Fic: You smell like apple candy [Rush/Young/TJ, NC-17]
Pairings: Rush/Young, Rush/Young/TJ, with past hints of Rush/Gloria and TJ/Young
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: through 1.07
Word Count: 4300
Notes: Sequel/parallel story to Broccoli Trees. For nemo_r, who asked for a sequel, even though this is perhaps not what they were looking for. I swear the fic did this on its own. My intentions had nothing to do with it.
Summary: Rush and Young, as TJ sees it.
- - - -
TJ wasn’t in the gateroom, when it happened. She was on the other side of the ship. From the way Greer told it later, it wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all.
Personally, TJ can’t imagine how this was allowed to happen. Dr. Rush and Colonel Young, offworld at the same time, the last two to come through the stargate. Both trapped, on an alien world. Both. It’s a blow to the expedition that never should have happened.
Scott’s pale, when she finds him, later. Shaking, a little.
“You’re in command,” she tells him, a hint forcefully.
“I, uh,” says Scott. “I know.”
“Scott,” and her tone is cold. “Pull yourself together.”
He shoots her a glare. She doesn’t apologize.
~*~
It turns nasty, and quickly. Predictably.
“Colonel Young was an experienced officer,” says Camille Wray, strongly and evenly, confident with the backing of most of the expedition. “He had a lot of leadership experience. We can’t say the same thing about you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” insists Scott. “He left me in charge. That’s all there is to it.”
Scott is too stiff, too inflexible, out of fear of appearing weak. TJ would help him, but she doesn’t know how any better than he does.
She, quietly and subtly, makes her support of Scott clear. That’s all she can do.
~*~
The next time they come out of FTL, the stargate dials a planet.
And in the blue-white glow, Scott turns to Eli. “What are we looking for?” asks Scott. “What’s the ship asking us to find?”
“I have no idea,” says Eli.
“What do you mean, you have no idea?”
“I don’t know!” Eli gives a helpless, open-palmed shrug. “What does it sound like I mean?”
“Listen, Eli,” says Scott, “it has to be something, right?”
“I mean, maybe?” Eli looks to the other scientists, for help, but none of them seem particularly eager to step up. “We’ve been operating under the assumption that it always is something, but we don’t really know, do we?”
Scott exhales, irritated - “True or false,” he says, “if Dr. Rush were here, he would know.”
The gate room is silent, at that.
“He’s not here,” says Eli, needlessly.
“I know that,” snaps Scott.
A pause, then:
“Assemble a team,” says Scott. “Me, you,” with a nod to Eli, “Greer,” and he names off a couple scientists. “You’re in charge until we get back,” he tells TJ.
TJ nods.
~*~
They don’t figure out what they’re looking for. Not in time.
It’s hours later that Eli tells TJ he’s figured it out, and he launches into an elaborate explanation of a mineral and the water recycling system that she doesn’t even try to follow.
The point is, they missed their chance.
~*~
Days later, TJ hears the shots fired, but she’s not close enough to get there in time; when she gets there, to the control room, medkit in her hand, one civilian scientist is bleeding out on the floor. Another has a hand clapped to her arm, shock on her face.
And then there’s Greer, the gun in his hand aimed directly at them, and Scott against the wall, what looks like a nasty bruise spreading across his cheekbone.
TJ darts straight for the civilian on the ground. He’s bleeding hard, dark red slowly spreading on the floor beneath them. His eyes are wide, and when she looks up, he’s searching her face. The dazed, distant look he gives her -
“Get away from him,” warns Greer.
“He’s going into shock,” says TJ, ignoring Greer, pressing down on the wound. Turns him onto his side - oh, god.
There’s no exit wound.
She’s not a surgeon, she can’t - she can’t remove a bullet. This is beyond her.
And, under her hands, the man spasms, roughly, once, twice; his breath rattles in his chest, and then he’s gone. Her hands move to his wrist, his neck, but there’s no pulse.
The man is dead.
~*~
“What the hell happened?” she asks Scott, later, tilting his head so she could see the bruise better.
“They attacked,” is all Scott will say. “They attacked.”
~*~
It’s later that she learns it was an attempt to take out the current leadership.
She finds out because Scott has Greer throw the co-conspirators into lockup, together. Twenty people, in all. Including Lieutenant Vanessa James.
When TJ steps into the cell, to treat the wounded, they ask for her support.
She doesn’t respond.
~*~
And then Rush and Young are back, and what’s there really to say about that?
She could mention the choked relief she felt, on hearing Young’s voice. How it felt like she couldn’t breathe, until the ship was open, until she found them.
She remembers they were both breathing, that she could find a steady pulse. She remembers how the bile rose in her throat when she saw the - things, thin tendrils like vines, growing into their skin.
“Give me your knife,” she remembers saying, to Greer.
~*~
But it doesn’t matter. They’re back.
~*~
Rush breaks into a fever, about an hour after the removal from the spacecraft. Then cold sweats, clammy skin, and when she checks Young, it’s the same thing.
TJ can’t do much, but she tries to keep them both stable, as much as she can.
~*~
Young wakes up first.
TJ sees the movement of his eyes, the way he stirs - and she recognizes it, to her shame and relief alike. She’s woken up with him, like that. She’s seen this before.
Dismissing the thought, she nudges at Scott.
“Colonel?” asks Scott.
And Young awakens.
His first thought is for Rush, evidently, as TJ helps him sit up, her hand maybe lingering a hint too long on the small of his back. He’s more stable, now. The injury on his hand has stopped bleeding. He’s going to be fine.
“He’s fine,” says TJ, because she can’t think of anything else.
~*~
Young releases the conspirators. General forgiveness, all around. He makes a simple, but effective speech.
