Aboard the Jade Shadow [Tuesday, Fandom time]

[momslilassassin]

Ben was grabbing a quick snack as he waited in the galley for his father to finish docking the ship on the first human-majority planet they'd seen in months and taking the chance to catch up on more reading about the Aing-Tii Monks. As soon as they restocked their supplies and checked for physical mail (Ben hoped that Tony's package would catch up with them here), they'd be heading into Aing-Tii space, which was a challenging enough flight that Luke Kriffing Skywalker looked slightly apprehensive about it.

Ben stopped being nervous by remembering that if Jacen had been able to do it, Luke would be able to do it better.

...it had never been said that Ben could not be very petty if the occasion called for it.

[OOC: Open for calls, texts, visits from the boy who's in space with him, care packages from home full of YA gay literature...]

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[momslilassassin]

Ben threw the clean black shirt at Ender, then took his own off and tossed that one for good measure. "You could have just said so."

[endsthegame]

Ender ducked the first one, though the second hit him across the side of the head, and he had to peel it off to... find out Ben was half-naked. Sigh.

"I had been hoping it wouldn't come up at all," he said, tossing the shirt back at Ben's bed in hopes he might put it back on.

[momslilassassin]

Ben wadded it up and used it as a pillow instead. "What, that'd we'd go an entire year and I wouldn't wonder if maybe someone from home might notice you'd disappeared?"

[endsthegame]

"So it was a particularly desperate hope," Ender said, trying to glare somewhere above Ben's abs.

[momslilassassin]

Ben wasn't making that easy by shifting onto his side to glare back. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

[endsthegame]

"Because it wasn't important," Ender said, mentally hammering his head repeatedly into a wall. "And I know you've got at least five reasons marching around your head about why it is, but if you examine them for more than a minute you'll realise all of them come down to 'I don't like it when you don't tell me things', which is not a reason."

[momslilassassin]

"Sure it is," Ben countered, "it's just not one you like to deal with. You hoard information like other people do jewels. I'm not a security risk. I'm your friend."

[endsthegame]

"Being my friend doesn't immediately make you entitled to knowing everything," Ender said. Whilst putting a folded shirt on the next stack as meticulously as he possibly could.

[momslilassassin]

Ben shoved aside a childish impulse to mess up that meticulous pile.

"Ender," he said, scrubbing his hand through his hair, "I don't want to know everything. But I know when I've hit a sore spot, and there's more to this than sneaking past the IF."

[endsthegame]

"I like how you've decided that all on your own," Ender said, lightly. "There isn't anything else going on. The IF doesn't know I'm here and I'd like to keep it that way, so the flow of information from me to home is limited."

Even more so than usual. "The end. No mysteries here, just a plain lack of relevance."

You were totally going to be able to note the moment this conversation happened in the timeline just by the general straightness of the clothes in the pile in Ender's wardrobe compartment.

"And every moment you're going on about it is turning this molehill into more of a mountain."

[momslilassassin]

"And you were just simultaneously having that conversation and really concerned about how all of your shirts lined up," Ben replied.

[endsthegame]

"Yep," Ender agreed, because he was a pain in the ass like that. "An orderly wardrobe is the first step to an orderly mind."

[momslilassassin]

"Kuso," Ben retorted, throwing the balled-up shirt again.

[endsthegame]

"Very mature," Ender said, snatching the shirt and tossing it at the bed this time.

[momslilassassin]

"You started it," Ben declared sulkily, rolling over and away from Ender.

[endsthegame]

"I didn't start anything," Ender said. The offense in his voice made him sound a bit like Peter.

[momslilassassin]

"Fine," Ben grumbled. "You're the embodiment of all virtues. Force forbid I try to get you to open up about something you've decided isn't a big deal."

[endsthegame]

"No one said anything about anyone being the embodiment of all virtues, but thanks for exaggerating," Ender said, glancing back up at him (now that that didn't mean being confronted by a whole lot of boy-chest). "There is nothing here that's important enough to talk about. Pouting isn't going to change that."

[momslilassassin]

"You're avoiding telling your family that you've skipped off to another galaxy. Pretty sure he'd have an opinion if we asked Dad if it was okay for me to do that."

He didn't disagree about the pouting, though.

[endsthegame]

"Your dad," Ender said, finally giving up on the clothes so he could sit down on his own bunk, "Is a different case entirely."

[momslilassassin]

"How so?" Ben asked, staring at the ceiling.

[endsthegame]

Ender was fairly sure that 'because he doesn't have a murderous, divisive bastard for a son' was the right answer here, so he didn't say it. "For one, he'd have the ability to track you down and smack you around the head if you gave it a shot," he said, opting for the semi-deflecting answer instead.

[momslilassassin]

"A problem, but not an insurmountable one," Ben decided. "You don't think your dad would try to track you down here?"

He poked his head over the side of the bed to look at Ender. "Or are you afraid he wouldn't bother?"

[endsthegame]

Ender sighed in irritation. He reached down and began to get his boots of. "No, I don't think so, and no, I'm not afraid he wouldn't bother," he said. He was one hundred percent sure John Paul wouldn't, and that was absolutely fine. "My parents aren't a factor, but you know that already, oh nosy one."

[momslilassassin]

All of the blood was beginning to rush to Ben's head, so he flipped over the side of the bunk to drop onto Ender's...oops, boots.

"Ow," he complained lightly. "And parents are always a factor, even if they only exist in a vacuum to be replaced by a couple of crotchety old soldiers."

And in that case, Graff was the worst mother ever.