Chapter Text
Pat
When Pat Butcher arrives at Button House, the sky is grey and bleak and matches his trepidatious mood.
He had seen the housemate ad online a while back and had immediately dismissed it, thinking he was dreaming or that it was someone's idea of a bad joke. For £200 a month in Surrey, he was expecting a room the size of a match box, with a dripping pipe as a shower and a portaloo as a bog or something. The photos, however, made it certainly seem spacious - it even looked like he’d have a double bed, though he wasn’t sure how that was manageable on that budget.
But now. Well.
Now he’s pulled up in the driveway of what can only be a mansion.
He must have taken a wrong turn. Or maybe his room is tucked away in a half built barn somewhere in the grounds. He’ll have a bit of tarpaulin as a blanket and he’ll be allowed access to a microwave every other Tuesday. That’s the only way any of this makes sense.
He gets out of the car and stands with his hands on his hips, staring up at the beast of a house in front of him.
This can’t be it, surely? He’s absolutely come to the wrong place.
He recalls the part of the advert that had said that he’d have free reign of the house, but he could only dream of setting foot in a house like this, let alone having ‘free reign’ of it.
He checks the address on his phone again and it is right, but it can’t be.
There's only one thing for it though, isn't there?
He steels himself and crunches across the gravel towards the front door, preparing to either be very, very surprised or to ask for directions to where he actually needs to go instead.
He takes a deep breath before he knocks on the door. There’s a polished brass knocker and the sound echoes. One single bird is disturbed by the noise and it caws as it flies away.
The door opens soon after that with very little fanfare besides an alarming creak and then Pat is face to…well…chest with a handsome man in an old army uniform. He's got greying hair, cut short and neat, and a moustache to rival his own.
Neither of them speak. The man - a Captain, if Pat remembers correctly - just stares at him in uncomfortable silence until Pat can’t help but blurt out something, literally anything.
“Hello!” He sticks out his hand for him to shake, “I’m Pat! I answered the roommate ad for the house…at least I think it’s this house?”
“Mmhmm.” The man nods and he finally accepts his hand in a firm shake.
Pat waits for him to say something else (anything useful really) but he doesn’t.
“So…this is the house then?”
“Yes.” He says quietly.
That just won’t do. Pat sure isn’t going to let this awkwardness cling to them for much longer, not if they’re gonna be roommates for the foreseeable future.
“Great!” He grins, “That must make you the Captain then. I don’t think your name was actually on the ad, sorry!”
The Captain takes a step backwards into the shadows of the house and turns for a second, looking at something behind him.
“Captain is sufficient.” He says bluntly before he turns back.
Pat swallows heavily.
“Righto.”
The front door opens a little wider, and the Captain gestures in a way that could be described as 'beckoning'.
“Oh?” Pat points inside the house, “Am I -? Am I coming in?”
The Captain nods and so Pat steps past him and into the house where he's immediately hit by the smell of old books, and some kind of dried herb-y scent - rosemary potentially, and lavender too - and…suncream?
“Wow!” Pat exclaims as he turns on the spot, taking in as much of the house as he can, “This is just…fantastic!”
The Captain just hums noncommittally again and starts walking.
“Oh? Straight onto the tour, are we?” Pat scuttles forward to keep up with him.
Once he's back beside him, the Captain starts to tell him a little about the house, though he sounds a bit like he’s reciting a presentation in front of the whole school rather than talking with any amount of pride about his home.
“The facade is 16th century.” He explains tiredly, “And Henry VIII actually dined here once.”
“Wow!” Pat says again, despite the fact that the Captain's got the tone of someone having his teeth pulled.
He continues nonetheless.
“Feel free to read any books in the library.”
Any books in the library, he says! Like there aren't hundreds upon hundreds of books here, with no doubt even more hidden away in other rooms too. Pat could probably live five lifetimes before finishing every book in this bloody house.
He hurries on, trying his best to keep up with the Captain while also taking in his surroundings and remembering how to get from place to place.
“I don't want…” The Captain pauses at Pat’s bedroom door with a resigned slump to his shoulders, “I don’t want to toot our own horn but some say this is the finest house in the county.” He says quickly.
He huffs like he’s just rolled his eyes and pushes the door open. The room is even bigger than the pictures demonstrated, and Pat can’t get over the shock that it’s technically his now. It all just seems a bit quick but that’s how the modern world works with housemate searching, he supposes.
