Aromantics Are Queer Pass It On

Aromantics are queer pass it on

Inspired from here

that idea i had for branch raven finding 621 post-FoR and forcibly kidnapping adopting him... a teaser below the cut...

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The medium freighter ship, Tapio, was an old, beaten-up interstellar craft that had gone through at least three different Christenings since it had fallen into Branch’s control. When Chartreuse had liberated it from its original owner (some two-bit grey market smuggler who had bitten off more than he could chew), it had been named The Golden Fleece. Raven had let her rename it to Cheese Board, which lasted for only a few months before King changed it to the far more mundane Star Skimmer.

Chartreuse couldn’t really remember when they had changed it from Star Skimmer to Tapio, but it hadn’t been long after they made plans to run the PCA blockade over Rubicon-3. Even grey-market ships like these were aggressively tracked and logged whenever it so much as paused to take a fart in some piece of shit asteroid port, so scrubbing the identity was essential prep for big operations that would land you in some UEG gulag on Pluto.

They’d probably have to change it again, now that their business was concluded on Rubicon. It was Raven’s turn, and knowing them, they’d think of something either utterly boring, or thoroughly deranged. They called their pet cat Emergency Rations of all things, after all.

(To date, she still wasn’t sure if Raven was being tongue-in-cheek about that…)

Speaking of that cat, though…

Chartreuse grumbled as she shovelled soiled cat litter into its bin. The freighter was built with a crew of at least ten in mind, so Raven had dedicated an entire room to the little beast: cat trees, little platforms for Emergency Rations to parkour off of, toys that functioned as trip hazards for the unwary, and this monstrosity of a litter box that was huge and a massive pain to clean out.

Emergency Rations, as imperious as a queen overlooking her lowly subjects, stared down at her from one of its demonic cat trees. It was an ugly creature, in Chartreuse’s opinion: thin, scraggly fur with bald patches, one missing ear and crooked whiskers, with a broken meow that sounded like the strangled croak of a frog. Probably why Raven adopted it; they had a soft spot a mile wide for broken, ugly things.

“How do you shit so much?” Chartreuse sealed the bin shut and pushed it aside. “I swear you do it just to fuck with me.”

Emergency Rations just blinked its ugly goblin eyes at her.

Chartreuse finished up her daily task of tending to the beast’s comfort and slouched out of the ship’s cattery. After a brief detour to the ablutions to wash her hands, she went to the central mess hall that now functioned as a sort of communal area for Branch. The depressing steel benches and tables had been shoved against the walls and replaced with a battered sofa they’d rescued from a dump, and an old-world TV set with a video player and everything.

Chartreuse had no idea where Raven magicked up these relics, or why they had a taste for such useless antiques.

“The beast’s been dealt with,” Chartreuse declared when she walked into the living area.

King acknowledged her with a raised hand, not looking away from the TV screen. He was sprawled out on the sofa, so Chartreuse sat on the armchair. It was technically Raven’s armchair, but they weren’t here right now - too busy committing terrible life choices and all that.

“Is Raven still not back?” she asked. “We sure that rabid dog didn’t eat him?”

“Haven’t heard a thing since they left.” King picked up the remote and paused whatever was playing on the TV. He had a deep frown on his face, his expression troubled even if it didn’t show in his voice. “Their operator would’ve told us if things had gone sour, though.”

Chartreuse grunted.

It’d been only two days since the Second Fires had swept through the Rubicon system, an event they had only survived because they’d been in the process of leaving said system. They’d been mere moments away from engaging the C-Wave Drive to slip into subspace, only to perform an emergency leap to the nearest stellar body when a surge of volatile energy came exploding out of Rubicon-3. Thank god for that small planetoid they’d managed to shelter behind…

But instead of getting immediately out of dodge the second things settled down, Raven had all but commandeered the ship and started gunning back towards Rubicon-3 like a man possessed. When it came out that Raven was hunting down his successor… well, words were exchanged and Chartreuse may’ve thrown a chair at them, but Raven got their way, as always, and now they were here, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for Raven to come back with a potential rabid dog in tow.

“We might have to figure out a naming system if they do find him,” King said idly. “Raven Senior and Raven Junior, maybe?”

“Who’d be the senior and who’d be the junior?” Chartreuse drawled. “That Gen Four is probably a grizzled old man. Our Raven isn’t even thirty.”

“Guess they’d be junior then.” Somehow, King maintained a straight face as he said this. “We could always call the Gen Four after his designation. C4-621, if I remember rightly?”

“That’s…” Chartreuse wrinkled her nose. “So corporate.”

“Hound, then?” King shrugged. “It’s up to Raven, I guess. It’s their name they gave away.”

A name that the rabid dog had technically earned in the same way their Raven had. As sour as Chartreuse was about the whole thing, she grudgingly accepted and respected the dog’s hustle and fire. He’d trounced all three of them in a straight fight, and it was done purely through skill. The things he’d done with that laser dagger were obscene…

But Raven had always been Raven to her. She still called them that, hell, they all did, but if their successor was found and brought into the fold, then they’d have to bow their heads to proper tradition and accept the dog as Raven, and Raven as… Nightfall.

Ugh. She still hated that name. Nightfall. It was a name an edgy teenager would pick for their social media account.

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