Boys With Toys [For twelve_not_fourteen]

[brother_alone]

Josh is making a real effort to try and get his life in order.

He's leaving his shanty more and more often, clean cut and wearing fresh clothes rather than the grimy tattered mess he'd arrived in months before. A few odd jobs around the Nexus have allowed him that much at least. They never last too long though. Partially because they're just that: odd jobs. But also, because one Bad Day or episode is all it takes to get him let go.

It's discouraging because Josh is trying so hard.

Not for himself, really. There's enough self loathing within him to bury him several times over. He hates himself. Hates what he's done. What he is. What he sees. But there are people he cares about, people who see something else that Josh doesn't.

People like Chris, like Dia. And like Han.

So when Josh's phone buzzes, he assumes it's one of the only people in this place who gives a shit about him, or the newest place he works at occasionally with some hours for him. He isn't wrong. Han wants to know if Josh is up for fixing up that rust heap he'd picked up a few weeks back. The memory makes Joshua smile as he unlocks his phone to reply.

Sure thing. Meet at your ship I'm assuming?

He doesn't wait for a reply when he leaves his shack. Josh figures he has plenty of time to change direction if need be. It's not half bad outside today anyway, and the walk will do him some good.

Comments

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Your guess is as good as mine." He says with a shrug. "Only thing I can figure is maybe someone pulled it out of a stream or a lake at some point." Though that's ultimately not where Han found it, he found it at a scrapyard. Something weird happened to it though, no doubt about that.

Han takes another slug of the Ryll and then sets it down somewhere he thinks that he'll remember where it was later.

"They tend to design these things to drip where I come from. You never know what planet they're going to ship these to and what resources are going to be on hand." Siphons, yeah, those are pretty common on any planet sure, but water isn't always. That's why flushing he sees more as a bonus than a critical step.

The Captain starts heading toward the Falcon, expecting Josh to follow. "I've got a few stashed under the sink. We'll go together. It might take a few passes even with both of us."

[brother_alone]

"I'd imagine they're made with varying species buying them in mind too. Just because it's probably safe for us to tube and suck that shit out, doesn't mean it would be for something else."

Whatever else the day has in store for them, Josh didn't have to learn what rusty Corellian oil tastes like. His day is already a win. Plus, beer. Josh trots up the ramp after Han and follows him to the kitchen. Depending on how big the buckets are, he'll definitely be able to carry one full, possibly two if they're not quite so full.

He's still thinner than he was before coming to the Nexus, but he's starting to look more like his old self again, and with it comes some increased stamina for physical activities.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He's a smart kid, this Josh. That's one of several reasons that Han likes him and wants to keep him around. The little things he'll pick up on without Han needing to explain everything to death.

It's not occurred to him that Josh is different than he used to be. He hasn't known the kid all that long, though, living on your own with the kind of problems the kid has ... well, they kind of lead you to being underfed and not having the same stamina as a person of healthy weight does.

In any case, Captain Han has never been the kind of guy that orders someone to do something he isn't willing to do himself. He would have to hope that he seems like that kind of leader and that kind of man. They walk into the lounge, where the Falcon's makeshift kitchen is, and he grabs the buckets out from under the sink. Four of them.

It's one of those scenarios where the buckets are kind of big and the sink is kind of small, so each one has to get wedged into there under the faucet and they can only get about half filled. He gets two ready to go for Josh and sends him on his way. He'll be right behind with two more.

[brother_alone]

Half full buckets are the best kind of buckets for Josh's noodle arms. Kid scowls at the work it takes to lift them either way, but at least he can manage without too much trouble. This would have been no big deal Before.

Before the Nexus is quickly becoming it's own catchall time period for Josh. Before his sister's deaths and after were their own times too. It's easier for him to compartmentalize that way. Shut himself off from periods he doesn't want to face.

The Falcon's too small to get lost on so Josh wastes no time in heading back outside and over to the swoop bike. An excited smile flits across his face as he imagines it up and running, making that THRMTHRMTHRMMMMMM noise they did in the movies. COurse that was all special effects. This.

This is the real deal.

