Milliways: Reo and Mark

[remindmeofthepups]

To say that the last couple of days have been overwhelming is an understatement. Reo has just barely begun to process half of what's happened, and now it's time for his first practice as a member of Seirin.

He is not the tiniest bit sorry to see Milliways on the other side of the gym door. He's been hoping for it in the back of his head all weekend; he needs more time to come to grips with the fact that his entire life has turned upside down, and Milliways is the only place where he can get all the time he needs.

He considers his options before heading to the fireplace. The comfort of the fire's warmth and squishy couches is the most appealing thing he can imagine right now.

Comments

[showyousomethingnice]

Quietly:

"Yeah. Not that it was very hard for him. I was really lonely in middle school. My teammates all hated me. None of them wanted a queeny fag on their team."

He spits the slur out bitterly. The only unreservedly good thing about Kirisaki Daiichi was that he never once heard it from a teammate there.

He's not looking forward to going back to having a captain who undoubtedly thinks it whenever he looks at Reo.

"I was probably the easiest target Mako-chan's ever gone after."

[unmarred]

"I'm... sorry to hear that," he says, a little uncertainly; social niceties are not his strongest area, even - perhaps especially - when he means them. "I've been lonely, too, but not quite the same way."

[showyousomethingnice]

Reo nods a little.

"Is cloning common on your world?" he asks, thinking that if not, being the only one or close to it would be very lonely indeed.

[unmarred]

"Not very. And often, when it's done, it's done for nasty reasons. There's an entire industry - small in galactic terms, but thriving - based around cloning someone, growing the clone to adulthood in ten years, then transferring the customer's brain into their clone's body. Which kills the clone, of course. It's a small industry because it's illegal on every planet but one."

[showyousomethingnice]

Reo sucks a breath in sharply.

"That's awful!"

Made even moreso by the fact that the person telling him about it is a clone himself.

[unmarred]

"Yeah," he agrees. "The people Galen paid to make me, that's their usual business. Until I was five, I was raised with the clones who were made to be murdered. But I tried to run away too often, and it gave the rest of the children ideas, so they sent me to Galen five years early."

[showyousomethingnice]

The phrase made to be murdered is the new worst thing Reo has heard in Milliways.

"Do - do they know, that -" He shakes his head. "No, I'm sorry, that can't possibly be something you want to talk about. I'm glad your own situation was at least preferable to that."

Being as it has resulted in still being alive and having a family. Or a soon-to-be family, anyway.

[unmarred]

"They have rumours. But they don't know. And yeah. I knew I was different because I looked strange, compared to all the other children. They were all made as healthy as possible, for the customers, but my brother has a bone density problem that wasn't genetic; they had to use all kinds of drugs and surgery to make me turn out short and slightly crooked instead of six feet tall and perfectly normal-looking."

[showyousomethingnice]

"No wonder you tried to run away," Reo murmurs. He doubts those procedures were especially pleasant.

[unmarred]

"Yeah. It wasn't much fun."