BSG fic: A Viper Pilot and a Rook ECO (Anders/Hot Dog)
Title: A Viper Pilot and a Rook ECO
Pairing: Sam Anders/Brendan 'Hot Dog' Costanza
Rating: NC-17, at its worst
Summary: Sam and Hot Dog are stranded on a random planet in the vague (and magically Kara-free) future, and arguing and frakking ensue. Mostly a lighthearted fic-in particular, take any and all plot devices with a grain of salt-but there are a couple of slightly deeper moments, too, on a character level. At times, it's a bit fluffy even. (Surprise, surprise.) 4400 words.
Notes: These two cannot go half a dozen words before they trip over an expletive. Such charming boys they are. And please to be ignoring certain details of the season four promo pics of Anders. In my defense, I wrote this before I saw a certain patch on his arm.
For super_kc and boom_queen, who kept prodding at me to see this wacky pairing through.
A Viper Pilot and a Rook ECO
"This," Sam said, breaking the comm silence as he kicked the side of the raptor, sending a cloud of dust into the planet's supposedly breathable air. "This is why there are viper pilots and raptor pilots."
"Hey," Costanza's voice pinged through the comm, nasal and pinched, as he came out behind him. "I'm frakkin' qualified."
"You haven't flown a raptor in months."
"And you haven't flown a raptor in…ever."
"Because I'm a frakkin' ECO." He turned and made sure Costanza was looking at him when he added, "And a damn good one, too."
Things had been relatively fine up to then, at least between them. There had been that camaraderie of working together to get through the crisis. Suddenly, all that absolutely dissolved.
"Oh, what the hell?" Costanza's mouth said, although the sounds of the words got lost in the slinging off his helmet. Sam was forced to do the same so he could hear him. "What? You still trying to tell me about some imaginary radiation field? Frak you!"
"Yeah," Sam replied, stepping a little closer to him, sneering. "The radiation field. Which you know good and well wasn't imaginary."
"All I know good and well is I'm kicking your sorry ass if you so much as think 'I told you so.'"
He looked just frustrated enough to do it, or at least try, and Sam wasn't keen on being bruised up, not like that. So he took a big dusty gulp of warm, unprocessed air and slowly exhaled before he said, firmly if not calmly, "If anybody's sorry ass gets kicked, it should be the Major's."
"Gods. What the frak was he thinking sending me out with a rook?"
"It would help if you knew raptor controls from your own asshole."
Costanza glared at him, nostrils flaring, but instead of wheel on him and start a fight, he seemed to pull inside himself for a moment, darkly glaring over the landscape in self-deprecation as he kicked at the dust, sending a small cloud into the air. "We shouldn't even frakkin' be here."
Sam sighed, sensing the shift away from argument and into companionable complaining. As he stashed his helmet inside the open door of the raptor, he said, "At least you got it landed, even with the navigation shot to shit."
Costanza snorted. "Like dropping a heavy box over a railing in the cargo hold and hoping nothing comes flying out the top."
"You did good, Hot Dog."
"Whatever."
"I'm serious. For a second there, I thought we were goners, man."
At that, a wicked smile came over Costanza's face. "Not too long ago you were setting jerry-rigged bombs with your bare hands, and an emergency landing in a raptor scares you?"
"I wasn't flying the thing."
"Well, guess what. We get this box in the air again and you will be."
"Isn't that--?"
"Against regulation? Frak if I care now." Costanza shook his head and added, "You think maybe the Major was trying to get rid of us?"
"That's kinda paranoid, don’t you think?"
"Maybe."
"And there's no way I'm flying that thing."
"Why the frak not?"
"You'd be shit for an ECO."
A nasty look passed over Costanza's face for second, but then he smiled. "You're right. And, you know, I don't know that you wouldn't be three times as bad as I am at flying the thing."
"Only done it a few times in training. You're always better on take-offs anyway."
"I'm better at having my viper pushed out a tube. That's not a take-off. Not in atmo."
At his last words, Costanza leaned back against the raptor, sighing as he ruffled a hand through his hair and began to look around.
Sam had, of course, taken in the landscape when they lumbered out of the raptor-and he'd seen the specs from the earlier recon before they even took off on the mission-but since he'd been focused on the downed raptor and how they would get it up again, he hadn't bothered to appreciate the scenery. Not that there was much to appreciate: just a few scrubby bushes, some hills a ways off, and maybe a small stream settled in against one of them. Maybe.
"Least it's warm," Costanza said.
"Dusty."
"Yeah. Well, it's sunny. And there's fresh air."
"You don't seem all that pissed all of a sudden." Costanza didn't answer, just scanned the horizon with his eyes. "My Gods," Sam muttered. "You're glad we're stranded."
"Anders…"
"Hot Dog."
"Look," he said with a sigh and a small, weary smile. "They know where we were headed, and if it was actually the DRADIS throwing a pissy bitch fit and not just you, then they lost us on it and they know we didn't get around to the side of the planet we're supposed to be on. So they'll come-they're coming on behind us anyway, what the hell-and somebody'll fix this bucket so we can get back on task. In the meantime, we don't have to do anything but sit here and wait."
"I swear to the gods if you did this on-"
"Hey," Costanza snapped. "I don't like looking like a dumbshit any more than you do. We're gonna catch so much hell when we get back."
"Yeah."
"I didn't do this on purpose."
"Okay."
"I mean, you could see that, if you were looking at your instruments as close as you claim you were."
"Close enough, anyway." Costanza just looked at him quizzically, and it made him smile, which thankfully covered the sheepishness he felt for having said something like that out loud. Not that he could stop now. "You're distracting. You do this thing with your shoulders when you're tense."
