THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

Galley puts his hand on Bel's forehead with grave concentration, then holds it there.

"I don't know what to do after this part," he says.

 

"I'd ask if I can kiss you, but I'm contagious," you say regretfully. "I'm trying to remember what Lainey said comes after fever. Muscle aches and nausea, I think? I don't want to throw up in your block. I should probably go confine myself to quarters. But we can still talk -- maybe we could watch a movie 'together'? Like, start it at the same time?"

 

"Oh. I'd— I'd like that." Galley combs the front of Bel's hair, very carefully, with his claws. "Yeah, you're getting. Uh. Sweaty. Sorry. Do you want me to call someone to help you back to your quart— your quarantine room? And... set it up. You made me cake instead of setting it up." He shrinks in on himself. "I'm sorry."

 

"It's not your fault, I was just overly optimistic about how long I'd have. Anyway, I think I'll be in my own quarters until I start having aggressive impulses, and I've got plenty to do there." You smile with genuine happiness. "I'm glad I made you a cake. And came to see you. There aren't a lot of other things I'd rather have done with my last bit of pre-quarantine freedom."

You stand up, mopping your face dry with a handkerchief. "Before I go, do you suppose a hug would be okay? From a biohazard safety standpoint, and also from a standpoint of, would you like one."

 

"Uh," Galley's face says no, but also what do and help!! "Can I— uh." He takes Bel's hand, and turns it over to expose a stretch of smooth, unbroken skin at the wrist. A burst of sharp, hot prickling fizzes across Bel's hand and up his arm, and then the helmsman drops a shy kiss to the pulse point, as if fitting himself into a diagram of flushed courtship, step 1, tendering red affections.

"Was that. Uh." He won't look at Bel's face. "Um."

 

Your heart is revving like an engine, and you're having trouble breathing. "That was. Wow. No one ever." Since words don't seem to be a thing right now, you demonstrate: turn his hand over to show skin like pale gray silk, smooth your thumb hesitantly over it -- giving him a chance to pull away if he wants to, but also gathering your own courage -- and then kiss the place.

If there were actual flames coming out of your ears, he'd tell you, right?

 

Galley takes his wrist back, grinning with embarrassed pleasure, and rubs the spot clean with a bright crackle of psionics.

"Okay, go away now," he says, daring a quick look up at Bel. But he's still smiling, his hand cupped over where the kiss had been.

 

"Okay," you reply with a similar smile, "I'll call you when it's movie time."

As you head back to your quarters, there's a spring in your step despite the beginning of the promised muscle aches. You wish you could tell Pancho. You're definitely going to tell your lusus. Galley likes you red! How is anything this great?

 

Bel is caught by an exhaustedly cranky medic halfway to the residential area, and escorted quickly and mercilessly to his relatively underprepared quarantine block.

"This is why you had a whole shift to set up, sir," the medic snaps, "Not go running around the place dripping spores into the kitchen and god knows wherever else." Bel is left to commandeer an ensign, by phone call, to fetch him toiletries, blankets, snacks, and books.

Few snacks are eaten: the fever progresses with a vicious quickness to chills, a pounding headache, an aching stiffness in all joints, and an unsettled wrong feeling in his gut that's somehow worse than regular nausea. Bel is pulled out of a miserable doze to be escorted to his second round of dialysis by two big ensigns with stiff, thick, shoulder-length gloves and charged tasers.

 

"That isn't remotely necessary," you grumble at them. "I will inform you when it becomes necessary. Honestly, it's not like this is sneaking up on me. I am at this time merely annoyed. I don't need tasers, I need medium-strength painkillers."

They are not convinced.

When the needles go in, you gasp and stiffen, and they look like they're getting ready to jump you. You roll your eyes. "Crewmen, I'm telling you this for the good of the ship: if you need to remove me from my quarantine block for any reason once I hulk out? You guys are nowhere near sufficient. Have Captain Aspera do it. Have Captain Aspera trank me from the doorway. I could kill everyone in this medbay with a plastic fork and a lamp, tasers are not enough." Belatedly, you realize how threatening you're sounding, and take a deep breath. "Not that I want to kill anyone in this medbay. Or elsewhere on the ship either. Oh, you're going to need seadweller-with-a-tranq-gun level precautions for Sergeant Murfey too."

 

The two ensigns hovering around Sergeant Murfey give up pretending to look tough and look scared and overwhelmed instead. They go off to have a hissy conference with Sal, and the two bluebloods are left mostly to themselves for the rest of the time. Bel is given a bottle of trollynol and told to 'go nuts, haha, but no okay that was tasteless, please don't.'

The eight hours of rest period after that takes Bel to the evening of the second night with a horn-rattling headache that persists through any amount of medication. Erskin shows up with a sturdy thermos of hot broth before Bel's third round with the blood cleansing machines.

"It's just salt and protein nodules, but it's easy on the stomach," he says, edging carefully through the doorway. "And I got a tranq rifle, I'm working on my aim. I haven't done anything with projectiles since I was a nipper. Hard to find time to practice, though, everything's such a scramble— can't fathom how we all got along without you. Hope this all blows over soon, what?"

 

"It will," you say through gritted teeth. "Pancho will be on time. She said." Deep breath. Long exhale. Reach for the thermos. Hand shakes. "Tell me this is full of sedatives," you say, and take a long swig of it. "I couldn't sleep, my head hurt too much. Oh, shit --" You set the thermos down and lurch for the load gaper. So much for keeping anything down.