The Captain leads him around, opening all the drawers and the wardrobe door and telling him where the nearest big bathroom is (just across the hall, apparently). The sheets are washed, he tells him, though apparently the duvet and pillows themselves might be a bit past their best. There is a clearly hand-knitted throw in various shades of green on the end of the bed.
Pat can’t help but notice that the Captain keeps looking at him and then getting a bit nervous because he’ll abruptly turn away to the rest of the room while explaining things. Over half of everything he says to him is spoken with his back turned which should be off-putting but Pat finds that, in a way, it’s good to know that he’s not the only one feeling anxious about this.
The man's a little odd, Pat can't deny that, but he also seems totally harmless and very sincere.
He's still confused by the uniform though.
“Am I keeping you from something?” He asks nicely when they’ve finished the tour and are back at the front door, “You can go if you've got plans. I’m fine to unpack my stuff myself.”
His reasoning is that the Captain might be dressed up for some kind of WW2 re-enactment thing (he’s got a good eye, alright? He can see the awards and he knows that’s not a modern uniform). He seems like the kind of guy who'd like that anyway. He sort of has the vibe of an eccentric posh person with an entire mansion who needs equally eccentric ways to spend his time.
“Hmm?” The Captain says, and he shakes his head.
“I just thought -” Pat gestures at him, a part of his brain aware that he’s about to put his foot in it, “- what with the uniform and all?”
The Captain stares down at himself, smoothes a hand down the front of his uniform like he'd fully forgotten what he was wearing and then looks back up at him.
“Not that I'm judging.” Pat raises his hands in surrender, “I'm just curious.”
The Captain's expression is pained as he looks around the foyer.
“Hmm.”
It's amazing how one little sound can convey so much embarrassment.
The Captain turns and opens the front door of the house instead of explaining anything. He peers outside at the moody clouds.
“Shall we get your things from the car?” He asks tersely.
That’s the end of that conversation then, Pat thinks as he watches the Captain march across the gravel towards his car and then his brain kicks back into gear and he scurries after him.
Pat clicks the car keys as he walks and the Captain opens the boot, but not before he flinches slightly at the little ‘bib bib’ noise that it makes.
“That one’s a bit heavy.” Pat advises him as he reaches for the nearest box, the one that he left ‘til last to put in the car because he was worried he’d slip a disk lifting it.
The Captain lifts it like it weighs nothing and then pauses when Pat’s words hit him.
“Oh, yes.” He stoops over a little bit, “Yes, it is a bit heavy.”
And then he carries it across the driveway and into the house like it’s a box of chocolates rather than a box containing all of the books that Pat has ever owned.
He’s clearly stronger than he looks then. Must go to the gym a lot. Pat grabs another - much lighter - box, thinking that he might as well make use of the stronger man, after all.
“Sorry.” He apologises as a bit of drizzle starts to fall when they make their way to his car for the second time, “Bit of a miserable day to be traipsing back and forth with my things. Feel like I haven’t seen the sun in ages.”
“No, no. This is fine.” The Captain says vaguely from behind him, “I don’t fare well in warm weather anyway.”
“Oh, right.”
He had sort of hoped that the Captain would be a bit more chatty on his first day in the house. He had also thought the other man might ask him why he wanted the room, for example, but maybe he just wants someone to ask, rather than just him in particular.
Because, nice as the Captain seems, it’s not like Pat particularly wants to move into a random mansion in the countryside with an equally random stranger, but that’s what happens when you discover your wife enthusiastically cheating on you with your best friend and then you have to move into your mum’s house for over a year because she had a fall and then you just can’t leave because you can’t even afford to rent anywhere else, let alone buy a house.
He’s fine. Everything is fine.
It’s just common decency to ask, surely?
Even then though Pat would probably just end up saying he doesn’t want to talk about it.
He hauls his next bag out of the car with bitter gusto. If the Captain notices, he doesn’t comment. He doesn’t say much of anything really.
Pat staggers upstairs with one suitcase while the Captain finds the big suitcase that Pat hands him equally as easy to carry as the big box of books. He places the suitcase gently in the doorway of Pat’s bedroom and then promptly rips the handle off when he tries to pull it further into the room.
They both stare at the handle in the Captain's hand.
