They sit in Benji's lounge where he administers the medical equipment. Gale has a the beginnings of a black eye from where he slammed into a metal bar, and is holding a cloth with melting ice to his face to prevent the bruise from blooming. Eurydice has two small cuts on the back of her leg, bound tightly, from where she kicked a chicken when the pen fell. Well, it wasn't kicking the chicken that did it, but the pecks from two others at her assault.

It fucking hurts, especially because she ran on it.

A few others sit as well. Rhiannon Rose, who only heard the sound and didn't feel the tremble, couldn't be assed to try to round up chickens. Harvey has brought in a pot of tea that no one is drinking, dirty weed water that it is. Benji said no to coffee. Kae sits next to Benji. He has an arm wrapped around her as she trembles.

Finally, the others pour in the room. Norbu first, and he collapses on the floor in a heap, huffing out breath.

"Caught them all," he manages, exhaling. "Post repaired."

They made quick work of the repair, Faris and Cosmia. The pen was fixed within thirty seconds, but then they had to chase down all of the chickens. Of course, Calath didn't help. Mostly, her eyes wandered. The others come in shortly, minus Calath of course, who is still outside poking around the exterior of the house.

There are a few feathers stuck to their clothes, the remaining group. Titus leads them. He's got scratches from the talons, as does Faris who is right behind them.

"I need to shower," Titus shivers.

Harvey smirks.

Then, Benji stands. Cosmia enters the room, with blood running down her cheek. Her eyes are wide but blank.

One was on top of her. She tripped and fell chasing it, and it was on top of her. Norbu snatched the thing and Faris pulled her to her feet, and she remembered the day she was captured and brought to the panopticon.

Benji hurries past her, bursting out of the room.

"Fuck those chickens," Norbu huffs. "I get why people eat them now."

Cosmia slips from the room and trails behind Benji. He doesn't seem to notice her. Instead, he bursts out the farm's front door and crosses around the front of the building. He circles around to the shed. Through the open door, Cosmia can see Calath tinkering with one of the pipes. She stays hidden behind the house, listening in to their conversation.

When Benji is close enough to cast a shadow over her work, Calath looks up.

"You're done," he shakes his head.

She stares at him, "what?"

"I said you're done," Benji says. "No more fucking with my irrigation. You're going back to real work."

She drops the pipe on the ground. Though she is a foot shorter than him, she glares like she isn't. Calath is used to being small, to being only seen when told no. Calath is used to cages, even before the panopticon. The kind that wild things belong in. And her hair, before she cut it short, was wild, and maybe so is she.

"This is real work," she says. "The explosion wasn't my fault."

"Oh, so someone else cause a back up in the hydraulic pressure system?"

"No one did," Calath crosses her arms.

"Was it an earthquake then? Do you even get those in the metal land you live in?" Benji's face is bright red. "It was you."

"I am never wrong," she knocks into his shoulder to move past him.

Benji stands still for a minute, breathing.

From where Cosmia stands, Calath passes by her and heads into the house. Neither woman says a word to the other. The chickens cluck now, distant from the other side of the house, and Cosmia can't stand the sound of them. She's decided she only likes birds that can fly. Perhaps that explains why she ended up here.

"Come out," Benji says. "Come on, Cosmia."

Cosmia doesn't move.

Benji enters the shed. She follows behind him, casting a glance over her shoulder. No one is looking from within the homestead. She checks every last window. Still, she feels like she's being surveilled. Only then does she enter the shed.

~~~

"Ow, Norbu!" Eurydice winces as he pulls back her bandages. "Are you fucking crazy?"

"I wanted to check them," Norbu says. He is clean of any wound on himself. Titus took bandages and left, and Faris sits patching himself up, and after all that running, he feels like he needs to move more. "They look like a pitch. You're lucky though. Those beaks really could've dug in deep. They look like surface wounds."

"I'll kick you," she spits.

He puts the bandage back and whistles. He plops onto the sofa next to Kae. One arm he wraps around her shoulder, just like Benji did when he first got there.

She starts to cry.

"Shouldn't be allowed to have chickens," Eurydice shakes his head. "What fucking freakish animals. Worse than rats."

"You got out lucky," Faris smiles. He has finished wrapping up the scratches along his left arm. He wipes drops alcohol onto the right one, and grunts. His hand shakes too much. "Norbu, would you?"

"On it, boss," Norbu says. He looks around, about to check on Gale, but he's gone. "Eurydice, did Benji check Gale for a concussion?"

"Why the fuck would I pay attention to Gale?"

Faris groans as Norbu dumps the alcohol onto his cuts. It's a second too long, and then Norbu starts to bandage them.

"Hope you groan like that when you-"

"Easy Norbu," Faris grunts through his clenched jaw. "Don't want to make Eurydice jealous."

She flips over to glare at him.

Kae is still crying softly. Once Faris' arms are taken care of, he pulls himself up and moves next to her. Faris pats his shoulder and pulls her in so she can rest her head on it. He's still shaking. It was easier with his dominant hand. Faris has a book full of plants, documenting the colour as best as he can, comparing the textures. Benji showed him a technique to put in the patterns of leaves. Now, he's teaching him to press flowers into the pages. Of course, Faris has never been tempted by any of the animals he's seen. He prefers to work near the scarecrows.

"It was so scary," Faris whispers, agreeing.

Kae breathes in deeply. Then, the tears really start to come. They both close their eyes, leaning into the others touch.

"Ow, Norbu! Stop poking at them!"

