Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gen held his knees to his chest in a vain attempt to hold in some body heat. He’d given his blanket to a woman with a newborn who had drawn a worse number than he had.

Neither of them would make it out of here alive.

Maybe, if they were lucky, the baby would be smuggled out before the airlock failed. But so far, the refugees had been scanned carefully despite the increased numbers evacuated with each shuttle. The decreased deliveries of food and sharp decline in temperature meant it was unlikely anyone would take the risk of saving anyone.

The shelter leaders had started allowing people with high numbers to use the communicator and computer without supervision, which wasn’t a good sign. The woman had gotten her time yesterday and had been pinballing between desolation and manic hope ever since.

Another bad sign.

Gen got his turn today and used it to search for jobs. He didn’t have anyone to call, and he didn’t want to look at the news. He could have logged into social media and posted a goodbye video to his fans, but he didn’t want to be remembered like this.

Two days ago, there had been a couple who had spoken about a friend with connections who promised to get them out. There were only a few ways to do that. Either they would pay to move their numbers up or they would get pulled for an important job.

The first was unlikely. If their friend had that sort of money and/or connections, they would have drawn high numbers to begin with. So, it must be the second, a job.

Said job had to be listed, and Gen was going to find it.

If Gen’s agency was going to use their pull to get him out, they would have done so already. And even if his hope was foolish, it was better than giving up or looking up whatever horrible death awaited him.

There were tens of thousands of jobs listed, and Gen had a finite amount of time to sort through them. He decided to use his time to build the most impressive and varied resume he could and send it to all of the jobs he “qualified” for. Creating a false resume was a crime punishable by fine or prison depending on how many people’s time he wasted or jobs he delayed.

If he ended up in prison it wouldn’t be here and breaking rocks for a decade was better than being dead.

He couldn’t stretch his skills too far. The spam filter would catch anything too outrageous, and all this would be for naught.

Gen wasn’t lucky, but he was skilled. He knew all the ways these people thought. He hit send with a small amount of hope.

Two days later, he got the news.

He had a job as a diplomat on a likely one-way mission to find out what happened to a planet settled millennia ago who had lost contact. The planet had been flagged in a system update, but the dangers of the environment and time elapsed meant the mission was low priority.

A private investor had agreed take financial responsibility, and the government would allow it so long as everyone agreed after knowing the risks.

Seeing as how food deliveries had stopped entirely and the guards and volunteers were being evacuated, Gen agreed.

His number was still thousands from being called.

Something about his mood must have tipped off the mother he’d quasi-befriended.

“Please,” she whispered as she pushed her baby into Gen’s arms. “You’re my… her only chance.”

Gen baulked. What if trying to “kidnap” a child got him disqualified?

“They’re not checking the volunteers as carefully. Please,” she begged with tears in her eyes.

And Gen, idiot that he was, couldn’t say no.

As he made the queue to leave with the volunteers, he justified his decision by thinking that ending up in prison for child trafficking would be safer than the mission he’d accepted. Still, he buried the infant in his clothing and covered the lump with a blanket. He offered to carry some luggage so his awkward gait would be dismissed.

He had to make it out in order to go to jail.

The couple was in the queue with him, and he made a mental note to repay their kindness by doing whatever their friend asked.

Between the cold and lack of food, the infant was basically comatose which didn’t bode well for her survival but did make it easier to slip her out. His acting skills hadn’t diminished and with the panicked atmosphere it was almost too easy to board the shuttle and huddle down in a corner.

When the shuttle started moving, Gen started crying.

Some part of him had honestly believed he was going to die because of a stupid book tour.

He hadn’t even written the damn thing.

The infant moved but didn’t cry. If anyone noticed it was dismissed. Crying made other people uncomfortable, and no one wanted to be caught staring.

Gen had hoped that when the shuttle stopped, he would have a couple days to deposit the infant at a lost child post. He was sure he wouldn’t be questioned closely if he lied and said he found it in a dumpster or something.

But he was taken directly from the shuttle and escorted to a private spacecraft.

