast, too, and always caught up.

I used to show up at the end of Shane's shifts to bug him about comin' doin' somethin' fun. He musta been exhausted, but he never used to complain. I'd be bouncin' up and down in Engineerin' and he'd look amused and comment on how much energy I always had –

Crack. The image in my head fragments like that's what the pulsefire got, a protectin' cocoon of lies, but I know better. I was there. I saw it. Shane, fallin' to the ground. My parents. Jos's. And not just them. The klaxon blarin' murder, and the screams mergin' into it. A red splatter paintin' on the walls and floors, but it wasn't paint. I was twelve. I knew. I knew.

I can never think of Shane or my family without this moment swallowin' it up in an all-consumin' hunger that never satiates. It's always there, and never out of sight.

Jos wonders why I don't wanna talk about Mukudori, but this is why. The threads of my life ain't separate things, where you can pick and choose what you'd like to keep and discard the bad ones. They intertwine deeply, and whenever you hit somethin' nice, it twists into multiple different memories that are branded into my brain with a searin' savageness and a pain that can't be appeased. Fix on one memory, and another overlays on top, filterin' the happy memory through a glaze of ghoulish horror.

I don't know what made me look up at those jets as we got bundled from Shiva via outriders, and into the brig of a Hub carrier. Their clothes were black as the death they swiftly brought, a murder of crows, an omen. Some of Shiva's crew had blood stainin' their uniforms. Most of it wasn't their own, and it didn't belong to these jets either. But I looked, and lookin' saved me, for there was Jos. Older, but blank-faced and dead-eyed.

It wasn't an expression the child that Jos was would have worn, but it was unmistakably him. The words clawed in my throat for precious moments, then ejected with such ferocity that I nearly gagged. "Jos! Jos Musey!"

Jos, laughin' as I gave him piggy backs around the ship. Jos, with a bruised face and hollowed eyes, rockin' in a corner. Jos, a black shadow of death, frozen in a moment across time with me. But time can't freeze forever.

I remember the captain gave me my own accommodation, but I knew it wasn't any clemency. It was my own private interrogation room, with an interrogator whose face was designed to ensure compliance. Camaraderie, brotherhood, a shared past. They musta thought I was stupid.

I sat in the corner. Less angles to approach me from, a good vantage point to see the exit. Only one of those. My hand tap-tapped in agitation. The apprehension only rose as I fixed on Jos's face.

(The drive, already so unfamiliar, shiftin'. Small hands clingin' to me in the pitch-black of Falcone's ship, all eyes fixed on me. You're the oldest, you fix it. Help us. Get us out of here. You're surrounded by corpses, the only life the shakin' hand of a friend on your arm. Blink. Blink.)

I needed a cigret. Even that didn't quite settle me down, trackin' every move, waitin' for the knife, in deeds or words.

His voice, so calm, infuriated me. I was a caged animal, bared teeth at the ready, and he knew it. I felt naked, my thoughts an exhibition for all to see. I hated bein' so vulnerable, so I bit back with the only knowledge he couldn't read from me, my knowledge of his past with the strits.

I shoulda felt shame. Jos was a friendly face, maybe even a way back to some sort of stability. But you don't survive on a pirate unless you're a damn suspicious bastard; protect your back, and sides, and head.

Our roles reversed. Now, I followed him around. I needed company, and there wasn't much choice. Somehow, Jos was startin' to make me feel like I was awakin' from a nightmare… like I could be a person again, not just a commodity. And I was worried about him; I knew where the skittishness and seriousness came from. He'd shut himself off from personal relationships; I procured them, as leverage.

He could be prickly, but I knew where to push. I knew the person underneath the layers, and that he was worth botherin' with. His team-mates knew the aloof soljet, skilled but insular.

On one shift, one of the jets came up to me. He wasn't one of Jos's teammates; I recognised him from glaring hostilely in my vicinity… or maybe in Jos's. His shit-eatin' grin rose my hackles, and I knew he was comin' to stir the pot. Sanchez, I thought the name was.

