Fic - SGU - Failed Diplomacy, PG-13, Young/Rush
Title: Failed Diplomacy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/characters: Young/Rush
Spoilers: Up to and including (indeed, especially for) the latest aired episode, 1x10.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, and I'm not making any money out of this :)
Young knew that many of his crew would blame him for what was happening. He accepted that at least half the responsibility was indeed his - perhaps more. If Young had screwed up, it was only because there was something wrong with Rush, something twisted and broken inside of him that prevented him from being able to just let go. Let go, like any normal human being would. Let go, even if it meant not having the last word. Even if it meant losing just a little of his hold over the Destiny and her motley band of unwilling passengers.
Any normal, rational person would have accepted that enough was enough. Been willing to share power, so to speak. The ship and crew needed Rush, his expertise and his insight - even, Young could admit to himself now, alone on the observation deck, waiting to die - his willingness to make sacrifices, including moral ones.
What Rush should have realised, damn him, was that Young would have allowed him to make those decisions, where necessary - the kind of decisions that offered up lives in exchange for more lives. Sacrificing pawns to win the game. Making deals with the devil. No, Young wasn't willing to do it himself; Rush had been correct about that. They were the wrong people, sure, but that wasn't an invitation to waste their lives unnecessarily. The problem, the huge Goddamned bastard of it all, was that sometimes it was necessary, and Young wasn't stupid, he knew that, and it was the reason he had really needed Rush. Because someone had to make those decisions, someone who didn't care about looking like a callous, obsessive self-centered piece of crap - a persona Young couldn't afford to take on himself. Destiny's crew had needed that balance between Young's stalwart morality and Rush's icy, self-interested logic. They had needed it for as long as Rush's goals were the same as everyone else's - to stay alive. That was still the greatest challenge - now more than ever, in fact. And wasn't that an irony. Rush was thrifty; he would not have sacrificed more people than he had to to carry out whatever crazy plan was in his head.
Young looked at his watch. Ten minutes until the fleet arrived. He let out a long breath and wondered whether Rush would allow any of them to live, now.
It was at least half Rush's fault. For all his pretence at superiority, there were limits to what the cold, insular scientist understood about people. Frankly, in that respect he pretty much sucked. Young had practically drawn diagrams for him of how the balance was supposed to work, how they should have carved up responsibility between them. No, Rush was not a people person, but to compensate he was devious, and able to play his cards closer to his chest, when he wanted to, than anyone Young knew. Except for himself, maybe. Young would never want to play poker against Rush, all the same - or chess.
Or space invaders, for that matter. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be an alternative at the moment. Eight minutes. Jesus. He couldn't believe that Rush would blow the Destiny out of the sky, but he did think him capable of slaughtering the whole crew, if it fitted with his new plans. He wouldn't do it for revenge, not Rush; at least, he would pretend to find such things petty, beneath him. He might do it in anger, if Young provoked him enough. Young recognised in Rush a similar temperament to his own, a capacity for the kind of wild, blinding rage which, if not released, would burn you up and leave you screaming inside your own head until it blew up killed you - or someone else.
Young's rage had almost killed Rush. Now Rush was turning the tables, in furious counterpoint. Perhaps that was the problem: at heart, they were too much alike. Not enough to harmonise, but too much to complement each other the way Young had once hoped they would.
It was all Rush's damned fault, anyway. Young had offered him a compromise, a very generous settlement - all Rush had to do was walk away, let it be over, let them be done. And he couldn't. He had to retain what he considered to be control, though control of what, Young had no idea. Rush had been unable to control Young, the situation, even himself; perhaps he had only been grasping for the lingering threads of his own sanity, after all. Yes, Young would like to believe that; it was better to decide that Rush was simply crazy rather than to accept current events as the consequences of his own dismal failure to figure the man out in time.
Death minus six minutes. Young had no illusions: Rush had an alien fleet, Young and his people had one aged ship that nobody knew how to work. Eli hadn't come up with anything yet, and anyhow it would be too late to implement any plan the kid did cook up. Young remembered Eli's face when he'd managed to decode Rush's message. Until then, their replacement go-to science guy had tried to convince himself, and everyone else, that Rush was bringing help, making a deal with some friendly aliens. Bartering for food, maybe. Even a way back home. He hadn't wanted to believe that Rush intended to hurt them - until he'd figured out how to play back the message that had come through hyperspace. What does it say? Young had asked, his tone carefully neutral. Eli's pale face, the deep shadows under his eyes, clearly showed that he was too tired for anxiety; his voice was dismal as he'd replied, in a nutshell? It says he's coming to hurt us.