At that, Costanza nodded his head, trying-but not very hard-to hide a smug grin. "Well, it's not like the Major had any way of knowing just how frakkin' stupid it is to put us in a small space together and expect us to concentrate for shit."
"Hell," Sam said, voice going gravelly and even lower than normal. "I can't concentrate now, not with you stomping around like you are, getting in my face."
"I hope that means you're thinking the same thing I am."
"Spend the next couple of hours trying to get things up and going, and if we can't…" He raised his eyebrows.
Costanza suddenly stepped entirely into his personal space. "Oh, I'd say they're already up and going."
Costanza just stared at him for a long moment, and Sam could feel a wave of heat and energy coming off him. Before Costanza could decide what move to make, Sam shoved him back into the raptor and stole a short, wet kiss, and as he let their bodies fall together, he pressed his lips to his neck, murmuring against it.
"You know how bad I wanted to crawl into your rack last night and frak you, even if everybody had to hear us?"
"I know Seelix wouldn't mind the show."
"She knows?"
He nodded, his hands already tugging at the zipper on Sam's flight suit. "I'm pretty sure she heard you sucking my dick in the shower the other day."
"Not my fault you're so frakkin' loud."
"I like having my dick sucked. So sue me."
"Costanza," he protested, feeling his cock hardening so fast, filling and already straining up against Costanza's hand as he tore at the snaps at his waist. "I swear to the gods it needs to at least look like we tried to do something."
"C'mon, Anders," he said in a low purr, but still somehow rough and predatory, "they're hours out from finding us, and besides, what would they expect out of a viper pilot and a rook ECO?"
Sam was about to reply a hell of a lot, considering his job description, rook or no, but any notion of arguing with him evaporated as Costanza's hand snaked down into his shorts and drew him out over the open V of his suit as it hung down off his waist, just holding him firmly like he was getting a feel for the weight and shape of his cock. As if he didn't have it damn near memorized already.
Costanza said, "You want my hands, or you want me to blow you?"
"Hands," Sam replied, thrusting into his grip, that first tight, sensitive pass of skin on skin. "Blow me later. Gods. Frak."
Costanza had amazing hands. Apparently they were better suited for flying a viper than a raptor, but that didn't matter, especially not now. Sam had never met anybody who could get him so hot just by shoving him around and gripping his cock like this, hard and with no finesse. Except maybe that was the finesse, this unbearable roughness and strength and relentless flip of his thumb over the head.
Sam pressed the heel of his hand into Costanza's crotch, feeling him rutting up against it even as his mouth latched onto Sam's neck and bit down, his tongue sweeping wet and hot over his skin. He grunted and thrust his hips forward, making Costanza's hand slide down over his cock even harder.
"Gods," he moaned. "Yeah, just like that."
"You know, I never been with anybody who talks during sex as much as me."
"Like I can even get a word in-" Costanza squeezed and twisted. "Oh frak me-- edgewise."
"That a complaint?"
"No."
"Good."
Costanza's mouth wasn't biting anymore, just his tongue pressing flat and rasping over the stubble on his neck, then over his adam's apple. Sam whimpered, and Costanza suddenly began yanking at the zipper on his flight suit until Sam took the hint. He pressed one hand against his chest as the other pulled and pulled his suit open until he could see his dick straining up against those damn distracting boxer briefs he wore. Sam's hand closed around his shaft through the material and Costanza bit into his shoulder so hard it would definitely leave a bruise. Wouldn't be the first time.
Sam murmured, "You're gonna spend the rest of the day frakking me."
"Yeah."
"Gonna stick that thick cock of yours up my ass until you make me come, over and over again."
Costanza whined his name warningly. He couldn't handle dirty talk. He could sure as hell give it, but he couldn't really take it. He would tremble a little under his hands just to hear stray dirty words come out of his mouth, but if he strung them together in interesting ways, it was the quickest way to make Costanza pretty desperate pretty fast.
As Costanza sucked at a patch of skin on his neck and kept pulling at his cock, Sam yanked down the waistband of his boxer-briefs and pulled him out over it. Costanza jerked him even harder, and frak, yeah, he was close, but so was Costanza-already, almost as soon as Sam started pulling him fast like he liked. Sam let go of his cock long enough to lick his palm, and when he took Costanza in hand again, he moaned, then he growled and grabbed onto the back of Sam's neck and pulled their bodies so close together it was difficult to jerk each other anymore.
But not impossible. Sam could feel every ounce of energy in Costanza's tight frame spurring him on. The way they struggled together, hips to hips, chest to chest, made him frantic-to get off and to get him off, too.
"Anders," he whined. "Don't you dare…"
"Baby, we got so much time for you to frak me. Right now I just wanna watch you come."
Costanza moaned low in his chest and swirled his thumb over the head of Sam's cock. "You first."
He groaned as a wave of pleasure rocked through him, leaving more tension in its wake. "Gods."
"Hell yeah. C'mon. Right now."
He was just about to let go, let Costanza's hands do their magic here under this strange sky, but as he trained his body on just feeling everything-the heat from the sun and the breeze, dusty though it was-he was suddenly reminded of what they'd done to get here, how they were on duty and… "Not on- Shit, Costanza, gods, wait. Not on our-"
"Frak," Costanza barked, suddenly bringing everything to a frustrating halt as he took his hands off Sam and tore at his flight suit and, quickly, Sam did the same. Soon they were both hopping around, kicking off their boots, struggling out of their suits and tanks, which left them standing there in their socks and underwear. It should've been funny, and it was-they looked at each other for a long second, long enough to know they'd probably be laughing like hell about it later-but all they could think about was tangling up in each other's arms again, bodies shoved tight together, hands searching out cocks and pulling, yanking, racing toward orgasm.