TJ doesn’t think he’s thinking about it at all. It looks, to her, like his mind is elsewhere. Like he’s constantly just a hint too preoccupied with something outside the room.
She has the feeling she knows what that is.
But she doesn’t say anything.
~*~
And time passes.
The headaches make her worry, but she isn’t a neurologist, and Rush wouldn’t let her help anyway.
And then the complaints about the headaches stop, and she hopes that means the problem has been resolved.
~*~
She can’t pinpoint the moment where she sees it first.
Maybe there isn’t really a moment. No realization, no sudden comprehension. Just a growing suspicion that the relationship between Nicholas Rush and Everett Young has turned from the mental to the physical.
She should know, right? She’s been there, before.
~*~
They gather, for a meeting in the mess. The usual group, the set of people that’s come to be the command staff of the Destiny.
TJ glances over the assembled people. “Where’s Rush?” she asks. Not because she expects him to be there - more often than not, he isn’t - but because she’s wondering if he will be. She doesn’t mean anything by it, doesn’t intend to insinuate.
But then -
“A couple levels down,” says Young. “He’s just finished up, he’s on his way.”
And TJ realizes that Young knows exactly where Rush is. Without thinking. And her question, then, takes on an uncomfortable tone. An uncomfortable connotation.
Young’s eyes flick up to her, with a strange, startled look, and TJ shifts into a practiced poker face. The one she’s used against him in the past.
He searches her face, but he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. She can tell.
A minute later, when Rush enters, the first person he looks to is Young.
The second is TJ.
~*~
Later, in the meeting, she watches, as Rush brushes the backs of his fingers underneath his chin, lost in thought.
And she watches at Young, listening to Wray’s suggestions about rations, unconsciously mirrors the motion. Trails fingers under his chin like he’s mimicking the sensation.
She can’t watch this anymore.
~*~
“Rush!” snaps Young.
The exclamation is sudden, breaking through the light conversation of the crowd like the cut of a whip.
It’s unprompted, too. Rush has been silent, throughout the discussion concerning the stargate’s new dialed destination. Which was unusual in and of itself, and TJ should have noticed.
Rush, next to TJ, jerks - genuine surprise, at Young’s word, like he’s actually been startled.
Eli pauses, about to dial the stargate, and looks, curiously, to Rush. “Um, guys?” he asks.
Young inhales, and pulls himself together, visibly.
Rush, also, recovers beautifully. “Is there a problem, Colonel?” he asks.
Young grits his jaw. And TJ knows that look, too. It’s the one Young gets when he has something to say, but he’s in public, there are people watching, there’s something stopping him.
“Dial the gate,” he tells Eli.
“Did you two just do a mindlink thing?” asks Eli.
“Leave it, Eli,” says Rush, warning in his tone.
~*~
Not half an hour later, TJ hears voices, up ahead of her, around a corner.
She steps up to the corner, head tilted, listening:
“You never do that again,” says Young, “you got it? Never.”
“Do what?”
That’s Rush’s voice. Light, like he doesn’t know what Young is talking about.
“You were trying to provoke a reaction.”
“I succeeded.”
“Rush.”
There’s a short pause, and TJ takes a step back. If they come around the corner and see her -
“Colonel, why don’t you trust me?”
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t trust me. Why not?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A quick inhale, and now Rush sounds a little irritated. “There was a time when you didn’t know why I did what I did,” he says. “Now you can read my motivations any time you like. There’s no reason not to trust me.”
“Don’t push it, Rush.”
“Considering that issues between us cause health problems that lead to permanent brain damage, I think it’s most certainly prudent that I push it.”
A short silence.
Then Rush’s voice, again. “You didn’t like that I said that. Why?”
“Get outta my way.”
TJ ducks out of sight, down the hallway, just in time.
~*~
She doesn’t know what to think, of that conversation.
No, that’s wrong. She does know what to think. Or she has a theory, anyway.
~*~
She finds herself alone, one day, with Rush, in the observation deck.
She doesn’t know what to say.
“I know,” says Rush, breaking the silence, and she looks up, sharply. “About - everything,” he concludes, a hint awkward.
“Mindlink,” she says.
“Mindlink,” he confirms. “I’d rather not know, if it makes you feel any better.”
TJ bites her tongue, swallowing the words that threaten to come out.
“And he didn’t tell me,” continues Rush.
“It’s not that he doesn’t trust you,” blurts TJ, “it’s that he doesn’t trust himself.”
Rush’s eyes narrow. “I’m sorry?”
And she already curses herself, for having said anything. But she has to, right? She’s the doctor, and it’s her job to take care of her patient’s wellbeing. In this case, apparently it means playing relationship counselor to her ex-lover and an insane astrophysicist.
She lets out a sigh. “It’s the same thing that took him away from me,” she says. “He tries so hard to want to go back to his wife that he actually starts to believe it.”
Rush’s mouth is open, for a moment, and then he closes it.
“I’m not saying that he should have stayed with me,” she corrects, hastily. “That’s not what I mean. I mean that-”
“I know what you meant.”
TJ doesn’t know what to say, to that.
“Thank you,” Rush tells her, eventually.
She gives him a tight nod. That’s all.
~*~
This part is difficult.
Checking his heartbeat. Hearing it, feeling the warmth of his skin through his clothes. She doesn’t like it when he’s close. It’s too much.
“TJ,” he says, and she pulls back.
Not a word as she pulls out a flashlight, moves to shine it in one eye, in the other.
“Do you have something to say?” he asks, finally.
“Am I talking to Colonel Young,” she asks, “or Colonel Young and Doctor Rush?”
Young is struck silent. He draws back from her, a little -
“He’s busy,” says Young. “He’s concentrating on the ship.”
And TJ tries to get a read on him, how he’s feeling, what he’s thinking, but she finds that, right now, Young is completely opaque to her.