He hadn’t even gotten the chance to use the bathroom or get a meal.

If the couple hadn’t been included, he would have thought that he’d been caught. But they were there, excitedly chatting about their new adventure and wondering what they could do for their friend as a thank you.

They were all escorted to a meeting room and the ship departed before they were introduced to one another. It would be a bit before they could engage the FTL drive, and Gen wasn’t sure if he should pray that the baby would start crying or would keep quiet until it was too late to turn around.

Chapter Text

Sometime Earlier

Senku had been happy when his friends had finally gotten their shit together and married. They couldn’t afford a house on Earth and wanted a family. The two refused monetary assistance and were determined to do this on their own. A colony had been established on Mars and jobs like farming were in high demand. Taiju and Yuzuriha had decided to give the place a shot.

They would be given a four-bedroom house and excellent pay. Settling Mars had proved trickier than anyone had thought, but colonizing had been successful on multiple planets and moons and was considered relatively low risk.

Senku was honestly sick of third wheeling and was happy to see them go. Travelling to and from Mars was cheap and easy so it wasn’t like they’d never see each other again.

No one had expected the airlocks to fail after only two decades.

A system-wide issue.

Catastrophic failures in each replacement attempt.

The citizens were evacuated and shunted into refugee camps with more reliable airlocks, but the temporary shelters weren’t meant to hold so many people.

Then it turned out that it wasn’t the manufacturer of the airlocks or any design flaw. No, nearly every company had been sent faulty parts for decades. There was an investigation ongoing, but Senku smelled corruption. Someone had been bribed to not check the parts when they’d been approved for distribution, the company had knowingly sent faulty parts, or the parts had been damaged in shipping.

That last one was extremely unlikely considering the time frame.

Senku wasn’t stupid enough to believe that the actual culprit would be found. Things like this were a prime opportunity to shoot down competitors or gain a ton of cash to shift the blame.

None of that truly mattered to Senku. All he knew was that his friends were likely going to die. By the time he had hacked the system to assign his friends good lottery numbers, the tickets had already been printed. And although Senku didn’t believe in luck, he irrationally felt that his bad luck had stuck his two best friends—his only friends ever—the worst numbers possible.

He felt sick.

But he buried every negative thought and focused on solutions.

How could he get them out?

How?

It turned out that there were loads of ways to cheat the system. Senku started working on all of them.

Hacking the lottery system to move them up was out of the question. If his friends agreed, they would have severe survivors’ guilt. Not that they ever would agree. The big oaf would give his number to some woman with a child if Senku did that.

It would be a last resort. Even though Yuzuriha would be scarred for life, Taiju would want her to live no matter what.

Getting his friends assigned to a volunteer team so they wouldn’t be held to the lottery system for evacuation was a better option and would allow them to help the others like he was sure they were already doing.

Senku reached out to every contact he had. His old mentor had suggested he comb the low priority section of the government task database.

“The high priority section will be flooded with proposals, and it’ll be too late before any are approved as the government has to weigh each option. If you can privately fund a long-standing low priority task the government will rubber stamp your request so they can show they’re doing something during a crisis. No government funding requests means faster approval, and you might make it in time,” Dr. Wingfield had said.

The man was a little nuts but always helpful.

Senku had written an algorithm to sort the low-priority tasks. The programming was trickier than he’d thought, as computing the requirements by likelihood of successful fulfillment was not an easy task.

He’d posted to a programming forum requesting help. He’d tried to word the request so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious what he was trying to do—he didn’t need competition.

A programmer named UrnexpectedSai had taken an intense interest in Senku’s project and didn’t ask a lot of questions. Senku found the other easy to work with and while finding a Dragon Quest fan in a programming forum wasn’t unexpected, their shared enjoyment of the game gave them a sense of camaraderie and allowed them small moments of levity when they ran into an unexpected problem.

The joke, “Maybe try the Download Bar?” had made Senku laugh to the point of crying. (But that probably had additional factors...)

Sai was dedicated to a solution in a way that made Senku jealous. It was as if the man never needed sleep.