"Oh, yeah," Sam moaned. "Come on. Harder."
"You gonna?"
"Frak," Sam gasped. "Almost."
Suddenly, Costanza shoved him back into the raptor, much as he'd done to him a few minutes before. His mouth attacked as he thrust their bodies flush together, all except a place where he could fist Sam's cock, doing that twisting thing that made Sam crazy. His own cock was trapped between them, where Sam couldn't get his hands on it, so he just grabbed Costanza's ass and slipped his hands down into his boxer-briefs and squeezed. A moment later, he let one finger slide down into his crack and press against his asshole, and at that, Costanza swore, shoved himself even harder into Sam, and tore his mouth away so he could bite his earlobe.
"Frakkin' tease," he said.
"Mmm hmm."
"Come on," Costanza murmured, squeezing his fist tighter around Sam's cock until only the head was slipping up through it and back again, a pressure so good it almost hurt. Almost. "Give it to me. Cover me in it, you big frakkin' whore."
"Yeah."
"Slut," he said, rubbing himself against Sam's hipbone.
"Frak yeah," he grunted out, thrusting hard enough to knock Costanza back a little as he shot off between them, painting ropes of it over Costanza's arms and chest and stomach.
"Look at you," Sam said as Costanza kept jerking. "Covered in it. Wanna lick it off you. Want my tongue on every inch of you."
"Shit," Costanza gasped, although his hand never slowed even if his body was beginning to tighten and shudder against Sam's. He was still fighting coming for some reason, maybe still hoping to get to frak him this go around.
"Gods, Costanza. Frak me. Open me up and make me feel you."
"Son of a bitch," Costanza grunted, then his whole body shook just before more warmth flooded between them, fluid and sticky against his skin.
They came to rest against each other, panting and grinning. Some of Sam's come had landed in scattered drops at his pecs and his collarbone, and Costanza absentmindedly lapped at it with his tongue. He was so frakkin' funny after an orgasm, something like him being drunk, and on a good night.
"So," Costanza finally said as he pulled back, pupils blown and unabashedly staring at him. It was only a shade off one of his many irritated glares, but the difference was enormous, those brown eyes looking so warm now instead of cold. "Would you be complaining if I had actually stranded us here on purpose?"
"No," Sam replied. "Course, if you'd done it on purpose, we'd have lube."
Costanza grinned. "Obviously, you haven't done much frakking around in a raptor."
"On a mission?"
"No, you genius. On the flight deck."
"Who?"
Costanza gave him a cocky smile and said, "I don't kiss and tell."
"That why we've been sneaking around like a couple of horny teenagers?"
He hadn't meant to say it, not right then and not like that-he hadn't even been aware that he was thinking it that concretely-but it wasn't like he could take it back. Costanza squinted at him for a moment, then looked out over his shoulder.
When Costanza finally replied, his words were slow and measured. "I guess I figured you were just passing the time with me."
"Passing it from what?"
He raised his eyebrows and nodded at Sam's arm. Sam's mouth formed into a soundless oh.
"I mean, I get it," Costanza said. "Distraction and all. Makes sense."
"Costanza," he said firmly. "I don't keep going back to somebody just because they're a good distraction."
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Honestly?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I didn't figure… Oh, frak me," Sam mumbled, then he sighed out a shallow breath of air. "Look, you don't exactly have a reputation for being…"
"A big flaming assfrakker? Neither do you."
"I meant monogamous."
He expected him to laugh it off, but he didn't. He narrowed his eyes and said, "You think I've been frakkin' around with anybody else since…?"
"We didn't lay down any groundrules," he replied, holding his hands up. "It's fine."
"Well, I haven't been," Costanza snapped, but without anger. "Haven't wanted to."
"No?"
"No."
"Okay."
"Yeah."
"Then…?"
Costanza stared at him for a long minute, then shook his head and began to pull his flight suit back on, zipping it up only to his waist, searching out something to wipe off his stomach with. After he cleaned himself up with a rag he found stashed inside the raptor, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and frowned at Sam. Still, he didn't reply.
So Sam made a move to grab his clothes, too, saying, "Forget it."
Finally, Costanza replied, and softly: "No."
"Hot Dog?"
"Brendan," he corrected him.
"Yeah?"
"If you're gonna be my…boyfriend or whatever, then you should-"
"Boyfriend? Whoa, who said anything about boyfriend?"
He'd just meant to wipe that freaked out look off Costanza's face, but at his words his face went dark and he whirled around, this time his eyes most definitely set in an angry glare, and began to stomp up into the raptor. It was enough to make Sam's heart start pounding wildly.
"Hey," he said. He grabbed him by the arm and yanked, waiting until he was looking him in the eye again before he said, "That wasn't me trying to put pressure on you or anything. All I'm saying, if you want this to be more than us sneaking around, trading blow jobs, you just gotta tell me."
Costanza took a deep breath, but his chest was still constricted in something that Sam slowly began to identify as bewilderment more than anger.
"Brendan?" Sam said.
Costanza let out a breath, slowly. He said, "I do."
"Okay."
"But that's...what you want?"
Sam just nodded.
Constanza's eyes slid closed, and he said, "It's just … Do you know how rare it is that I even think about…being in a… Much less actually doing it."
Sam tried to wipe the smile off his face, but it was impossible to do that entirely. He let Costanza's arm go and said, "We can call it whatever the frak you want. We just be honest about what we expect out of it and we'll be okay."
"Yeah?"
"Sure."
Costanza nodded and said, "I suck at this. Fair warning."
"Well, so do I."
"But you and Starbuck…?"
"I know you're not blind, man."
"And I know you're not stupid."
