THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"You're the Captain," he grins, and touches his hat brim with a wink.

Rather than tell him off for flirting with your rival again, you taste your cactus beer. You're not sure what you were expecting, but not something pink, sweet-sour, and alarmingly drinkable. "I'm going to get wrecked off this stuff. Is it really cactus?"

"Cactus fruit's sweet, bro," Murf informs you.

"Wouldn't know, grew up on a rainy rock in the north sea. Erskin, taste this, it's ridiculously good."

"Keep 'em coming, then?"

"Pretty sure we expect to go home in a wheelbarrow, yeah."

 

"Being in that suspension pod sort of medicoon thingy really wasn't bad, you know. I wouldn't mind another week's vacation!" You're lying through your fangs, of course, but it does give you the opportunity to steal Bel's entire drink and clap the empty glass back down on the table in front of him upside-down. You wipe foam (and some lipstick) off with the back of a glitter hand and give him a bright so there! grin. You're fairly sure you're back to the lightweight status you occupied when first aboard, but at least you know how to handle yourself, now. And it's always fun to keep Bel guessing as to just what you can or can't accomplish.

 

You gawk at your empty drink with helpless grabby hands opening and closing. "Erskin," you complain. "Baby. Darling. Sugartush. Why."

Murf snickers and absconds, hopefully to get you another.

 

You laugh at him and lean back in your chair, and various patrons of Murfey's fine establishment start wandering over to see up close and personal that you're alive and well, through the time-honored social medium of giving you grief. You've checked in with the department heads, of course, but these are just the regular rank and file of your crew, and might not have really been told much of anything. You're kept busy with trash talk and the occasional round of slap-boxing (gentle on your part, enthusiastic on the lowbloods') until the next round of drinks show up.

"Anyone who isn't getting me cargoed can fuck off," you announce, and shove a particularly feisty ensign from hydroponics off her feet. This results in a gratifying number of offers.

"You'd better not wimp out on me, Kadros, I'm not managing this all on my own, I'll pop."

 

"You pop, I'll mop," you offer nonsensically. "I'll carry you home in a bin liner." But because you don't want him to genuinely end up back in Medical, you add, "You like the sweet stuff best, I'll take the dry. Hint around that you like Bloody Maryams, Murf makes 'em extra spicy."

The dim sum starts to arrive. Murf has obtained a little waiter-bot, which takes the steamer baskets out of its heated chest compartment and arranges them in the exact center of the table.

 

"I want to enjoy my dinner, not spend it regrowing my tongue skin," you protest, of the spicy drinks. Then you're distracted by the waiter bot.

"He's so cute," you say, reverently. You clip a pink butterfly pin to one of the thin metal finger-struts, like a ring, which increases the thing's darlingness quotient by about 300%. Then you burn your mouth on a bun and have to flap your hands around your face and whine.

 

"Own fault, you greedy thing," you tease, but snatch his cocktail glass back from the bot before it can abscond with it. "Here you go, ice it down."

 

"Mleh." Three drinks in and feeling significantly floaty around the edges, you decide, is a good time to have a break and get some solids down. You apply yourself to the steamer baskets with immense happiness, doing your level best to anticipate which pieces Bel's about to select, so you can eat them first.

 

It doesn't take long for you to figure out what game he's playing, and then you have a fine time trying to fake him out, making sure his chopsticks are occupied with something else while you grab the item you actually want. It's surprisingly difficult; he's observant, even tanked.

The bot goes away and comes back more times than you keep track of, bringing drinks and food, taking away empties, accumulating little pastel decorations. Every so often Murf himself stops by to check that everything's copacetic. Which it absolutely is, you assure him vehemently. You're high on your rival's mere existence and having the time of your life.

"Remember when you thought you had to bully me into having fun?" you tease Erskin. "Big dumb stoneface Marine doesn't know how to have fun, better pour some booze down him. I never did find my hoodie."

 

"I did have to bully you into having fun!" you protest. "You were so suspicious, it was painful. 'Hurr blurf, I've never been to a party I enjoyed, durf mlerf'. Half an hour of proper alcoholic schoolfeeding later you were macking on star-struck ensigns and tearing the goddamn bulkheads loose, weren't you?"

