Young limped towards his quarters. The bottle had been calling him and rather than give in to the lure of alcohol he had gone running. He did not think he had done any specific damage to his knee, but had definitely overworked it and it ached. He made it back to his quarters, stepping in and making for the bed, shedding clothes without turning on the light. Without the FTL glow it was almost completely dark in there and it wasn't until he sat on the edge of the bed he realised it was already occupied.
Cautiously he reached out, gently touching tousled hair. Rush mumbled in his sleep as Young's careful fingertip exploration established he was lying on his side with his back to Young. Young slid in under the covers. Rush had evidently been here some time and had warmed the bed up. Young sighed as he relaxed into the warmth and leaned his forehead against Rush's shoulder blades. What a fucking mess.
He did not understand why Rush was pushing him on the issue of Telford and Emily, pushing it even to the point of an argument. He could understand Rush having a problem with how Young was, to be honest, failing to deal with Telford, but why Rush was so annoyed about it, that did not seem typical.
Rush twitched restlessly in his sleep and Young sighed, wrapping an arm around Rush. Rush shifted again without waking fully, rolling in Young's arms to wrap limbs around him, a little further down the bed that Young, mumbling slightly into Young's chest. Young was still angry about the earlier argument, Rush had been bang out of order and had gone right for the jugular. But the thought that he was at least partially right even if he had been a complete bastard about it give Young a pang of guilt.
The fact that even after the argument they had had Rush had come here also gave him pause. TJ's words came back to him You look out for each other. He swallowed against the stab of pain that the memory of the conversation gave him. But, it seemed true enough. Rush despite his complete lack of compassion for anyone else involved had been attempting to get Young to deal with the situation. He was not entirely sure how he felt about that. He was certain it would not have occurred to him that way before TJ had pointed it out.
He shifted slightly so the sleeping man was more comfortably resting against him and tried to sleep. The sound and feeling of Rush breathing against him was soporific though and he found himself dropping into sleep before he expected.
Young stood on the beach and watched the waves lapping at the shore. The sand under his bare feet was hot, baked to an almost uncomfortable temperature by the sun overhead. He wandered down to the waves letting them wash over his toes, the water and the damp sand cooling his skin. He could hear voices as crew played in the water somewhere to his right, Chloe shrieking, Scott and Greer laughing. Turning his head to his left he watched as Rush dove cleanly from the rock into the sea. The water seemed like a good idea and not bothering to remove t shirt or underpants he waded slowly through the waves into the water.
It was warm, but soothing after the hot sun and as he waded out past the waves breaking on the shore, sloped only shallowly so he had to walk some way before it was finally chest height. He let it buoy him up off his feet, floating, staring at tiny white puffs of clouds and the lizard-birds circling above him. The warm water relaxed him, floating his clothes gently around him, loosening tight muscles, comforting him, so warm, softly rocking him…
…he awoke to the last fading pleasurable pulses of orgasm, wrapped warmly in blankets and Rush's arms, pressed against Rush's hip.
He pulled his groin away from the other man quickly, away from the continuing stimulus of pressure and the risk of the damp evidence of his recent ejaculation soaking through onto the other man. A breath left his throat in shuddering pulses as he tried to let out some of the tension, trying hard not to think about what had just happened. He shifted against Rush's arms, trying to extricate himself without waking him, and failing as Rush shifted with a huff of air and a "Wh..?"
"Bathroom." He said, his voice sounding breathy and strained to him.
Rush just made an affirmative grunt and let go. He rolled out of bed, walking to the counter and picking up his only other pair of underpants before dragging on pants and slipping out of the room. In the bathroom he stripped, wet the soiled underpants and used them to wipe himself down before quickly redressing and rinsing out the dirty underwear. He caught sight of himself in the mirror, sweaty and flushed, regarding himself with a guilty frown. The dream had honestly seemed pretty innocuous, nice, relaxing, pleasant.
Right up to the point where he woke up coming, realising his unconscious self had evidently been rubbing off against Rush. No. Wrong. Really do not think that.
"Just a firm, convenient surface." He told his reflection.
Warm, and cuddling you too. No!
He leaned back, letting his head fall back to rest against the wall with a thud. He could not look at himself in the mirror anymore, it was not helping. It had been a dream. A nice dream. It had not been about having sex with anyone in particular. It was just his body getting a bit of release.
