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in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather · 2 years ago

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[Starship Icarus] V

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 , Part 4

Summary: space hysteria, fashion shows, tragic backstories, self-administered manual pleasure, and two idiots in love. It’s a shitshow and you’re cordially invited <3

WC: ~7.8k

She was true to her word. When she said she didn’t want to think about this mess they were in, she stopped picking at the wound. Whether it ever closed up and when it might begin to heal was impossible to know, but to look at her, at either of them, you would not think these were two hopelessly doomed people waiting out the spilling stardust as it cruelly poured out of their overturned hourglass.

They had developed routines, learned each other’s rhythms. She liked hot early morning showers and she timed them with his morning cigarette. They had breakfast together as her hair dried and dripped on the table between them, sneaking forks and fingers across to the other one’s plate and grinning as the popped their loot into their mouths.

Mills preferred weigh training while she did yoga. Mercifully, and frustratingly, she tended to do this in the nature room, surrounded by flora transplanted from Earth, under a small man-made waterfall, while he sweated and grunted under a crushingly heavy bar, trying and failing not to imagine her body in all sorts of provocative poses.

They both appreciated alone time and spent it in various ways – reading, tinkering, decompressing. At night, they either took turns messing with Clyde, making a competition out of getting him to glitch or bug out. Or they retired to one of their cabins and tentatively reached out in the dark, trying to divine and understand the other through a series of innocuous activities.

Mills was a livewire. Two years without true human contact left him horrifically sensitized to every little thing she did – from the flutter of her eyes, to the sound of her small gasps, or the inherently attractive, feminine way she went about performing the smallest tasks. Not to mention touch.

Every casual, accidental brush of her hand across any part of his body short circuited him. He caught himself more than once flinching away from her when he realized they walked in step and were about to walk through a door, narrow enough that they would have to squeeze together, or when he felt the presence and heat of her body, leaning over his shoulder as he sat and tinkered with some junk, eyes glued with fascination to his hands, deft and coated with slick, black oil.

To preserve some semblance of sanity, Mills tended to choose safe activities, ones that kept some measure of distance between them.

One evening after dinner, they played cards.

She sat on the plain white, nondescript coffee table in his small cabin. Hygge, she explained the style when he called it mass produced junk - the lazy, safe Nordic style people who were too afraid to make a real choice liked to use in decorating. Inoffensive to the point of barely existing. Anodyne enough to sedate the viewer, much like its denizens.

His smile grew wider to the point of bursting off his face as she rained disdain on the many ways in which people expressed cowardice in their daily lives and choices.

She sat on it demonstratively as she took the deck and shuffled, wiggling her ass across its face as if to insult the object. Mills bit down on the comment that he now found himself desiring some offense from her. Her legs folded under her as he sat on his prison cot of a bed, they played Crazy 8s for what felt like hours. When she won, she bounced up and down in place on her ass and threw her head back in laughter. Mills watched with amazement whenever she did something new, something he hadn’t seen before.

She was good about it when she caught him staring. All seven or eight times that night. He assumed she chalked it up to him being so isolated and starved for company for so long - and there was an element of that - but he knew it wouldn’t be long before she figured out he was looking at her not just because she was there, but because she was the only thing he wanted to see. That was under the generous and somewhat naïve presumption she didn’t know already.

As if to savor him and unravel him slowly, she did interviews with him piecemeal and sporadically. A few questions here, a debate here and there over his reluctance to completely throw Homestead under the bus, but Mills had a distinct feeling she wanted to go slowly and draw out their acquaintance and the discovery of him as a person over the many years ahead of them.

They talked about Homestead’s takeover of his old company and how he ended up joining Homestead II.

“Another in the string of terrible decisions,” he made a funny grimace and rubbed his eyes, to banish the memories brought on by looking back on that time.

“Oh?” she tried retain a professional mien and avoid laughing as the recordings she was making may one day be part of a searing indictment of Homestead’s shady practices.

“Yup. I should have known by then not to try my luck, awful as it’s always been.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Oh, yes. If I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.”

She cracked then and shook her head. Mills watched the recoding spike high and erratic as it picked up her silvery laughter.

“I think Clyde would beg to differ—”

“He routinely does,” Mills interrupted and rolled his eyes. She rested her chin in her hand and just watched him and listened, caring less and less about keeping the interview formal.

“So terrible luck aside, what made you do it?”

Mills skipped over a few key details he was not yet willing to divulge and offered some well-documented tidbits about Homestead’s meteoric rise to become a space exploration giant.

