FOR MEGAN (WHO ASKED FOR A SCI-FI THING BUT GOT THIS INSTEAD)
Title: In Space (Among Others) (1/1)
Fandom: AU (by that I mean gay’s in space, partly based off Star Trek)
Characters/Pairings: OC’s
Rating: T.
Word Count: 2,417
Summary: Robert Signs wants to do something, and working hard doesn’t seem to be the way to do it.
Author Warning: Let's just say that there is shit going on and when it happens it sucks, so I warn you, this shit is probably confusing to everyone but myself, so, I guess enjoy my half assed rambling that I spewed out rather quickly (I loved it). I have no idea where my head was, I just needed to get it out before it went away, so forgive me if you're like "the fuck?" I would not blame you.
It’s cold, like always. He finds it odd because he knows he feels cold, but it feels metallic, like being put into a meat locker.
But truth be told there’s really no place he would rather be; here he gets to help to fix the world; trying to find knew and unexplored civilized planets.
Despite his fears of this huge metal contraption there’s a sort of soft feeling behind it, the calmness of space has brought him a new found peace. With each passing moment in the ship he feels even more weightless, even when the anti-gravity field was on.
So, really, he may hate the coldness of the ship, but when he thinks about space, about the endless wonders it holds, he still finds himself warm at the thought.
His mother told him that he was meant for great things, and he likes to think that she meant this, this great adventure that he always dreamed of having, the great adventure that he always heard about in the books his mother read to him as a child.
There’s a loud siren that goes off, and the blaring jars him out of his imagination. The vision of his mother with her beautiful smile and yellow sundress disappears and his eyes fill with red as the emergency lights spin and turn in warning.
---
“Is it totally fucked up that we just killed an alien?”
Robert wanted to say yes, yes it was.
“No, we’re part of the Academy. One of the first rules in the handbook: When things become hostile, protect yourself, which is also basic self-defense”
And what he actually, truly wanted to say was: Man this is really fucked up.
But he ignores it all, because there’s an alien oozing blue blood in front of them, and Jake is becoming pale and looks ready to hurl. Robert is not far behind him because the blue blood is starting to seep towards them, and then it hits the edge of his boots.
He’s sick not ten seconds later.
---
They raise two ranks and can get into the main cabin now, get to actually do something. It’s a sick and twisted feeling that they only had to kill an alien to do it, an alien that could have been hostile because it was afraid of intruders on its home planet.
But Robert doesn’t say anything, instead only conveys the confusion towards Jake as they sit at their lunch table, pausing to stare at the Major in front of them.
“Congratulations lieutenants, you’re coronation will be held on Tuesday”
Robert has a moment between the Major leaving and putting down his cutlery where he thinks that he’s dreaming, and he almost wants to say “but we killed someone”
But that’s not right; they killed an alien, which wasn’t really someone, not really.
Jake seemed to have the same confusion.
They stare at each other and he can see what Jake is asking, through the way his eyebrows seem to knit in confusion and his head tilts ever so slightly to the left.
What did we do?
That’s when he remembers that Jake is only seventeen, and he’s almost twenty-three. This kid isn’t even out of high school and he’s already killed someone.
Something.
Instead he pats Jake’s shoulder and tells him that he’ll explain it all later.
---
Later is six shots of vodka later, which is a kind of later, he was not expecting, but Jake brought it and said he got it and wanted to celebrate.
He still didn’t get it.
Which was so hard to explain that the reason they were promoted was because they killed the alien, and Jake looks far too confused and innocent for someone at the age of seventeen.
“But… I thought it was because I deciphered that transmission when the other guy couldn’t”
This is hard, hard to break a kid’s heart. To say that all his hard work, all his studying of languages and alien cultures means nothing in light of a little bloodshed.
“And what about when you took a ten hour shift in the medical ward? And then you got up four hours later to fucking run coffee and push papers around for the Captain and his fucking staff?”