~*~
“TJ! Get to the gate room now!”
~*~
When she gets there, Young is on the ground, unconscious, Scott kneeling next to him.
“What happened?” she asks, crouching next to him. Steady pulse, he’s breathing -
“He fell,” says Scott. “Down the stairs. I don’t know what happened.”
“I do,” says Rush, softly, leaning against the arch of the doorway, in the background.
~*~
Once Young is settled on a cot, in his room, TJ doesn’t have much to do. He’ll wake up, he’s fine. It’s just a matter of time.
And she’s restless. She feels stretched thin, brittle, pulled to the breaking point. She shouldn’t even be here. She should have transferred out of the Icarus base faster.
“How is he?”
It’s Rush. Of course it’s Rush.
“He’s fine,” she responds. “If he was awake I could…”
“Could what?” probes Rush.
“Test for bruising or breaks,” she sighs. “But he can’t-”
“Tell me,” interrupts Rush, “does that mean testing for areas of particular pain?”
She frowns. “Yes. It does.”
“I can do that.”
Rush slips into a chair, on the far side of the bed. Nods at her to go ahead.
All right, then…
TJ stands, probing gentle fingers along Young’s foot, his ankle. Rush flinches, and she stops - “No,” says Rush, “sorry. It’s just - he’s dreaming. Please continue.”
“You can feel this?” she asks, once she’s gotten to Young’s arm. “You can feel me touching him?”
“If I try, yes,” says Rush. “It’s not automatic.”
“If it was automatic, he wouldn’t be able to resist.”
“Exactly.” And if TJ isn’t imagining it, Rush - sounds a little conflicted, at this.
“And that’s why he fell?”
She doesn’t even know why she’s asking about this. She doesn’t need to learn about how the mind link functions between Rush and Young. She doesn’t need to know anything about them at all.
“It was.”
Rush’s eyes, on her, are careful, and a little too intent, and they make her uncomfortable.
The silence is awkward.
And then Rush’s eyes flick to Young. “He’s waking up,” says Rush.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Young stirs, head turning in, towards the pillow. His eyes open, hazy, a little unfocused. Dark. She always remembers how dark his eyes look, in low light.
“TJ?” he asks, and she’s somehow lowly triumphant that it’s her name he says first, and not Rush’s.
“I’m here,” she says. She palms her light, and touches his cheek, shining it into one eye, the other. Dilation is normal. Just a minor concussion, then.
“You’re fine,” she tells him.
“Good,” says Rush, straightening.
“You got somewhere to be?” she asks Rush, coolly, and Rush pauses.
Young’s brow furrows. “What,” he says, “is going on here?”
“Ask her,” Rush demurs. “She’s the one you trust.”
Is that - true? TJ doesn’t know how to feel about it, if it is. Whether she should be annoyed or a little offended or just … unsurprised. Like trust is something that happened between them, not something either of them could stop. Like the affair.
Young’s gaze moves to TJ.
And TJ’s thought process does something funny here. Because her priority is saving Young’s life (of course it is). And the hangups that kept him from being with her are the same hangups that are stopping him from being with Rush. And that’s what’s killing him.
So if she could stop that, she could fix him.
Her hand is still lingering, on his cheek. And as she makes this leap, this mental leap, her thumb drifts down the line of his jaw. Not the touch of a medic to a patient.
“He wants you,” says Rush, and he sounds surprised. Not surprised that Young feels that way, but surprised that he said it.
“I know,” says TJ.
“Hey,” says Young. “What’s going on?”
TJ hesitates. And she shifts down - kisses Young, and it’s exactly as she remembers it. The way he gives in to it, just a little, the tilt of his head.
What’s new, though, is the soft inhale from next to her.
She breaks the kiss, and Rush’s eyes are closed, his lips a little parted.
He felt that.
Oh, TJ is playing with fire right now. She’s playing with something she doesn’t understand. And desire, which gets complicated, and isn’t appropriate, and now Nicholas Rush is looking at her --
“I’ll go, then, shall I,” coughs Rush. He rises to leave.
“He wants to stay,” says Young.
And TJ rolls her eyes. Is that really the best their mindreading can do? “No kidding.” Reaches out a hand to Rush, which he eyes like it’s a particularly strange kind of alien creature. “Come on,” says TJ.
“TJ,” says Young, “are you sure?”
He’s half-sitting up, by now. The want is drawn taut, in him. He’s changed, since they ended it. He’s more vulnerable, now, more exhausted. She knew he was burned out before, but she didn’t know it was this bad. Rush, it must have been Rush who uncovered this.
She looks back to Rush, and holds out her hand, again, raising her eyebrows.
Reluctantly, Rush uncrosses his arms, and takes her hand. Lets her draw him onto the bed.
She slips off her vest, pulls her shirt over her head, and Young’s hand is moving to the clasp of her bra; she reaches out to Rush, then, and he flinches away from her touch, at first. Amazing - she can feel the outline of ribs, even through two shirts. He’s thin. Unhealthily thin.
TJ slides a hand over his neck, pressing a kiss under his jaw, to his cheek. The roughness of the stubble, the smell of his skin, and Young’s fingers stroke down her spine, the firm grip of her bra loosened.
She shrugs the bra off, urging Rush’s shirts over his head, and kisses him for real.
He is as thin as she thought. She’s pretty sure she’s a lot more muscular than him, and not just by virtue of military training. And as she breaks the kiss, she thinks she can recognize that expression. Pain.
Strange, that she has to look towards Young, to know if it’s all right -
“You’re the first woman,” explains Young, “since his wife.”
Of course.
Rush shoots a glare at Young, but TJ redirects it, towards her. “Maybe he’s not the only one who needs some work on trust,” she says, pointedly.