“Originally, I was slated to be part of the crew. When that went to shit,” he paused and made a circling motion with his fingers, indicating a roll of film rewinding. “Let me give you a cleaner version of that. When that went awry,” he said with a serious affectation and she bit on her lips to keep her smile in, “I could either be some flyboy, jetting tourists from one place to another, or settle for being a glorified mechanic on board the Icarus.” He didn’t need to say how much the irony of not having crew access on the Icarus was plaguing him, since under different circumstances, he easily could have been the captain on board.

“Do you think you can fix any of this?” she asked right as he was pondering the same thing. It was skirting dangerously close to opening that wound he hoped would scab over.

“I could fix your garbage disposal or the old dodge sitting in your uncle’s yard for a solid few decades, but this ship…” he shrugged. “I got nothing but time to keep trying,” he infused his tone with reassurance. “I’ll try for you,” he added and felt his pulse start to gallop, expecting her reaction.

She smiled fondly and did nothing to accept or rebuff that thing he wasn’t quite saying yet.

It was early to belabor the point. Mills had spent months looking at her, listening to her words over and over, like his life depended on it. He was convinced that, at several points, it did. He was ready to go down on one knee as soon as she climbed out of her pod and she still had everything to learn about him.

Julian took to showing you the things he discovered about the ship in his wanderings. He was particularly amusing as a curator and guide to the most interesting and unusual cabins on board. You passed the time roasting people’s décor and choice of environment, until you realized there was a whole unexplored cache of fodder to make fun of – their wardrobes.

As Julian perused the trinkets lined along the shelves of a particularly gaudy cabin, you slipped into the wardrobe and snooped around. By that time, you had shed any sort of guilt about invading people’s privacy. You’d never live to meet them anyway.

The unhelpful thought was hastily shoved aside and you refused to allow your mood to dampen. Rather, you picked up and examined some outrageous pieces that hung before you, to make sure you weren’t imagining them.

What use might this person have for... a mink coat? Thigh-high boots that looked shellacked? A wide-brimmed floppy hat in a hideous shade of purple?

“Ever raided any of these closets?” you called out and popped your head to look at Julian, finding his broad back facing you.

He turned slowly, with impeccable comedic timing, and quirked a brow. “What are you suggesting?”

“Fashion show. Fall/Winter 2100, or whatever year it currently is.”

He pondered, giving you an exaggerated pensive expression. “We oughtta keep up with the times,” he conceded with a comical shrug.

“Especially the middle–aged amongst us.”

Julian let out a wounded sound and clutched over his heart at the comment.

“Ticky ticker?” you questioned the gesture, wrestling to keep a shit-eating grin off your face.

“No, I think it‘s a knife in my back, trying to poke out through my chest,” he responded haughtily and turned his face away from you.

You giggled and assumed your fashionista persona again. “Describe your personal style to me.”

“Sophisticated,” Julian narrowed his eyes and hollowed out his cheeks like an arrogant model.

“No.”

“Elevated,” he went on, heedless of your words.

“Stop,” you rolled your eyes.

“Full of panache and finesse,” he over-enunciated the words and struck a pose to illustrate his point.

“Yeah, not at all,” you muttered to yourself and faced the closet again.

“Casual/athletic,” he started, finally sounding serious.

“Okay, there we go.”

“Hold on,” he held up a finger to shush you, “athletic, but with a business-chic slant that’s very postmodern and avant-garde,” he tossed the word salad around with gusto.

“Yeah?” you crossed your arms and listened, wondering when he’ll tire of being a smartass. Smart money said it would be a while.

“Yeah, I can rock my ‘fits at the gym and at the Oval Office.”

“The Oval Office? You’re the president now?”

“I’m the de facto president of this ship, miss ma’am. And you better start showing me some respect.”

“Is that so?”

Julian took a step closer, crowding you against the closet and stopping just short of pushing his chest all the way into you. You felt your expression grow stupid, gaping like a fish as your knees informed you they were about to buckle and it was every man for himself. Julian drank in your reaction for a long, tense moment before releasing a valve and breaking into a grin.

“You?” he asked, checking you out from head to toe, ostensibly taking in your outfit.

“Cheap nasty low down trailer park burger slut.”

“That checks out,” he agreed a bit too eagerly and you smacked his shoulder.

“Oh, my god, I would kill for a burger,” you whined and felt your mouth salivate.

“Same,” Julian groaned in agreement and took a step back, relinquishing your personal space back to you.