"Just you wait, baby. We'll have you up and running in no time."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

The Falcon seems huge from the outside, but in reality, no. It's not all that big at all. It also helps that its layout is circular. Keep going around and eventually, you'll find the place you're looking for. It's only when you start to look for the stuff that you're not supposed to find that you'll have any trouble.

Besides, the daylight streaming through the ramp is a good indicator of where 'outside' is.

Han sets down his own buckets about two minutes behind his friend with an unceremonious plop. The water shifts around in the bucket and a small amount splashes around the side.

"I'll show you what we have to take apart to make the bike ready to flush. We'll need the spanner. Do you want to do the pouring too or not?"

[brother_alone]

Wrench. They need the--

"What size?" Josh holds up both spanners Han gave him to carry outside, eyebrow raised. He's not sure if this is supposed to be obvious and he's just not getting it, but he at least remembered which one was the spanner.

"Out of the buckets? Sure. Sounds kind of hard to fuck up."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"The fifteen millimeter."

Han is prepared to point out which spanner is the one he wants, but he's got this feeling that his friend is just going to know. Still, he's observing. Just in case.

When they get beyond the matter of which tool is the right tool, Han will position himself on the ground, but off to the side so the kid can get to where the bolts they need to remove are. He'll point out each one and he takes it upon himself to hold each one when Josh removes it.

"Okay, that's the last going to be the last one, so take it off, but hold the inner panel in place for a second and get out from underneath it. Otherwise, that shit is going to drip on you." He's drained it. There wouldn't be a lot of junk to come out of there at this point, but it's likely that he would have got a little bit surprise if not for the warning.

Also, Han's taking this opportunity to get out from under the bike now. Thanks.

[brother_alone]

The little one. Got it. Josh chucks the larger one behind him over his shoulder (gently, he might need it in a minute) without so much as a backward glance and drops down onto the ground to get under the bike.

"Been under a lot of things, this is definitely the rustiest." Josh mutters while he gets himself lined up for the job at hand. He doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about the dirt they're laying in or anything else, trusting Han will warn him if there's any kind of danger he needs to be aware of. "You got a...here. Take this would you?" Josh hands Han the spanner and then shimmies out from under the bike, one hand still holding the panel in place as firmly as he can so as not to drip anything until he's well clear of it.

Once he's out, Josh looks around before letting go, raising an eyebrow Han's way.

"Anything we can collect this into or are we just gonna say 'fuck the planet' and let it seep into the ground?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

There are a couple of answers that comes to Han's mind and because it's Han we're talking about, they're mostly sarcastic ones. He has to believe that the eyebrow and the comment has to do with the fact that little brother does give a crap about what they may or may not be dumping into the ground.

Han reaches for his beer and purposefully kicks over one of their water buckets so that it tips over. He takes a sip of his drink and gives the water a chance to run out onto the ground. Then he picks it up and places it underneath the about to be open port that Josh is still holding.

"I question the 'planetness' of the Nexus, for the record."

[brother_alone]

"Objection has been noted and added to the record." Josh quips back, letting the panel fall away so that the fluid can drip safely in containment for the time being. He's not some hippy tree hugger, but he does do his best not to go dicking around throwing mother nature the double bird if he can help it.

He's seen some of the scarier things Nature produces. Best stay on Mother Nature's good side. Everything else is real here, why shouldn't she be? And she's probably one cold bitch, too.

There's a grease stain on his forehead from where a drop had fallen on him, and he's starting to look dirty. Kid's finally starting to look like he belongs among Han's peers if he ignores the odd fabric to his clothes.

"So okay, that's where it comes out of. Where do we pour the water in?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

An essential part of flushing is to know where to put the water in. He's not wrong about that.

The overracer should feel similarly to a motorcycle for Josh, because that is what they take the place of in his galaxy. Not unlike what is custom to the bikes of Earth, he points out that the tank for the fuel sits in a position just ahead of the seat.

"This is the spot here." He murmurs, unscrewing the cap and adding it to the things he's juggling in his grip. He supposes he should go put the beer down again. "Slow and steady with the pour, kid."