Rush can’t meet her eyes, for a moment. And then his fingers curl, hesitantly, around her waist. “Perhaps you’re right,” he concedes, and it’s him who kisses her, this time.
Young pulls her back towards him, his hand reaching around to her stomach, under the edge of her pants. Flicks the clasp open, sliding inside, and she arches, hungrily, into the touch of his fingers. It shocks her how hungrily, and it also surprises her that they’re focused on her, that she’s in between them when it’s the two of them that have the connection, but then she realizes. They feel everything. They don’t need to touch each other; they’re already inside one another.
She gasps, turning away from Rush, and his hand falls to her breast, her nipple against his palm. His hands are rougher than she’s expecting, somehow, and - just -there -- Young’s fingers stroke just right, and she rocks her hips, bucking, a little, at the rhythm.
They’re still mostly clothed, and Young’s fingers slip inside her, going a hint too deep a hint too fast. “Oh god,” she breathes, and Rush whispers, “you’re so warm, inside,” and that’s it, the edge of ecstasy turned and twisted in her, muscles clenching around Young’s fingers in her (hopefully) first orgasm of the night.
Rush shudders, a little drunkenly, against her, and the fingers of Young’s free hand are digging into her hip.
She pulls away, enough to fumble at remaining clothing.
When she looks back, Young’s fingertips are skimming up the side of Rush’s neck, and Rush’s eyes are closed again. God, that kind of sensation - she can’t even imagine. Both touching and being touched, desiring and being desired in an echo, a feedback loop. She’s a little jealous.
Young seals the kiss, going deep fast, parting Rush’s lips. And she can’t really be jealous anymore, she’s mostly just transfixed.
They pull apart, and then clothes are gone, and she’s naked, above Young - she pushes him back, against the pillow, and Rush stops her, with a hand over her ribs.
“Is pregnancy a concern?” he asks, and she could almost hate him for being practical at a moment like this.
“Not for the next week,” she says. She has enough doses of the pill to last until then.
Rush nods, withdrawing; his hand moves between her legs, and she doesn’t know what he’s doing at first, until Young hisses and Rush bites his lip, hard - and then she realizes, he’s lining Young up, for her - and TJ sinks down on him, faster than she intended, but she’s still slick from her first orgasm.
Rush turns his face in, towards her shoulder, muttering something low and nonsensical; TJ rides the movement of Young’s hips, the hard, stretched feel of him inside her.
It doesn’t take her long to forget that Rush isn’t even technically the one inside her; he’s such a part of this, his head in the crook of her neck, his fingers tangled in hers, that it could honestly be both of them, she isn’t sure.
And then Young shifts, rolling her over onto her back. Pulls out of her, and she moans, a little, at the loss.
Rush kind of melts into Young, and vice versa, and the way they kiss is hard-edged, desperate. They are a part of each other, and TJ doesn’t know why she ever stepped between them.
Then they pause, exchanging a glance, and there are no words, not aloud, but she gets the feeling that she’s missing a conversation. A novel, maybe.
They both turn towards her, in unison, and a shiver of lust runs through her frame.
She expects Young to get close again, but instead it’s Rush. Rush who kisses her, rough stubble scratching against her skin, and Rush who pushes inside her. And no, there’s no way she could mistake one for the other; Young treats her carefully, like she’s precious, but Rush is rougher, more ruthless.
Both ways it’s about need.
She gives a cry at a particularly rough thrust, edging over into painful. Rush gasps, gives another little part-thrust inside, and yeah, he’s coming -
Young is next to TJ, jaw clenched.
Another familiar look. This time, when he’s trying to hold on.
TJ strokes down his side, and Rush stops her hand, still breathing hard.
“Wait,” he says.
He pulls out of her, gently, and clambers over Young, holding him down.
“You trust me?” he asks Young.
“Rush.”
“Do you?”
Young can’t answer.
“All right,” says Rush. “That’s all I need.”
He takes Young’s wrists, one by one, and presses them above his head. Holding him down. Glances up to TJ, and she shifts, transferring them to her grasp.
“What are you doing?” asks Young, a hint of a tremor in his voice.
“Hold him,” says Rush, and TJ is confused, for a moment, because Rush doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t move, just narrows his gaze a little.
And then Young pulls against TJ’s grasp, with a quick, shocked inhale. Mouth falls open and he tenses - it’s like she can see the pleasure quickening through his body. She has no idea what Rush is doing, but it must be something akin to broadcasting sexual pleasure, straight into Young’s head, and it’s working. It’s working very well, because now Young can’t breathe steadily, is arching up against her in little needy fits and starts.
To her shock, she sees that Young is actually getting close. That Rush intends to push him over the edge, like this.
“Rush,” pleads Young, and TJ can’t help it, she grips tighter, for a second, spasmodically.
Rush flattens a hand on Young’s chest, not touching him otherwise. “Let go,” says Rush.
And Young jerks up, climax burning through him, spilling hot against his stomach.
TJ lets him go, because he’s shivering, quiet, vulnerable. Lies down next to him, and she’s surprised when Rush, instead of taking the opposite side of Young, settles down behind her instead.
“Let’s see if we can’t take care of you,” suggests Rush.
She’s about to object - once is enough, for her - but he reaches his hand between her legs, and presses his palm against her clit. Nothing hard, just a gentle, even rub, and that’s all it takes. The orgasm this time is long and lazy, shuddering all the way through her with an easy intimacy she didn’t expect.
On one side of her, Young closes his eyes, slipping away; on the other, Rush’s eyes are open, shifting across the ceiling like he’s watching lines of Ancient code.
TJ tilts her head towards Young. Nudges him. “Any headaches?”
He snorts. Laughs, a little, and that’s the easiest she’s seen him be since they got to the Destiny.
