Upon Vestia: Chapter Fifteen

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James narrowed his eyes, realizing he'd just given Esk some great ammunition to annoy him with. Oh well, too late now. "Yes it's annoying! How could it not be annoying?"

"He signed up for it, the whole saving the robots thing, that kind of makes it his job, " James shrugged, "I should probably be more supportive." He nodded in agreement, "Sure is a pain being expected to bite our tongues all the time though." James kept an eye on Luka, she was starting to look kind of intoxicated.

"Yeah like we're really dumb enough to provoke beings who could probably kill us with a thought. I don't like them, but I don't want to be vaporised either. " She huffed. "But i'm not grovelling and i'm not lying to satisfy their inflated egos. Besides, it's weird out there. portals.. magic everywhere... infected not just walking around free but wearing tabards like they're proud of being diseased? I'll stay here, where it's relatively safe and a lot less crazy." She kept drinking.

"Probably best for us and for them if we stay in here most of the time," James said. "I kinda like it out there other than the sky, but I don't want to go and fuck things up for anyone." He smiled oddly, "Well, except for earlier today when I was so angry, then I sort of didn't care." He looked amused, "Funny when this ship is less crazy than anything else."

Luka shrugged. "you shouldn't feel like you can't go out there because of some assholes. You're not gonna spoil anything if you just.. like.. walk away when you start getting mad. I need to do that more." She sighed. "I just get so fed up of being told i'm wrong and treated like i'm stupid. I'm not dumb and i'm not wrong, i'm just not too cowardly to speak my mind. And maybe some people could do with a little damn reality check and some introduction to other people's points of view." She huffed again. "Third and Vanessa piss me off, the way they act like their opinion is superior and anyone who doesn't agree with then and immediately bow down and thank them for their wisdom is an ignorant fool. If they want me to respect their views, they should respect mine but they don't. They just give me that LOOK you know? you know the one, the you poor stupid idiot look? I'm trying so damn hard to deal with this place and with all these alien viewpoints but damnit it's hard. Especially when they're so damn rude about it." She swigged her beer and wiped her mouth. "point is.. you.. you should go out and enjoy yourself or whatever. Don't let assholes like... third or whatever stop you. They aren't the boss of you, or me... or any of us. Fuck them. It's like.. they don't believe we can possibly NOT start a fight and damnit, we can not start fights if we want to!"

James nodded. "It's rough sometimes. It's like some people just haven't heard about people having different perspectives before, and they just can't believe that anyone else's views could be valid. I mean, most of us have things we disagree on, but we're able to mostly handle it because we get that we all grew up in insanely different environments. Some people just can't handle that, apparently."
He smiled slightly at her, "You know, before I met you, I just had the standard view about Satare. Violent imperialists who want to oppress and kill us all, and all that. But now of course I realize it's not that simple. Nothing is ever that simple, I guess. You can't just throw a group of people in a box and stick a label on it and call it a day..." He paused, "I don't know what my point was. Just, I like you the way you are and I wouldn't ever ask you to change."
"Maybe we should start going out to the capitol together," he suggested. "Remind each other to walk away when we start getting mad."

Luka smiled softly. "And I would never have thought of a robot as being a person, but you androids are so thoroughly unlike any other robots, it doesn't feel so weird to talk to you or cuddle up on a bed and watch movies." She laughed. "I am glad I met you. Sometimes I really wish I could go home but then I remember that would mean leaving you, and Dawn and Rigel and all the friends i've made here, and i'm not sure i'm ready to do that. I think.. your idea is a good one. We can look out for one another and.. distract one another when people get argumentative. " She nodded. "We can just moan about them behind their backs instead. It's way more satisfying anyway."

James smiled, amused. "Look at us, proving all the stupid stereotypes wrong. We should be proud!" He nodded, "I'll miss you whenever you decide to go home. I'll sound like a five year old saying it, but you're one of my best friends."

Luka smiled broadly and pulled him into a side hug. "Same here, you're like... a less annoying brother." She laughed. "and believe me I have a lot of annoying brothers."

