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It wasn’t uncommon for Porter to come back to the freight shed long after midnight.
The yard had gone still by then. Just the hum of the overhead lights, the soft click of cooling metal, and the faint scent of oil that never quite left the air. The world felt bigger at that hour, and quieter - a kind of peace he only ever got when everyone else was asleep.
He always came back to check on things. Or at least that’s what he told himself.
Make sure Slick hadn’t set something on fire.
Check that Lumber wasn’t ignoring another fault because he couldn’t be bothered to mention it.
And lately, to see that Hydra wasn’t about two seconds away from blowing the lot of them up.
Truth was, he didn’t know how to stop checking. The habit had sunk too deep. Nights were the only time the yard went quiet enough for him to hear the things that worried him - the hiss of pressure valves, the echo of memories he’d rather not. No matter how dysfunctional, they were his siblings. His family.
He’d always been Lumber’s brother. The two of them left and abandoned when Porter was eleven and Lumber was nine.
He’d managed to get them as far as the Wembley yard, and thanks to Momma, they’d been taken in and looked after, even in those rough early days, when the yard was still finding its feet.
Slick had come along not long after. Found on the outskirts of the yard, a scrap of a freight with a note Momma had read and then folded away with a sigh. Slick had been six then - wide-eyed, loud, impossible not to love.
Momma had tried to keep the burden off him, but there was too much work for one caretaker. So Porter did what he always did. He stepped in.
He’d thought it was temporary, back then. Just until Slick was old enough to stop needing him. Just until Lumber started pulling his own weight. But temporary things had a way of turning permanent when no one else stepped up.
So here he was. Fifteen years later, still making sure they were alive and breathing.
He sometimes wondered if that meant he’d done his job right, or if he’d made it too easy for them to lean on him. Maybe both. Either way, he couldn’t stop. The thought of not checking, not knowing, sat wrong in his chest. Too quiet. Too empty.
Hydra was a recent addition to the family.
They’d arrived a few weeks ago - all sparkly and shiny and new, and very, very out of touch with the working world. Everything about them screamed “fresh from the factory floor,” from their spotless paint to the way they spoke like they’d swallowed an instruction manual.
From the moment they’d opened their mouth, Slick had declared them public enemy number one. She’d been constantly mumbling under her breath about the “rolling hazard,” loud enough for everyone to hear but quiet enough to claim innocence.
Lumber, as usual, had gone along with her, content to let someone else do the thinking. And Porter…well, if he was honest, he’d been inclined to agree with Slick - at least at first. Hydra’s talk about efficiency and green fuels had rubbed him the wrong way, like being told off by someone who’d never worked a real day in their life.
Still, he was better than impulse decisions. He’d had to be, raising Slick. So he’d humoured the hydrogen tanker, told himself they’d settle in eventually. But looking back, he could see where he’d gone wrong. Maybe he’d kept too much distance. Maybe he’d let Slick’s sharp words colour his own.
It wasn’t easy, admitting he’d misjudged someone - not after all these years of being the one expected to know better. But he could see it now, clear as a yard light on a foggy night. He’d been unfair.
And that, more than anything, probably led to now.
Porter, dragging himself back to the freight shed at some godforsaken hour, ready to finally put the day behind him, only to find a wide-eyed freight pacing just outside the doors.
Hydra.
The hydrogen tanker stood beneath the yard lights, tracing a perfect, anxious line in the gravel. Their lips moved in a steady stream of words Porter couldn’t make out from this distance - equations maybe, or apologies. Every few seconds they’d stop, wring their hands like the motion might hold them together, then start again.
Porter frowned. At this hour, the yard was dead to the world. The lights inside the shed were dimmed, the air thick with the kind of stillness that made every small sound echo. Even the night felt tired. Hydra’s glow - that faint, soft green - cut through it all, a restless pulse in the dark.
He could’ve ignored it. Starlight knew he’d earned the right to. His joints ached, his eyes were gritty with fatigue, and all he wanted was his bunk and silence.
But Hydra was new. New and nervous and too clever for their own good. The kind who thought too much and slept too little.
And Porter, for better or worse, had never been able to walk past a kid in a state; not when he knew exactly what that kind of lost looked like.
He sighed through his nose, tugged at his collar, and stepped closer. Gravel crunched beneath his boots.
“You alright, Hydra?”
No answer. Just more muttering - a string of half-formed equations and apologies that sounded more like panic than logic.
He tried again, a little louder. “Hydra?”
They startled, as if caught in the act of something forbidden. Head snapping up, wide eyes catching the light. “Yes?”
Porter softened his tone. “I asked if you were alright.”
“Oh.” Hydra blinked, words tripping over themselves like loose cargo. “No. Everyone seems to hate me, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, because the lab said this wouldn’t happen, and it’s not how it’s gone, and everything has changed, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m not used to this place, and-”
“Hydra, sweet,” Porter said quietly, letting the softness in his voice carry across the gravel, “you need to breathe, aye? Calm yourself down a bit.”