And Rush knows it too. He’s not smiling, exactly, but the light in his eyes -
She could get used to that.
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: through 1.07
Word Count: 4300
Notes: Sequel/parallel story to Broccoli Trees. For nemo_r, who asked for a sequel, even though this is perhaps not what they were looking for. I swear the fic did this on its own. My intentions had nothing to do with it.
Summary: Rush and Young, as TJ sees it.
- - - -
TJ wasn’t in the gateroom, when it happened. She was on the other side of the ship. From the way Greer told it later, it wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all.
Personally, TJ can’t imagine how this was allowed to happen. Dr. Rush and Colonel Young, offworld at the same time, the last two to come through the stargate. Both trapped, on an alien world. Both. It’s a blow to the expedition that never should have happened.
Scott’s pale, when she finds him, later. Shaking, a little.
“You’re in command,” she tells him, a hint forcefully.
“I, uh,” says Scott. “I know.”
“Scott,” and her tone is cold. “Pull yourself together.”
He shoots her a glare. She doesn’t apologize.
~*~
It turns nasty, and quickly. Predictably.
“Colonel Young was an experienced officer,” says Camille Wray, strongly and evenly, confident with the backing of most of the expedition. “He had a lot of leadership experience. We can’t say the same thing about you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” insists Scott. “He left me in charge. That’s all there is to it.”
Scott is too stiff, too inflexible, out of fear of appearing weak. TJ would help him, but she doesn’t know how any better than he does.
She, quietly and subtly, makes her support of Scott clear. That’s all she can do.
~*~
The next time they come out of FTL, the stargate dials a planet.
And in the blue-white glow, Scott turns to Eli. “What are we looking for?” asks Scott. “What’s the ship asking us to find?”
“I have no idea,” says Eli.
“What do you mean, you have no idea?”
“I don’t know!” Eli gives a helpless, open-palmed shrug. “What does it sound like I mean?”
“Listen, Eli,” says Scott, “it has to be something, right?”
“I mean, maybe?” Eli looks to the other scientists, for help, but none of them seem particularly eager to step up. “We’ve been operating under the assumption that it always is something, but we don’t really know, do we?”
Scott exhales, irritated - “True or false,” he says, “if Dr. Rush were here, he would know.”
The gate room is silent, at that.
“He’s not here,” says Eli, needlessly.
“I know that,” snaps Scott.
A pause, then:
“Assemble a team,” says Scott. “Me, you,” with a nod to Eli, “Greer,” and he names off a couple scientists. “You’re in charge until we get back,” he tells TJ.
TJ nods.
~*~
They don’t figure out what they’re looking for. Not in time.
It’s hours later that Eli tells TJ he’s figured it out, and he launches into an elaborate explanation of a mineral and the water recycling system that she doesn’t even try to follow.
The point is, they missed their chance.
~*~
Days later, TJ hears the shots fired, but she’s not close enough to get there in time; when she gets there, to the control room, medkit in her hand, one civilian scientist is bleeding out on the floor. Another has a hand clapped to her arm, shock on her face.
And then there’s Greer, the gun in his hand aimed directly at them, and Scott against the wall, what looks like a nasty bruise spreading across his cheekbone.
TJ darts straight for the civilian on the ground. He’s bleeding hard, dark red slowly spreading on the floor beneath them. His eyes are wide, and when she looks up, he’s searching her face. The dazed, distant look he gives her -
“Get away from him,” warns Greer.
“He’s going into shock,” says TJ, ignoring Greer, pressing down on the wound. Turns him onto his side - oh, god.
There’s no exit wound.
She’s not a surgeon, she can’t - she can’t remove a bullet. This is beyond her.
And, under her hands, the man spasms, roughly, once, twice; his breath rattles in his chest, and then he’s gone. Her hands move to his wrist, his neck, but there’s no pulse.
The man is dead.
~*~
“What the hell happened?” she asks Scott, later, tilting his head so she could see the bruise better.
“They attacked,” is all Scott will say. “They attacked.”
~*~
It’s later that she learns it was an attempt to take out the current leadership.
She finds out because Scott has Greer throw the co-conspirators into lockup, together. Twenty people, in all. Including Lieutenant Vanessa James.
When TJ steps into the cell, to treat the wounded, they ask for her support.
She doesn’t respond.
~*~
And then Rush and Young are back, and what’s there really to say about that?
She could mention the choked relief she felt, on hearing Young’s voice. How it felt like she couldn’t breathe, until the ship was open, until she found them.
She remembers they were both breathing, that she could find a steady pulse. She remembers how the bile rose in her throat when she saw the - things, thin tendrils like vines, growing into their skin.
“Give me your knife,” she remembers saying, to Greer.
~*~
But it doesn’t matter. They’re back.
~*~
Rush breaks into a fever, about an hour after the removal from the spacecraft. Then cold sweats, clammy skin, and when she checks Young, it’s the same thing.
TJ can’t do much, but she tries to keep them both stable, as much as she can.
~*~
Young wakes up first.
TJ sees the movement of his eyes, the way he stirs - and she recognizes it, to her shame and relief alike. She’s woken up with him, like that. She’s seen this before.
Dismissing the thought, she nudges at Scott.
“Colonel?” asks Scott.
And Young awakens.
His first thought is for Rush, evidently, as TJ helps him sit up, her hand maybe lingering a hint too long on the small of his back. He’s more stable, now. The injury on his hand has stopped bleeding. He’s going to be fine.
“He’s fine,” says TJ, because she can’t think of anything else.
~*~
Young releases the conspirators. General forgiveness, all around. He makes a simple, but effective speech.
TJ doesn’t think he’s thinking about it at all. It looks, to her, like his mind is elsewhere. Like he’s constantly just a hint too preoccupied with something outside the room.