Sam shrugged his shoulders, pushing back the kinds of emotions that could overtake him so quickly, if he let them. Instead, he cocked his head to the side. "Well, maybe I have learned a thing or two about dealing with moody pilots." Then his face lit into a smile he couldn't contain. "And you really are a moody son of a bitch, aren't you?"
It was Costanza's turn to shrug, but Sam thought he saw ghost of a smile in his eyes.
Sam said, "Well, lucky for you I'm pretty frakkin' stubborn."
Costanza's head jerked up and he looked at him pointedly. "Then why didn't you make me pay more attention to that radiation belt?"
He sighed. "I feel like I still don't know what I'm doing sometimes, like I'm waiting to take my cues from other people."
"That's 'cause they got you working with Feline. She's…" He raised his eyebrows melodramatically.
"Difficult?" Sam offered.
"That's one word for it. Anyway, it gets easier. You just wait until the next batch of nuggets comes in. Then you'll realize how much you're not one anymore."
Costanza sat down to pull his boots back on, and he paused as he took the second in his hand, saying decisively, "You're gonna be a good ECO, Anders."
"Sam."
"Sam," he said with a small nod, shoving his foot down into the boot, still not looking at him. "You already are."
"If you say so."
"Actually, you remind me a lot of Helo. I'm serious. But, you know, even Helo couldn't have calmed me the frak down enough to land this junker."
Costanza had given him a face sincere enough to make him halfway embarrassed, so he said, "Just makes me wonder how it is you can go out in a viper and make it back in one piece."
"Nobody else to depend on. At least not in the bird with me." Then he mumbled, "I get kinda frakked up when there's somebody else to fall back on."
Costanza looked a little unsure of having said something so apparently personal, so Sam tried to lighten things up. "Then it's a good thing neither one of us need a frakkin' shoulder to cry on."
"Yeah," Costanza said, face warming quickly to a grin again. "But you got nice shoulders."
"So that's why you're always bending me over things and biting the shit out of me while you frak me?"
"Is that a complaint?"
"No way, LT. Just an observation."
Costanza watched as Sam pulled on his flight suit, stopping to clean himself up, too. Then Sam said, "I really don't know if there's anything we can do here. If we permanently fried something in the navigation…"
"Yeah. Better let somebody smarter than us frak with it."
"Makes me nervous that the comm's down, though."
"Maybe we can fix it, between the two of us. Then we'll at least know when they're coming for us."
"Might be a couple of days, the way everybody's shifted around on this mission. But we got enough emergency provisions for that."
But Costanza shook his head. "The Major won't leave us out here for too long. I bet he's all eaten up with guilt already." Then he groused, "Dumbshit plan to keep us cross-trained viper jocks raptor-ready."
"Is there anybody who can do both equally well?"
"Apollo. Probably why he's getting his panties in a twist about it."
Sam sat down as he pulled on his boots, too. Costanza watched him in silence for a moment, then he added, "Starbuck could, too."
"Yeah?"
"She could fly anything. Flew a raider, didn't she?"
"Shit. I'd forgotten that." Not literally, but of all the things he thought about as he stood on the deck, lay in his rack, hurtled through space, that wasn't a memory he focused on. He was more apt to remember the raptor she came back on.
"Is it weird for me to say I miss her?" Costanza said, cutting into the silence.
"No, man."
At that, Costanza got quiet again, but he was obviously thinking something. When Sam looked up at him, raising his eyebrows insistently, Costanza said, "What would she say about this?"
Sam chuckled, shaking his head. "I don't know. Wouldn't be mad, I don't think. She'd probably just say something crude, like how she should've known we were both pole-greasers."
"You didn't tell her?"
"Tell her what? That I had tendencies or some shit like that?"
"Wait. Before this, you'd never…?"
Sam just grinned.
Costanza snorted. "You sneaky bastard."
"Over the last couple of years, I've learned to be…flexible. And quick on the uptake."
"Really quick," he said with a sigh. "That mouth of yours has been wasted on women."
"I really don't recall them ever saying so."
He chuckled, then he said, "So in all those years knocking around hard, sweaty bodies playing pyramid, you never…?"
"Needed to focus," he replied, shaking his head. Then his mouth curled into a sly grin. "Don't tell me you had a poster of me up on your wall or something."
"Oh, frak you," he said, thrusting his arms out behind him to push himself up. "It's a wonder you didn't make viper, cocky as you are."
"I didn't want viper."
"No?"
"I like company." Costanza nodded, and Sam added, "And I'm done blowing shit up, if I can help it."
Costanza nodded again, suddenly looking as solemn as Sam's voice had maybe sounded. He hadn't meant it to. Somewhere along the line, he'd learned to talk about the resistances and Kara without feeling like he was ripping a hole in himself somewhere. It was necessary, really. But other people didn't always realize that.
"Hey," Sam said, changing tones. "You think if we get stuck here long enough, they'll let us name this empty rock of a planet?"
"Shouldn't you be more worried about the fact that you rooks don't have callsigns yet?"
"Tell you the truth, we're a little scared of what you guys will come up with."
"I could get the ball rolling."
He shook his head. "You'd name me Ding Dong or something, if only so somebody'll have a goofier callsign than yours."
Costanza smiled a little too widely at that, but when Sam shot him a nasty look, he said, "It doesn't feel like you."
"So what feels like me?"
"Nothing decent enough to call out over a comm, that's for sure." Costanza raised his eyebrows at him then and knocked his shoulder against his as he swept up into the raptor.
After he looked out over the landscape again, Sam followed behind him, trying to be less bothered by the broken equipment than he was relieved to have a day or two of unexpected R&R-even if they were stranded on some nameless planet, and even if his frak-buddy was suddenly his sort of boyfriend and he was already slinging around a tool kit and cursing at this frakkin' piece of shit instrument panel and Are you sure you didn't do something to frak it up, Ding Dong?