You cleared your throat and gave silent thanks that female bodies showed arousal less conspicuously than male ones as you registered how much Julian’s proximity affected you. “Before my tummy starts singing us a mournful burger tune, why don’t you put together some - what did you call them, ‘fits? - and let’s meet up at the Grand Concourse in an hour. For the unveiling of the collection.”

“Be there or be square,” he pointed a finger gun at you and disappeared to find the best and worst things he could, vaguely, fit into.

Clyde pumped music into the cavernous halls of the Grand Concourse. It was a bass-heavy, bombastic tune with vaguely sexual moans and an indecipherable chorus – the sort that often accompanied edgy fashion shows where models walked around on horse hoof shoes, wearing trash bags and steampunk helmets. You sat cross-legged in a chair at the end of the improvised runway and waited on pins and needles.

Finally, Julian emerged and strutted down the corridor in long strides. His face was impassive and his gaze stared off contemptuously into some middle distance. Had you not known better, you might have assumed he had done this kind of modeling before.

His outfit consisted of camo pants and, horrifically, a camo shirt. Both in slightly different hues, with swirling patterns and splotches that looked awfully mismatched stacked one on top of the other. He tied it all together with combat boots, which you recognized as his own pair.

“I give you,” he announced, coming to a stop and spinning to offer you a cheeky look at the back, “the army surplus store outfit.”

You were valiantly holding in both laughter and disgust, but your eyes betrayed you, watering as you did your best to keep your quivering lips from splitting into a grin.

“I can only presume the owner of this delectable outfit intended the two pieces of couture to be worn together.”

“Naturally,” you nodded with an air of wisdom.

“Only thing is,” he cringed and bit his lip, “it’s a little off on the sizing,” he admitted and twisted around to show off what he meant. “Could be smaller,” he said and flexed his powerful thighs, the ripples going up until they reached the flat plains of his ass. The tight pants barely rode up over his hips and exposed a delicious iliac crest, the V of sculpted flesh that disappeared into the unintendedly low-rise pants, so tight and small that a coin slot threatened to peek out in the back.

“Stop,” you put up a scandalized hand in the air to cover the sight.

“Oh, we’re just getting started. This was a little amuse-bouche to whet your appetite,” he dashed back towards the large fountain that decorated the Grand Concourse, shooting up a perpetual sheet of water that he used as a blurry changing screen. You heard the rustling of clothing as he changed and spied his tall frame, broad and pallid in his nakedness as he shamelessly stripped and redressed. If he meant to titillate you, that was such a cheap, juvenile way to do it. And it was working exactly to plan.

When he emerged next, Julian was in a black tank top and leather jacket, with a douchey bedazzled pair of sunglasses and a thick, iced out chain around his neck that supported a dinner plate-sized pendant. He walked in deliberate slow motion, taking off his glasses in a mock-seductive way and shook out his long hair like in a shampoo commercial.

“Let me guess – this outfit says all the world’s preeminent douchebags gathered together for a Mortal Kombat-style tournament, and you emerged victorious?”

“Where do you think I got the medal?” he tapped the large adornment that hung on the chain, right on his breastbone and winked with an accompanying mouth click.

Deliberately, taking his time, he shucked off the jacket, flexing every bit of his hulking, rippling anatomy, from the broad expanse of his chest that made the gaudy medallion twitch, to his bulging biceps and lean, defined triceps. The jacket slid down his long, sinewy forearms and he caught it in one hand, giving it an elegant spin and tossed it at you like a stripper.

You made no attempt to catch it and it fell over your head and shoulders like a blanket over a cage. “Ju-li-an-uh!” you scolded, tacking an extra, whiny syllable to the end of his name and you could feel him grin, as he always did when you said his name like that.

By the time you peeled the discarded garment off, he was halfway up his runway again, walking away in the same slow motion as he came in. He did the famous model midway turn, sending a suitably douchey air kiss flying towards you before running a hand through his lustrous hair, and completing the turn.

If his last ridiculous outfit inadvertently made you hot and bothered, the PTA dad getup he came out in next took care of that awkward predicament. In khakis, a pastel polo and, mother of god, her majesty the fanny pack hugging around his hips, he was the picture of a frumpy suburban dad who had simply given up. With his hair parted hideously down the middle and tucked behind his prominent ears, you could scarcely believe it was the same person as the smokeshow from a few minutes ago.

“Hm,” you frowned and inspected him as he gave you a view from every angle.

“What?” he planted his hands on his hips and tapped one mock-irritated foot on the ground.