She has the feeling she knows what that is.
But she doesn’t say anything.
~*~
And time passes.
The headaches make her worry, but she isn’t a neurologist, and Rush wouldn’t let her help anyway.
And then the complaints about the headaches stop, and she hopes that means the problem has been resolved.
~*~
She can’t pinpoint the moment where she sees it first.
Maybe there isn’t really a moment. No realization, no sudden comprehension. Just a growing suspicion that the relationship between Nicholas Rush and Everett Young has turned from the mental to the physical.
She should know, right? She’s been there, before.
~*~
They gather, for a meeting in the mess. The usual group, the set of people that’s come to be the command staff of the Destiny.
TJ glances over the assembled people. “Where’s Rush?” she asks. Not because she expects him to be there - more often than not, he isn’t - but because she’s wondering if he will be. She doesn’t mean anything by it, doesn’t intend to insinuate.
But then -
“A couple levels down,” says Young. “He’s just finished up, he’s on his way.”
And TJ realizes that Young knows exactly where Rush is. Without thinking. And her question, then, takes on an uncomfortable tone. An uncomfortable connotation.
Young’s eyes flick up to her, with a strange, startled look, and TJ shifts into a practiced poker face. The one she’s used against him in the past.
He searches her face, but he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. She can tell.
A minute later, when Rush enters, the first person he looks to is Young.
The second is TJ.
~*~
Later, in the meeting, she watches, as Rush brushes the backs of his fingers underneath his chin, lost in thought.
And she watches at Young, listening to Wray’s suggestions about rations, unconsciously mirrors the motion. Trails fingers under his chin like he’s mimicking the sensation.
She can’t watch this anymore.
~*~
“Rush!” snaps Young.
The exclamation is sudden, breaking through the light conversation of the crowd like the cut of a whip.
It’s unprompted, too. Rush has been silent, throughout the discussion concerning the stargate’s new dialed destination. Which was unusual in and of itself, and TJ should have noticed.
Rush, next to TJ, jerks - genuine surprise, at Young’s word, like he’s actually been startled.
Eli pauses, about to dial the stargate, and looks, curiously, to Rush. “Um, guys?” he asks.
Young inhales, and pulls himself together, visibly.
Rush, also, recovers beautifully. “Is there a problem, Colonel?” he asks.
Young grits his jaw. And TJ knows that look, too. It’s the one Young gets when he has something to say, but he’s in public, there are people watching, there’s something stopping him.
“Dial the gate,” he tells Eli.
“Did you two just do a mindlink thing?” asks Eli.
“Leave it, Eli,” says Rush, warning in his tone.
~*~
Not half an hour later, TJ hears voices, up ahead of her, around a corner.
She steps up to the corner, head tilted, listening:
“You never do that again,” says Young, “you got it? Never.”
“Do what?”
That’s Rush’s voice. Light, like he doesn’t know what Young is talking about.
“You were trying to provoke a reaction.”
“I succeeded.”
“Rush.”
There’s a short pause, and TJ takes a step back. If they come around the corner and see her -
“Colonel, why don’t you trust me?”
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t trust me. Why not?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A quick inhale, and now Rush sounds a little irritated. “There was a time when you didn’t know why I did what I did,” he says. “Now you can read my motivations any time you like. There’s no reason not to trust me.”
“Don’t push it, Rush.”
“Considering that issues between us cause health problems that lead to permanent brain damage, I think it’s most certainly prudent that I push it.”
A short silence.
Then Rush’s voice, again. “You didn’t like that I said that. Why?”
“Get outta my way.”
TJ ducks out of sight, down the hallway, just in time.
~*~
She doesn’t know what to think, of that conversation.
No, that’s wrong. She does know what to think. Or she has a theory, anyway.
~*~
She finds herself alone, one day, with Rush, in the observation deck.
She doesn’t know what to say.
“I know,” says Rush, breaking the silence, and she looks up, sharply. “About - everything,” he concludes, a hint awkward.
“Mindlink,” she says.
“Mindlink,” he confirms. “I’d rather not know, if it makes you feel any better.”
TJ bites her tongue, swallowing the words that threaten to come out.
“And he didn’t tell me,” continues Rush.
“It’s not that he doesn’t trust you,” blurts TJ, “it’s that he doesn’t trust himself.”
Rush’s eyes narrow. “I’m sorry?”
And she already curses herself, for having said anything. But she has to, right? She’s the doctor, and it’s her job to take care of her patient’s wellbeing. In this case, apparently it means playing relationship counselor to her ex-lover and an insane astrophysicist.
She lets out a sigh. “It’s the same thing that took him away from me,” she says. “He tries so hard to want to go back to his wife that he actually starts to believe it.”
Rush’s mouth is open, for a moment, and then he closes it.
“I’m not saying that he should have stayed with me,” she corrects, hastily. “That’s not what I mean. I mean that-”
“I know what you meant.”
TJ doesn’t know what to say, to that.
“Thank you,” Rush tells her, eventually.
She gives him a tight nod. That’s all.
~*~
This part is difficult.
Checking his heartbeat. Hearing it, feeling the warmth of his skin through his clothes. She doesn’t like it when he’s close. It’s too much.
“TJ,” he says, and she pulls back.
Not a word as she pulls out a flashlight, moves to shine it in one eye, in the other.
“Do you have something to say?” he asks, finally.
“Am I talking to Colonel Young,” she asks, “or Colonel Young and Doctor Rush?”
Young is struck silent. He draws back from her, a little -
“He’s busy,” says Young. “He’s concentrating on the ship.”
And TJ tries to get a read on him, how he’s feeling, what he’s thinking, but she finds that, right now, Young is completely opaque to her.
~*~
“TJ! Get to the gate room now!”