~
Pairing: Sam Anders/Brendan 'Hot Dog' Costanza
Rating: NC-17, at its worst
Summary: Sam and Hot Dog are stranded on a random planet in the vague (and magically Kara-free) future, and arguing and frakking ensue. Mostly a lighthearted fic-in particular, take any and all plot devices with a grain of salt-but there are a couple of slightly deeper moments, too, on a character level. At times, it's a bit fluffy even. (Surprise, surprise.) 4400 words.
Notes: These two cannot go half a dozen words before they trip over an expletive. Such charming boys they are. And please to be ignoring certain details of the season four promo pics of Anders. In my defense, I wrote this before I saw a certain patch on his arm.
For super_kc and boom_queen, who kept prodding at me to see this wacky pairing through.
A Viper Pilot and a Rook ECO
"This," Sam said, breaking the comm silence as he kicked the side of the raptor, sending a cloud of dust into the planet's supposedly breathable air. "This is why there are viper pilots and raptor pilots."
"Hey," Costanza's voice pinged through the comm, nasal and pinched, as he came out behind him. "I'm frakkin' qualified."
"You haven't flown a raptor in months."
"And you haven't flown a raptor in…ever."
"Because I'm a frakkin' ECO." He turned and made sure Costanza was looking at him when he added, "And a damn good one, too."
Things had been relatively fine up to then, at least between them. There had been that camaraderie of working together to get through the crisis. Suddenly, all that absolutely dissolved.
"Oh, what the hell?" Costanza's mouth said, although the sounds of the words got lost in the slinging off his helmet. Sam was forced to do the same so he could hear him. "What? You still trying to tell me about some imaginary radiation field? Frak you!"
"Yeah," Sam replied, stepping a little closer to him, sneering. "The radiation field. Which you know good and well wasn't imaginary."
"All I know good and well is I'm kicking your sorry ass if you so much as think 'I told you so.'"
He looked just frustrated enough to do it, or at least try, and Sam wasn't keen on being bruised up, not like that. So he took a big dusty gulp of warm, unprocessed air and slowly exhaled before he said, firmly if not calmly, "If anybody's sorry ass gets kicked, it should be the Major's."
"Gods. What the frak was he thinking sending me out with a rook?"
"It would help if you knew raptor controls from your own asshole."
Costanza glared at him, nostrils flaring, but instead of wheel on him and start a fight, he seemed to pull inside himself for a moment, darkly glaring over the landscape in self-deprecation as he kicked at the dust, sending a small cloud into the air. "We shouldn't even frakkin' be here."
Sam sighed, sensing the shift away from argument and into companionable complaining. As he stashed his helmet inside the open door of the raptor, he said, "At least you got it landed, even with the navigation shot to shit."
Costanza snorted. "Like dropping a heavy box over a railing in the cargo hold and hoping nothing comes flying out the top."
"You did good, Hot Dog."
"Whatever."
"I'm serious. For a second there, I thought we were goners, man."
At that, a wicked smile came over Costanza's face. "Not too long ago you were setting jerry-rigged bombs with your bare hands, and an emergency landing in a raptor scares you?"
"I wasn't flying the thing."
"Well, guess what. We get this box in the air again and you will be."
"Isn't that--?"
"Against regulation? Frak if I care now." Costanza shook his head and added, "You think maybe the Major was trying to get rid of us?"
"That's kinda paranoid, don’t you think?"
"Maybe."
"And there's no way I'm flying that thing."
"Why the frak not?"
"You'd be shit for an ECO."
A nasty look passed over Costanza's face for second, but then he smiled. "You're right. And, you know, I don't know that you wouldn't be three times as bad as I am at flying the thing."
"Only done it a few times in training. You're always better on take-offs anyway."
"I'm better at having my viper pushed out a tube. That's not a take-off. Not in atmo."
At his last words, Costanza leaned back against the raptor, sighing as he ruffled a hand through his hair and began to look around.
Sam had, of course, taken in the landscape when they lumbered out of the raptor-and he'd seen the specs from the earlier recon before they even took off on the mission-but since he'd been focused on the downed raptor and how they would get it up again, he hadn't bothered to appreciate the scenery. Not that there was much to appreciate: just a few scrubby bushes, some hills a ways off, and maybe a small stream settled in against one of them. Maybe.
"Least it's warm," Costanza said.
"Dusty."
"Yeah. Well, it's sunny. And there's fresh air."
"You don't seem all that pissed all of a sudden." Costanza didn't answer, just scanned the horizon with his eyes. "My Gods," Sam muttered. "You're glad we're stranded."
"Anders…"
"Hot Dog."
"Look," he said with a sigh and a small, weary smile. "They know where we were headed, and if it was actually the DRADIS throwing a pissy bitch fit and not just you, then they lost us on it and they know we didn't get around to the side of the planet we're supposed to be on. So they'll come-they're coming on behind us anyway, what the hell-and somebody'll fix this bucket so we can get back on task. In the meantime, we don't have to do anything but sit here and wait."
"I swear to the gods if you did this on-"
"Hey," Costanza snapped. "I don't like looking like a dumbshit any more than you do. We're gonna catch so much hell when we get back."
"Yeah."
"I didn't do this on purpose."
"Okay."
"I mean, you could see that, if you were looking at your instruments as close as you claim you were."
"Close enough, anyway." Costanza just looked at him quizzically, and it made him smile, which thankfully covered the sheepishness he felt for having said something like that out loud. Not that he could stop now. "You're distracting. You do this thing with your shoulders when you're tense."
At that, Costanza nodded his head, trying-but not very hard-to hide a smug grin. "Well, it's not like the Major had any way of knowing just how frakkin' stupid it is to put us in a small space together and expect us to concentrate for shit."