“Nothing, it’s just… The juxtaposition of your boulder thighs bunching up the fabric in the legs, but then it’s all loose in the caboose.”

“Yeah, I never boasted much of an ass,” he conceded without any fight.

“I like it,” you assured. “It’s mysterious.”

Julian knew a trap when he saw one, but he was too tickled not to step into it. “Mysterious?” he echoed and let you drive your blow home.

“Yeah, like - where did it go? What is it doing right now? Did it find some other backside to form a symbiotic relationship with?”

He shook his head confidently. “I think it actually burned up during launch, and it’s highly insensitive of you to bring up.” You engaged in a staredown with him, trying to keep a straight face, but laughter bubbled up inside you and you doubled over with it.

“Anyway, you keep distracting me, we’re gonna be late for the parent-teacher conference,” he chided.

“We?” you managed to choke out, stomach cramping with too much laughter.

“Yes, we,” he pointed to one of the roombas milling around. “Typical of you to forget all about little Buzz.”

“I’m sorry, Buzz,” you said contritely.

“And I will not have it,” he straightened to his full height and adjusted the fanny pack snootily. “Come on, son, let’s go,” he ordered the roomba and the little critter zoomed after him.

Over time, the recording sessions became a document of you falling in love, slowly and gently, like flecks of stardust suspended in zero gravity. Most days, you were fairly sure Julian was feeling the same. He drank you in with his eyes whenever you were together, especially when he thought you didn’t realize. And you worked hard not to realize, to give him those small pleasures. The fact remained, though, that you were in an unprecedented situation – brought together by total accident and effectively doomed to each other. One couldn’t help but wonder how much of your attraction and blossoming friendship was a coping mechanism. No one could blame you for it, really, one way or the other.

Still, you had a cache of nagging, burning questions and you kept chomping at the bit to fire off a few. Most urgently, the fiancée he once hinted at briefly. Was she in one of the pods, slumbering peacefully and dreaming of reuniting with him many years and many more miles on? Or was she back on Earth, unable to give it all up for him, by now wrinkled and gray, looking up at the sky where his trail had long evaporated?

“You, uh,” you tried for a casual tone, but couldn’t meet his eyes, “mentioned, I think, a fiancée or something. Once. Before.” Well, that was the least casual thing you’d ever said. Talking about the sacrifice of leaving Earth behind to go on an exploratory mission seemed like the best segue you were going to get, so you had to go for it.

Julian was quiet. He nodded once, patient and knowing. Perhaps he wanted you to squirm a little – after all, men tend to get fewer opportunities to enjoy this kind of attention and pursuit. Or he had real trouble talking about her.

“Did she…come with you?” your voice was perceptibly shrunken, growing more timid and unsure with every word. When he understood just how much it was costing you to broach the topic, he was quick to respond.

“No. No,” he shook his head to punctuate and put you out of your misery. Then he took in a deeper breath and started. “We were together…for years,” he frowned like he was recalling a hazy memory from a life lived long ago. “And I fell profoundly out of love with her over time.”

You hoped you kept your face trained from glowing with triumph as you nodded sympathetically.

“Then she got sick. Very…seriously so.” He was being extremely tactful and you knew he had to be reading you like a book. You wouldn’t want to gloat over someone’s misfortune like that even if you were undeniably pleased that Julian was not taken. “The treatment she required was so arduous,” he shook his head, exhausted all over again just from remembering. You wanted to slap yourself for even asking. No wonder he had been so taciturn about it in the past. “And it was insanely expensive. I, uh… felt so guilty over the fact I was about to end things before it all happened, and…over the fact I resented her so much for getting sick in the first place and trapping me somewhere I didn’t want to be,” he hung his head and closed his eyes as he spoke. You were amazed he was man enough to admit something like that to you. “So I eventually accepted I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I left her alone to deal with it, and changed my focus. It was around the time the company was getting taken over. I was so absorbed in hospital appointments and bills and so out of it from lack of sleep, I missed all the warning signs at work that it was all going to hell. To cut a long, grueling story short - in the end, I lost her and every chance to do what I had dreamed of my whole life in one fell swoop. At least that’s how it felt at the time,” he gave a weary shrug and attempted a smile. It only made his cheek twitch and then it dissolved.

He could have paused for an entire year, you still wouldn’t have found any words to say.

“Told you I had the worst luck. Even spreads to those around me,” he rubbed his eyes, suddenly looking tired and decades older.

“I’m so sorry, Julian,” you finally breathed some feeble words out.

“It was a while ago,” he assured, “we all knew it was coming.”

