"We should talk."
It's not a surprise to find Young leaning in the doorway, shoulder against the jamb, looking relaxed and unassuming and harmless in that deceptive way of his. Rush has been expecting this ever since they reached the new galaxy. The thought of it has hung over every act in between – refuelling, defrosting the crew, directing Scott and Greer to crawl through the access ducts to the unopened section of the ship where Eli had found another bank of stasis tubes to hole up in.
The boy is fine. The ship is fine. Rush has run all the diagnostics he can think of and every bloody thing is fine.
Not that he's knocking that fact. He's actually both impressed and proud of how well the old girl can look after herself without them. But it would have been convenient to have a number of crises to deal with. It would have put this moment off, given him something more rational to think about, allowed him to turn away with the excuse that there was no time for anything so... So unproductive. So fucking complicated.
It's not a surprise, but Rush's heartbeat still kicks up, and his smooth unconscious breathing trips itself and goes running as Young levers himself upright and ambles closer. Young is a shambling bear of a man with gentle eyes and a faint self-depreciating smile. Like a bear he can go straight from amiable peacefulness to crushing a man's throat without any discernible shift in between. It's a factor that makes talking with him... interesting.
Rush folds his notes, jams them down on the bedside table, weighting them with his lamp, his back to Young. Unconcerned, unaffected. I'm not afraid of you.
"Well of course, because we couldn't go a single day without addressing this of all our problems. It's nice to know you have your priorities straight, Colonel."
But it isn't fear. Not really. It hasn't been fear for quite a while.
"Yeah," Young gives one of his large repertoire of unhappy smiles. "Sitting on it until we're both good and pissed off is going to work so much better."
It's abhorrent, really, the pull the man exerts just by standing there, inexorable as gravity. There's a distinct possibility that one of the reasons Rush wanted him gone, removed from his position and Rush's life, is that he deforms the shape of Rush's universe, swings him into orbit like an erratic caught too close to a planetary mass.
And Rush doesn't want to be caught. "Oh, facetiousness. Well, if we're swapping styles, here's some honesty for you. What happened between us was a mistake. I don't want to talk about it."
Young's laugh is like a slap. "You really did want me to die."
His expression is a compound of bitterness, disgust and amusement all pared down into such a minimal form it scarcely gives anything away. But Rush has had two years now to learn to read the man's face, and reasons of survival to spur him on, and what he'd thought was an impenetrable mask over a void has become transparent to him.
As it turns out, Young has thoughts too. Sometimes Rush can even take a guess at what they are. "I didn't want you to die. I explained..."
"OK." Young cuts him off. "You expected me to die. You thought you could get what you wanted and not have to deal with the consequences. And now I'm still here, it's... inconvenient, right? You made a mess and you don't want to have to deal with it."
When Destiny pulled her little trick to confirm Young as captain, when even the bridge had been snatched away – when Rush had dealt his hand and lost – he'd given Young his word that he would stop fighting. It isn't a decision he regrets, except that their far more productive relationship since points up how much better it would have been if they had been able to trust each other from the start.
No one on board has a better grasp of who Rush is than Young does. They know each other in depth, as do all the best enemies. It's still infuriating, to be seen so clearly.
He goes on the attack. "What, and you do? One fuck and you've decided we're together? You don't have anything more important to worry about?"
Young's face goes stony for a moment. Then he ducks his head, pushes back up like Atlas lifting the weight of the world. He's trying to be patient. "Everything between you and me is important for the ship, Rush. You know that. And you came on to me, remember? If you've changed your mind, you don't want anything after all, no problem. But you've got to tell me that. You've got to tell me you're not interested. I'm not going to play guessing games, not over this."
Well there's an out. An easy way out. He only has to say, and this little foray into carnal intimacy will be over. Perhaps forever.
Rush considers asking for more time. A week, a fortnight to think this through. Given the pace at which the man thinks, Young would probably consider it a reasonable request.
Sitting abruptly on the edge of his bed, Rush clutches his hair with both hands. Familiar with the gesture, Young tips his gaze to the floor, giving Rush some much needed mental privacy.
Maybe that's what Young's poker face is to him – a screen behind which he can find the space to think.
Even with his eyes closed Rush can feel Young's presence filling his room. A kind of inverse hurricane, with layer upon layer of calm surrounding a core of storms. Their encounter, just before going into stasis, had been a little like being swept away by some exhilarating force. Three years later and the bruises are just beginning to bloom across Rush's back from where Young had driven him into the wall.
