[#003] Home Is The Ship That Carries You (Killjoys)

[alobear]

Theme Prompt: Domestic Bliss
Title: Home Is The Ship That Carries You
Fandom: Killjoys
Rating/Warnings: N/A
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 739
Summary: The new team is still finding its feet

Lucy watched her crew on her monitors.

Dutch was in the main cabin, reading the news posts on her tablet.  She had her feet up on the table in their chunky boots, and was lounged in her chair, completely at her ease.  She wore an embroidered, silk robe, and her long, dark hair tumbled down behind her, nearly touching the floor.  She reached periodically for a cup of hot tea, without looking up from her reading.

John was in the engineering bay, elbow deep in Lucy’s wires and circuit boards.  He was dressed in an old, faded t-shirt and was tinkering with a wrench.  Lucy did a diagnostic and discovered that he was upgrading some of her defence mechanisms.  She knew he had been planning to do this for some time, and that he would be pleased to have found the opportunity.  He had a canned energy drink within easy reach beside him, and drank greedily from it between twists of the wrench.

D’Avin was in his cabin, partway through his morning workout.  The muscles in his arms and back rippled as he completed a set of press-ups, his tank top darkened with sweat.  He was totally focused on the physical activity, breathing evenly with each repetition.  After fifty press-ups, he stood up briefly to take several long gulps from the bottle of water that lay on the bed.  Then he switched to sit-ups, making them look effortless.

Dutch broke off from her perusal of the day’s news and crossed to a control panel to flip the internal comm switch.

“Johnny?” she called out to the empty air.

A couple of seconds elapsed, then the reply came.  “Yep?”

“Did you check the boards for any new contracts?” Dutch asked.

“Since when?” John said.

Dutch sighed.  “Since we got back from our last job, of course, dummy.”

There was another, longer pause, then his voice came over the comm again.  “Uh, no…”

“So that’s why we’re sitting on our asses this morning, doing nothing, is it?”  Dutch rolled her eyes, even though there was nobody in the room to see her do it.

John’s next response sounded slightly petulant.  “I’m not doing nothing!  I’m working on Lucy’s upgrades.”

“Speaking of which,” Dutch said, “did you go and collect those spare parts we ordered?”

“No, I didn’t do that either,” John said, exasperation clear in his tone.

“When did you turn into such a flake?” Dutch wanted to know.

This time, the pause was so long that Dutch started to wonder if John had decided just to ignore her.  A few moments later, he strode into the cabin and stood before her, hands on hips.

“Why is everything around here suddenly my responsibility?” he asked testily.  “I happen to be busy with important engineering work on the ship.  You could just as easily check the boards yourself, and D’Avin could go and collect the parts.”

D’Avin wandered in, clearly fresh from a workout, a towel draped around his shoulders.

“I could do what, now?” he asked.

“Start pulling your weight,” John said, “instead of just hanging about looking pretty.”

“There’s no need to take it out on your brother, just because you slipped up,” Dutch said.

John crossed his arms over his chest and practically pouted.  He spoke slowly, enunciating each word.  “I am going back to the engineering bay to continue making our ship a safer place to be,” he said.  “If there are other jobs that need attention, I suggest you delegate elsewhere, O Great Leader.”

With that, he spun on his heel and stalked back out of the cabin.

D’Avin and Dutch exchanged an amused glance.

“Give me the details and I’ll head out to get the parts once I’m dressed,” D’Avin said.  “Oh, and by the way, you don’t need to defend me against John.  I’ve been dealing with his tantrums far longer than you have.”

“Fair enough,” Dutch said.  “I shall leave you to fight your own battles in future.”

D’Avin wandered off in the direction of his cabin, and Dutch poured herself another cup of tea before settling back at the table and taking up her tablet to check the contract boards.

If Lucy had had the capability, she would have smiled.  The three of them had a way to go yet before they would work seamlessly as a team, but they were doing a very good job of acting like a family.  Her family.

.