~~~

Rhiannon Rose stands at the base of the stairs, staring up it. In the kitchen, she can hear someone moving around. Benji, likely, unfortunately. She looks up the steps and counts them. Fourteen. Fourteen stairs to an answer, not that she really cares.

"You want banana bread?" Gale pops his head into the hallway. Rhiannon Rose turns to face him and she watches him flinch. "I... I just, well, Harvey made some. George, you know, the fruity guy, he was around the other day. Apparently... well I only found out for Norbu because-"

"If I say yes can you be quiet?" Rhiannon Rose asks.

Gale nods.

She stares at his purple eye but doesn't say anything. She was an engineer's apprentice, not a detective, but somethings are starting to slot into place.

They head into the kitchen. Gale gets a plate and puts a slice on a plate. She glowers at it. He's washed his hands, probably, but she wouldn't put it past a factory worker to be permanently dirty. She grabs a fork from a drawer and begins to push it around.

She expects him to dull her with conversation. He remains silent, chowing down on a slice. He looks gross when he chews. Rhiannon Rose hates this place. Norbu is passable, but he cares about people who aren't. Rhiannon Rose included.

For Gale, the quiet is welcome. He stares out the window, thinking about the conversation two days ago he had with George. It was brief. Bananas have been modified so much that they can grow in a little glass house that George has. You'd be surprised what people can grow. There are hundreds of Lords and so hundreds of little areas with their own little outposts, outside of the mines and the fisheries. So many things are grown from the earth. Like, rubber. And glass comes from sand, which might be at the bottom of the river out in The Sticks. Gale will have to test it when he gets back.

He likes Rhiannon Rose's company. As he finishes his slice, he smiles at her. Now, he's got five solid friends. Norbu, Faris, Cosmia, Rhiannon Rose, and Benji is half a friend.