"Hell," Sam said, voice going gravelly and even lower than normal. "I can't concentrate now, not with you stomping around like you are, getting in my face."
"I hope that means you're thinking the same thing I am."
"Spend the next couple of hours trying to get things up and going, and if we can't…" He raised his eyebrows.
Costanza suddenly stepped entirely into his personal space. "Oh, I'd say they're already up and going."
Costanza just stared at him for a long moment, and Sam could feel a wave of heat and energy coming off him. Before Costanza could decide what move to make, Sam shoved him back into the raptor and stole a short, wet kiss, and as he let their bodies fall together, he pressed his lips to his neck, murmuring against it.
"You know how bad I wanted to crawl into your rack last night and frak you, even if everybody had to hear us?"
"I know Seelix wouldn't mind the show."
"She knows?"
He nodded, his hands already tugging at the zipper on Sam's flight suit. "I'm pretty sure she heard you sucking my dick in the shower the other day."
"Not my fault you're so frakkin' loud."
"I like having my dick sucked. So sue me."
"Costanza," he protested, feeling his cock hardening so fast, filling and already straining up against Costanza's hand as he tore at the snaps at his waist. "I swear to the gods it needs to at least look like we tried to do something."
"C'mon, Anders," he said in a low purr, but still somehow rough and predatory, "they're hours out from finding us, and besides, what would they expect out of a viper pilot and a rook ECO?"
Sam was about to reply a hell of a lot, considering his job description, rook or no, but any notion of arguing with him evaporated as Costanza's hand snaked down into his shorts and drew him out over the open V of his suit as it hung down off his waist, just holding him firmly like he was getting a feel for the weight and shape of his cock. As if he didn't have it damn near memorized already.
Costanza said, "You want my hands, or you want me to blow you?"
"Hands," Sam replied, thrusting into his grip, that first tight, sensitive pass of skin on skin. "Blow me later. Gods. Frak."
Costanza had amazing hands. Apparently they were better suited for flying a viper than a raptor, but that didn't matter, especially not now. Sam had never met anybody who could get him so hot just by shoving him around and gripping his cock like this, hard and with no finesse. Except maybe that was the finesse, this unbearable roughness and strength and relentless flip of his thumb over the head.
Sam pressed the heel of his hand into Costanza's crotch, feeling him rutting up against it even as his mouth latched onto Sam's neck and bit down, his tongue sweeping wet and hot over his skin. He grunted and thrust his hips forward, making Costanza's hand slide down over his cock even harder.
"Gods," he moaned. "Yeah, just like that."
"You know, I never been with anybody who talks during sex as much as me."
"Like I can even get a word in-" Costanza squeezed and twisted. "Oh frak me-- edgewise."
"That a complaint?"
"No."
"Good."
Costanza's mouth wasn't biting anymore, just his tongue pressing flat and rasping over the stubble on his neck, then over his adam's apple. Sam whimpered, and Costanza suddenly began yanking at the zipper on his flight suit until Sam took the hint. He pressed one hand against his chest as the other pulled and pulled his suit open until he could see his dick straining up against those damn distracting boxer briefs he wore. Sam's hand closed around his shaft through the material and Costanza bit into his shoulder so hard it would definitely leave a bruise. Wouldn't be the first time.
Sam murmured, "You're gonna spend the rest of the day frakking me."
"Yeah."
"Gonna stick that thick cock of yours up my ass until you make me come, over and over again."
Costanza whined his name warningly. He couldn't handle dirty talk. He could sure as hell give it, but he couldn't really take it. He would tremble a little under his hands just to hear stray dirty words come out of his mouth, but if he strung them together in interesting ways, it was the quickest way to make Costanza pretty desperate pretty fast.
As Costanza sucked at a patch of skin on his neck and kept pulling at his cock, Sam yanked down the waistband of his boxer-briefs and pulled him out over it. Costanza jerked him even harder, and frak, yeah, he was close, but so was Costanza-already, almost as soon as Sam started pulling him fast like he liked. Sam let go of his cock long enough to lick his palm, and when he took Costanza in hand again, he moaned, then he growled and grabbed onto the back of Sam's neck and pulled their bodies so close together it was difficult to jerk each other anymore.
But not impossible. Sam could feel every ounce of energy in Costanza's tight frame spurring him on. The way they struggled together, hips to hips, chest to chest, made him frantic-to get off and to get him off, too.
"Anders," he whined. "Don't you dare…"
"Baby, we got so much time for you to frak me. Right now I just wanna watch you come."
Costanza moaned low in his chest and swirled his thumb over the head of Sam's cock. "You first."
He groaned as a wave of pleasure rocked through him, leaving more tension in its wake. "Gods."
"Hell yeah. C'mon. Right now."
He was just about to let go, let Costanza's hands do their magic here under this strange sky, but as he trained his body on just feeling everything-the heat from the sun and the breeze, dusty though it was-he was suddenly reminded of what they'd done to get here, how they were on duty and… "Not on- Shit, Costanza, gods, wait. Not on our-"
"Frak," Costanza barked, suddenly bringing everything to a frustrating halt as he took his hands off Sam and tore at his flight suit and, quickly, Sam did the same. Soon they were both hopping around, kicking off their boots, struggling out of their suits and tanks, which left them standing there in their socks and underwear. It should've been funny, and it was-they looked at each other for a long second, long enough to know they'd probably be laughing like hell about it later-but all they could think about was tangling up in each other's arms again, bodies shoved tight together, hands searching out cocks and pulling, yanking, racing toward orgasm.
"Oh, yeah," Sam moaned. "Come on. Harder."
"You gonna?"