Mortification made seconds feel like centuries. There was nothing to say, but you still felt like you ought to comfort him somehow. With your jaw set in determination, you decided to make an overture. Hand sliding over the table between you, you reached out for him and he turned his hand over, palm up to receive your touch. You touched the tips of his fingers gently with yours, and moved over his palm, smooth and tough all at once, like the choicest leather. Your fingers traced the ridges of his palm and you rested your hand in his, enjoying the warmth you shared in that quiet, intimate moment. Then you slid further up, snaking your fingers to his wrist, feeling his pulse point throb under your skin and gripped his wrist like you were locking your hands together to pull the other one up over a ledge. He wrapped his large, thick hand around your wrist, eclipsing it, and squeezed.

Gradually, the mood changed and you felt the ghosts of his past dissipate around you. He became his usual devilish self again and you felt his grip around your wrist slacken, but grow more tender as he stroked his thumb over the thin, sensitive skin of your forearm.

“What about you?” he asked quietly and the low volume masked some of the tremulous quality of his voice.

It was easy to answer. “I’ve never had anyone I was considering spending the rest of my life with,” you shrugged. “It was always too abstract of an idea for me, too daunting to make one choice with no take-backsies, so I never really seriously considered it.”

Julian rested his face in his hand and looked at you with a mix of adoration and puzzlement, the way people stare in awe and disbelief at stunning works of art in museums. Unfortunately, you were both too clever to woo peaceably, as the Bard once wrote. Nothing that was left unsaid escaped either of your attention and you could read it clearly in the other’s eyes.

“Until now,” you put the unspoken into words. Leave too much of this tension crackling in the air and you could lose your mind from it. Better to acknowledge the obvious since no escape from it was possible anyway. “Now it’s you, whether you like it or not,” you kicked the ball into his court and forced him to respond.

“I think I like it way too much,” he drawled lazily out and stilled his caressing fingers, making you even more starkly aware of your skin touching.

Mills retired early after dinner. She had apologized again for bringing up his onetime fiancée, still worried she had upset him and that was the reason he was seeking some solitude. He reassured her it was fine and he just needed some shuteye. Not a lie in itself – Mills hadn’t been sleeping too well the last couple of weeks. But it had more to do with the things that were tormenting him currently rather than the things he left in the past.

He tossed and turned for hours nearly every night, replaying the events of the day that included her, analyzing conversations and chastising himself for not being quippier or more gallant or clever. If he wasn’t working himself up into an owlishly-awake, anxious frenzy, then he drifted off into fitful bursts of sleep, in which she either murdered him in inventive ways as revenge for what he had done, or he had her under him for a few blissful, fulfilling moments until he jerked awake to find himself bucking and grinding against his mattress.

He smoothed his hands down his long face and sighed, feeling his skin burn and chafe, too small for the desire it was straining to hold in. Siding his hands and roving down his body, he found the waistband of his pajamas and he groped inside, exhausted in advance by the repetitive actions he was forced to take daily and nightly.

Mills hissed lowly as he gripped himself at the base, feeling an insistent knot buried just under the spot where he palmed himself, coiling and tugging, making him grow impossibly harder.

He was punishingly erect, stiff as a board even though he was a cool 40. When he was younger, his older friends had started relying on various pharmaceutical aides to satisfy the jailbait little kittens who had a thing for gnarled pilots even before they hit that milestone. And here he was, tucking throbbing erections into the waistband of his underwear and hoping they were inconspicuous and taking cold showers to achieve the opposite effect. Technically, he was over 70, he rolled his eyes as he remembered, stroking one languid pump all the way up and down, making his thighs shudder in anticipation - so it was even more impressive.

The skin of his straining shaft was silky soft, ridged with veins, and an unforgivable, stubborn hardness inside stretched him to a painful length and thickness, demanding release. With a stifled moan, he licked his full lips and shut his eyes tighter, letting images wash over him.

He always started slowly, perusing his own fantasies like a smorgasbord, clicking his tongs in anticipation, picking out favorite reels and dropping them on his plate.

That she walks into his cabin, quiet and as needy as him, stopping in his doorway as the door slides shut behind her with a muted shuffle across the floor. Her hips sway as she bunches up a satin nightgown into her hands, pulling it higher and higher over her thighs as she approaches him. Without preamble or their usual politeness, she straddles him possessively and grabs two demanding fistfuls of his hair at the base of his skull. He feels the heat of her when she sits on him and she clamps her open mouth over his, hot and sweet, and breathes hard into their hungry kiss.