“How can I calm down when nothing is right?”
He rubbed a hand over his face, jaw tight. He exhaled through his nose. “This is a new one,” he muttered to himself. They’re just not used to this world, he thought. Not yet. Not like Slick or Lumber were.
Hydra stared at him, their voice cracking on the next words. “And why do you care? You and Slick and Lumber seem to want me to leave every time I speak. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
The question hung in the air; sharp, trembling, and too honest for the hour.
Porter didn’t answer straight away. He just stood there, watching the way Hydra’s lights flickered faintly with every uneven breath. It reminded him of a headlight on its last fuse, straining to hold steady.
He’d heard that tone before - from Slick when she’d been younger, convinced the whole world was laughing at her; from Lumber, when the weight of unspoken things finally cracked through; and from himself, once, long ago, when no one had been around to hear it.
And here it is again, he thought.
A long breath escaped him, carrying the ache of too many sleepless nights - the kind that made your bones feel heavy and your chest full of things you couldn’t quite name.
“You're not doin’ anything wrong, Hydra,” he said finally, voice low, steady as steel.
Hydra blinked, as though the words didn’t compute. “That can’t be right. Statistically, if three separate individuals display aversive behaviour toward me, I must be the variable.”
Porter huffed a soft sound, not quite a laugh, but near enough. “You sound like Lumber when he’s tryin’ to justify leavin’ his maintenance checks. There’s more to it than statistics.” There’s always more. Always more than the numbers can tell you.
Hydra frowned, looking down at their hands, flexing their fingers like they were testing the concept of touch itself. “But the data doesn’t lie.”
“Aye,” Porter said, “but people aren’t data. We’re messy. We say the wrong things, act the wrong way, and sometimes we just…need a bit o’ time to come ‘round.” He shifted his weight, feeling his knee complain beneath him, ignoring the ache. Time. Patience. That’s what keeps people alive in a world that doesn’t wait. “It’s not you we hate, Hydra. It’s what you remind us of. Change. The kind we don’t like thinking about, ‘cause despite our young age, it means we’re getting outdated.”
Hydra’s expression flickered, the lights along their frame dimming to a softer hue. “I never meant it like that.”
“I know you didn’t,” Porter said softly, letting the words linger. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter how we mean things. Just how folk hear ‘em.”
He eased himself down to sit on the low step outside the shed door, letting his leg stretch out with a faint click. The air smelled faintly of coal dust and rain. Hydra stayed standing, shifting awkwardly on their wheels, hands twitching like they didn’t know where to put them. Still so new. Still so unsure.
Porter tilted his head, studying them in the half-light. “It’s a hard thing, tryin’ to fit in where everything’s already got its place.”
Hydra glanced at him, uncertain. “I thought…you just did it. Adapted. Everyone here seems to know what to say and when, and I can learn. I learnt how to do it at the lab.”
“You don’t have to learn it, Hydra,” Porter murmured, voice soft. “Truth is, most of us are makin’ it up as we go.”
They folded their arms, looking out over the yard where the lights blinked in distant patterns. “That’s inefficient.”
Porter chuckled, quiet and warm. “You’d think so.”
For a moment, neither spoke. The quiet stretched, easy now, carrying the hum of the yard and the slow rhythm of machines cooling in the night.
Then Hydra said, almost to themself, “I don’t think I’m built for this.”
Porter turned his head toward them, his voice steady. “Well, no, you weren’t. You were built for carrying hydrogen at stupidly low temperatures.” A small smile tugged at his mouth. “But you’re here now. You’ll fit in. You just haven’t figured out how yet.”
Hydra’s lights flickered faintly. “How do I find out how? I don’t like uncertainties.”
“I can’t answer that, love.” Porter rubbed the back of his neck. “You just have to figure it out like the rest of us.” Like Porter still was.
“But-but what if I fail? What if no one likes me, and things don’t change, and-”
He cut in gently, a hint of teasing to soften the edge. “Do you like change or not? Earlier you were upset about it, and now you want it. Which is it?”
Hydra froze, processor almost audible in the pause. “I…I want things to go back to how it was at the lab.”
“You want it to be predictable, is that it?”
“Yes.”
Porter snorted, shaking his head. “That’s bloody borin’. I don’t know what I’d spend half my time doin’ if my life were predictable.” He gave a quiet laugh. “I think my first concern would be what happened to Slick. If the day’s too quiet, that lass is either in trouble or plannin’ some.”
That coaxed the faintest curve of a smile from Hydra - small, uncertain, but real - before it turned melancholy. “Slick is lucky to have you.”
Porter’s mouth quirked. “She isn’t my only sibling.”
“Lumber’s lucky to have you too.”
He let out a quiet breath through his nose. “You don’t get it, do you?”
Hydra tilted their head. “Get what?”
“Hydra,” Porter said, voice steady, “you’re a freight. You’re my sibling.”
