The AU With Talyn's Crew

Chapter 2: Foodcubes And Friendships

Rationing wasn't that hard for an ex-slave.

Jothee looked down at the plate of foodcubes in front of him. Resources were limited on-board Talyn, but Crais's Peacekeeper training included proper rationing, and so far they'd been able to stay relatively well-fed between commerce planets.

While Jool complained endlessly about how little she was allowed to have each meal and Chiana stole snacks in between, Jothee had no problem with the amount he was given; it was still more than he'd ever been fed in his life.

Well. Maybe he'd eaten better once, when he was young and his parents were in charge of how much he got. But he couldn't remember those times well, so they didn't really count.

They had two flavors of foodcubes this time around: green and red. Jothee bit into a green one, humming appreciatively. The others called the flavor bland, but he thought it was pretty good. Better than the gruel he used to get in the mines, anyway.

Jothee heard the clink of a dish being set on the tabletop. He looked up to see Stark, awkwardly sitting across from him with his own plate of foodcubes. The Banik glanced at him and away, focusing on his food, which he ate slowly and in small pieces.

Jothee smirked. Baniks, man. No matter where he went, they were always the same with their food. It didn't take much to keep their 'shells' going, even slave rations were usually too much for them. He liked Baniks, they were always nice to other slaves — even freely sharing their leftover food, which they hoarded to keep the slavers from realizing they were overfeeding them.

Jothee frowned, remembering the Baniks he'd grown up around. Making friends was hard when you were a slave, the least reason for which was how often you were sold or transferred away from each other. But there were a few he'd grown close with, ending up with the same masters often enough to form a bond.

Br'ki, Tamil, Kyron. All dead now, killed with thousands of others. Just to get to him.

He sighed, pushing the feelings away. It wasn't the first time he had to deal with the death of a fellow slave, though maybe now it would be the last. At least Emira, his oldest friend, had been transferred to housecare before they were sold. She was still out there somewhere, alive and hopefully with a better life than she had in the mines; Tamil always used to joke that she was too dainty for the likes of them, maybe now she was in a place that fit her better.

Lost as he was in his thoughts, it took a moment for Jothee to realize that his plate was empty. He looked down at it mournfully. He must be getting used to more food, he thought wryly, if he was still hungry after finishing his lunch ration. Three meals a day — would the wonders of being free never cease?

Jothee got up to clear his plate, stealing another glance at Stark. It was just the two of them today, the others were down on a commerce planet that offered a wide range of valuables for cheap — including slaves.

Jothee was just getting used to being free, he wasn't about to risk getting captured again. Besides, he was on Stark-sitting duty, making sure the half-mad man didn't put them all in danger by running off on some ridiculous plan to free any Baniks that might be down there. He could understand the sentiment, of course, but their own survival needed to come first.

For lack of anything better to do, Jothee sat back down at the table, trying not to look enviously at Stark's still mostly full plate.

He must have failed, because a moment later the plate was being pushed in front of him.

"Here," Stark said, gesturing at the plate. "I'm, I'm not going to finish it."

Jothee shook his head a bit more fondly than he maybe should have, considering they barely knew each other, reminded of many other times some Banik or other had pushed their food at him. His face crinkled and his fond mood dropped when he saw just how many foodcubes were left.

"I know you people don't need much, metal-face," Jothee said, pushing the plate back towards him, "but you definitely need to eat more than that."

"I'm not hungry," Stark explained, a bit too quickly. Jothee frowned deeper, opening his mouth to argue that there was no way he wasn't still hungry, but Stark cut him off, "Please. I hate waste. Just eat it, eat it, just eat it. Please. No waste."

Jothee's heart twisted. Stark reminded him painfully of Kyron in that moment, frantic and caring and insistent that nothing ever be left over.

The Baniks were slaves from birth to death, for generations. Strangely, this had made them more stubborn in Jothee's experience, at least when they could get away with it. Stark had that familiar look in his eye that meant he'd rather starve than eat the foodcubes he'd just given over.

Jothee still pushed the plate closer. He decided not to ask what kind of dren a Banik had to go through to get eating issues, and tried a different approach instead.

