THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"Uh. You don't have to... I have—" sounds of shuffling, some static hissing, "—bouncing balls. And non-bouncing balls. Multicolored miniature construction units. I put those in the hallway sometimes for people I don't like to step on. That sort of... It's a sphere. With. holes in it? You put pieces in the holes shaped like the pieces you put into the holes. Uh. Shaped like the pieces. Then you untwist it and dump the pieces out and start over. And a stick. I don't know why he gave me the stick. You can't do anything with the stick, it's just a stick. I guess I chew on it sometimes. And one of his sketchbooks, and a pen, but I broke it."

 

"I know I don't have to, but I want to. I'm working on my friendship skills. I've never really had toys, though, even before ascension... I had projects, and pets. And a lot of running around outdoors and playing on boats and so forth. Would you like a pet? I've been thinking of ordering an aquarium for my quarters, and it'd be no trouble to double up."

 

"Why would I want to keep any amount of stupid, slobbering, ungrateful animals alive as a hobby? That's already my job."

 

That gets a snort out of you. "Fish don't slobber, Galley. Well, with the possible exception of our esteemed leader."

 

"I'm dinging you for disrespect for authority!" Galley says, cheerful all over again. "Whether you're referring to the Empress herself or our local two wheel device, flagrant contempt for your nautical superiors threatens the chain of respect necessary for a smoothly ordered empire." The last part is delivered in the up-beat sing-song tone of quotation.

 

"I'm referring to Erskin Aspera, my best beloathed. Surely a smoothly ordered empire can withstand me talking trash about my rival," you grin. "Shut up, Murfey, you eavesdropper."

"I didn't say anything," Murfey smirks.

 

"Now I'm dinging you for backtalk," Galley says.

 

"Let me know when I reach 'not the boss of you' status, I feel like I should throw you a little party."

You chat with him pretty much the whole rest of the time you're on dialysis, with a few breaks to check up on the maintenance crew's progress. Once you're disconnected from the machine, you talk to Sal to arrange for some freezer space for the blood samples you ordered, then head down to the mess in search of hydration for your headache and cake for Galley.

Spicy carrot juice isn't your favorite, but for some reason there's a surplus, so you take one for the team. Cake, unfortunately, is not a thing the Sunslammer's food stores regularly stock. You do have the ingredients, though... but you're really not confident cooking without Pancho's guidance, and she's in transit and can't be contacted via the regular network... but you promised. You have a strong feeling Galley has experienced way too many broken promises in his life. Cake might be a trivial thing to you, but to him, well, he doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of things to look forward to, does he?

You look up a not-too-hard recipe, comandeer some counter space and equipment, and roll up your sleeves. It can't be that hard.

(he has probably not explained to the kitchen staff what he's doing)

 

"Oh, what the turdgobbling fuck, Bel," The current mealprep head exclaims, finally catching sight of him. "You're supposed to be in quarantine! Get out, get out! Look at those knuckles, what's wrong with you!?"

((her matesprit is in the 'very chewed up' section of infirmary. she is not likely to be sympathetic at all to anyone with an infection fucking around with the food supply.))

 

"I'm not touching anything that won't be sterilized," you point out, but you guess you can't blame her for shooing you out. "Okay, no, you're right, I'm going." You gather up the materials and take them back to your quarters.

Your lusus suddenly needs all kinds of attention, as if he hasn't been ignoring you ever since Baozhu came aboard. You grumble at him, but let him come in and 'help' with the baking. He mostly does this by flipping the spatula out of the bowl of batter and spraying vanilla-egg-sugar mixture across you, himself, and the ceiling. "Very clever, thank you," you tell him dryly.

Once the cake is in your tiny countertop oven, though, you go out on the 'porch' and give him a thorough grooming, and let him preen your hair out of the mess Erskin made of it.

"If the cake is awful," you tell Galley when you present the finished product, "it's Dad's fault, not mine."