His hands slip up her body – she’s not going anywhere once he has her – and he brushes her thighs as they hug around him only to wrap his powerful arms around her waist and crush her closer. Her eyes go wide with alarm when she feels how strong he can so effortlessly be, and then she melts into him, kissing him even more fervently when she feels how much he wants her.

She slips her underwear to the side, and they’re both clumsy with eagerness as they line themselves up, panting and moaning even before he’s inside. When she sinks down on him, it’s gradual, but she has no intention of taking it slowly. His heart stops for a moment like it does when he jumps into freezing water. Then he can breathe again and he shudders in his whole body as he feels her rhythm rocking through him as she rides him.

He grips her hips and tosses his head back, feeling the fullness of her body between his hands. She bites on the long curved column of his neck as she undulates up and down, slicking him up and clenching wildly. As her orgasm builds, she grips his back for support, and her soft tits rest against his chest. All he can feel in the world is her, soft and hot and delicious, and none of the tragedies that weave around and through them matter in that moment.

He pumps himself, hard and ruthless, arm cramping with the effort, as he imagines her come undone for him. It’s over too fast because he wants it too much and he falls back onto his bed in a boneless, heaving heap.

Mills’ ear rang like a shot was fired right by his head. He was exhausted, on the cusp of giving himself carpal tunnel, but he was pretty sure he would be able to sleep tonight and function for at least a few hours before the red fog came over him again.

He was right. He did manage to fall asleep. He knew he did, and that it was a deep bout of restful sleep because the goddamn fucking groans of metal, sounding like ancient monsters from the pits of hell, made him start awake.

Mills groaned and kicked the blanket off his body, begrudgingly awake. Through his irritation, though, he recognized the noise he was hearing heralded no good news.

He padded barefoot down the vacant corridors, snapping his head in odd directions when he heard particularly ominous creaks. The moans of bending, vibrating metal echoed from the deep bowels and far flung wings of the ship, reverberating and crying mournfully by the time they reached Icarus’ heart. Cutting through the wailing symphony were sharp whipcracks and the pounding of thick sheets of metal comprising Icarus’ exoskeleton, beating like a metallic heart and sending shockwaves through the entire ship.

“Establishing new shield alignment to celestial body Amun-2257B,” a holo device announced, eerily calm in the cacophony of screeching metal and infernal groans. Mills felt the ground vibrate under him, nearly making him lose his footing as the floor jumped back and forth under his feet. He half-expected for the whole ship to snap in two like the Titanic, with sheets of metal shrieking as they peeled and flew off into the freezing, silent void of the cosmos.

The holo repeated its message and Mills regained his balance. If they bothered to give it a semblance of a name, it was a major body. Judging by the allusion to the sun god, this was a star they were passing, likely far more massive and powerful than their own tiny Sun. And Icarus seemed to have strayed right into the radius of its heat and radiation with poorly adjusted protective shields. Mills felt a chill as he considered what damage the ship could sustain from mere seconds of exposure, let alone minutes or hours. It was worrying that the correct parameters were not set well in advance given how carefully their route was planned. Before he had time to consider more in depth how such a catastrophic oversight could have happened, Mills heard his name.

“Julian,” she whimpered in the drowning sounds of the maelstrom exploding around them.

He wished she would call out louder so he could run in the direction of her voice, but as he bellowed out her name, powerful and reassuring, he spied her emerging from the corridor that led towards her cabin.

Another rumble shook the ship and it sent her staggering backwards. She fell back against the wall and let herself slide down it, relieved now that she had seen him, striding purposely, furiously towards her. As he approached, she extended her arms towards him in a childlike gesture, and he grabbed her roughly, pulling her up and into his embrace. She was shaking like a leaf as he held her. The spaghetti strap top she slept in left much of her skin exposed, and he felt it smooth and warm under his hands, where he held her close, and on his cheek, where he rested it on her shoulder, breathing in the feminine scent of her skin and hair.

Gradually, the rumbles and moans abated, and the ship seemed to twist and snap itself into the proper configuration, leaving a few echoes reverberating in odd intervals and a few residual aftershocks shuddering softly under their feet. Mills peeled the protective layer of his body away from hers, revealing her eyes to be trained on him, wide and teary, asking for some explanation.

“A little rattling and groaning is to be expected now and again,” he croaked in a voice still gravelly from sleep. “The temperatures here, the environment, the pressure - it’s so unlike Earth. This was just metal contracting and expanding. Taking a few breaths,” he winked reassuringly. But this is a lot, he knew. He just hoped she didn’t. No need for both of them to get stress ulcers.

