THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"No!" they both say immediately, and trade looks of incredulous disgust.

"With him?" Galley elaborates, gesturing wildly enough to set all his wires swinging. "Him!?"

Arguus displays a pair of very specific fingers at that.

"Two dirtblood neurotics can hate each other's putrid guts without it being a whole thing," Galley mutters, and puts his nose up in the air. He holds his hand out for Kadros's again, imperiously.

 

"Sorry," you say sheepishly, giving Galley your hand and trying not to blush. "I didn't mean to make it awkward. But, Arguus, don't kill Erskin's phone, that's the ship's lifeline. I should take charge of it if the captain's indisposed. But that leaves Galley without a way to communicate." You chew your lip as you think it through. Look up at Galley and your heart gives a hard double-thump; you're definitely blushing. This is no time for this nonsense. "I could swap my phone for it, but my moirail is the one who's coming to save us, she'll be calling that number to keep us updated. And, you know. I'll want to talk to her to keep calm as the infection progresses." You give Arguus your most appealing look. "Do you have a spare phone?"

 

Arguus rolls his eyes in exasperation, but the bridge of his nose has gone distinctly yellowish. He fusses with a spare tablet, sticks his hand out for the Captain's phone, fusses with it, then hands both tablet and phone back to Kadros. The tablet now appears to be a total clone of the captain's phone, only instead of 'USER: Cpt. Erskin Aspera of the HIC Sunslammer' it now reads 'USER: Helmsman Nookface Chunderfuck of the HIC Sunslammer's Disposable Waste Closet'.

"Oh, burn," Galley says snidely, peering over Kadros's shoulder.

 

"It's platonic," you announce solemnly as you hand the tablet over.

 

"Too late, I've already popped a monster wiggly over this deathless prose," Galley says absently. He's greedily curled towards the tablet like a flower towards a lamp. His shoulders visibly relax when the camera app begins cycling again.

 

Pity grips you hard, and you swallow as you make yourself look away. You force yourself to focus on duty. "Are you guys making any progress with getting Galley back online?"

 

"I've got propulsion control," Galley says. "And text and audio contact with the department heads. I hate them all, they're a pack of blithering incompetents. 'What do we do, Mr Galgal?' 'Which side of the hull do we want to keep the air in, Mr Galgal?' 'Are you sure I shouldn't stick my fingers in the matter reclamators, Mr Galgal?' 'Do I wipe my nook before or after I soil myself from every hole, Mr Galgal?' If I were the captain they'd all get busted down to comfort toy."

Arguus snickers, then very seriously tries to pretend he wasn't listening. Galley looks pleased with himself.


((if bel makes contact with the department heads he'll find galley coped with the stress of social contact by being an enormous uhelpful dick to everyone))

 

You snicker as well, slightly guiltily. "If you were the captain, Galley, you wouldn't have time to watch everyone masturbate. Speaking of which, where's Erskin fucked off to? He's got one important thing to do before he can take a freakout break."

 

"Uh." Galley looks cagey. He picks at a seam of the tablet with his claw. "Error? Beep boop, captain not found?"

"Desert," Arguus mumbles. Galley throws the tablet at his head. "OW."

 

You roll your eyes as you stand up. "You mature and responsible officers of the Imperial Fleet have fun, I'm going to go gently kick our beloved leader's ass until he does the important thing. Call me when Galley's back online or if you need me for anything, I won't start chewing the walls for a couple nights at least." You meet Galley's eyes for a moment, feeling like maybe there's something further to say, but... not here, not now. Not in front of Arguus, even if you were selfish enough to express these things in these circumstances. So you just give his hand a gentle squeeze before you drop it and head out in search of Erskin.

 

You've cried yourself to a restless, haunted sleep in your den under one of the obsidian boulders. It takes a few minutes for you to realize the rhythmic crunching noise above you is footsteps, but you come awake all in a burst. You go very still, pressing your fin to the hardpack sand for a better listen.

 

When you don't spot him with a cursory look around, you conclude he's hiding pretty seriously and you probably don't want to roust him out unless you have to. You sit down on a convenient boulder and prop your bitten leg on another one, and get to grips with the nonsense on Erskin's phone. Galley really made a hash of things; it looks like he panicked. You start calling department heads to explain the situation and see what really needs to be done, making sure to speak clearly and audibly.

 

The sense of words comes back slowly, but when it does you find Kadros to be managing tolerably well without you. Still, he wouldn't be here if he didn't need to twist your ear about something, and it's probably time to get back on shift. You scoot carefully out of your den through the tunnel that lets out in a tangle of black shards, climb on to a rock a ways away and behind Kadros, and shake the dust off. Enough remains that you're just one more shadow against shadows in the harsh moon-like light.

You prop your elbows on your knees and quietly watch him talk.

 

It's not that you hear him move, and you certainly don't see him. He's much stealthier than you would've given him credit for. You just somehow know he's moved, he's closer. Maybe you smell him. You don't think he'd surprise-jump you and risk getting bitten, but you brace yourself to use a throw or just let yourself get whomped rather than do anything that might, say, end with your knuckles getting cut on his teeth. Nothing happens, though, while you finish checking in with each of the department heads.