~*~
When she gets there, Young is on the ground, unconscious, Scott kneeling next to him.
“What happened?” she asks, crouching next to him. Steady pulse, he’s breathing -
“He fell,” says Scott. “Down the stairs. I don’t know what happened.”
“I do,” says Rush, softly, leaning against the arch of the doorway, in the background.
~*~
Once Young is settled on a cot, in his room, TJ doesn’t have much to do. He’ll wake up, he’s fine. It’s just a matter of time.
And she’s restless. She feels stretched thin, brittle, pulled to the breaking point. She shouldn’t even be here. She should have transferred out of the Icarus base faster.
“How is he?”
It’s Rush. Of course it’s Rush.
“He’s fine,” she responds. “If he was awake I could…”
“Could what?” probes Rush.
“Test for bruising or breaks,” she sighs. “But he can’t-”
“Tell me,” interrupts Rush, “does that mean testing for areas of particular pain?”
She frowns. “Yes. It does.”
“I can do that.”
Rush slips into a chair, on the far side of the bed. Nods at her to go ahead.
All right, then…
TJ stands, probing gentle fingers along Young’s foot, his ankle. Rush flinches, and she stops - “No,” says Rush, “sorry. It’s just - he’s dreaming. Please continue.”
“You can feel this?” she asks, once she’s gotten to Young’s arm. “You can feel me touching him?”
“If I try, yes,” says Rush. “It’s not automatic.”
“If it was automatic, he wouldn’t be able to resist.”
“Exactly.” And if TJ isn’t imagining it, Rush - sounds a little conflicted, at this.
“And that’s why he fell?”
She doesn’t even know why she’s asking about this. She doesn’t need to learn about how the mind link functions between Rush and Young. She doesn’t need to know anything about them at all.
“It was.”
Rush’s eyes, on her, are careful, and a little too intent, and they make her uncomfortable.
The silence is awkward.
And then Rush’s eyes flick to Young. “He’s waking up,” says Rush.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Young stirs, head turning in, towards the pillow. His eyes open, hazy, a little unfocused. Dark. She always remembers how dark his eyes look, in low light.
“TJ?” he asks, and she’s somehow lowly triumphant that it’s her name he says first, and not Rush’s.
“I’m here,” she says. She palms her light, and touches his cheek, shining it into one eye, the other. Dilation is normal. Just a minor concussion, then.
“You’re fine,” she tells him.
“Good,” says Rush, straightening.
“You got somewhere to be?” she asks Rush, coolly, and Rush pauses.
Young’s brow furrows. “What,” he says, “is going on here?”
“Ask her,” Rush demurs. “She’s the one you trust.”
Is that - true? TJ doesn’t know how to feel about it, if it is. Whether she should be annoyed or a little offended or just … unsurprised. Like trust is something that happened between them, not something either of them could stop. Like the affair.
Young’s gaze moves to TJ.
And TJ’s thought process does something funny here. Because her priority is saving Young’s life (of course it is). And the hangups that kept him from being with her are the same hangups that are stopping him from being with Rush. And that’s what’s killing him.
So if she could stop that, she could fix him.
Her hand is still lingering, on his cheek. And as she makes this leap, this mental leap, her thumb drifts down the line of his jaw. Not the touch of a medic to a patient.
“He wants you,” says Rush, and he sounds surprised. Not surprised that Young feels that way, but surprised that he said it.
“I know,” says TJ.
“Hey,” says Young. “What’s going on?”
TJ hesitates. And she shifts down - kisses Young, and it’s exactly as she remembers it. The way he gives in to it, just a little, the tilt of his head.
What’s new, though, is the soft inhale from next to her.
She breaks the kiss, and Rush’s eyes are closed, his lips a little parted.
He felt that.
Oh, TJ is playing with fire right now. She’s playing with something she doesn’t understand. And desire, which gets complicated, and isn’t appropriate, and now Nicholas Rush is looking at her --
“I’ll go, then, shall I,” coughs Rush. He rises to leave.
“He wants to stay,” says Young.
And TJ rolls her eyes. Is that really the best their mindreading can do? “No kidding.” Reaches out a hand to Rush, which he eyes like it’s a particularly strange kind of alien creature. “Come on,” says TJ.
“TJ,” says Young, “are you sure?”
He’s half-sitting up, by now. The want is drawn taut, in him. He’s changed, since they ended it. He’s more vulnerable, now, more exhausted. She knew he was burned out before, but she didn’t know it was this bad. Rush, it must have been Rush who uncovered this.
She looks back to Rush, and holds out her hand, again, raising her eyebrows.
Reluctantly, Rush uncrosses his arms, and takes her hand. Lets her draw him onto the bed.
She slips off her vest, pulls her shirt over her head, and Young’s hand is moving to the clasp of her bra; she reaches out to Rush, then, and he flinches away from her touch, at first. Amazing - she can feel the outline of ribs, even through two shirts. He’s thin. Unhealthily thin.
TJ slides a hand over his neck, pressing a kiss under his jaw, to his cheek. The roughness of the stubble, the smell of his skin, and Young’s fingers stroke down her spine, the firm grip of her bra loosened.
She shrugs the bra off, urging Rush’s shirts over his head, and kisses him for real.
He is as thin as she thought. She’s pretty sure she’s a lot more muscular than him, and not just by virtue of military training. And as she breaks the kiss, she thinks she can recognize that expression. Pain.
Strange, that she has to look towards Young, to know if it’s all right -
“You’re the first woman,” explains Young, “since his wife.”
Of course.
Rush shoots a glare at Young, but TJ redirects it, towards her. “Maybe he’s not the only one who needs some work on trust,” she says, pointedly.
Rush can’t meet her eyes, for a moment. And then his fingers curl, hesitantly, around her waist. “Perhaps you’re right,” he concedes, and it’s him who kisses her, this time.
