Title: Poorly planned
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 700 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Geo and Zazu, probably pre canon.
Summary: “Someone come get Zazu out of the pipes before he injures himself bad enough I have to do any of his work, he’s ignoring the rest of us.”


oOo




Geo was used to getting reports that there was some chaos going on in the depths of the NSX, and that it had to do with the mechanic’s department. It wasn’t even just Zazu who was prone to bouts of furious and yet productive chaos: the team they’d ended up with over the past few years were all highly skilled and exceedingly loyal to their ship, their ridiculously young boss, and after that their also painfully young commander. The rest of the crew were generally cheerfully tolerated as long as they shared those priorities.

They didn’t precisely share the army’s general belief in things like formal address or showing restrained forms of respect to anyone who outranked them, which meant it wasn’t that unusual for someone – Forza, in this instance – to open the door to the officer’s lounge (technically not something she should be able to do), rap her knuckles against the doorframe for attention, and say “Someone come get Zazu out of the pipes before he injures himself bad enough I have to do any of his work, he’s ignoring the rest of us.”

Geo took a deep breath, and sighed. He was the only one in the lounge, right now – Eagle was on the bridge, ostensibly on duty but hopefully actually dozing in the Commander’s big, comfy chair. So he got to his feet, and followed Forza down into the depths of the NSX’s service corridors, to the point where the sound of metal clanging on metal and the occasional swearword was enough for him to follow, then she turned and left him to it.

Following the stream of irritated noise, he found the duct that it seemed to be coming from, and stuck his head inside. He could see Zazu’s boots, and the shine of a worklight reflecting on the metal beyond him, and the noise of whatever he was… hitting the ducting with, by the look of it – surrounded them both, awful in its echoing persistence.

“Zazu,” he said, and winced as Zazu’s head shot up and thumped against the top of the duct, followed by a lot more swearing. “…Are you trying to break the ship?” he asked, when the swearing died down a fraction, deciding ‘are you okay’ wasn’t going to get a useful response.

“I am swearing vengeance on the person who decided to put the connections for the power to the main bay’s charging facilities in the fucking ducts then decided to cover them over! With extra ducting! Without access panels!” Zazu thumped his hands on the panel above himself, which did seem a little smaller than most of the sections Geo could see.

“…Right.”

“No forgiveness for this crime against – against mechanics!” Zazu hissed. “Small mechanics who get talked into going into ducts looking for missing access panels-“

“Zazu,” Geo said, again, and managed to reach in far enough he could tap his hand on the side of Zazu’s boot, though his shoulders didn’t want to fit into the duct. “Is anything going to explode if you leave this for tonight?”

It was a legitimate question. But Zazu’s sigh was reassuring, before he even answered.

“No. But the GTO won’t be fully powered, there’s a problem somewhere I need to track down-“

“We’re days from anywhere,” Geo pointed out. “We can switch off the FTO and the GTO on the other connectors, if they’re still working, but I’m not expecting to need them. Now get your ass out of there and come eat. You can come back to swearing vengeance after you’ve had a full shift off.”

Zazu muttered, but he pulled himself out of the duct, slowly, moving like he’d wrenched his shoulder as well as having a couple of bruises Geo could see. But he was out, and grateful, even if he spent the entire next hour grouching about ridiculously bad designs until he fell asleep on the bench at the side of the officer’s lounge.

Geo shook his head, and pulled up the paperwork Eagle wasn’t going to bother filling out so he had something to do while he waited for the next moment of chaos either of his friends decided to visit on him.