“Huh.” Pat says and then he smiles cheerily, “Don't know your own strength, eh?”
The Captain just looks even more confused, and a little bit scared.
“Uh?” He says coherently.
“It’s fine!” Pat flaps a hand, “Just a suitcase handle. I’m sure I’ll be able to fix it. I'm very handy!”
The Captain nods awkwardly.
****
All of the boxes and suitcases are safely in Pat’s room, except for the last one - a bag-for-life filled with an assortment of kitchen utensils and cleaning supplies, which he put on the kitchen table. He sets to work unpacking that first, because a man’s gotta eat and - because he’s seen the state of the bathroom nearest his room - it seems a man’s gotta clean too.
His brain is miles away, thinking a bit about Carol, and a bit about how he's hungry, and a bit about how he wishes there was some music playing to drown out the silence in the room because neither he or the Captain are saying anything. This myriad of distractions means he ends up nicking his hand in his hurry to get a grater - of all things - out of the bag.
“Ah, bugger.” He brings his hand up to his mouth and it stings.
“Captain, do you have a first aid kit?” He calls to the other man, who just continues to hover unhelpfully near the sink, “I’ve got one in the car if not.”
“Uh.”
Pat turns, sucking on the cut on his knuckle.
“I -” The Captain stutters out, “I’m…not very good with blood. Sorry.”
He takes several steps backwards and then points behind him with his thumb.
“I’ve actually got to go now. I have work. I’ll be working, is what I mean. It’s a report. You know how it is with deadlines.”
He chuckles nervously from the doorway.
“Sure thing.” Pat tries not to stare too much at him too much as his face does a strange little twitch, “You’ve already been really nice helping me get my stuff in.”
“I’ll leave you to get settled. I’ll be working, as I said, but, uh, let me know if you need anything at all.”
He blinks and the Captain is gone.
The cut on his knuckle is more superficial than he thought. He presses some kitchen cloth to it for a moment and it’s already fine.
The Captain works from home then, he thinks to himself, and he wonders if he’ll get any more information out of the man later.
****
Never let it be said that Pat is ever unprepared. He really is a Scout, through and through.
The only reason he has yet to do the food shop is because he'd been wanting to scope out what food already existed in the house. Upon opening the fridge and the pantry, he found…absolutely nothing (!) which was really, really weird. A part of him hopes that the Captain has also just moved in, because that would explain that particular mystery, but he knows that’s not the case. That man has clearly been here for a good, long while.
But maybe there’s a second kitchen in the house (he wouldn’t be surprised, it’s bloody massive) and the Captain prefers that one. That would make more sense, for sure.
What Pat lacks in food he makes up for in cleaning supplies. He has gloves, he has bleach, he has j-cloths coming out of his ears. He is so ready for this.
The kitchen is in fairly good condition; no crumbs or weird stains or funny smells to be found. He just gives the surfaces a cursory wipe to be safe.
The bathroom near his room though? Well, it’s in good enough nick, but it’s clearly been unused for a long time, because there’s a thin layer of dust covering everything.
The Captain is busy working whatever report he needs to send off and so Pat is on his own, literally on his hands and knees scrubbing away at the slightly sticky floor, cleaning the bath, getting rid of cobwebs, and checking the water pressure in the shower (it’s bad, really bad, like being sneezed on by a flu-ridden frog).
He traipses back downstairs to the kitchen and puts a load of laundry on (he doesn’t quite trust those sheets) before he realises he can’t find an airer, though he does find some old wooden pegs under the kitchen sink and a washing line in the garden but that’s not exactly helpful on this overcast, drizzly day.
He does also find the remains of what clearly used to be an extensive vegetable patch. He can still see the pallets and some sticks - probably for tomatoes - but the whole garden has obviously long since been forgotten. He hopes the Captain doesn’t mind if he has a go at reviving it - he can already feel his heart leaping at the thought. God, that would make him so happy.
While the washing is still on, he goes to the nearest supermarket which ends up being one of those big 24-Hour Tescos. He planned his meals for the next week before he left and now he makes his way methodically through the store, stocking up on the basics to get him through: your tinned tomatoes, your array of spices, your stock cubes, your big bags of pasta and rice, just the foundation of any shopping trip. He also buys an airer because it’ll be good to have his own even if he does manage to find another one in that ginormous house later.