You were still counting your breaths and trying to accept the fact that the hideous, Lovecraftian roars of galactic demons that ripped you out of sleep and practically shook you of bed could be explained with a simple reaction to heat and cold and pressure. Rationally, you accepted it to be true, but your heart still raced like a frightened rabbit’s inside your chest.

“Everything will be alright,” Julian promised in a low, gentle voice. “Breathe,” he commanded softly, splaying a hand on your chest, “breathe right into this spot.”

From your breastbone to your throat, you felt his massive paw of a hand that stretched hot and tender across your heart and warmed a soothing spot into which to focus your breaths. It started to work almost instantaneously, allowing your chest to grow less constricted, admitting more air and deeper breaths. You closed both your hands over his when you felt steady and thanked him for calming you.

“You’re not gonna fall asleep easily after this?” he asked with a jocular sort of tone

“Not fucking likely,” you suddenly remembered yourself and crossed your arms self-consciously over your chest, hidden behind only a thin tank top.

“Would you let me show you something?” Julian extended a hand and waited unobtrusively for you to decide whether you wanted to take it.

“Welcome to the observation deck,” the holo greeted as you entered a large room that resembled an empty gallery. A long viewing pane ran alongside its edge and there were rails to hold onto close to the glass, as well as seats a bit further in back.

The room was bathed in a muted orange light as screens and multiple filters protected the inhabitants of the observation deck from the intense glare of the star the Icarus was passing. You felt a crackling energy inside the room that made all the small hairs on your body stand.

Julian kept one hand on the small of your back, sensing your unease, and pressed a spot in the wall. A compartment opened dutifully and he pulled out two sets of protective goggles. They resembled shooting glasses in design and were made to protect the eyes of the wearer from various types of radiation and damage that could be caused if they chose to view some of the bodies and phenomena along the way.

“Amun-2257B is in view and will remain visible for three minutes and fourteen seconds,” the holo announced. “Safe aperture is 1% to 7%. Please be advised that setting the aperture higher and allowing more brightness into the viewing room will result in irreversible damage to you retinas.”

Julian offered a set of goggles to you questioningly, having already donned his. You took yours with a dose of trepidation.

“Icarus, set aperture to 4%,” he commanded and slid his hand to your waist, giving your side a supportive squeeze.

As the screen before you came to life and started to admit light from the outside, you checked your goggles were securely on your face and felt Julian gently nudge you towards the railing. You frowned, thinking that it was an unnecessary feature for a room designed purely for people to essentially gaze out of a window.

“1%,” the holo informed.

With a loose grip, you placed your hands on the railing and Julian came up behind you, securing his chest behind yours and grabbing the railing firmly with his massive hands.

More light came pouring in and you squinted, as the color changed from orange to a yellow, then golden, seeming to grow hotter by the instant and approach a white hue.

“2%,” you heard the holo again, but it sounded more distant somehow.

More light poured in, and more, until it seemed impossible for the room to get any brighter. The intensity of it seemed to blow you back and you found yourself pushing into Julian’s broad, immovable chest. The punishing, devouring light seemed to go through you, stabbing pathways between the atoms in your body to rush through, disintegrating you in the process.

“3%,” the voice said after what seemed like an eternity, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. You felt your hands ache from how hard you were gripping the railing now and you tried to scream, but no sound appeared to come out.

Watering, and seemingly burning up, your eyes adjusted the smallest bit and you spied the outline of the infernal star in front of you. Gaseous explosions danced in a foggy miasma around it, giving it the appearance of a watery haze, like air trembling above a hot flame. Black mushroom clouds bloomed and died on its face, and fiery whips cracked in its halo as the star mercilessly burned in its seemingly eternal flame.

“4%,” at last you heard the words you had come to dread, expecting that you would scatter like so much dust once the full aperture hit. Instead, the light made you feel incorporeal. As if the flames split your body open and let your soul out, you felt a euphoric freedom, an intoxicating oneness with the unknowable universe around you. Without blinking, you held the star in your eyes and felt something that didn’t have a name vibrate in a place inside you that was too vast to conceptualize.

It felt like a lifetime later, but you gradually returned to your body, feeling not yourself first, but Julian’s warmth where you rested against him. His arms closed around you and you saw the viewing window disappear from you and the room spin. You realized he was carrying you to one of the seats. You were already sitting down and he was holding you by the wrists to keep you from tipping backwards before bodily sensation started to return and you registered the hardness of the chair under you and his skin touching yours.