And it was not surprising it was feeling like that. He knew exactly the last time he had actually had sex in his own body, and it was on Icarus. TJ had, tragically, been able to date it very accurately for him. No wonder his…whatever…was feeling a little underutilised. Stress, overwork, lack of sleep and poor diet had all combined to make his libido go into hibernation, but it appeared with the good food from the foraging and sufficient sleep it was still in there somewhere, available to his sleeping subconscious at least. The stray thought occurred to him that he probably ought to resort to his hand a little more. Maybe then this wouldn't happen again.
The idea of getting back into bed with Rush bothered him. He was frankly paranoid that his sleeping body, previously trustworthy and just interested in warm company, would betray him again. But he was getting cold and he couldn't stay here any longer and if he wanted his bed then Rush was in it and he would just have to deal with it. He scrubbed at his hair with his hand and walked out and back to bed.
Rush looked up sleepily from the pillow as he walked back in, hair tousled in a bird's nest and eyes beady bright in the brief light from the corridor. He closed the hatch behind him and the room went dark, letting him walk across the cold floor, hang damp underwear on the back of the chair by touch and slide into bed without Rush seeing his embarrassment. Rush mumbled something that sounded like he was complaining about how cold Young was but was pretty much already asleep as he wound limbs round Young's cold form and relaxed back into full slumber.
Young lay there tense. This was too strange and he had not seen it coming. He had come pressed into Rush's hip, he had dreamed and his body had come pressed against Rush. The man who was breathing softly against his chest, heavy and relaxed against him and when had that happened? When had it become normal for the acerbic bastard to fail to wake up in favour of grumbling and sleepily curling round Young without a thought? When had spooning for company moved over to them falling into bed and wrapping themselves together?
He realised that they had not simply spooned for the last few times they had slept together. Okay, they were both lonely, single and apparently desperate for company and most times they fell into bed together one or both of them was physically exhausted, or already asleep, but it seemed to be getting further from anything he could have conceived. He knew they had agreed on the planet that this was helpful, that they both needed the company but in the space of an evening they had gone from a pretty savage argument, to being wrapped up in bed together to him having a wet dream almost all over Rush. Wrong, very wrong.
Rush shifted against him, beard scraping over Young's arm. Young tried to settle but lay there for a long while before he finally fell asleep.
When he woke in the morning, Rush was already gone, no sign that he had ever been there. When he reached out the bed was cold on the other side so he had been gone some time. Young found himself curiously disappointed. He sat on the bed, staring at the wedding ring that was sitting on the counter for a long while, before getting up, washing, dressing and walking out without giving it a further look.
xxxoooxxx
With the two main breaches fixed, Young had ordered a couple of days of downtime, taking the main participants off active duty. The science team apparently were all working on some sort of programming issue or translations and Camile was holding "management training" with Scott, TJ and James, in the infirmary for want of anywhere better to run it. Young had acquiesced to her "suggestion", it would be helpful in the long run and supported his suggestions for promotions.
He had chosen not to participate in the current session of her syllabus on negotiation skills. Camile had asked him to speak to the group as well, but she was much better qualified than he to discuss negotiation. She had already scheduled him in later for other sessions, but this one…this one he had declined.
He sighed as he walked down the corridor towards the mess. Being honest with himself there was no way he could be in the same room as TJ for that long. He was avoiding TJ as much as he was avoiding Rush. That was easy enough with the downtime. Young himself was catching up on reports and checking in with various members of the crew, TJ was training with Camile and Rush was…somewhere. Not visible at any rate.
He had only seen him a couple of times since they had last slept in the same bed. Rush was his usual brisk and focussed self, arriving once with a demand to borrow Barnes for some piece of work, acting completely as if there was no secret and hidden contact between them, no shifting boundaries of interaction, despite the fact they were alone in a room. Young had acquiesced, mainly to end the conversation as soon as possible and Rush had left immediately. He had been on the bridge for his scheduled shift and Young had seen him once, striding down a corridor towards the core room looking typically grim faced. They still had not talked about the argument.
Young ate dinner with Greer and Scott who was talking at length about the training session earlier. Young asked a few pertinent questions, and gave a few anonymous examples of personnel issues from previous commands which illustrated issues that Camile had raised. Greer was making some pretty good points and asking some intelligent questions and Young decided to get Camile to include him in the next session.
"It's just like when…" Scott's enthusiasm was genuine as he rattled on. Smiling at his second in command, Young allowed himself to be drawn into the debate. It was an entertaining enough way to spend the evening.