[brother_alone]

Josh has never been this close to a motorcycle either, but he's seen enough movies to at least sort of know what's what. It's honestly where he's picked up a lot of his arbitrary knowledge about things. Some of it obviously isn't accurate given its source, but a surprising amount has been able to help Josh in some way or another.

"Right. Because this thing needs more of a reason to finish rusting out." Josh hefts one of the buckets up and once a bit of the water has been evacuated it's a lot easier to hold and pour at a steady slow pace.

"...Got let go from the bakery job." Josh murmurs after a few minutes. "So...I'll be free pretty much anytime to work on this thing."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Yeah, I've been going back and forth in my mind about if I want to completely replace everything that's rusted over or if I'll just paint over it." Since his pet project is going to involve Josh to more involved degree than a day here and there, he's curious to know what his friend thinks one way or the other.

And ... now that he's just mentioned not having a job anymore, apparently he'll have even more time to devote than Han expected out of him.

"Kryff 'em." Han says with a thoughtful frown on his face. "It ain't like you were going to work there thirty years and then retire anyhow. Something better's gonna come along, kid. I got a feeling."

[brother_alone]

"Does it really count as a fixer upper if we just paint it and sweep the damage under the rug?" Josh needs this project right now. Having Han depend on him for something makes him feel useful. He knows the pilot doesn't need him for this, but is relying on him for help.

And it's honestly all that's keeping Josh from having a much more extreme reaction to the upset in his employment.

"I know, just. Even of something better does come, I'll have to get and keep it." One slip, one Bad Day, and his career is toast.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Well, now that he's observed the sense of importance in Josh, the decision is easily made. If the kid wants to replace every single piece of this bike, they will. "It's a keep it going effort versus a leave no detail ignored effort." Han says with a shrug. "I just wasn't sure how committed you were to the job till now."

"Do you want to talk to talk about what happened or not talk about it?"

[brother_alone]

"Won't change what happened."

Josh pauses in his efforts and checks the bucket to see if the water is coming through mostly clear yet. When it is, he edges the quickly filling bucket that had the used lubricant in it out and lets the water spill onto the ground. It's probably fine by now, and he doesn't have infinity buckets to collect the water he's pouring through.

Back to pouring slowly.

"Don't remember what set me off, but I had an episode. Hallucinated. Got scared. Said some...pretty awful things. To the girl I was working with, who was freaked out as much as I was. Guess it was pretty graphic. Because they threw me out on the spot."

He pauses, a dark expression of guilt on his face.

They called him a monster.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Easier said than done, but shake it off."

He's watching Josh work, physically. His eyes are aimed at what the kid is doing and on some level, he's watching closely enough that if the kid was doing something stupid he could stop him. It's flushing though. Hard to mess that up.

Mentally, his mind is on Josh and the shitty set of problems that he's got to deal with. "You're a good kid and you're gonna beat this."

Some progress has been made so far, he thinks? It feels like there have been fewer episodes, but maybe he's wrong and he's not been watching closely enough. At any rate, he wouldn't take back what he said. He believes in the kid.

[brother_alone]

"First of all, I'm not good." Josh chuckles at that, but it sounds amused rather than self deppreciative. "I am..." Pause to heft the next full bucket up and start all over. "A right asshole. Even without the brain trouble." He shoots Han a look that he hopes looks more jocular than he feels and shrugs.

"Chris is the good guy. He's always kept me in check, and I've always encouraged him to act out, just a little bit." Heh.

"But I'm....trying. You know? To be normal. Fit in. I don't want to be the resident Nexus Hobo forever." It would have been easy to stay in that transient lifestyle, even preferable to Josh in a lot of ways. But he has a reason to try to be better. He has Han and he has Chris. They deserve a better friend than who he is now.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Well, I can only judge you based on what I've seen." Han says figuring that this challenge of his assessment. "So what's that then ... you met me and immediately helped me try to get to where I needed to go? Now you have the nerve to help me fix up this old racer."

"You're absolutely right. You've been a total shit, haven't you?"

He's going to let that point sink in for a moment or two before adding this, "but if you're really feeling the need to vilify yourself, you can just write it off as the opinion of a shady pirate.