He realizes that it’s not fair. “I know, I know but this is good, we’re doing something besides going crazy in the vacuum of fucking space” he loves being out here, but he can tell that Jake gets a little stir crazy. The teen would sometimes have small anxiety attacks knowing that there was absolutely nothing but a couple of feet of metal between him and death.
Jake shakes his hair and takes another shot. That’ll be seven. Seven shots and the pink in his cheeks means a little too much. Seventeen and he was already wallowing his sorrows in alcohol. He should make this kid stop.
Except for the fact that he can’t because when people are lonely, they like to be lonely together, and there was no way that Robert was going to push that away, no matter how unfavorable it was.
---
When Tuesday comes around he’s not prepared, not mentally at least. On the outside he thinks he’s fine, and when he looks down at Jake, his face peaceful and tender, he leans down to kiss the top of his head, stroking black hair and smiling.
They can probably get through this, now that they’ve been noticed maybe they’re hard work will be recognized, instead of a kill while on active duty of a new planet.
As he’s pulling on his boxers he looks at the small picture he has on his wall beside his little metallic desk. It’s his mother, father and him, all smiling, all nineteen years younger and happier and unknowing; all blissfully unaware of the horror that was to come not even a few months later.
Jake stirs in his sleep and looks up, his eyes half lidded and his mouth small, shaped in a cute ‘O.’
“What the hell are you doing up so early?” Jake rubs the heel of his palm into his left eye, trying to rub the sleep away, trying to wake himself up more.
Robert gives him a little grin and shoves him with his foot, “I’m up because we work dumbass. We’re also going to be pulled up a few ranks. Major Robert Signs, second in command Science officer. Sounds good right?”
It does, he likes it, and so does Jake, he can see it in the way he grins and tilts his fucking head like a kid.
“Yeah, it really suits you,” He lets his grin spread into a full on smile, his teeth showing and his hair sticking up in all directions.
“I would say you were made for the position”
Robert leans over and gives Jake a quick peck on the lips before pulling away. Before he can get far Jake is pulling him back, his hand on the back of his head and tugging at his dark brown locks into a deep kiss, with tongue and saliva and everything that makes him weak in the knees.
He bats the teen in the arm, “Stop that, I don’t want to be distracted”
“Fine, I’ll just be getting ready, like a good little boy,”
“Fuck don’t say that you make me feel like a pedophile,” He buttons up his black slacks, stares down at Jake, his lower half covered by the blanket, still naked in bed, with his back on display and his shoulder blades arched and just looking really attractive.
“I’m at the age of fucking consent, don’t worry about it. I’ve known people with bigger gaps and more fucked up relationships. We’re nothing”
Somehow it’s comforting, in between the foul language and teenage rebellion, he still feels comforted by Jake’s words, that this is something that’s okay, that it’s fine.
“Get out of bed Major Jake Roads, second in command of Xenolinguistics”
Robert sometimes wonders how a kid so young can have all room to remember more then 200+ alien languages.
“What?” Shit, he was caught staring.
“Nothing, just wondering how a smartass like you was so smart”
Jake gives a toothy smile and gets up out of bed. Naked, just like that, standing in front of him naked and smiling like he wasn’t trying to proposition Robert.
His smile is huge, and when he stands close to Robert he can feel the heat, can feel it radiating off of his body in waves. He places a hand on his broad chest, and the other hand has his pointer finger cushioned against his cheek, trying to act adorable, and dorky. Adorkable. That was a word a long time ago.
“It’s because I’m a genius. Only 1 percent of the world is you know!”
They fall back into bed.
---
The coronation is small, and really isn’t a coronation like the Queen would have had back in 21 century England. It’s more like a ‘here, this is for you, oh no I’ll put it on, there, looks nice, now buzz off you have shit to do’
It’s a total upgrade from fetching coffee and papers. And now he has actual say on what happens to patients and gets to be included in meetings with the head Science Officer. He’s an asshole but he recognized Robert’s call on a wound that was infected with Corpases Malarus, a skin disease that starts to make the flesh around the wound die, transferred from mosquito like creatures from the planet Ventus.