Three minutes. He'd be able to see the fleet in three minutes.
No, it was my fault, Young thought. He'd had three chances to have his cake and eat it, to both use Rush and tame him, and somehow he'd botched them all. The diplomacy of words had failed, almost before they'd started - again, too similar in approach, tearing little pieces off of each other, shreds of skin and flesh, like vultures picking over a corpse. Words had done nothing but make both of them more angry and more isolated from each other. The first opportunity, nonetheless, had probably been the best one, looking back. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Hard to imagine Rush even watching that movie. He wondered which of them was Butch, and which was Sundance, and which way around Rush thought it should be.
It had been Young who had first given up on words, realising that their sniping could never become the banter he'd aimed for. He tried getting aggressive instead. Locking antlers, a tried and true method in the animal kingdom, had the dual purpose of asserting authority and showing respect. Rush was more fox than stag, and he'd flinched away, always, sneering in contempt, as though Young were a dumb schoolyard bully aiming a coarse blow. The wrong tack. Not so far wrong, perhaps. After all, it had led to the second opportunity...
Two minutes to go. Verbal aggression had progressed to something else. Everyone on the ship was tense and frustrated, and Rush was no exception - far from it; he was worse off than anybody. Young knew how to use that. There was a cure for that kind of tension, better than alcohol, better than any drug. Rush kept to himself, aloof and lonely. It stood to reason that, if the guy had any normal human urges whatsoever, he must also be horny. A horny man in an enclosed environment is the easiest person in the world to manipulate. Prison makes a lot of men do things - and people - they wouldn't on the outside. Life aboard the Destiny was, in some ways, worse even than prison. Okay, Rush liked the ship - actually he loved the ship, and wasn't that scary in itself - but was still deprived, frustrated, cut off from his usual vices. No coffee, no cigarettes, no alcohol. No proper food, though from the look of Rush, he probably didn't miss that very much.
Young was right both times. Rush didn't miss food; he did miss sex.
It had never really been sex exactly. Tussling and fumbling the first time, an awkward, angry coming together which Young had carefully orchestrated to be impromptu. Rush had known, and he had known why, but he hadn't objected. He had failed to object on precisely four subsequent occasions. The last time, he'd even dozed off against Young's shoulder for a few minutes, not properly relaxed even then, but exhausted from working long hours on little sustenance and no coffee. Young had unceremoniously elbowed him awake, ignored him blithely as he'd pulled his clothes back on, but for a moment, looking down at Rush's head pillowed against his shoulder, Young had come as close as he ever would to liking the man.
That had been the second opportunity missed. He should have let Rush sleep, and slept, or pretended to, himself. Maybe - probably - it wouldn't have made a difference, but still, it had been a mistake on Young's part. A miscalculation he couldn't afford. They couldn't afford.
The third and final opportunity had been on the planet, of course. He should never have left Rush behind. There was no excuse for that; it had been anger, ego, not real calculation, no matter what he'd pretended to himself. He'd lost control, and his crew was about to pay the price of that mistake.
That last...was Rush's fault. Definitely. In the end it had all come down to one stupid, childish battle of egos. It had come down to Young being unable to resist a dare. He had to prove to Rush that he was capable of the hard decisions, the major sacrifices, the Machiavellian approach to morality they needed a little of to get everyone through this...
Yeah, his own fault. Stupid. Because that all-important decision intended to prove his worth? It had been the wrong one. Wrong as hell.
He looked down at his watch, saw the last few seconds ticking away. He didn't need Scott's voice in his ear, telling him that it was showtime, telling him (to use another classic movie reference, why not) that Johnny was home, and he was majorly pissed.
Young made his way slowly to the heart of the ship, the console where Rush had worked eighteen or more hours a day towards their salvation, and God only what else besides. Either he was about to find out, or he'd never know.
Rush's face appeared on the viewscreen. Thinner than ever, wildly bearded, but the eyes hadn't changed, glittering like frozen coals. A fox in a henyard. “My new friends and I have come for my ship, Colonel,” he said, simply.
Young studied him for a moment, remembered what his face had looked like before Young had broken his nose and left him to die, and what it had looked like when he was sleeping. “That's okay, then,” he replied. “For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.”