Then you blank the phone screen, using the black surface as a mirror to look behind you, and say conversationally, "Have you already secured Sergeant Pancho's early release for transfer, Captain? And made sure she has a load of antiparasitics to bring with her? Or do you need your phone back?"

You know he hasn't, but making sure it gets done is more important than a gotcha.

 

You shake your head and stick your hand out for the phone, but when you see how dark your hand is against his, you hesitate, raise a finger for wait, and limp off to take a shower. It's fast and hot but you feel much more like a person, afterwards, clothes and buttons and everything, though the creases of your fingers are still stained. You get a clean towel, shuffle back into the desert biome, and trade it to Kadros for the phone, then herd him off to take his own shower. He's positively gruesome.

When you sit down with the phone, in the office, you have no idea what to do. Nothing occures. When Kadros comes out of the bathroom you look up from a carefull drawing of the cup of pens and styluses on the desk.

"Er," you start, and get a bit lost after that. You shrug helplessly.

 

"Did the data get lost while everyone was playing hot tuber with your phone? Lemme resend it." You don't think the data got lost, but if anyone needs to save face right now it's him. As his phone beeps with the email, you show him on the sent copy on your own: "That's the base commander, this is her unit commander, and this is Pancho's number. She can pretty much handle her unit commander, but if she says 'boo' to the base commander things could go south in a hurry, apparently he's an old hidebound snob who keeps talking about the good old old days when warmbloods respected their betters. Since he's indigo, he should go over like a domino if you lean on that angle a little bit."

 

You grin. "Shame you don't go over so easily," you murmur, noofing his shoulder. He smells good, this close, sweet and clean, and you hesitate a long moment before pulling yourself together and turning back to business.

Maybe you can play off your current exhausted cried-out discombobulation as a hardnosed terseness.

"Handle the business on your moirail's end," you order, dialing the base commander. You get his secretary. The gentletroll in question is 'busy'.

"Busy my saintly pink nook, this is Captain Aspera calling— yes, Aspera, Captain, I run a great big bloody ship and I need to talk to your gadabout commander, should he deign to prance his derelict hindquarters back in hailing range— yes. Now."

Well, so much for terse. You switch from drawing pens to doodling a profile of Kadros while, somewhere else in the galaxy, people rush about and squeak. Nice that it isn't you for a change.

The commander comes on the line.

"Right, what's all this business about you being too busy to answer a member of the goddamn naval fucking aristocracy's call? Really? That's all? Good god, how do you dirtscraping rabble ever manage to balance walking and breathing, it's one of the secret mysteries of the cosmos— oh, you're sorry, are you? Well that's all very well but sorry hardly saves the day, does it? No. No it doesn't. That's right. See it doesn't happen again, man, this is the fucking fleet, I'm fairly sure the Empress likes us to actually try and take things seriously.

"What? What do I want? Well right now I want a stiff drink and half a dozen beautiful ladies and gentlemen to suck me off but I'll settle for that transfer of your greenblood medic I requisitioned something like half a bloody sweep back, where is she? You haven't packed her up? You haven't even— authorized? You? Authorized!? Who the fuck in all of the Empress's great wide galaxy ever let you think you were an authority? You'd drown in the bathroom on your way to wash your grubby little landdweller hands, that's practically grotesque. Get Pancho packed up to go by the end of this cycle, I've sent a man out to pick her up and you'd better be there to kiss his fucking ass every step down the gangplank. Kiss Pancho off too, from what I've heard she's more use than all the raving pack of incompetants put together.

"Don't you take that sort of tone with me— oh, you didn't mean to? I'm sure. Get it DONE. NOW."

You press the end call button and slump back in your chair, shaking a little from the adrenaline of shouting down someone probably five times your age and five hundred times your combat experience. Throwing your title around— being able to— is always a bit of a rush. You grin tiredly at Kadros.

"How'd I do?" you ask him.

 

You're staring at him with your mouth hanging open and your face flaming acetylene blue. "Is there any way we can fuck without you getting infected? Like, immediately?"

 

"Oh, wonderful, I thought you didn't want to," you say, and pounce. You can't quite kiss him how you'd like, all sharp fangs and fighting, but you can crowd into his lap and grind, and you can bury your claws in the lovely, ridiculous mess of his hair. When he cups your ass and presses up into you, you moan with relief. You've wanted to take him since the moment he came back— hell, you've wanted to have him since the moment he left on that suicide run of his.

"You arrogant blood-hungry war machine," you hiss at him. "Never scare me like that again, you hear me?"

 

Wrapping him tight in your arms and kissing his neck a dozen times, you try to promise, you really do, but you can't make the words come out. Fighting is the only thing you're any damn good at, and if risking your life will save your crew, your ship, your captain, then you'll do it without a second thought. He has to know that. But you've got enough imagination to put yourself in his place, and god, you want so much to promise him.

"I'll be careful," is the best you can do. "I'm still getting used to the idea that I might live. I might -- god." You can sense the future rolling out in front of you and it makes you sick with vertigo. You take his face in your hands so you can goggle stupidly into his astonishing eyes. "We're not disposable." It's a revelation.