With a chopstick tip, you poke the blue glow of one of his cheeks, where it's scrunched up from a big doofy smile. "See! Weren't you supposed to be some sort of tragic boo-hoo drunk? What happened to that."

 

"I..." You trail off. "Huh." You search yourself for the slightest trace of self-pity, and find none. "I got laid?"

 

"Ha! You're welcome!" You salute him with a glass of something bright red and full of candied fish. "Wait a mo', I couldn't have been your first whatsit, your first sex person, you're older than me, and, and you're gorgeous, and there's RPF of you, and all. You weren't getting laid earlier? You're lovely."

This is a baffling disjunction in the nature of reality. What sort of type do marines even go for, if it's not Kadros? You offer him your red fish drink.

 

"Well, so are you, but you didn't have a kismesis when I came along," you point out, though you're bachelor's-button blue from one ear to the other right across the nose, beaming from the compliment. You accept the glass, making sure to drink from his lipstick print.

"I had drone time hookups. Black bucket with Murf twice, I thought I told you that. Red with lowblood friends on base, so I could be gentle and not break 'em. It was..." You shrug. "Friendly? It was nice to get off? But also awkward. It's not like I got to cut loose." You lean in and nip his earfin. "Not like anyone ever took me apart like you do."

 

"Hmm. Their loss." You lean into the attention on your fin, and put your elbow on a scorpion bao. Laughing, you push him off and go to shed your once-more-besmirched jacket.

"You're fun to fuck with," you tell him. "I can't imagine pitch with Murfey, though, he's like you but even sweeter. He's such a, a— a dumpling." You eat one. "I had some flings with visiting captains, the really nasty castist sort that swat the lowbloods around. Gave 'em something better to storm at, and got some blood back for my own fellows. I had a, a, a kismesis from my crew, once, but, she kept using the relationship all wrong, so Lainey pulled me out. She said the woman was transferred away, but I think she just died. Lainey doesn't really mess around. So after that it was back to just the visiting Captains."

A thought occurs. "You know, I think you're about the closest in age I ever had, I mean. I'm younger than most of the crew, even still, and Lainey's like, like twenty or so, and regularly you're at least a century by the time you get command on any sort of real ship. We're both sort of baby rejects together! That's funny."

 

"It's perfect," you correct. "Ours are the best baby fights." You fence at his chopsticks with yours in illustration. When you go back to eating, you muse, "Yeah, Murf's too nice for me to ever feel really black for. But that's what made him great for a drone season hookup. We weren't gonna end up with romance feelings ruining our friendship. And he's fun to spar with. Doing a black bucket with someone you can pulp by accident is unbelievably awkward. His fistkind's a little better than mine, or it was last we had a match, and I think he might be slightly stronger."

 

"Mm." You think about it. "I am thinking about this and I like it," you report. "Pitch or not, I'm sure that'd be a hell of a show, he isn't hard to look at either. You wouldn't consider expanding your little sexual education broadcast adventure into a series, would you?"

 

You blink at him a few times. "I think I'm too drunk to unravel your innuendo. Can you rephrase? Are you proposing we take Murf to bed? Because that's a terrible idea and I really like it."

 

"No, no, and, and no. I propose we take him to, against the wall. Or something. Something fun." You scratch one of your fins thoughtfully and take your fish drink back from Bel, who isn't using it anymore.

"You like eachother, I like him— if you don't think it would be—" you wave a hand around, "—nasty? Cruel? I mean, I'd want it to be fun, I like him. I'd only want to be cruel to you." You look at your empty drink. "And another drinks. Drink. More of this also."

 

You obediently wave down your friend. "Waffles, my lifelong amigo, our fearless leader needs another drink to be cruel to!" In the moments you have left before the man arrives, you catch Erskin's eyes and grin mischeviously. "Do you really want to? I'm gonna ask him."

 

"Money where your mouth is, stallion," you grin back. "You can't honestly think you're going to embarrass me with yourn— your inappo—inappropriate social behavior, I'm wearing half my weight in fucking glitter and the other half in bleach."