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/characters: Young/Rush
Spoilers: Up to and including (indeed, especially for) the latest aired episode, 1x10.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, and I'm not making any money out of this :)
Young knew that many of his crew would blame him for what was happening. He accepted that at least half the responsibility was indeed his - perhaps more. If Young had screwed up, it was only because there was something wrong with Rush, something twisted and broken inside of him that prevented him from being able to just let go. Let go, like any normal human being would. Let go, even if it meant not having the last word. Even if it meant losing just a little of his hold over the Destiny and her motley band of unwilling passengers.
Any normal, rational person would have accepted that enough was enough. Been willing to share power, so to speak. The ship and crew needed Rush, his expertise and his insight - even, Young could admit to himself now, alone on the observation deck, waiting to die - his willingness to make sacrifices, including moral ones.
What Rush should have realised, damn him, was that Young would have allowed him to make those decisions, where necessary - the kind of decisions that offered up lives in exchange for more lives. Sacrificing pawns to win the game. Making deals with the devil. No, Young wasn't willing to do it himself; Rush had been correct about that. They were the wrong people, sure, but that wasn't an invitation to waste their lives unnecessarily. The problem, the huge Goddamned bastard of it all, was that sometimes it was necessary, and Young wasn't stupid, he knew that, and it was the reason he had really needed Rush. Because someone had to make those decisions, someone who didn't care about looking like a callous, obsessive self-centered piece of crap - a persona Young couldn't afford to take on himself. Destiny's crew had needed that balance between Young's stalwart morality and Rush's icy, self-interested logic. They had needed it for as long as Rush's goals were the same as everyone else's - to stay alive. That was still the greatest challenge - now more than ever, in fact. And wasn't that an irony. Rush was thrifty; he would not have sacrificed more people than he had to to carry out whatever crazy plan was in his head.
Young looked at his watch. Ten minutes until the fleet arrived. He let out a long breath and wondered whether Rush would allow any of them to live, now.
It was at least half Rush's fault. For all his pretence at superiority, there were limits to what the cold, insular scientist understood about people. Frankly, in that respect he pretty much sucked. Young had practically drawn diagrams for him of how the balance was supposed to work, how they should have carved up responsibility between them. No, Rush was not a people person, but to compensate he was devious, and able to play his cards closer to his chest, when he wanted to, than anyone Young knew. Except for himself, maybe. Young would never want to play poker against Rush, all the same - or chess.
Or space invaders, for that matter. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be an alternative at the moment. Eight minutes. Jesus. He couldn't believe that Rush would blow the Destiny out of the sky, but he did think him capable of slaughtering the whole crew, if it fitted with his new plans. He wouldn't do it for revenge, not Rush; at least, he would pretend to find such things petty, beneath him. He might do it in anger, if Young provoked him enough. Young recognised in Rush a similar temperament to his own, a capacity for the kind of wild, blinding rage which, if not released, would burn you up and leave you screaming inside your own head until it blew up killed you - or someone else.
Young's rage had almost killed Rush. Now Rush was turning the tables, in furious counterpoint. Perhaps that was the problem: at heart, they were too much alike. Not enough to harmonise, but too much to complement each other the way Young had once hoped they would.
It was all Rush's damned fault, anyway. Young had offered him a compromise, a very generous settlement - all Rush had to do was walk away, let it be over, let them be done. And he couldn't. He had to retain what he considered to be control, though control of what, Young had no idea. Rush had been unable to control Young, the situation, even himself; perhaps he had only been grasping for the lingering threads of his own sanity, after all. Yes, Young would like to believe that; it was better to decide that Rush was simply crazy rather than to accept current events as the consequences of his own dismal failure to figure the man out in time.
Death minus six minutes. Young had no illusions: Rush had an alien fleet, Young and his people had one aged ship that nobody knew how to work. Eli hadn't come up with anything yet, and anyhow it would be too late to implement any plan the kid did cook up. Young remembered Eli's face when he'd managed to decode Rush's message. Until then, their replacement go-to science guy had tried to convince himself, and everyone else, that Rush was bringing help, making a deal with some friendly aliens. Bartering for food, maybe. Even a way back home. He hadn't wanted to believe that Rush intended to hurt them - until he'd figured out how to play back the message that had come through hyperspace. What does it say? Young had asked, his tone carefully neutral. Eli's pale face, the deep shadows under his eyes, clearly showed that he was too tired for anxiety; his voice was dismal as he'd replied, in a nutshell? It says he's coming to hurt us.