Just when Senku was about to give up and implement his last resort, Sai cracked it.

“What’s this for, anyway?” he asked when he sent the final code.

Senku, figuring that it was too late for him but the idea might help his new friend, explained everything.

And Sai turned out to be Sai Nanami. Bastard child of the Nanami Shipping Corporation. A large company in the middle of a power struggle. The unfaithful CEO had kicked the bucket, and his vengeful wife was determined to saddle the shipping crisis investigation on the two illegitimate children.

People were furious and grieving and as more and more airlocks failed, the chances of being named—however distantly—in any investigation documents was the current leading cause of death among the unimaginably wealthy.

Sai’s brother, Ryusui happened to own an FTL ship and still had access to his wealth. He was a trained pilot and motivated investor.

One of his bodyguards was retired military and therefore counted as both a government agent for oversight and a trained peacekeeper.

Sai himself qualified as a communications and computer expert.

Senku had all the scientific requirements needed and technically had medical training (if you squinted).

All they needed was a diplomat.

Senku posted a request for one and for “additional hands” to the job board with a prayer to a god he didn’t believe in. Then he flat out lied that he had all the required positions for several jobs and submitted the requests to the government.

Taiju and Yuzuriha had gotten the message to apply to the jobs he’d sent via sympathetic volunteer. He’d added them to the roster as extra hands once they’d filled out all the paperwork.

Everything was happening quickly, but at the same time, not fast enough.

He checked the spam filter on his job posting for the third time and found it.

A man with a doctorate in psychology—an actual doctor—and had diplomatic training (technically. He was an actor/mentalist/magician who had shaken hands with a few presidents for photo ops).

And honestly, the man could be a fucking drug addict habitual liar and Senku would take him. Because one of the requests had been approved.

An expected one-way trip for a job that had been sitting in the queue since before the FTL had been invented.

 Sai, Ryusui and his bodyguard had been named in the latest document release and Asagiri Gen was in the same refugee camp his friends were.

It was nothing short of a miracle and Senku broke down in tears when Sai messaged that they were on their way.

Ryusui was a pain in the ass and Sai was about as personable as you’d expect from a genius programmer. They did not get along at all and Sai could barely stand to be in the same room as his brother. The bodyguard, Ukyo, was weirdly antiviolent and the unmentioned un-approved butler was competent to the point that it gave Senku the creeps.

He hadn’t actually believed this was a one-way mission when he’d signed on, but his crew was… not the best.

By the time they got to the refugee camp, Senku had lost all hope in returning from this mission and was wondering if Sai could get them fake IDs and they could blow up the ship in the middle of nowhere and start new lives.

Seeing Taiju and Yuzuriha had given him some faith in everything working out.

And then there was Asagiri Gen.

That fucking fucker.

Chapter Text

Gen watched as their leader, a man by the name of Ishigami Senku, had his rib broken by a hug from his bawling friend, Taiju, and had to spend an hour in a healing pod. At first, Gen had thought Taiju’s wife, Yuzuriha, was normal and sedate. Then their captain, the Ryusui of Nanami Corp. had mentioned that he felt like a pirate on this adventure and the woman squealed, deciding to make them all antique pirate outfits and then had done so in less than two hours without the replicator.

Which, coincidently, was the exact amount of time that Gen’s little bundle of joy needed to eat, poop, and wake up enough to scream her head off.

“What the hell is that?” Senku asked with horrified ruby eyes.

“A baby,” Gen answered flatly.

Senku was not amused. “You know what I mean.”

“I know this baby’s mother had a number almost as bad as your friends’ and that escape via the volunteer shuttle was her only chance to survive. I had planned on leaving her at a police station with a lie about finding her in a dumpster, but I was escorted directly onto this ship.” Gen was speaking to their leader, but his words were meant for the others. Senku was clearly not a bleeding heart—but Ukyo, Yuzuriha and (most importantly) Taiju were.

Senku’s fury over the unexpected member of their crew only abated when the news broke that the Mars refugee camp had met its end two days after they left. Sai confirmed that the baby, whose name was Mirai, would have still been inside.