He is ravenously hungry by the time he returns to the house (not quite a home yet, unfortunately). It must be about half two in the afternoon. The Captain walks in on him chowing down on a cheese and onion pastry and says nothing. That’s becoming a bit of a theme now, but this is probably the one time that Pat is thankful for his silence.
He leans against the counter, looking more relaxed than Pat has seen him all day.
“Need any help?” He asks, pointing at the bags of shopping that Pat has yet to put away. His late lunch took precedence, alright?
They stand next to each other unpacking each bag-for-life and laying the food out on the huge kitchen table. They both seem to automatically follow the same order: fruit and veg down one end, fridge stuff, freezer stuff, stuff for the pantry.
“Did ya get your report done?” Pat keeps his voice light, pretending that he’s not trying to pry in order to learn more about the Captain.
“Report?” The other man parrots back, “Oh, yes, the report. Yes, I made good progress with that.”
“And what is it you do?” Pat asks, putting a tin of kidney beans down on the table.
“It’s, uh, a freelance job. For a publishing firm. I get sent potential manuscripts and I write reports on them, whether I like them or don’t like them. It helps them figure out what’ll be popular, I believe.”
“Oh, right?”
Pat’s not sure why he’s surprised. Maybe because the Captain is still wearing that uniform, and so he seems much more like a leader than a follower. He’d kind of assumed he’d actually be in the army, or that he’d be in some high-flying job as a lawyer, or even just some more hands-on, no nonsense work. Whereas this freelance review writing - he doesn’t even have to leave the house, apparently, just sends off reports when he wants to. It’s just…not what he was expecting, he supposes.
“It’s not much.” The Captain mumbles, “But it pays the bills and it’s something to do, to be honest.”
“No, it sounds great!” Pat says, and it’s not actually a lie, but it comes across as one.
“Where…where do you work?” The Captain seems hesitant to keep the conversation going.
“The bank.” Pat’s reply is simple enough.
“Oh.” The Captain looks him up and down, scrutinising him in a much more obvious way than Pat was doing to him just second before, and then he walks away, holding multiple boxes of tea in his arms, with his chin keeping them in place.
“Do you enjoy it?” He calls from inside the pantry.
“Does anyone enjoy their job?” Pat feels somewhat bitter, “I’ve just never really done anything else.”
It’s an awfully personal thing to say, especially to someone as taciturn as his new housemate, who just hums in response when he emerges from the larder. Conversation over, apparently.
They finish putting away the food. Pat has to admit the kitchen has perked up a lot in his eyes now it contains the things it’s actually meant to house.
“Oh, I meant to ask, Cap.” He calls out, just as the Captain is walking away from him, “The water pressure in the bathroom near my room is pretty bad. I've descaled the shower head but it might be a boiler pressure issue. Do you have any idea how to fix that or should I call a plumber?”
The Captain stares at him, his posture tense.
“Right, ok.” He takes a deep breath, turns on his heel and adds sharply, “Follow me.”
And so Pat follows him. And to be honest he wishes he hadn’t because they walk down a set of stairs into what is without a doubt the creepiest fucking cellar in the world. The light nearest the door doesn’t even work and he has to use his phone to shine a torchlight into the pit of despair instead.
They stand in front of a bunch of pipes and knobs and levers that Pat has no idea how to approach. His first suggestion would be to hit everything with a hammer and hope for the best. He assumes the Captain has a better idea.
“So.” The Captain murmurs to himself, tapping his chin, “We want to fix the water pressure in the bathroom nearest the Blue Room. Let me just try to jog my memory.”
And then he jerks towards him with a small ‘gah!’ as if avoiding something, maybe a cobweb or a humongous spider attached to a cobweb, or a creepy person waiting in the dark with a machete.
“Ah, yes.” He says shakily, and then he reaches forward towards something, “I remember now.”
****
Pat’s not sure what the other man has done, but he’s pretty sure that the shower could strip varnish off boats now. And he actually does shower, because he’s tidied everything up as much as he can be bothered to today, and so he allows himself plenty of time to relax. He relishes in feeling like his skin’s being sandpapered clean and emerges from the bathroom reborn and ready to change into fresh clothes.