They were lucky they caught it early, a couple of shots and some minor surgery of the infected area and the man was fine. To be released in a day or two.
His only complaint is that the blue shirt he has to wear is way too short, and if he tried to reach for something up on a shelf his muscular stomach would show.
But all in all everything seems to be going good.
---
Jake is in a coma three days later.
As a learning exercise the head Xenolinguistics officer brought him to a planet that was on the brink of civil war, so as to negotiate a treaty with the United Planets. He thought it would toughen him up, it would show him what to do, what pronouns to use, how to act around other species that he may not have encountered before.
Just when the treaty was about to be signed a sniper had shot the High Priestess of the planet. Her head hadn’t even hit the white parchment before a grenade was thrown in through the tall, open windows.
The head officer had it in him to cover Jake before the grenade went off. He was dead, but Jake received a nasty bump and had a lot of shrapnel that was way too close for comfort to certain arteries.
When he heard the alarm go off on the ship he panicked.
“Incoming three wounded personnel, all available science officers to the sick bay immediately. I repeat, all available science officers to the sick bay immediately.”
He couldn’t get there fast enough. As soon as they ported back he was there, bringing a stretcher and five other nurses with him. He told two of the nurses to deal with the man that had carried back Jake, to tend to his wounds, and that they would get Jake onto the stretcher. He told the rest of the people coming in to deal with the other guy. Right now he needed to save Jake.
It was maybe six hours later, in surgery, with his little metal bowl beside him filling up with small bits of shrapnel, that he realized that he may have a dangerous job that did not have enough benefits.
---
He’s sitting beside Jake’s bed, another week into his coma, and he wonders out loud, “Why the fuck did we join the Academy?”
Because he wanted adventure like a stupid, adolescent boy he was.
And Jake… Jake was a stupid, adolescent boy and if he died at seventeen he would be devastated. No one should outlive their mother; no one should die that young.
“Hey, don’t cry over me, it was just a little bomb, like an itty-bitty one”
He looks up and his eyes go dry from how wide his eyes are. The stupid teen is alive and doped up as hell and he’s being snarky.
He lets out a sigh of relief, mixed with a swear, “Fuck…” his eyes soften and his shoulders relax, he can see the way Jake tilts his head, still doped up like hell, and questioning.
“How long was I out for?”
“About two weeks” It was exactly thirteen days, and five hours, he told himself he had to keep busy from going crazy. The counting made it worse.
The black haired boy closes his eyes and smirks. “Shit, I’m sorry…”
Robert shakes his head. No, there was no way this was his fault, no don’t do that.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I’m just glad you’re alive”
He takes hold of his hand. Pale, longer fingers, hands meant to play the piano.
---
“So this thing between us” Jake starts and Robert looks up from his book as Jake tries to get caught up on his work from a hospital bed, working between a few reports and his hand held holo-computer.
“It’s not just some random… fuck, just… just so you know. I mean, I know we were kind of… together?”
Robert closes his book. He’s read the same line twenty times in between staring at Jake and the way he takes his bottom lip and bites in concentration.
Jake goes red, color finally coming back to his pale face, “I mean I just hope you didn’t think this was a random thing, and that I want this. Us, I want this-” he motions towards the two of them. Robert on the chair and him in the bed “-To be a thing, a thing where we call it ‘us,’ if that’s okay”
He gets up from the chair, and the book falls from his lap, the marked page lost. He reaches gingerly towards Jake and kisses him softly, softly stroking his face with his thumb. The youth leans into the touch.
When Robert pulls back Jake tilts his head and grins, “So… yes?”
He smirks back and kisses him again. He says ‘yes’ amid their kisses just to reassure him.
---