Sai updated their crew list to include Shishio Mirai and added a backdated adoption record to make Gen her legal father (after making sure she didn’t have any next of kin).

After a week of newborn hell, someone drew up a schedule and everyone took turns taking care Mirai—except Senku and Sai who were both freaked out by babies. Gen sometimes wondered if Senku was more paternal than he let on and was just holding a grudge, but it didn’t matter. With so many helpers, Gen was able to get some blessed sleep.

It only took him a month with the new schedule to feel human again. He set about fixing Sai and Ryusui’s relationship first. Which wasn’t hard at all; Ryusui was annoying, but all little brothers were. And once Sai understood that Ryusui wasn’t making demands, that he was trying to reach out to his big brother—his only real family—everything smoothed out.

Then Gen moved Taiju, Yuzuriha and Senku’s bedrooms (the last for a different reason than the first two) to a different area of the ship than the brother’s, making the eye bags under Ukyo’s eyes disappear.

After a particularly hard shift with Mirai, the married couple had come to Gen for advice. Gen had stowed his manipulative tricks and started both couples counselling and separate grief counselling sessions led by the computer’s AI. He hoped neither would end up with PTSD, but if they did, he would help as much as he could. He was by no means a trained therapist, but he could help find the appropriate programs.

François had warmed to Gen after he had helped the brothers. And whenever Gen had started staring off into the distance the butler had given him companionship and a compassionate ear.

Gen was processing his time in the camp, as well.

The only person Gen hadn’t made any progress with was Senku.

Try as he might, he could never breach his walls. It was like the man could see right through him. They were often on the same wavelength and Gen was able to translate his miscommunications with the others effortlessly. And even though Senku relaxed around the others, he didn’t with Gen.

Senku never opened up.

He never talked with Gen about anything unless it was related to their mission.

And sometimes the things Senku did baffled him. He was the only person who managed to throw him for a loop despite knowing him and interacting with him every day for months.

With the others, Senku laughed and joked but with Gen there was only cold professionalism.

The thing that bothered Gen most about it was that he couldn’t figure out why.

Senku wasn’t holding a grudge about Mirai any longer. He appreciated Gen’s work with the others, so it wasn’t a fear of him or his profession. The scientist would never let Gen near his friends when they were vulnerable if he was. (He could be aggressively protective.) He wasn’t jealous of Gen or infatuated with him.

Why are you like this with me? Gen mentally screamed when Senku asked his opinion of the refuel points along their path.

“The further you travel from Earth, the less safe it gets.” They had a long journey so he put his personal problems aside for the moment.

Gen was the only one who had personal experience travelling to such areas. He listed everything he had learned about signs of traps, indicators of bad and good places to stop he was quick to point out that recent events had probably changed things. Senku waved away his concerns about inaccuracy, saying that any data was helpful.

When Senku had similar discussions with the others; he would lean in, trade barbs, grin like a manic and speak animatedly.

With Gen, he was more sedate. No casual insults or challenging comments. And he cleaned up his language.

Worst of all, when the conversation was over, Senku thanked him.

Why?

Why am I so different?

Gen sat out in the common area while he fed Mirai. No one was around, all busy with other things after the meeting, so he turned on the TV to have some background noise while he went over the conversation in his mind.

“Gen-sama, the bottle is tilted,” a soft voice interrupted his thoughts.

He jumped, making the bottle fall out of the baby’s mouth altogether—much to her displeasure.

François didn’t comment, merely handed him a pillow and sat down with a basket of laundry.

Gen set the baby on the pillow so there was less pressure on his wrists and started feeding her again.

He wondered if he should ask the butler about his problem. François could be very perceptive. For example: there was no reason to bring the laundry here. Everything should have been folded in the laundry room where there was more space. It was obvious he was struggling with something and François was making xirself available if he wanted to talk.

Gen tried many ways to phrase his question in his mind before giving up. Everything was either too juvenile or embarrassing. There was a difference between coping with a traumatic experience and whining about a coworker being ‘too professional’.