I still punched him when he told me how much trouble Jos was going to be in, tellin' me as his "partner in crime". I got a good few hits in, too. It was worth it, even as I ended up curled on the floor and felt kicks in my ribs. I even managed to get a few elbows in; pirates always fight dirty. I learned from the best.

I visited Jos in the brig. I could only put the lights on low, and shadows stretched inky fingers through the bars, trying to snatch him away from me. That created a numb terror that I couldn't explain. I was tolerated on this ship because of Jos; without him, I was just a pirate with a pardon. In the cramped space, I could barely see him, but he just sat unmovin'.

It reminded me of another time, long ago, and I had to fling the thought away.

I watched his concern at the state of my face (I was glad he couldn't see the rest of my body), before the expression vanished as if he was scared to care. He seemed to think it a weakness, an open vulnerability that others could then exploit. I felt his derision at my revenge on his behalf, but I'da done it again. Fuck letting Sanchez think he'd got away with it, the little shit.

I reached a hand through the bars in fellowship, but it was engulfed by the darkness that crept outwards and tried to smother us both.

There are times when I still wake up and feel the cold certainty of death staring me in the face. Sometimes I hear Jos wakin' in the night, and I know he's relivin' his own ordeals from that time.

Macedon's boardin' was a horrible memory. Bad things come in threes, I'd heard, and that was three times I'd survived a ship bein' boarded by the enemy. I was beginnin' to feel I'd ran outta lives. Then, only a few shifts later, there I was, a gun in my face. Falcone was a crack shot, and I knew it'd be set to kill.

I could see gears whirring in Jos's head, like there was any outcome he could come up with to get us all out of this. It was clear there were none. I wasn't stupid; I could see when he relented, and was goin' to talk. I shook my head.

If he told Falcone all he knew, he'd be a spare part, fit only for killin' or attemptin' to re-recruit – which would kill Jos quicker than any pulsefire. And if he spoke about his time with the strits… he'd have enemies on all sides, every direction, but me. I wasn't sure me bein' the only one in his corner would help his street cred. Every time pirates caused more issues, my past on Shiva came up again, like a transcast looping on repeat.

He opened his mouth anyway. His jet pals paced like furious animals, pressin' backwards and away from the traitor. I came forward, pressing my hands and face to the bars as words spilled out of Jos in a torrent. I raised a hand again, my silent show of support. The guards lifted their guns, and I held my hand palm outward, to show it was harmless, a fruitless peace sign.

Things were never going to be the same.

Even the strits invadin' wasn't too comforting. The jets swarmed out too, armed not with guns but with a devastatin' knowledge that was going to doom us all. Jos could barely stand, and I supported him, both his words and actions. Jos and I had both done the same, after all; we'd latched onto the person who had pried us from the slimy, tainted fingers of pirates. The idea that we'd have to part ways was a sudden terror that tightened my grip.

I'da stayed on that alien ship. I'da done anythin', anythin' to stay with Jos, who knew me as a person first and as that guy from a pirate ship at the last. I cared, and I didn't know how to show it to his insistent blindness. Not without offendin' his delicate sensibilities, in any way; comfort as a physical thing was out of the question.

But Jos let me go, back with the others. And then, after killin' Falcone, he came back.

I like to think I'm part of the reason why. I see him relax slightly in q, and he trusts me to watch his back now more than he ever did. Perhaps I've proven myself in some unstated test, or perhaps he just thinks it'd be too much of a pain to have to watch his back constantly in q. I may not treasure my memories the way he seems to, but all the same, he's still all I got of a long ago home.

Overlay/UNCOVER:

In a few shifts, Jos goes from Macedon soljet to enemy spy to a fellow crewman again. Not everyone manages to keep up with the whiplash-quick changes though. There are those who stick on "spy". You didn't really expect anything different, did you, Aki?

