What I love most about this story is that it's stark, almost like a black and white photograph. And in the sparseness, you have this negative space. It's the space between words, between conversations, between touches. Everything that's unsaid, every action that's undone.

In that negative space is Billy, whose presence is large and looming. The more Joe tries to ignore him, the more he's reminded of Billy.

I love how isolated Joe and Duck are - they're alone on a ship full of people, and that alone-ness echoes their station in real life and in society - both of them outcasts, lost, broken.

I am really happy at how well this has turned out for you. It's a beautifully desperate view of Joe and Duck that strikes very true. Yay!