"Frak," Sam gasped. "Almost."
Suddenly, Costanza shoved him back into the raptor, much as he'd done to him a few minutes before. His mouth attacked as he thrust their bodies flush together, all except a place where he could fist Sam's cock, doing that twisting thing that made Sam crazy. His own cock was trapped between them, where Sam couldn't get his hands on it, so he just grabbed Costanza's ass and slipped his hands down into his boxer-briefs and squeezed. A moment later, he let one finger slide down into his crack and press against his asshole, and at that, Costanza swore, shoved himself even harder into Sam, and tore his mouth away so he could bite his earlobe.
"Frakkin' tease," he said.
"Mmm hmm."
"Come on," Costanza murmured, squeezing his fist tighter around Sam's cock until only the head was slipping up through it and back again, a pressure so good it almost hurt. Almost. "Give it to me. Cover me in it, you big frakkin' whore."
"Yeah."
"Slut," he said, rubbing himself against Sam's hipbone.
"Frak yeah," he grunted out, thrusting hard enough to knock Costanza back a little as he shot off between them, painting ropes of it over Costanza's arms and chest and stomach.
"Look at you," Sam said as Costanza kept jerking. "Covered in it. Wanna lick it off you. Want my tongue on every inch of you."
"Shit," Costanza gasped, although his hand never slowed even if his body was beginning to tighten and shudder against Sam's. He was still fighting coming for some reason, maybe still hoping to get to frak him this go around.
"Gods, Costanza. Frak me. Open me up and make me feel you."
"Son of a bitch," Costanza grunted, then his whole body shook just before more warmth flooded between them, fluid and sticky against his skin.
They came to rest against each other, panting and grinning. Some of Sam's come had landed in scattered drops at his pecs and his collarbone, and Costanza absentmindedly lapped at it with his tongue. He was so frakkin' funny after an orgasm, something like him being drunk, and on a good night.
"So," Costanza finally said as he pulled back, pupils blown and unabashedly staring at him. It was only a shade off one of his many irritated glares, but the difference was enormous, those brown eyes looking so warm now instead of cold. "Would you be complaining if I had actually stranded us here on purpose?"
"No," Sam replied. "Course, if you'd done it on purpose, we'd have lube."
Costanza grinned. "Obviously, you haven't done much frakking around in a raptor."
"On a mission?"
"No, you genius. On the flight deck."
"Who?"
Costanza gave him a cocky smile and said, "I don't kiss and tell."
"That why we've been sneaking around like a couple of horny teenagers?"
He hadn't meant to say it, not right then and not like that-he hadn't even been aware that he was thinking it that concretely-but it wasn't like he could take it back. Costanza squinted at him for a moment, then looked out over his shoulder.
When Costanza finally replied, his words were slow and measured. "I guess I figured you were just passing the time with me."
"Passing it from what?"
He raised his eyebrows and nodded at Sam's arm. Sam's mouth formed into a soundless oh.
"I mean, I get it," Costanza said. "Distraction and all. Makes sense."
"Costanza," he said firmly. "I don't keep going back to somebody just because they're a good distraction."
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Honestly?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I didn't figure… Oh, frak me," Sam mumbled, then he sighed out a shallow breath of air. "Look, you don't exactly have a reputation for being…"
"A big flaming assfrakker? Neither do you."
"I meant monogamous."
He expected him to laugh it off, but he didn't. He narrowed his eyes and said, "You think I've been frakkin' around with anybody else since…?"
"We didn't lay down any groundrules," he replied, holding his hands up. "It's fine."
"Well, I haven't been," Costanza snapped, but without anger. "Haven't wanted to."
"No?"
"No."
"Okay."
"Yeah."
"Then…?"
Costanza stared at him for a long minute, then shook his head and began to pull his flight suit back on, zipping it up only to his waist, searching out something to wipe off his stomach with. After he cleaned himself up with a rag he found stashed inside the raptor, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and frowned at Sam. Still, he didn't reply.
So Sam made a move to grab his clothes, too, saying, "Forget it."
Finally, Costanza replied, and softly: "No."
"Hot Dog?"
"Brendan," he corrected him.
"Yeah?"
"If you're gonna be my…boyfriend or whatever, then you should-"
"Boyfriend? Whoa, who said anything about boyfriend?"
He'd just meant to wipe that freaked out look off Costanza's face, but at his words his face went dark and he whirled around, this time his eyes most definitely set in an angry glare, and began to stomp up into the raptor. It was enough to make Sam's heart start pounding wildly.
"Hey," he said. He grabbed him by the arm and yanked, waiting until he was looking him in the eye again before he said, "That wasn't me trying to put pressure on you or anything. All I'm saying, if you want this to be more than us sneaking around, trading blow jobs, you just gotta tell me."
Costanza took a deep breath, but his chest was still constricted in something that Sam slowly began to identify as bewilderment more than anger.
"Brendan?" Sam said.
Costanza let out a breath, slowly. He said, "I do."
"Okay."
"But that's...what you want?"
Sam just nodded.
Constanza's eyes slid closed, and he said, "It's just … Do you know how rare it is that I even think about…being in a… Much less actually doing it."
Sam tried to wipe the smile off his face, but it was impossible to do that entirely. He let Costanza's arm go and said, "We can call it whatever the frak you want. We just be honest about what we expect out of it and we'll be okay."
"Yeah?"
"Sure."
Costanza nodded and said, "I suck at this. Fair warning."
"Well, so do I."
"But you and Starbuck…?"
"I know you're not blind, man."
"And I know you're not stupid."
Sam shrugged his shoulders, pushing back the kinds of emotions that could overtake him so quickly, if he let them. Instead, he cocked his head to the side. "Well, maybe I have learned a thing or two about dealing with moody pilots." Then his face lit into a smile he couldn't contain. "And you really are a moody son of a bitch, aren't you?"