Maybe he was blowing this whole thing out of proportion. He had just started the night shift with Mirai (as Ukyo couldn’t watch her and be rested enough to monitor his charge) and it had thrown off his sleep schedule. The added stress of their journey was making it hard to sleep when he handed her off in the morning.

And he didn’t need to be friendly with any of the others. He had been lucky to get what he’d gotten. Most of his coworkers in his professional field were dismissive of him at best.

Mirai finished her bottle. François handed Gen a clean burp cloth before he had even set it down.

“Thanks,” he muttered and focused on burping the baby.

He needed to snap out of it. He had a baby to care for and caring for a loud burrito was harder than one would think.

“Is there anything you need, Gen-sama?” François asked. The laundry was perfectly folded inside the basket, ready to be put away.

“No, but thank you,” he said. Just having company helped. He would pop Mirai into the bassinet, hydrate and eat.

Then he would feel better.

Chapter Text

“We need to restock soon.”

Senku looked at the pilot. The tight set of Ryusui’s jaw told Senku that this trip was more complicated than a quick pit stop.

“There was a request for questioning submitted. Sai was removed from the documents; it was pretty obvious to everyone he wasn’t involved. But Ryusui had more involvement in the company. It isn’t a warrant or anything, but it’ll look bad if we stop at a government run facility and don’t make a statement,” Ukyo said.

“Our next three stops were going to be government run. Gen had said that stopping at a private run place when on a government mission was asking for trouble,” Senku said.

“He’s not wrong. Sai is poking around online. If Ryusui can give a statement quickly at our next stop it would be best. We don’t want it to escalate,” Ukyo said.

“Should I call a meeting?” Senku asked.

“Might as well,” Ryusui said. “François said that Taiju and Yuzuriha weren’t fully aware of the situation. Gen maybe, too.”

Senku frowned. Gen was always poking around and asking questions. How could he not be aware?

“Not being informed the pilot of the ship is under investigation would be a breach of contract. It would allow your friends and Gen-sama to get off at the next stop,” François said. Xe had silently entered the room as Ryusui said xir name. “Considering the danger of our mission they might appreciate the opportunity.”

Senku’s mood soured further.

He would like to be able to get his friends to safety. Their leaving would suck and Senku would miss them terribly. But it would be for the best. Gen, however, they needed.

Senku had been going over all the old documents related to this mission and had some across some insane personal logs. The information from the ship’s logs confirmed many of the events described.

Rapid mutation. New energy sources. Impossible phenomena that were described as magic.

Each new piece of information made him more excited. He wanted to go to this planet and solve this mystery.

And to do that he needed Gen. If the man bailed, their mission would be stalled until they got another diplomat. And while an actual doctor or someone with a biology degree might be more helpful in this situation, none of those things would be as useful as their resident mentalist was.

Gen had initially been a huge liability. What the hell had he been thinking, stealing that baby?! The law was very clear, no matter how pure his intentions, he would be treated as though he were a trafficker! He put himself in immense danger and—while not intentionally—had put them and the mission in the same danger by bringing the baby on board. (Although, if Gen had declared it and broken off from their group, the mission would have been delayed and everyone would be in more danger than they currently were.)

Then! Then once Gen was rested, he walked around solving all Senku’s problems with only a few well-chosen words.

François was helpful, too. Xe was able to cook and clean, which saved on replicator and robot (and therefore power) usage. Xe was also able to curb the worst of Ryusui’s impulses and prevented all those little squabbles that appeared when a group of people shared a living space.

They both increased the chances of successfully returning exponentially.

Senku needed to do more research, but he was pretty sure he knew what happened to the old crew. And, if he was right, he could guarantee their survival.

He just needed to make sure he was right.

The others (except for Sai) arrived for the meeting and Ukyo explained the situation with the request.

“Does this ship have a hydroponics bay?” Gen asked.