George is the other half.

~~~

The idea of being bandaged in torn clothing is too Cocta for Titus. He grabs the supplies he needs and goes to his little shack. He showers, cleaning out the flecks of dirt and the rest of the day from his hair. The water is always cold. Usually, this is relieving, but now it stings. There is always a line for the shower every night before dinner, and Titus has been letting Gale cut him. He's worried the guy will punch him in the face, and Titus was fine to just have had a broken nose.

Of course, that damn farmer had other plans.

When Titus is done showering, towel wrapped around his hips, he steps back into the shack.

Harvey is there, sitting on Titus' bunk. The odds of him sitting on his is fifty-fifty, the other option being Kae's but her pillow looks misshapen and crunchy to the touch. The odds of Harvey being here, eyes snaking over the silver tattoos on his torso, Titus shouldn't be surprised.

The tattoos, of course, are disturbed, pink slices through them.

"Thought I was running?"

Harvey crosses his good ankle over his bad leg. His cane is on the wayside, too far away to use if Titus suddenly snaps. But Harvey knows him. He's not Gale, a rubber band wound and wound. He's not Eurydice, who is pliable. He's like him, wound and wound and wound tighter. And he looks it, stiff even out of the shower, scraped and bruised and silver.

"Didn't think you'd bleed red," Harvey points out. "Isn't that a new experimental mod? Messing with blood colour?"

"I don't do experimental," Titus moves over to the drawer that is his.

Harvey averts his eyes while Titus throws on a pair of boxers and trousers. Titus smirks the whole time.

"I've seen it in fighters," Harvey says. "Underground rink. Bet Dorjee's seen it too."

"Norbu's seen everything," Titus nods.

Harvey hadn't thought he'd run. Still, here he is. Now, with Titus standing at the dresser beginning to pour the alcohol on his chest to clean out the cuts. He hisses. Harvey feels a pinch at the base of his neck. He tries to hide his shiver.

"Give me a hand, Harvey," Titus smirks.

He expects Harvey to say that he's fine, actually, but instead Harvey stands up. Without his cane, he crosses over to Titus. He takes a pad and presses it against Titus' peck.

"Where are you running to, anyway?" Harvey moves over and grabs the body tape, beginning to press the cotton pad into place.

It's not bleeding now, and while he has more of them none are as deep as the ones on Eurydice. He can't deny himself the touch. Clockwork is practiced in the art of being inanimate. He's touched his Wraiths before, helping them after skirmishes since Harvey rarely has ever been touched. This is different. He can feel his own pulse in his fingertips, or Titus' pulse. It's difficult to differentiate the throb.

"Do you expect me to tell you?"

"Yes."

Titus swallows. Harvey lets go, moving to another pad. Titus snatches his fingers in the air.

"My brother," he swallows. "Caius, he... he left. I think he's in MFZ."

"Going to MFZ is a death sentence."

There is no malice in his words. It's pragmatic, true, and both of them know what happens in MFZ. Refugees in tents, trying to grow food in the inhospitable and sunless land. Mushrooms in caves, food offerings in exchange for labour, usually of the sexual variety but otherwise hard physical labouring that even North Marcadians wouldn't subject themselves to doing. If Caius is there, it's nowhere Titus should follow.

"I know."

Harvey breathes in. Not Clockwork. It's Harvey, "you know how I didn't kill anyone?"

"Everyone knows that. You were framed."

"Barely. It was a shit frame," he confesses. "The officers gave me a deal. I could confess to it all, and they'd let my Wraiths go. Otherwise, they were all going to Medfack and I couldn't... I know you don't have a lot of contact with criminals, but if you'd see what they come back like, hollowed out cheeks and eyes, fractions of themselves. Fuck, they make the panopticon look like a bubble trip. I couldn't... if there was anything I could do to save them. I'd do it."

Titus is still holding his snatched hand. He stole it, like the files on the server about his brother's addresses in Neo Elysium. He hacked it, butchered it, and would have gotten away with it if his mother hadn't droven him to the officers. Now, Titus doesn't think he's going to get away with this.

He leans in. His lips brush Harvey's. Harvey tilts himself in closer, and their lips seal. Like their files in Neo Elysium.

~~~

The shed is filthy. Cosmia doesn't usually go inside it, unless she desperately needs a tool. There are bags of dried corn husks, stacked up in a pile. Boxes are stacked atop each other, so tall that Cosmia has to duck around them to try and catch a glimpse of Benji. She rounds to the back, where he squats on the ground looking at piping through the dirt.

"What caused it?" she asks, her voice quiet.

Benji exhales softly. He taps a pressure gauge and her gaze follows, "the boiler is pressurized wrong now, for the house I mean. I don't know what Cal screwed up exactly. Greens are best with irrigation, but I'm not about to ask Mark and Felly to-"

He stops so abruptly that Cosmia turns around, expecting someone else to have joined them. Calath maybe, still eager to be unhappy. Then she looks back, and he staring at the blood on her face.

He pulls out a handkerchief from his pocket and stands up. He steps in closer. He raises his hand. Blinking slowly, she waits for the soft feeling of fabric brushing against the wound. Instead, he freezes.

She takes the handkerchief and wipes away the wound herself.

"Not my worse scrap, Benny."

His face goes red. Even with just a few hanging lightbulbs on the ceiling, their glow obstructed by the towers around them, she can see it. His freckles are still apparent though.

"Course not," he says. "I should have expect y'all to be tough. You're not just any Elysite. You're delinquents."

She purses her lips together, "right."

Benji steps around her, leaving the farm. The wound on her face still stings. She can feel her eyes watering and she blinks them back. She doesn't see Benji round the side of the shed, hiding himself from the view of the farmhouse. She doesn't see him curl his hand into a fist and pound it off his thigh, or watch him sit on the grass and stare up at the sunny sky.

"I'm so fucked," he whispers, just to himself.

And even he gets the feeling he is being watched.

~~~~~

If Perverse was for the lesbians, this one is for the gays. Well, everybook I write is for all queer people, but this one is not as much rah rah. But for now, you'll have to just enjoy this. Always excited to hear what you think haha.