"I'm not hungry either, really," he lied. More truthfully, he added, "I'm used to getting a lot less. Keep it."

"I won't eat it, I–" Stark protested, trying to push the plate back towards him.

"If not for now then for later," Jothee insisted, successfully winning the impromptu plate-pushing contest they'd found themselves in. His Luxan side's strength didn't count for nothing, after all. "You can put it in your hoard."

Stark's one visible eye widened. "I, I don't know what you're talking about," he told him, panicked. "I wouldn't, I'd never hoard food. We're rationing, there's nothing even to hoard, I–"

"Calm down, metal-face." Jothee chuckled. "I grew up around Baniks, remember? I know about the food thing, man. It's fine."

"Oh." Stark visibly relaxed at that, staring at Jothee with a blank face, rather a panicked one. Looking away, he muttered. "Well, I still don't, well. I don't have a hoard. There wasn't– Never enough to– Scorpy never fed me enough for me to have anything left over," he said thickly, the words coming out as though forced. "I got out of practice, I suppose."

Jothee was surprised at the admission. Beyond repeating a few things about the 'Chair' (over and over and over again), Stark rarely talked about his time in Scorpius's capture. Between Crichton's fear, his own brief meeting, and the fact that the man had somehow managed to starve a Banik, Jothee decided he should probably do his best to avoid the trasnik for the rest of his frelling life.

"If you don't eat the food and you don't hoard the food," Jothee began, scowling, "then what the hezmana do you do with it?"

Jothee almost felt bad when Stark cringed back at his tone, but hey, he didn't like waste either. Old habits, he supposed.

"Zhaan used to make me eat more," Stark admitted quietly. "And, and then she'd eat whatever I didn't." He smiled softly, his eye glazing in memory. "She would always joke that she'd lose her figure and grow fat if I didn't learn to eat more."

Something sad came over his face then, and Jothee knew he needed to act quickly if he wanted to stop the man from falling into one of his 'I miss Zhaan so I'm going to act like a useless, whining lunatic now' moods.

"Listen, that's great and all," Jothee told him, standing up and taking the plate of foodcubes with him, "but it don't excuse nothing. What kind of Banik doesn't have a proper hoard? Do you want Crais to figure out that you don't need to eat as much as he thinks you do?"

Stark paled, years of trying to keep the Peacekeepers from figuring out exactly that catching up to the poor Banik. He stood, matching Jothee. "Of course not!"

Jothee grinned and spun on his heel, heading towards the door. "Come on, then."

Stark followed obediently, giving him a curious look. "Where are we going?"

"To find a spot for our new hoard, of course," Jothee informed him. He whacked the top of the doorframe as he exited through it, watching the ceiling light up in response. "Hey, Tal, got a place we can hide this?"

The lights along the corridor flashed in sequence, and a sleek, red DRD appeared to lead them. Someone had stuck a row of spikes along the top of the drone, which Jothee was fairly certain was probably on Talyn's request.

"Thanks, buddy," Jothee told Talyn, patting a wall as he followed the DRD. "You're the best."

Talyn beeped happily at the praise, making Jothee smile.

"The others won't like it if they find out we're hoarding food," Stark said after a while, still scurrying after Jothee as they kept pace with the hyperactive DRD. "They never used to like it when Rygel did that, no, and we have so little, even less than Moya did, they won't like it at all..."

"So we'll share it with the girls." Jothee shrugged. "I don't see what the problem is, Stark. This way Jool will stop whining, Chi might stop stealing, and Crais will stop getting on all our backs about rationing. Everyone's happy, everyone wins."

"Share?" Stark asked, blinking (or was it winking? Jothee was never sure what to call it with Baniks, considering the eye thing). He tilted his head down, muttering to himself. "Everyone wins, everyone wins, everyone's happy..."

Stark turned his face back to Jothee just as the DRD pulled off the grate of a vent, grinning brightly. "I like that."

Jothee kneeled down to place the plate of foodcubes in the vent. He looked up at Stark, returning his smile. "I thought you might, metal-face."

Baniks, man. They really were some of his favorite people.