"Funny, not sure my siblings would agree about me being less annoying. I'm pretty sure I'm THE annoying one in the family," James said, not sounding like that bothered him at all. "Maybe my family's just boring though," he laughed.

Luka grinned. "Perspective. I think everyone's annoying to their siblings."

"Ahhh, good point," James nodded sagely. The movie was over, it had been pretty short. He went to play the next video. "Porn, or movie? Guesses now!"

Luka pondered. "mm movie. It can't all be porn." She nodded and finished off her can of beer.

"Well the last one was a real movie, so it's possible we've run out of luck," James said. He grinned. He knew statistics didn't work like that, but he didn't care.

The video started.

It was porn. Terran porn.

"They don't even look Satare!" James said indignantly.

Luka started laughing. "Wow Terrans are even scrawnier without their clothes on!" She snickered and reached for another can. "Gotta take another drink then."

James eyed the actors critically, "Hmm, I see what you mean. They really are sort of scrawny. I don't think these guys ever had military training." He closed the video and went to open the next one. "I guess Terrans look hotter to Terrans than they do to the rest of us. Natural selection and all that," he said in a wise tone.

Luka snorted. "well someone must find them attractive or they'd never reproduce so well." She watched James thoughtfully. "How does the whole... attraction thing work for you guys then? I mean, I kinda assumed you didn't but then your brother and the other medic have that... thing." She made a face, it grossed her out okay? "so, CAN you guys be attracted to people or are they just real good friends?"

"Yeah, Terrans love Terrans," James agreed. He smiled a bit. " They're definitely not just friends, they're absolutely in love with each other." He considered the question for a few seconds before settling on an explanation, "Are you familiar with the idea that sexual and romantic attraction are different things? A lot of Terrans subscribe to that idea these days, but I dunno if anyone else is familiar with it."

"well sure, you can love someone utterly platonically and not want to sleep with them right? " Luka watched him curiously.

James nodded. "Yeah. So basically it's like... we don't ever feel any specific urge to hop in bed with anyone since we have no sex drive or anything. And we don't really care what people look like even because we're not really programmed to be attracted to or repulsed by physical appearances. I mean we can develop preferences of course, but by default we really don't care much about what people look like at all." He smiled, "I haven't really experienced attraction... love.. whatever myself, but from what Asher's said, it's basically some mixture of admiration and understanding each other really well and being happier together and also a metric boatload of trust. I mean maybe it's more complicated than that, but that's the basic gist of it."

"So you've never felt any sort of attraction to anyone?" Luka asked, wow.. that was... weird.

James shook his head. "I mean I wanted to gawk at Esk one time when he was shirtless, but that was because he has a ton of scars and scales and tattoos to look at. And I have lots of friends, but all joking and flirting aside, none that I'd ever think of as anything other than friends."

Luka covered her mouth to stifle her giggle. "Man, why does everyone want that guy?" She snorted with amusement. "So what the heck was up with the flirting with the captain then?"

"I just wanted to see his pretty scales!" James said with a laugh. He smiled a bit oddly, "Insecurity. When you get bought by someone, you have no clue what they'll be like, so you do whatever you can to test them and see how much dominance you can assert. At least, that's what I did."

"Did it work?" Her expression softened.

James chuckled. "Not really. Acus just thought I was annoying and I was confused and stressed out because I had no clue what his refusal to give me orders meant. I kept thinking he was going to change his mind and start being some sort of awful dictator. It turned out okay though, after what happened to Avia we sort of got along better. And the freedom thing really helped."

Luka nodded. "I'm glad you don't have to obey those stupid instructions any more. " She shrugged. "I dunno, I don't think he's so bad. He's a pricky asshole sure, but a lot of old soldiers are. He's a whiney shit and his sexism pisses me off and makes me want to leave bras around just to set him off but... he's not so bad. I hope he's okay, losing Vicky as well as Silv... " She sighed. "Hope Vicky's okay too. She'll come back right? she has to come back."

"Yeah, he's kinda annoying but he's not a bad guy," James agreed. "There are plenty of worse captains than Acus. Vicky will be fine, she's crazy tough," he said, "No idea about Silv though, I never met her."