Then you felt your eyes stinging and the familiar feeling of salt crusted on your cheeks, drying out the skin underneath. Your mouth was stretched in a delirious smile and you realized you were feeling just about every emotion heretofore known to you, and a plethora of new ones.

As light drained from the room, you felt the contrast of darkness to the light. While light slashed through you and tore apart, one spec at a time, darkness held you softly, like a black cloud, shrouding you safely in its gentle cloak and it soothed.

She shook again, more aggressively than before, but this time, Mills wasn’t too concerned about it. The first time he saw a star, it was much farther away than this one and he came to sprawled on his back, feeling as deranged as he imagined Moses must have after having a fun little chat with a burning bush.

He held her hands gently, patient as if with a child. Her eyes were wild with that same indescribable revelation that he had felt before and he relished seeing her luminous body absorb it.

She suddenly focused her eyes on his, half-lidded with a desire to do anything but sleep.

A tingle at the base of his spine warned he was about to break out into a sweat. His cock again twitched to life and it brought irritation more than anything; if he kept it up, he would flay the skin right off of it.

Ju-li-an-uh, he heard her inner monologue, just fucking kiss me already. There may be many ways to interpret a lot of different things in life, but not that. She was fixing him with a stare like a ravenous lioness does to a hobbling zebra.

He feigned obliviousness and tested to see if she was stable enough to sit up on her own, Mills would never accuse himself of being overly gentlemanly. In any other circumstance, he would not let the fact that they had been through a distressing situation stop him from stealing a kiss. In fact, the vigorous, affirming sessions of fucking that occasionally followed such events were among some of his favorite experiences. Nor would he shy away from pouncing on her when she was touched by some gesture of his or an experience, like seeing a star up close. Penguins didn’t go combing miles of beach for the perfect pebble just to then turn around and let the female consider if she liked him for his personality or for the shiny, smooth pebble he waddled over to her.

What made him turn away was the guilty knowledge that some day, probably a very distant one, she would know the terrible truth. And he knew a mind as incisive as hers would go through every key moment and event of their lives together, and examine with a newfound harshness how he chose to behave while she was in the dark. He decided, long ago, that he would give her no further reasons to hate him for any transgression, no matter how small. So he tore himself away, stood and offered to get her a glass of water.

She visibly deflated when he pulled away, though she still appeared to feel as electrified as before.

He returned promptly, walking there and back with a brisk pace, and offered her a tall glass of water from the bar. She didn’t look up to his eyes, or even his face as she took it, and slowly drained half of it. Mills narrowed his eyes as he sensed her pull away, and he was quite sure she was feeling embarrassed.

She got up and walked around him in a purposely long arch, staying out of the intimate zone where they could extend their arms and touch,

You fucking idiot, he cursed at himself. She was an irresistible blend of proud and sensitive, and his apparent hesitation or lack of interest sent her retreating from him in a furious hurry. There was no convenient way to explain himself without explaining everything, and his teeth gnashed in frustration.

“You should finish that,” he tossed casually over his shoulder before she could leave. “These viewings leave you really dehydrated. I’ll take the glass back with me,” he turned and extended a hand expectantly.

She only briefly glanced up at him and started to approach with affected reluctance. Mills waited until she had drunk enough to tip the bottom of the glass up. “And I’d like to take you out on a real date tomorrow night,” he added matter-of-factly.

He heard the gurgle of water as it stuck in her throat and she coughed, lurching forward, sending water splashing back into the glass, mostly, save for what came out of her nose.

Mills took the one and then one more step left between them to close the distance and took the glass out of her hand, landing a few vigorous pats on her back, just on the other side of gentle. “Is that a yes, then?” he asked through his grin and she glared, still clearing her throat and catching her breath. An elbow he narrowly missed sinking into his side told him all he needed to know.

She gave a melodious girlish giggle and attempted another playful smack, this time with her small fist on his shoulder. He let her land that one, but then caught her by the arm and held her tightly to him, just fast enough that she couldn’t squirm away and close enough to let her feel some of his large body, taut with desire for her, impose on her. Better to give her a small preview of what to expect the following evening than to take her completely by surprise the first time he towers over her, looming and starving for her. “Now straight to bed with you,” he commanded in a flat, husky voice, “we have a long day and a long night ahead of us.” Mills’ face remained inscrutable while his hand came whizzing in an arch to land a smack on her ass, right on the spot he was eyeing all day.

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#commander mills x reader #commander mills x you #65 movie

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