The bile you hork up has a definite grayish tinge. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand, and your tears are more gray than blue. You sit there staring at the streak, trying not to blubber like a pupa because you're so hungry, and so tired, and so scared.

(he'll snap out of it after a moment, especially if erskin tries to jolly him along.)

 

Your bloodpump seizes up with helpless pity, and you want to sit on him and groom his hair and kiss him all over his stiffly terrified face. But it's no good to give up on a spade just when things get a bit dicey, is it? You settle at arm's length, flush the gaper, and then studiously go about trying to balance the thermos on his head.

"Hold very still," you tell him in your best captainish voice. "It's important that I get a balanced breakfast."

 

You let out a startled snork of a laugh, surprised out of your moment of horror. Grabbing the thermos from him, you give him a grin that's as much gratitude as amusement. "This isn't yours, did I say you can have it back? I just need to take very small sips." You demonstrate. Your mouth floods salty-sour, but you take deep breaths and keep your gorge down by sheer willpower, and after a moment it settles. "See?" you say proudly."

 

"All hail the great and powerful Commander Kadros, he's mastered big boy food," you tease him, gently tugging a sweaty lock of hair. "What's next, warlord, voluntary perambulation? They're going to be shitting themselves in the medical block."

 

"They were shitting themselves in the medical block eight hours ago, when I informed them a couple midbloods with tasers wasn't going to cut it. ...Thanks, by the way. For risking, you know, me going guano bananas on your face with my teeth. I'm aware that's probably the un-fun kind of challenge." Another tiny sip of broth. Another riding-out of nausea. Once again, you keep it down. You're getting the hang of this!

 

"I'm aware that you think you're a real hardass," you fire back. You are... sort of grooming his hair anyway, whoops. "I've survived a lot bigger things than you trying to eat my face off, thanks. When I was seven—" and you keep chattering, telling him a few choice highlights of your adventures back planetside, editing a bit for the parts you were scared and small and starving and not a very good picture of the bold and resourceful captain you've managed to become. Eventually Kadros gets to the end of the thermos and sets it down with unmistakable triumph, and you finish the rather nice four-strand plait you'd been working on and tie it off with a little purple elastic. Even lank and unwashed, his hair's a damn sight better behaved than Lainey's.

"We'd better get on to keeping the medical block hopping, Commander," you tell him, giving the whole rope a gentle tug. You get to your feet with your cane out, a bit more for his benefit than yours, and offer him a hand up. "I hear someone's managed to cook up a sedative that's easy on the organs, we can get you high as globes. That'll be a treat, won't it, you were a hell of a party animal just on caffeine and bad fruit."

You're guiltily aware that the other infected patients aren't getting this sort of personal jollying-along, but— but it's Kadros. Rank has to have some privileges.

 

"Am I Sal's lab rat? Be honest with me, I'm Sal's lab rat, aren't I," you grump, but you're sure he noticed how hopeful you looked at the idea of a sedative that can knock you out. There aren't a lot of them in the medical arsenal.

You need to steady yourself on his shoulder, but you can still walk. Once you're out of your block, though, you keep seeing flickers out of the corners of your eyes, little fleeting brights and darks, and some part of you is convinced they're dangerous space monsters no one else has noticed -- lurking in the vents, you could punch through the wall and pull them out and show everyone -- even though you consciously know this is not the case.

"Paranoia and delusions are starting," you remark conversationally. "Unless there actually are speedy little monsters in the vents, which I ought to be saving you from."

 

"I am dismayed but unsurprised you weren't listening to any of my stories of skill and derring-do," you tell him, feigning exasperation. "I can handle the delusional monsters myself. But thank you for the sentiment. Also I'll let Sal know— it seems like we're lucky enough to get the kind of plague that hits highbloods first, the Empress only knows why, the rusts through greens are only just lately getting a bit sweaty, so you're on the cutting edge of having horrible things go wrong with you. Should I have not told you that right after the paranoia starts? I probably shouldn't have. Oh, look, it's your favorite seat on the ship." You tip him into the shallow scoop of a recuperacot. Tonights' models are a good deal sturdier than the usual light wheely affairs. These have four metal legs bolted to the floor, and a number of sturdy D-rings for straps to be threaded through. From the way your first mate flops against the cushioning, though, that's not going to be necessary right now.

"He's only just keeping anything down," you report to the medic, hovering a bit as she sticks the needles in. "Can we get some of those blood... nutrition... sorts of deals in him? Sorry, Kadros, you know I live to introduce you to new holes." You pat his shoulder as the medic goes off to get some drip lines.

 

"Yes, but why do they have to be my holes?" you whine. "Introduce me to more of your holes, that sounds way more fun." It's a struggle to form coherent thoughts, but you still feel a sense of duty to the ship, thank god, no matter how terrible you feel, so you try your best to do something with the information he's given you: "That might explain why the Zero-Sum's helmsman was still able to navigate even though the infected crew were almost all ghouls. Her infection was slightly less advanced. The officers' brains were sautéd truffles by the time they came roaring out that hatch, some of them couldn't even run in a straight line. But the helmsman was orange, and she could still do dock procedures convincingly enough that Galley didn't notice something was wrong until too late."

When you try to apply this new knowlege to your own situation, though, you can't find a bright side. You loop your free arm around Erskin's waist and rest your cheek against his stomach. "How far ahead of schedule am I, then?" you say softly.