 

"If the cake is awful it's still your fault for letting a gigantic chirpbeast make culinary decisions for you," Galley sniffs. He's not in the hammock like usual, but is sitting on the bench by the exam table. He's spread his small collection of multicolor miniature building materials out across the work surface, and pushes them towards Bel, seemingly in trade for the small cake.

Sitting upright like this, the cords that plug his neck and arms crackle and spark with each gesture as they slide across one another, but he keeps them from tangling with his arm lines with practiced ease.

 

"Yeah, that's fair," you admit, accepting the little plastic blocks curiously. You never had these when you were younger, you're not entirely sure how to play with them. It's surprisingly satisfying to feel them snap together, though.

You watch him out of the corner of your eye to see how the cake goes over. You followed the recipe exactly, but you wore plastic bags over your hands when frosting it to make sure you don't infect him with spores, which made you a little clumsy. You wanted to write his sign on it in yellow frosting, but you forgot to steal any food coloring from the kitchen, so you picked it out with chocolate chips instead. Plastic-bag-clad fingers aren't good tools for manipulating chocolate chips. The result was... an approximation.

 

"Did you think I wouldn't know this's for me?" the helmsman asks, amused, picking at the chips with his claws. "I watched you make it." He pops a chip in his mouth and then hums in pleasure. "Tastes better than it looks."

Unlike the first slice Bel had delivered, this piece he breaks up with his claws to eat slowly, quietly enjoying it, and enjoying also the view of Bel's little construction experiments.

"Thanks," he remembers to say, at one point. He licks one of his claws clean and uses it to retrieve a small green cube that had skittered beyond Bel's easy reach.

 

You take it from him; your fingers brush; you blush; then you burst out laughing. "I'm such an anime," you explain.

 

"You've got the hair for it," Galley comments. "Though your blood pressure and pheromone balance is less cherry blossoms and more tentacle bondage." He eats another bit of cake; his lines crackle. He's alert but not tense, not braced for abuse. He seems more amused at Bel's situation than anything.

"Which of us would even be the senpai?" he asks, licking icing from his fingerpads. "I mean, I've got the noodle non-con down, but. Mmmh. Genres."

 

"I'm glad my emotional turmoil amuses you," you sulk, but it's just theater. In a more normal tone, you add, "I have to bring you a lot more cake and talk a lot more trash about Erskin before I'm comfortable flirting with you. The idea of you getting zapped by your minder for not playing along is a horrifying bonerkill."

Huh. It was easier to admit your feelings than you expected. Pancho will be proud.

 

"This isn't that genre," Galley says, and pointedly takes the green construction block back from Bel and tucks it under the far side of the cake plate. He raises an eyebrow like see? "You wouldn't be here if you were going to do anything to me I wasn't, uh." At this he blushes. "Potentially interested in. Allowing. To be. Uh. Done."

He selects his next cake fragment with intense and lengthy deliberation. His lines pulse with sparks a lot more rapidly than before.

 

Galley blushes right down to the collar of his flight suit. "This is why I, uh, why you're..." he gestures at Bel with the brick heart, "You wouldn't punish me for any of that, or try and reset things so I couldn't even try, like, some ships get... You wouldn't be here if I thought. If anyone thought. That that, would be something you'd want... Lieutenant Gawker pushed hard to get you here, blue and, uh. And all. Said you were really promising. Good with equipment. She's not wrong about much. And you can't even lie."

He looks at Bel sidelong, turning the heart over in his hands. "...It's good she wasn't wrong about you. It's good to have trolls you can. You can kind of. Uh. Trust."

A corner of his mouth quirks up, and Bel's phone buzzes with an incoming message.

DO YOU LIKE ME, Y/N? says the text.

 

You send back Y! and rest your chin on your hand to beam at him, blushing and overheated and a little bit dizzy.

... Okay, maybe a little more dizzy than a successful red flirtation can account for, come to think of it. "Oh, hell, I think the fever stage is coming on. What terrible timing."