He gave up about ten in the evening when the conversation swapped to a blow by blow account of a basketball match that Greer had seen on his last trip to Earth and apparently memorised. Basketball was fine enough when you played yourself or watched a real match, but Young did not like it enough to want to listen to that much discussion. He wandered off, a little at a loose end, deciding to check in with the bridge crew.
Halfway to the bridge Young found Rush kneeling on the floor half buried in a conduit. He stopped briefly, watching Rush slide out a hand and feel around for one of the Ancient decoupling tools that loosened standard components like squingies.
"Pass me the decoupler." Rush said without looking to see who it was and reaching a hand out behind him, evidently demanding the requested item.
Young picked it up and put it in the extended hand. He took a breath, wondering whether he should just move on given how well their last actual conversation had gone.
"What are you doing?" He asked as the hand disappeared back into the hole in the wall.
Rush spoke without turning, his voice hollow from within the wall cavity. "Rerouting a communications link."
"What? Sensors?"
"No, Eli has an idea that we will be able to use the systems Destiny already has in place with a little alteration to enable us to use our existing, largely useless, mobile phones with the communications system." There was a grating noise and a thunk and Rush's hand appeared again with a component. It waved a moment. "Well, take it!"
Young took the component and put it down on the floor next to Rush.
"He thinks he can at minimum enable text messages." Rush continued. "He's spent his spare time in the last two weeks getting limited connectivity between his mobile phone and the ship's systems."
There were more grating noises and a few hard clicks, sounding like Rush was installing components.
"How?" Young asked.
"Bluetooth." Rush said shortly. "That little blue logo that comes up on your phone and drains your battery if you leave it on by mistake. His laptop has a Bluetooth dongle which he has now connected to Destiny in the Core Interface Room. It has a very limited range, about 25 metres with the bulkheads in the way, but he thinks we can boost the signal and we think we can also potentially enable some better sort of wifi for wifi-enabled devices by altering or adding to the system the kino remotes use."
Rush pulled himself out of the conduit and stood, turning to face Young. There was a greasy smudge of dirt on his cheek and without thinking Young reached out absently and rubbed it away with his thumb. For a second they froze, Young's hand on Rush's cheek, Rush staring at him, then Young pulled his hand away and spoke quickly.
"What's the difference?" Young asked.
"What?" Rush seemed a little distracted for a second.
"Between Bluetooth and wifi." Young clarified, sliding a half step away from Rush, out of his personal space.
"In language you can understand?"
Young gave him a frustrated look.
Rush snorted. "In language you can understand the systems speak a different language. It's like one system is talking English and the other Chinese. Different languages."
Young thought about this. "Isn't Eli's laptop already connected to the kinos? And you've been downloading database information to your laptop and stuff to TJs too."
"We have direct connections between some of the laptops and Destiny, have managed to get our systems to understand her in a limited way, but those are static, plugged in." He shrugged. "The Bluetooth has a number of usable devices, but they're of limited use," he shifted a little putting himself a little more in Young's personal space, apparently without noticing, as he was pulling out his mobile phone, "mostly mobile phones, but with Eli's dongle we have a ready made transmitter, putting it simply."
Young nodded, looking down at where Rush was turning the mobile phone over and over in his long fingers. "And the wifi?"
"We have a reasonably significant number of wifi enabled devices including two e-book readers, some phones, a dozen or more mp3 players as well as all of the laptops. But we would need to reprogram the kino remote system to transmit in a manner the devices can pick up and to either program that system to speak the right language or teach our devices to understand the kino system." He looked up and gave a one shouldered shrug. "It would mean that we would be able to use some of Destiny's systems to share our stored data and potentially have kino remotes interact with our devices."
Young nodded. "Sounds good."
"It gives me something to do in my spare time." Rush said sarcastically.
"Is there anything I can do?" Young offered. Rush seemed surprised and maybe a little suspicious. Young wondered momentarily himself what his own motivations for that were. Guilt probably.
"Let me know if any of your soldiers has a communications specialism," Rush said tipping his head slightly sideways to regard Young still a little suspiciously, "and free them up to work with Doctor Alexander on the roll out of the system. I have her working on understanding Destiny's current communications technology, but it's slow going as Park is the only Ancient speaker I can spare to translate."
"I'll see what I can do."
"Well, you've got a few days as I'm back on the planet from the day after tomorrow."
Young nodded. "Okay. I'll do that." Young walked away, wondering why he felt like he had dodged a bullet. Damn any agreement they had made, he needed to keep his distance, get a grip on himself, try to regain normality as far as was possible living on Destiny.