It’s almost time to make some dinner. He briefly wonders whether he should extend an invitation to cook for the Captain or not. It could be a good bonding moment for them, but also he’s absolutely fucking knackered and he’s not sure he’s got much power in him left for more socialising.
He’s hung up his laundry, he’s unpacked his suitcases so all his clothes are packed away in the wardrobe and drawers now, he organised all his books on the bookshelf (alphabetical by surname). He’s bloomin’ exhausted. An easy dinner tonight then.
He emerges from his room and walks down the corridor. It’s probably not the quickest route to the kitchen but it’s the only one he knows. He has a feeling he’s going to keep getting lost in this house for a while.
He turns the corner and the Captain is walking along in the other direction. He smiles at him and waves.
He’s sure the Captain smiles back at him, but he can’t have noticed him because he just…keeps walking until they both knock into each other roughly.
“Woah there!” Pat catches the Captain with his hands on his upper arms.
“Sorry! I…wasn’t looking where I was going?” The Captain says to his shoes.
“Thought you were gonna walk right through me there!” Pat laughs.
“Yes.” The Captain laughs nervously, “Certainly seemed like it.”
They stay like that for a moment longer before Pat realises that he’s still clinging to the Captain's elbows. He lets go abruptly and the other man takes a step back, before pointing past him to the other end of the corridor.
“I should…go.” He says feebly and then he’s off again.
What an odd man.
****
Pat cooks easy stir fry noodles for dinner and drowns them in soy sauce. The Captain is nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t want to eat alone at the large kitchen table so he goes to one of the many rooms with a TV. It’s already on actually, though again the Captain is still nowhere nearby - and Pat decides to keep it on the channel it’s already on, playing West Side Story which isn’t his favourite musical, but it’s better than nothing.
At some point his own tiredness overwhelms him and he drifts off.
He wakes to the sound of the Captain gently calling his name.
“Hello?” He calls out, blinking rapidly, disoriented.
“Patrick.” The Captain says calmly, “You fell asleep. I thought I best wake you so you don’t get a crick in your neck.”
The Captain swims into focus slowly. He’s lit only slightly by a small lamp in the corner of the room. Shadows encroach against the walls. Pat’s nearly-finished noodles are almost tipping out of his bowl. He takes a second to reorientate himself.
“Good thinking, Batman.” He mumbles and scrubs at his face with his hands, balancing the bowl on his lap again.
“Excuse me?” The Captain sounds tense and confused.
“What?”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“It’s - it’s just something people say, in’t it?” Pat is baffled by the other man and how he seems both offended and fearful at the same time, “Or maybe it’s just my family who say it, I don’t know.”
“R - right.” The Captain stutters and nods his head, “Alright.”
“You good, mate?” Pat clambers to his feet.
“Just, uh, overtired, I think.” The Captain pinches the bridge of his nose.
Pat looks at his watch - it’s only just nine o’clock but he really does feel like he could go right back to sleep. It’s been a long old day.
“I’m gonna head to bed now, actually.” He tells him, “Get an early night and all.”
They don’t know each other well enough for him to suggest that the Captain does the same without coming across like a judgy twat, but he tries to make it subtext.
“Yes.” The Captain scrubs at his face, “Yes, I ought to as well.”
“Thank you for letting me have the room, Captain.” Pat says sincerely, as the other man walks with him to his room, “And thank you for being so welcoming.”
He might be stretching the truth a little there but sue him, he’s trying to suck up to the guy he’s gonna be living with for - well, he’s not sure how long actually. He’d originally thought it’d just be until he saved up enough to get his own house but this mansion is big enough for two people to live in and go days without seeing each other. And if he does want company, then he can hang out with the Captain if he wants to. It’s kind of a perfect situation really. He doesn’t think he’d mind staying here for longer than he planned.
“Oh. Well.” The Captain smiles the tiniest amount - shyly, it seems - and does a strange little bounce on the balls of his feet, “I’m just glad you like the place.”
Pat smiles at him.
“It’s lovely here. I can see myself staying here for a good long while.”
They say goodnight. The Captain walks down the corridor and turns back.
“Oh, Patrick. I can’t remember if I’ve said but, uh, don’t go near the lake, okay?” He says, mysteriously, “It’s just. It’s very boggy. Not really safe by the edge. But everywhere else is fine.”
Well, that's intriguing as hell and he immediately fights the urge to go down there right now. If the Captain says it's not safe, then he supposes he ought to trust him.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Pat nods. “Night, Captain.”