There's such a thing as a comfortable silence, and then there's the one born of guilt. This is the latter. Jos sits in front of me in medbay, eyes glazed. He looks like a man without purpose, glassy eyes staring at nothing. It's shock, but not like my shock of heard words. His is that trickle of ice in the veins, the optics that jam in your head. I'm a medic. I've seen it all before.

My embarrassed apology won't come; the words scatter like fleeting whispers.

Evan saves me, blustering into the situation like a charging animal. No reparations needed there. He's the point of a compass that centres permanently on 'Jos'.

"I thought you were lost forever," Evan says, as their hands rest atop eachother. Jos, for once, doesn't pull away.

I feel like an intruder as I patch him up, again. They're patchwork people, the jets; repaired so many times they become their own entity. Although he's not really a jet anymore, is he?

"Don't leave me again," Evan implores, as if us all being captured was a choice.

I expect a biting remark back, but instead I hear, "I'm not going anywhere." It's quiet, but he says it with conviction; a boy trying to assure himself behind bravado.

I've always known Evan was infatuated with Jos; so does all the crew. He doesn't hide it well, or maybe he thinks he doesn't need to, that association with Jos will somehow ward away with wicked.

From his occasional visits to medbay, it doesn't seem to work.

Pirates shoot at the captain's kid, and that ignites a flame of righteous fury (or an excuse for vivid violence). A fist kisses his cheeks, a light romance of a fight.

"What happened to you?" I query as I work, fingers pressed against the tender cheek. He doesn't quite suppress a wince. (I have to ask. It's protocol. Even if the answer is obvious.)

He shrugs. "I been told I look too much like a target board." He grins disarmingly, careful camouflage that doesn't ever work on a medic. Behind it lies pain.

"You could tell the captain, you know." Even as I say it, I know the response. Nobody is a rat on a ship like this; there'd be serious repercussions of a kind that the brass can't, or won't. protect you from. Mac has a certain sort of crew, who prefer to deal with their own problems.

"You could tell Jos, then," I suggest, but as his eyes narrow I see it's the wrong thing. However, I remember the last time I told Jos that Evan had been hurt. The particularly blank expression (Jos's face could often be a themed exhibition of 'blank', but that one had been particularly worrisome), the quiet determination and steely resolve. He would care. Whether or not he would want to admit it, he can't lie with his eyes.

"I don't need Jos to look after me," he snaps, an obvious sore point. I suddenly vaguely remember Jos mentioning that Evan had been a protector of sorts, once upon a time, a stalwart defender to a younger friend. I suppose it must be a blow to your ego to have others think you're reliant on someone so much younger.

"I didn't mean you can't fight your own battles," I hedge. "I just thought he might want to know."

He laughs again, but this time there's no humour in it. "He's gonna find out the minute I step back in q – unless you're as good as they say, doc." A twinkle appears in his eye – flattery will get you everywhere, apparently. (He clearly doesn't know me as well as the jets, my frequent friends.)

"Well, I won't tell him," I say, "on one condition."

"Oh?" he asks, eyebrow raised enquiringly.

"Eat something. You think I can't tell you're avoiding the mess hall?" Because he knows when the pirate press is particularly poor, he's the only person in range. Or pirate.

"Yeah, yeah."

"I mean it. In fact, it's my break, and I'm feeling hungry myself." Mercurio and Rodrigues are around, so things will remain stable in medical, and with no missions due a return soon medbay is always much quieter. "Let's go."

He stares at me, as if wondering what I stand to gain from this. I'd never resented Evan, like some, although I'd privately confess to a little jealousy that he got Jos to respond like nobody else I knew. To the rest of us, he'd just shut down – but Evan could get under his skin. I'd tolerated him, though we weren't especially close. Still, I owe him a thank you, too: for remaining on Jos's side, truly, through all those shifts, even when he was damned in association. Maybe he'd known Jos was a spy all along, but he was the most loyal in the end. Even if that loyalty was directly to Jos, not the captain. Still, except for the unlikely event of Jos attempting a coup, the ship was safe. And so were my friends.