They blinked, lights flickering in confusion. “I’m not related to you-”
“And you think I share genetics with Slick?” Porter cut in, arching a brow. “I don’t know what she’s got runnin’ through her system, but it sure isn’t what’s runnin’ through mine.”
Hydra hesitated, glancing down at their hands again. “I don’t understand.”
Porter softened then, leaning forward a little. The yard light caught the edge of his face, the creases that came from too much work and too little rest. “Siblings don’t have to be related, Hydra. I’m not related to either Slick or Lumber, but I’m their brother because I look after them. And I’d also be the first to annoy either of them.”
“But that’s not how families work.”
“I don’t know how else to describe it. Did your fancy lab ever explain things to you?”
“Yes.”
“How did they explain things?”
“Oh. There was one worker who always compared new experiments and tests to the older ones. I always understood her.”
Porter gave a faint nod, eyes tracing the lines of Hydra’s frame. They just needed it explained simply. No assumptions. Just the story.
“Alright, then.” Porter straightened slightly. “Fifteen years ago, a new freight showed up - young, adventurous, full of wonder. I’d already looked after Lumber, so I decided she was my responsibility. I became her brother. A few weeks ago, you showed up. I didn’t think you’d need as much care as a trainlet, but I can see now you do. You need to be shown around the yard and looked after. So…”
“So you’re my brother?”
“Now you’re getting it.” Porter gave a small, tired smile.
Hydra’s lights dimmed slightly. Silence hung between them. They shifted from foot to foot, hesitant, as if testing whether it was real.
Porter let the quiet stretch, watching, waiting. Hopefully they’d process it properly this time.
Finally, Hydra whispered, “I…I think I understand.”
“That’s good,” Porter said softly, giving a small nod. He exhaled slowly, letting the words settle.
The silence lingered for a moment. Then he added, quieter, “I…I’m sorry, Hydra. I thought you would’ve known. I should’ve told you earlier, even. I’ve been so used to being Slick and Lumber’s brother that I assumed you’d pick it up the same way. But I was wrong.”
Hydra didn’t respond, just shifted slightly under the yard lights.
“Despite all the insults we may hurl at you,” Porter continued, voice low but steady, “we do care. I care anyway. And if I do, well…Slick and Lumber have no choice.”
Hydra’s lights flickered faintly, like a hesitant heartbeat. They didn’t move closer, didn’t speak, but the tension in their frame eased just a little. Small steps, but steps nonetheless.
“I…I didn’t think anyone would care,” Hydra admitted softly, voice barely above the hum of the yard.
Porter gave a quiet grunt, leaning back slightly against the shed wall. “Aye…well, some of us do, even if we don’t show it the way you expect.”
Another pause. Hydra shifted, the faintest tilt of their head toward him, testing the idea, as if wondering whether it could really be true.
“I…I’ll try,” they said slowly, each word measured, “to…understand. To…fit in.”
Porter’s corner of a smile deepened, subtle but warm. “That’s all anyone can ask for. We’ll help you. Doesn’t mean it’ll be easy, but you’re not doin’ it alone.”
Hydra’s lights flickered again, this time brighter, more steady. They exhaled a tiny, almost human sigh. “I…I think I can try that.”
Porter chuckled softly, the sound low in the quiet night. “That’s all it takes to start. One step at a time, Hydra. One step at a time.”
For a long while, neither spoke. The yard hummed softly around them, quiet but alive, and for the first time that night, Hydra didn’t look like a freight lost in chaos. They looked like part of a family.
“...Slick called me a rolling hazard who didn’t know when to shut up.”
Porter huffed through his nose, something halfway between amusement and resignation. Typical Slick. “You join the family and immediately start dobbing in your sister. And she is your sister, don’t make me explain that again.”
Hydra sputtered, their lights flickering faintly. Porter had to remind himself that they were still learning the whole sibling thing.
“I’ll talk to her,” Porter said, gentler now. “But you’re allowed to come to me about anything, alright? Just-don’t think that means we won’t take the mick out of you. You’re our youngest brother now. That means we get to make fun of you.”
“What? Didn’t you just say-”
“It’s the rules,” Porter said, a grin tugging at his mouth. “Lumber and I used to bully Slick just as much. Before she hit her teenage years and started biting, that is. She’s vicious, that one.”
Hydra tilted their head, uncertain. “So…you insult each other as affection?”
“Exactly.” Porter leaned back against the shed wall, chuckling quietly. “Family tradition. But if anyone else so much as looks at you wrong-” his tone dropped, softer but firm “-you come find us. Understand?”
Hydra’s glow steadied, soft and even. “I understand. I think.”
“Good.” He pushed himself onto his wheels with a soft groan. “C’mon, lad. Let’s get you some rest before Slick wakes up and starts another war.”
Hydra followed without protest, their faint green light moving beside him through the dark.
The yard had gone quiet again, just the hum of the lights and the soft click of cooling metal - the sounds he always came back to.
He didn’t ask for this life, no. But he’d chosen it, one night at a time. And as long as there was someone left to look after, he figured he’d keep coming back.