Young pulls her back towards him, his hand reaching around to her stomach, under the edge of her pants. Flicks the clasp open, sliding inside, and she arches, hungrily, into the touch of his fingers. It shocks her how hungrily, and it also surprises her that they’re focused on her, that she’s in between them when it’s the two of them that have the connection, but then she realizes. They feel everything. They don’t need to touch each other; they’re already inside one another.
She gasps, turning away from Rush, and his hand falls to her breast, her nipple against his palm. His hands are rougher than she’s expecting, somehow, and - just -there -- Young’s fingers stroke just right, and she rocks her hips, bucking, a little, at the rhythm.
They’re still mostly clothed, and Young’s fingers slip inside her, going a hint too deep a hint too fast. “Oh god,” she breathes, and Rush whispers, “you’re so warm, inside,” and that’s it, the edge of ecstasy turned and twisted in her, muscles clenching around Young’s fingers in her (hopefully) first orgasm of the night.
Rush shudders, a little drunkenly, against her, and the fingers of Young’s free hand are digging into her hip.
She pulls away, enough to fumble at remaining clothing.
When she looks back, Young’s fingertips are skimming up the side of Rush’s neck, and Rush’s eyes are closed again. God, that kind of sensation - she can’t even imagine. Both touching and being touched, desiring and being desired in an echo, a feedback loop. She’s a little jealous.
Young seals the kiss, going deep fast, parting Rush’s lips. And she can’t really be jealous anymore, she’s mostly just transfixed.
They pull apart, and then clothes are gone, and she’s naked, above Young - she pushes him back, against the pillow, and Rush stops her, with a hand over her ribs.
“Is pregnancy a concern?” he asks, and she could almost hate him for being practical at a moment like this.
“Not for the next week,” she says. She has enough doses of the pill to last until then.
Rush nods, withdrawing; his hand moves between her legs, and she doesn’t know what he’s doing at first, until Young hisses and Rush bites his lip, hard - and then she realizes, he’s lining Young up, for her - and TJ sinks down on him, faster than she intended, but she’s still slick from her first orgasm.
Rush turns his face in, towards her shoulder, muttering something low and nonsensical; TJ rides the movement of Young’s hips, the hard, stretched feel of him inside her.
It doesn’t take her long to forget that Rush isn’t even technically the one inside her; he’s such a part of this, his head in the crook of her neck, his fingers tangled in hers, that it could honestly be both of them, she isn’t sure.
And then Young shifts, rolling her over onto her back. Pulls out of her, and she moans, a little, at the loss.
Rush kind of melts into Young, and vice versa, and the way they kiss is hard-edged, desperate. They are a part of each other, and TJ doesn’t know why she ever stepped between them.
Then they pause, exchanging a glance, and there are no words, not aloud, but she gets the feeling that she’s missing a conversation. A novel, maybe.
They both turn towards her, in unison, and a shiver of lust runs through her frame.
She expects Young to get close again, but instead it’s Rush. Rush who kisses her, rough stubble scratching against her skin, and Rush who pushes inside her. And no, there’s no way she could mistake one for the other; Young treats her carefully, like she’s precious, but Rush is rougher, more ruthless.
Both ways it’s about need.
She gives a cry at a particularly rough thrust, edging over into painful. Rush gasps, gives another little part-thrust inside, and yeah, he’s coming -
Young is next to TJ, jaw clenched.
Another familiar look. This time, when he’s trying to hold on.
TJ strokes down his side, and Rush stops her hand, still breathing hard.
“Wait,” he says.
He pulls out of her, gently, and clambers over Young, holding him down.
“You trust me?” he asks Young.
“Rush.”
“Do you?”
Young can’t answer.
“All right,” says Rush. “That’s all I need.”
He takes Young’s wrists, one by one, and presses them above his head. Holding him down. Glances up to TJ, and she shifts, transferring them to her grasp.
“What are you doing?” asks Young, a hint of a tremor in his voice.
“Hold him,” says Rush, and TJ is confused, for a moment, because Rush doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t move, just narrows his gaze a little.
And then Young pulls against TJ’s grasp, with a quick, shocked inhale. Mouth falls open and he tenses - it’s like she can see the pleasure quickening through his body. She has no idea what Rush is doing, but it must be something akin to broadcasting sexual pleasure, straight into Young’s head, and it’s working. It’s working very well, because now Young can’t breathe steadily, is arching up against her in little needy fits and starts.
To her shock, she sees that Young is actually getting close. That Rush intends to push him over the edge, like this.
“Rush,” pleads Young, and TJ can’t help it, she grips tighter, for a second, spasmodically.
Rush flattens a hand on Young’s chest, not touching him otherwise. “Let go,” says Rush.
And Young jerks up, climax burning through him, spilling hot against his stomach.
TJ lets him go, because he’s shivering, quiet, vulnerable. Lies down next to him, and she’s surprised when Rush, instead of taking the opposite side of Young, settles down behind her instead.
“Let’s see if we can’t take care of you,” suggests Rush.
She’s about to object - once is enough, for her - but he reaches his hand between her legs, and presses his palm against her clit. Nothing hard, just a gentle, even rub, and that’s all it takes. The orgasm this time is long and lazy, shuddering all the way through her with an easy intimacy she didn’t expect.
On one side of her, Young closes his eyes, slipping away; on the other, Rush’s eyes are open, shifting across the ceiling like he’s watching lines of Ancient code.
TJ tilts her head towards Young. Nudges him. “Any headaches?”
He snorts. Laughs, a little, and that’s the easiest she’s seen him be since they got to the Destiny.
And Rush knows it too. He’s not smiling, exactly, but the light in his eyes -
She could get used to that.