“Goodnight. Uh, sleep well.”
****
He doesn’t see the Captain for a week after that.
He doesn’t hear the front door go at all, he doesn’t hear him moving around the house, not so much as a toilet flushing or anything. He can only assume he’s not here - perhaps on a work trip that he forgot to mention or he could be visiting a friend or family. In any case, Pat makes the most of being alone in the house, whacking the music up and dancing around while he’s cleaning every room he didn’t get to on the first day. Between that, he’s back at the bank. It’s a longer commute now, so he has to get up earlier just to put on his boring suit and pretend to care about what he’s doing there. Overall, it's a bit of a bore.
But he also had his first night at his new Cub pack which was very exciting. He’d been nervous about starting somewhere new, but the other leaders couldn’t have been kinder to him, and the kids couldn’t have been more enthusiastic. They were cooking pancakes on Trangia stoves which wasn't the easiest because the Cubs’ little hands weren't very good at flipping them and Trangias aren't exactly known for being non-stick. One kid did also try to drink the methylated spirit but Pat caught him just in time. He can't wait until the summer when the weather is nicer and they can go onto the Scout land and build proper fires and make twists and he can show them how to boil an egg on a stick, or they can wrap potatoes in tin foil and cook those in the embers. God, it just brings him so much joy. Certainly makes up for how boring he’s been finding his job recently.
****
When he does see the Captain again, it’s about nine in the evening on the Saturday a week following when he first moved in. He’s just been in the kitchen grabbing a glass of water before bed and putting the remainder of his soup into Tupperware when he stumbles across the other man in the drawing room on his way back upstairs.
He’s sitting on the floor, a large fire blazing in the fireplace, and he has piles of books surrounding him, all ranging in size and age. He has a pencil behind his ear and a pen in his hand. He has ink on his nose.
He has also - remarkably - shed his jacket, and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. His tie is loosened. He’s wearing suspenders which Pat has never noticed before but he can’t dwell on that too much or he’ll pass out, probably.
“Whatcha doing?” He asks gently.
The Captain jumps with a small ‘oh!’ and snaps his book closed.
Pat grins.
“I - I was just -” He gestures at the books around him, “learning Latin?”
“Latin? Blimey. That’s...fun?”
The Captain frowns a bit.
“It’s necessary.” He says tensely, “Mustn’t let these things slip, after all.”
The Captain gives off the aura of one of those boys who got sent off to a posh boarding school and was forced to learn Latin from a young age and also be friendly to Conservatives or...God, what if he actually is a Conservative? Pat hopes that’s not the case. That'd be a significant bummer.
“I dunno if you saw but there was some soup on the hob. Made it for dinner. I just put it in some Tupperware. You're welcome to it.”
“Tupperware.” The Captain repeats this quietly to himself, “Oh, yes. I tried some earlier. It was nice.”
He looks around him, under several pieces of paper and some books before he presumably remembers where his pencil is and plucks it from behind his ear.
“I’ve not really seen you since I’ve moved in.” Pat tells him, though he’s sure that the Captain already knows, “Did you maybe want to watch some telly together before bed?”
The Captain looks up at him again, squinting slightly.
“Uh, sure.” He nods, “Let me just clear this up. You can choose something to watch.”
“Nice, ok!” Pat tries not to be too eager and fails, but he's lonely, alright, so no one can blame him, “I figured out how to add Netflix onto the telly too.”
“Oh. Good.” The Captain narrows his eyes, “Is that a show or…?”
“It’s Netflix.” Pat stares at him and then repeats, “Netflix.”
He looks none the wiser despite this repetition.
“Have you been living under a rock?”
“I don’t get out much.” The Captain shrugs.
“You’re telling me!”
They watch a couple of episodes of Friends together - which the Captain has also never seen or even heard of - until he starts to feel tired, and the Captain starts yawning too. He knows when to call it a night. The Captain walks him back to his room again, which is chivalrous of him.
“Sleep well.” He tells him.
The Captain smiles at him like they’re sharing a private joke.
“Yes. You too.” He nods and then he walks away.
Pat falls asleep that night with a brand new determination to make this work and, more importantly, to make friends with the Captain properly.
It just makes sense to be proper mates if they're going to live together, doesn’t it?