It was Costanza's turn to shrug, but Sam thought he saw ghost of a smile in his eyes.
Sam said, "Well, lucky for you I'm pretty frakkin' stubborn."
Costanza's head jerked up and he looked at him pointedly. "Then why didn't you make me pay more attention to that radiation belt?"
He sighed. "I feel like I still don't know what I'm doing sometimes, like I'm waiting to take my cues from other people."
"That's 'cause they got you working with Feline. She's…" He raised his eyebrows melodramatically.
"Difficult?" Sam offered.
"That's one word for it. Anyway, it gets easier. You just wait until the next batch of nuggets comes in. Then you'll realize how much you're not one anymore."
Costanza sat down to pull his boots back on, and he paused as he took the second in his hand, saying decisively, "You're gonna be a good ECO, Anders."
"Sam."
"Sam," he said with a small nod, shoving his foot down into the boot, still not looking at him. "You already are."
"If you say so."
"Actually, you remind me a lot of Helo. I'm serious. But, you know, even Helo couldn't have calmed me the frak down enough to land this junker."
Costanza had given him a face sincere enough to make him halfway embarrassed, so he said, "Just makes me wonder how it is you can go out in a viper and make it back in one piece."
"Nobody else to depend on. At least not in the bird with me." Then he mumbled, "I get kinda frakked up when there's somebody else to fall back on."
Costanza looked a little unsure of having said something so apparently personal, so Sam tried to lighten things up. "Then it's a good thing neither one of us need a frakkin' shoulder to cry on."
"Yeah," Costanza said, face warming quickly to a grin again. "But you got nice shoulders."
"So that's why you're always bending me over things and biting the shit out of me while you frak me?"
"Is that a complaint?"
"No way, LT. Just an observation."
Costanza watched as Sam pulled on his flight suit, stopping to clean himself up, too. Then Sam said, "I really don't know if there's anything we can do here. If we permanently fried something in the navigation…"
"Yeah. Better let somebody smarter than us frak with it."
"Makes me nervous that the comm's down, though."
"Maybe we can fix it, between the two of us. Then we'll at least know when they're coming for us."
"Might be a couple of days, the way everybody's shifted around on this mission. But we got enough emergency provisions for that."
But Costanza shook his head. "The Major won't leave us out here for too long. I bet he's all eaten up with guilt already." Then he groused, "Dumbshit plan to keep us cross-trained viper jocks raptor-ready."
"Is there anybody who can do both equally well?"
"Apollo. Probably why he's getting his panties in a twist about it."
Sam sat down as he pulled on his boots, too. Costanza watched him in silence for a moment, then he added, "Starbuck could, too."
"Yeah?"
"She could fly anything. Flew a raider, didn't she?"
"Shit. I'd forgotten that." Not literally, but of all the things he thought about as he stood on the deck, lay in his rack, hurtled through space, that wasn't a memory he focused on. He was more apt to remember the raptor she came back on.
"Is it weird for me to say I miss her?" Costanza said, cutting into the silence.
"No, man."
At that, Costanza got quiet again, but he was obviously thinking something. When Sam looked up at him, raising his eyebrows insistently, Costanza said, "What would she say about this?"
Sam chuckled, shaking his head. "I don't know. Wouldn't be mad, I don't think. She'd probably just say something crude, like how she should've known we were both pole-greasers."
"You didn't tell her?"
"Tell her what? That I had tendencies or some shit like that?"
"Wait. Before this, you'd never…?"
Sam just grinned.
Costanza snorted. "You sneaky bastard."
"Over the last couple of years, I've learned to be…flexible. And quick on the uptake."
"Really quick," he said with a sigh. "That mouth of yours has been wasted on women."
"I really don't recall them ever saying so."
He chuckled, then he said, "So in all those years knocking around hard, sweaty bodies playing pyramid, you never…?"
"Needed to focus," he replied, shaking his head. Then his mouth curled into a sly grin. "Don't tell me you had a poster of me up on your wall or something."
"Oh, frak you," he said, thrusting his arms out behind him to push himself up. "It's a wonder you didn't make viper, cocky as you are."
"I didn't want viper."
"No?"
"I like company." Costanza nodded, and Sam added, "And I'm done blowing shit up, if I can help it."
Costanza nodded again, suddenly looking as solemn as Sam's voice had maybe sounded. He hadn't meant it to. Somewhere along the line, he'd learned to talk about the resistances and Kara without feeling like he was ripping a hole in himself somewhere. It was necessary, really. But other people didn't always realize that.
"Hey," Sam said, changing tones. "You think if we get stuck here long enough, they'll let us name this empty rock of a planet?"
"Shouldn't you be more worried about the fact that you rooks don't have callsigns yet?"
"Tell you the truth, we're a little scared of what you guys will come up with."
"I could get the ball rolling."
He shook his head. "You'd name me Ding Dong or something, if only so somebody'll have a goofier callsign than yours."
Costanza smiled a little too widely at that, but when Sam shot him a nasty look, he said, "It doesn't feel like you."
"So what feels like me?"
"Nothing decent enough to call out over a comm, that's for sure." Costanza raised his eyebrows at him then and knocked his shoulder against his as he swept up into the raptor.
After he looked out over the landscape again, Sam followed behind him, trying to be less bothered by the broken equipment than he was relieved to have a day or two of unexpected R&R-even if they were stranded on some nameless planet, and even if his frak-buddy was suddenly his sort of boyfriend and he was already slinging around a tool kit and cursing at this frakkin' piece of shit instrument panel and Are you sure you didn't do something to frak it up, Ding Dong?
~