Senku frowned at him, about to ask him why he was changing the subject, (Opening a new section of the ship would cost a lot of energy!) when Ryusui snapped his fingers and cheered. “I like the way you think. If we grow our own food and shut down the replicators—”

“—except one for Mirai~.”

“Right! That would double the distance between stops.”

“Wouldn’t it cost more energy to cook the food?” Yuzuriha asked.

“Not if we switch to group meals. Plus, the bay would take some stress off oxygen production and would help with water reclamation,” Senku said.

“Well, I don’t expect Ryusui’s problem to go away any time soon. Making a statement now would probably lead us into a trap—I’m sure people know where we’re at and are waiting for us at both the government run stop and the private ones. So why don’t we stop at a planet and get our ship running properly~?”

Gen sometimes pitched his voice so he sounded dumb. Senku didn’t know why. To undercut whenever he was saying something smart? Or was it just habit from his show biz persona? Or was he just trying to improve the mood? People were pretty worried about this new complication.

Sai came stumbling in. “Can’t go to the government stop. It’s been staffed entirely with nepotism-hire screw-ups. No one will help us if something goes wrong. If Ryusui makes a statement I can bounce it off a satellite so it looks like we turned around but there are several groups waiting along our path. I haven’t found a bounty but…”

Senku nodded when he trailed off. If the Nanami Corp. could solve their Ryusui problem and the government could find someone to blame it wouldn’t be long before they started working together. Ryusui could make a statement that they were coming back. Senku was sure Sai could hack anything at this point and getting a new ID for a ship when they were on planet wouldn’t be hard.

He explained his plan with the others filling out parts or adjusting things.

“Why would we bother going to the planet, though? Couldn’t we just get new IDs and go?” Gen asked.

Senku tried to think of a reason that wasn’t, “I’m curious,” but he couldn’t. So, he said that.

“We couldn’t live under assumed names forever, and if things get pinned on Ryusui we’d be in danger until he was dead since we were on a ship with him,” Ukyo said.

No one could disagree.

“Well, I wouldn’t have continued my book tour until this was all over anyway,” Gen said. “It can’t hurt to hide out with a hacker.”

Ryusui pulled the others into a discussion about how he should phrase his statement. Gen had a lot of opinions and Senku couldn’t help. So, the scientist went off to the hydroponics bay to see if it needed anything to get up and running.

“Don’t forget to choose a planet and chart a new course!” he called over his shoulder. He didn’t think they would, but just in case.

While he cleaned and took inventory, he wondered if he should lay off Gen. But when Senku found out the other man’s doctorate wasn’t an MD like Senku had first assumed, it was a PHD and his dissertation was so engaging that Senku lost an entire day reading it and looking at the referenced papers, he wanted to behave like a kid—pouncing on him with every single question he had.

The last time Senku had done that, things had gotten weird.

It’s not like Senku had cut Dr. Wingfield out of his life or anything. (Clearly, since this whole adventure was his idea.) But Senku had drawn some lines and pivoted their relationship into something more professional.

Dr. Wingfield hadn’t even been bad. He hadn’t tried to lure Senku out of his house or sent him anything weird. He had just started treating him like his kid. Which Senku could have dealt with, if he was anything like Byakuya. But Xeno was more like Senku…

You know, if Senku had an extremely messed up quasi-marriage, a shit ton of baggage and a touch of megalomania.

And it didn’t take discovering a random baby to know that Asagiri Gen had a mountain of baggage. Maybe he didn’t have a relationship, maybe he did. And it didn’t seem like he had any significant personality issues, but that pile of baggage would come crashing down eventually and who knew what it would take with it?

Senku didn’t think that Gen would try to treat him like a kid. They were only a few years apart in age (Gen was 28 and Senku was 25) and if the man were baby-crazy, well, he’d solved that problem. But he was smart, and even though his field of study and life couldn’t be more different than Senku’s, smart people tended to be weird.

(Ask him how he knew.)

And Senku didn’t need any more weirdness in his life. He had his old man, his friends and his work.

What more did a person need?

A partner.

A family.

Nothing. That’s what. No, it was best to keep Asagiri Gen at arm’s length.