[brother_alone]

He's got you there, Washington. Enough for the man to stop what he's doing and stare ahead at the bike for nearly a minute, as though processing what's just been said to him. Finally he cracks a smile. A real one, if only small.

"Okay, fair point. In my defense however, I like you. Also some alternate not-you is every kid's childhood hero growing up, unless they're fans of the Jedi for some weird reason." He almsot says Luke but he is really trying to make an effort not to make that whole thing weirder than it needs to be.

"It's hard to remember the good things sometimes." Josh admits after a moment. "But having you. Having Chris around. Makes me want to try harder."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

One thing Han is, even as a relatively young man, is observant. When he decided he was going to look after Joshua, that meant a certain amount of his powers of perception were going to be aimed at him - for better and for worse. He's noticed that Josh has the tendency to put himself down, understandable, hell ... maybe it's even justified, but the Captain's going to call it the way he sees it.

And anyway, even though it's natural for everyone to be self deprecating (even Han) once in a while, it's usually not very constructive.

...

Those details about the thing he saw he's going to mostly ignore. Except that it does make him question certain things ... just not enough to make him want to ask them. The idea of him being a hero seems like that's proof enough that whatever version of him that he's seen could never apply to the man he is now.

"You're working hard, kid." He acknowledges, knowing that it's important to hear someone tell you that once in a while. Wishing he would have had more of that for himself. "That matters."

[brother_alone]

Josh suspects he could be pushing thirty and still be 'kid' to Han Solo. It doesn't bug him like it would from most anyone else. He respects the guy like crazy and it means a lot to have someone, especially someone he's known for not that long, see him and not just see a broken crazy.

Makes him feel like He's making some progress in his life.

When the last of the buckets is finished being poured through the bike, Josh heaves a huge sigh and finds a dry patch of ground to plop down on with his reclaimed beer. He can count that as weight lifting right? He's getting better. He's definitely not as weak as he used to be.

"Bet you could get so much tail, pickin' up folks with this thing, once we get it going." Josh gestures to the bike sitting atop the now soggy ground. Truly a more sexy vehicle was never seen. "I mean. Cleaned up. RIght now it would just attract....those little hood things."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Life is so often defined by what you want to read into it and for some strange reason, Han sees some of himself in Josh. People who knew them both might agree or disagree with that, but it ultimately doesn't really matter if he's right or not, all that matters is that he feels it to be so.

It makes him want to give the kid the pushes in (what he thinks is) the right direction that he never had at that age. The right person around to help you out at the right time can make all the difference between success and failure - which can go both ways - it might be Josh coming through in a big way when Han needs him for something. Fate is funny that way.

"Josh, I'm Corellian." He says with a cocky tilt to his head. "I don't need a speeder to impress women."

Captain Solo puts down the handful of assorted shit he's been holding right next to his friend so he can keep track of it and he starts moving the speeder over to drier ground. Just a foot or two over. That's all they need.

"Gotta figure out where we're going to keep it when we're finished."

[brother_alone]

Josh sure doesn't see himself in Han Solo, but well, that would require thinking a lot worse of the captain than it's possible for him to do. There's entirely too much self loathing and guilt weighing Josh down that he can't see Han Solo having to lug around with him. Not that he knows the captain super well or anything. He most definitely could be.

The comment about women makes Josh laugh, grinning around his bottle of beer and quirking his eyebrows instead of offering a smartass remark in answer. That may very well be true for Han, but Josh is not so blessed. Sure he was always popular at parties or whatever, but that charm was Before the Nexus. And there's really only so many people who'd be impressed with him right now. But if he could manage that it'd still be worth it.

"How long will it take to get finished? I might know a place, but it...kind of depends on timing."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Whatever smart-alec comment or assertion that being from a certain place doesn't have any effect on one's desirability Josh could have come up with ... wouldn't have shaken Han's confidence much anyway, if at all. And Han is by far not the first Corellian man to make that assertion and he won't be the last. The people of his planet, generally speaking, all have an inflated sense of self-worth.

"Depends on how hours you want to put in, I suppose." He says with a shrug. "The parts for it seem generally pretty widely available, lucky for us. I figured about a month."