Evan side-eyes me as we get to the mess – he thinks I've timed this deliberately, as Jos sits staring at his food and making half-hearted attempts at moving it around his plate with a fork. He's a little too pale and tired, working overtime for the captain currently, though you wouldn't know it seeing him move. He's alone, which is unusual; lately Erret has been pointedly insinuating himself into the vicinity more than usual. The message is clear: don't mess with him, and it's mostly been acknowledged. The black jet-style uniform, rather than the alien clothes he was wearing on that dock, also helps the situation.

"Hey, I didn't know," I say, as we grab our food, but he doesn't look especially convinced.

"Let's get this over with." He sighs, and heads straight over to Jos's table in his usual way of magnetic attraction. I follow more sedately; I'm not sure my presence is really going to help this situation, and seeing Jos is still difficult for me. How should you react when things are so much the same, and yet so different all at the same time?

"You look wrecked. You realise your sleepshift is actually for sleep, don't you?" Evan demands, shoving his tray down on the table. It's an admirable strategy; the best form of defence is to attack. It doesn't work, though.

Jos looks up, frowning. He hadn't seen us approach, I think, and I hesitantly sit down myself and start to eat. "I slept." But now he's peering at Evan's face and frowning even more. "Maybe you should have stayed in bed, though. You didn't look like that when I saw you earlier."

Jos stares Evan down, and Evan is the one who looks away first. "Nope." He still doesn't answer the implied question.

"Who-"

"Nobody did nothin'."

Jos's expression becomes even more severe. "But-"

"Relax. It ain't even hurtin'; your friend here got it covered."

I could back him up, but I sense that this really isn't the time for arguments. Besides, I'd brought Evan here; I was to blame for this confrontation, in a small way, even if it was an inevitability.

"Evan-"

Suddenly, Evan looks bad at Jos, and his expression sets stubbornly. "Jos, you're bein' run ragged. You got no time to run around this ship tryna sort out everyone else's problems. I'm fine. I can handle it."

"You shouldn't need to handle anything." He crosses his arms, his food cold and forgotten.

Evan rolls his eyes. "Well, suck it up. I'm enemy number one on this ship right now; you know why. An' that's fine, because I'd rather it be me than you."

Jos's dead stare gives away what he thinks of that line of argument.

When we were in training, Kris and I used to wonder if there was anything Jos actually cared about. We never knew what to make of him; he was like a traumatised war veteran at fourteen, who'd shut himself off from anything. It had been strange to get used to amidst the usual jokey atmosphere and overconfidence you'd expect from trainee jets. When Kris died, Jos isolated himself; the idea of a comforting presence seemed to be from another language entirely. As we went out on station to drink in his memory, even Evan got rebuffed as Jos stormed off in search of that solitude.

But I see now that things have changed. I don't know when, exactly. I remember Iratxe snarking at Evan in medbay, and Jos dismissing him, not her. When his loyalty had shifted so entirely to Evan I wasn't sure, but I thought the experience on Falcone's ship might be at the core of it all. It had changed everything else, why not this?

If I asked him, Jos would deny it. But there's care there, and a protectiveness, even if it Jos won't express it in the usual way. And for all of his posturing, Evan is more animated than I remember seeing him; he realises, too, that this is Jos's way of showing his concern. Maybe he always knew, while the rest of us have had to uncover Jos layer by layer over the years, and still haven't quite got to that core.

Jos's eyes shift to me, and it's the first time I've really felt acknowledged in the entire conversation. "He's okay?" he asks, clearly not trusting Evan to answer for himself.

"He'll be fine as long as he eats something." I gesture at Jos's own plate. "You too. He's right about you needing sleep, you know. Sleep and food."

We eat in companionable silence. Everything has changed, but I can change with it too. Move, or stagnate. The choice is clear.