Rewind
Their first time had been a drunken collision of hot lips and hot hands on hot skin. Their second time was in the generator room, because it was the place most accessible to them beyond the dingy bathroom of the bar. By the fifth time Jack had been certain that the only way to get Rei to sleep with him was to find a way to turn the plane into the woman Rei must see in his dreams but since that wasn't possible even with all the marvels of modern-day science using alcohol to hasten the young pilot's imagination and dull his senses would have to do.
A few years back he had thought their relationship was paternalistic, and in a way it still was, sans the waking-up-to-somebody-in-your-bed part. He hadn't counted upon the first time he had noticed Rei and vice-versa, over some Lagers and talk of boomerangs. His bid to make things more intimate and take Rei farther away from Yukikaze because in more ways than one the jet was destroying him had killed the possibility of things moving any further. It had reduced them to something like somewhat strangers and almost friends.
Now Rei was gone in a manner of speaking, and he was still kicking back those Lagers.