Three minutes. He'd be able to see the fleet in three minutes.
No, it was my fault, Young thought. He'd had three chances to have his cake and eat it, to both use Rush and tame him, and somehow he'd botched them all. The diplomacy of words had failed, almost before they'd started - again, too similar in approach, tearing little pieces off of each other, shreds of skin and flesh, like vultures picking over a corpse. Words had done nothing but make both of them more angry and more isolated from each other. The first opportunity, nonetheless, had probably been the best one, looking back. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Hard to imagine Rush even watching that movie. He wondered which of them was Butch, and which was Sundance, and which way around Rush thought it should be.
It had been Young who had first given up on words, realising that their sniping could never become the banter he'd aimed for. He tried getting aggressive instead. Locking antlers, a tried and true method in the animal kingdom, had the dual purpose of asserting authority and showing respect. Rush was more fox than stag, and he'd flinched away, always, sneering in contempt, as though Young were a dumb schoolyard bully aiming a coarse blow. The wrong tack. Not so far wrong, perhaps. After all, it had led to the second opportunity...
Two minutes to go. Verbal aggression had progressed to something else. Everyone on the ship was tense and frustrated, and Rush was no exception - far from it; he was worse off than anybody. Young knew how to use that. There was a cure for that kind of tension, better than alcohol, better than any drug. Rush kept to himself, aloof and lonely. It stood to reason that, if the guy had any normal human urges whatsoever, he must also be horny. A horny man in an enclosed environment is the easiest person in the world to manipulate. Prison makes a lot of men do things - and people - they wouldn't on the outside. Life aboard the Destiny was, in some ways, worse even than prison. Okay, Rush liked the ship - actually he loved the ship, and wasn't that scary in itself - but was still deprived, frustrated, cut off from his usual vices. No coffee, no cigarettes, no alcohol. No proper food, though from the look of Rush, he probably didn't miss that very much.
Young was right both times. Rush didn't miss food; he did miss sex.
It had never really been sex exactly. Tussling and fumbling the first time, an awkward, angry coming together which Young had carefully orchestrated to be impromptu. Rush had known, and he had known why, but he hadn't objected. He had failed to object on precisely four subsequent occasions. The last time, he'd even dozed off against Young's shoulder for a few minutes, not properly relaxed even then, but exhausted from working long hours on little sustenance and no coffee. Young had unceremoniously elbowed him awake, ignored him blithely as he'd pulled his clothes back on, but for a moment, looking down at Rush's head pillowed against his shoulder, Young had come as close as he ever would to liking the man.
That had been the second opportunity missed. He should have let Rush sleep, and slept, or pretended to, himself. Maybe - probably - it wouldn't have made a difference, but still, it had been a mistake on Young's part. A miscalculation he couldn't afford. They couldn't afford.
The third and final opportunity had been on the planet, of course. He should never have left Rush behind. There was no excuse for that; it had been anger, ego, not real calculation, no matter what he'd pretended to himself. He'd lost control, and his crew was about to pay the price of that mistake.
That last...was Rush's fault. Definitely. In the end it had all come down to one stupid, childish battle of egos. It had come down to Young being unable to resist a dare. He had to prove to Rush that he was capable of the hard decisions, the major sacrifices, the Machiavellian approach to morality they needed a little of to get everyone through this...
Yeah, his own fault. Stupid. Because that all-important decision intended to prove his worth? It had been the wrong one. Wrong as hell.
He looked down at his watch, saw the last few seconds ticking away. He didn't need Scott's voice in his ear, telling him that it was showtime, telling him (to use another classic movie reference, why not) that Johnny was home, and he was majorly pissed.
Young made his way slowly to the heart of the ship, the console where Rush had worked eighteen or more hours a day towards their salvation, and God only what else besides. Either he was about to find out, or he'd never know.
Rush's face appeared on the viewscreen. Thinner than ever, wildly bearded, but the eyes hadn't changed, glittering like frozen coals. A fox in a henyard. “My new friends and I have come for my ship, Colonel,” he said, simply.
Young studied him for a moment, remembered what his face had looked like before Young had broken his nose and left him to die, and what it had looked like when he was sleeping. “That's okay, then,” he replied. “For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.”