He sneaks a quick glance. Young's fallen into some kind of parade rest, hands clasped behind his back, feet apart, everything about him sturdy, solid: wide shoulders, bull neck, barrel chest. Considered next to Gloria's regal graciousness, Mandy's delicate beauty, it's laughable to think that Rush could possibly want to...
And yet it's a fair bet that Young's back is a mess of scratches from where Rush had scored him with his fingernails, trying to pull him in tighter, force him closer, meld the two of them so close that they became one.
"Why do you want this?" he asks, curious suddenly, because frankly he's not much of a catch either, when Young could probably stroll straight back into Lt. Johanssen's bed if he could only get over his scruples long enough to try.
Young glances up with a smile, almost shy. He drifts closer, a pace, two paces, and settles a hand gently in Rush's hair. It's an unwarranted and uninvited liberty. Rush freezes automatically at the touch and then the fingers move, just slightly, and they're warm and soothing and soft against his scalp, and instead of ducking away he leans into them, his eyes falling closed.
He can hear Young's amusement in the deep roughness of his voice. It's like a full body scrub for the soul. "I don't know. It could be nice."
"That's it?" Rush demands, incredulous. "That's the full extent of your analysis? 'It could be nice'? I'm so glad the daily life and death decisions on this ship are being made by someone with such a rigorous process."
The hand goes away, leaving his head feeling cold and bereft, but then the bed dips as Young sits beside him. Heavy, heavy as a black hole, bending all of Rush's attention towards himself. There's a twist of the wry to his smile now. "I've fought things that thought they were gods over two galaxies for twenty years. I've seen time slips, possession, phase shifts, alternate universes, replicators, Wraith, Ori, ice planets, asteroid mining, irradiation, torture, terror, genocide... You know what I've learned?"
There's a strange thought. All of this is new to Rush. After a lifetime of classrooms, it's all still intoxicating – extraterrestrial planets, spaceships, aliens – like a Boy's Own adventure with added science. But he's been out here two (waking) years and already the nightmares are beginning to take their toll. Perhaps Young's burn-out is not as altogether reprehensible as he had thought. Even diamond will shatter along its own faultlines, given pressure and time enough.
"What have you learned?" he says, and lets himself lean in until he can feel Young's warmth along his arm, smell the gun-oil and chemical shower scent of him.
Young lifts a hand, curls it around the back of Rush's neck. He startles and then unclenches a little, some of the tension going out of his aching shoulders.
"I've learned not to underestimate nice. Stuff that makes you feel good? It doesn't come along every day."
And really, Rush thinks, despite appearances, Young too is a fragile thing in his way. A professional soldier who can't bear to kill, a professional leader who'd rather die than make the decisions his position demands of him. Having failed to get rid of him, Rush has recently tried reassuring him instead, providing positive reinforcement for good decisions rather than the opposite. It's a touchy-feely teaching method he despises in principle, but Young seems open to it and it's giving good results.
If he'd imagined himself as homosexual – bisexual, he supposes would be more accurate in his case – Young is not the slender, androgynous boy he might have conjured up for himself. But he is a poor wee lad who needs someone wiser and more resilient to guide him. And he does have rather beautiful eyes.
Embarrassing though the fact is, it's entirely possible that this – the tension of it, the sure and growing frustration – has been behind much of their bitterness. Why not see if it too can be turned towards cooperation?
Turning, he swings a knee up and over, until he is straddling Young's legs. Young reaches out and supports him, spread hands a back-rest in the hollow of Rush's spine, but he doesn't pull Rush close, doesn't escalate the intimacy, just waits for Rush to come to him.
Rush leans slowly in, taking Young's face between his hands, tilting it, taking control, This kiss is not as incendiary as their last – there's no sudden avalanche of clothes-tearing desperation. Young's mouth opens to him, warm and simple, as the hands at his back guide him in close. One slips up to tangle in his hair, the other down, to skim in exploration over the sliver of bare skin where his t-shirts don't quite meet his belt.
It's a long, lingering kiss, all soft breaths and slide, and it's surely too naïve for either of them. But he likes it. It's... tender, friendly, reassuring, and it makes every part of him ache.
"Lock the door," he says when they separate. A deliberate echo. "And then come to bed." Because he's done his fortnight's thinking in the last few minutes, and he's decided that some things... some thing's you've just got to seize when the chance arrives and work out the details later. "If I'm going to have to keep putting up with you after all, I ought to get something out of it, don't you think? I'm quite sure I deserve something nice."