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The rowdier fighters piled out of the transport first, shouting and jostling and knocking into each other with their bags. They hadn’t seen snow in nearly a year, and most of them had never seen it on Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the solar system. They could hardly wait (or so they told each other) to ski down over 21,287 meters of volcanic slope—over twice the height of Earth’s comparatively puny Mt. Everest—on their well-deserved week of shore leave at the Hotel Olympus. The navigators filed out after them, already shivering. Several started taking pictures, eager to be the first to post on Spacebook. The fighters were already throwing snowballs at anything that moved, and plenty of things that didn’t.
“The ski slope itself can’t really be that high, can it?” Praxis asked Ethos. “The ride back up would take…hours? Days?”
“Hours! Days!” Ethos chuckled, mightily amused by his former fighter's objections. He turned towards him to tease him, to pass a sassy comment - but a look at Praxis' face made him stop short. He wrinkled his brow, suddenly worried. “You're really scared, aren't you?”, he asked.
Praxis gulped and said nothing. There was an awkward moment of silence. “Don't get me wrong!” he then burst out, “I have done this before, there was lots of snow where I grew up, and as kids we basically spent every afternoon skiing. It's just...my eye...”
And suddenly Ethos understood. “I'm sorry”, he mumbled. “I'm sorry I talked you into this. It was a stupid idea. We shouldn't have come here in the first place.”
The former navigator let his head and his ski poles drop. He had been so sure they would all have fun, he had been so eager to enjoy this wonderful winter day on the piste with Helios, Selene, Abel and Cain. But Praxis' wellbeing was more important. Ethos had to find a way to rescue the situation; for his fighter's sake, he needed to come up with a new plan, and quickly.
Praxis lay there bleeding out, groaning weakly. Ethos wiped the sweat from his eyes and tried to focus on the cracked dials. Right now, he wished he had Teron technology installed in his ship. The fuel was too low, the calibrations were off, and Ethos had a moment of despair. He turned to stare at the stars and saw a dark shape approaching from the portside.
Or was it starboard? He was never very good at distinguishing his left from r–-BANG.
His surroundings dematerialised in an instant, a haze of prismatic glitching waved across his screens.
As he raised open the hatch of the flight simulator he clenched his teeth in a bid to keep his cool. “Why did you end the simulation? We almost completed the mission.”
Praxis leisurely hopped out the other side of the machine with an indifferent expression. “You’re not focused,” he offered simply. Praxis glanced into his eyes with a brief searching gaze before taking in a deep breath and turning his face away. “If this isn’t going to work, get a transfer.”
“What is your fucking problem with me?” he implored, gesturing his hands towards Praxis in desperation. He prayed that the resemblance of loathing he detected on Praxis’ face was his own invented fantasy. “What is it about me that you find so repulsive?”
This final word seemed to shock him out of disdain.
He stared for a moment, looking uncertain, then shook his head in frustration. “I can’t deal with this right now,” he said, slamming one hand against the panel by the exit. “I’ll talk to you later.”
With that, he left in a huff and the doors slid shut with a soft fssss.
After some rapid internal debate, pursuit seemed like the best option. Getting to the bottom of this growing feeling was necessary, even if it was uncomfortable in the moment. The situation was becoming tense, and talking about it was the only way to move forward. Besides, chasing him down was simpler than waiting around, wondering what had gone wrong.
Soon after they’d first met, he’d realized that this was a man who would not be easy to keep track of. So he’d done a little shopping, a little programming, a little poke with a custom syringe in a crowded room…and voilà: problem solved. All he had to do was pull up a map on his phone, and he could see the location of his quarry.
But—he suddenly realized—he didn’t feel like solving this particular problem just yet. He hadn’t eaten in a long time, and he’d heard a rumor that Mess Hall B was serving blini with real fruit today.
He lit up a cigarette and strolled blithely down the hallway, maneuvering through a bevy of indignant maintenance techs running their monthly crate-pushing race. According to Vicks, each crate had a different amount and type of material inside, and a tech could find himself pushing anything from fluffy packing peanuts to rattling bolts to sloshing milk. The prize was a bottle of top-shelf vodka from Wedge’s private store; he made a lot of money taking online bets on the outcome.
When he arrived at the mess hall, there were (sadly) no blini to be found, but something even more interesting was happening.
Snow appeared to be falling. Snow?! In the mess hall?! On a space ship in... (what month was it again, Ethos wondered to himself). Settling for a cinnamon roll and hot chocolate instead, Ethos settled down at a seat beside Deimos after brushing aside the soft dusting of apparent-snow that had settled there. (All the while, Deimos took the opportunity to not very surreptitiously eye Ethos' plump seat.)
Deimos answered Ethos' awe-filled, questioning glance with a mischievous one of his own, grey eyes glinting with a mirth that seemed to show there more frequently these days. And before Ethos began to excitedly launch into theories about the mess hall snow, he took a moment to enjoy the scene before him and the blini-sized companion beside him (he hadn't settled for anything at all...this was much more interesting).
Within the hour, the mess hall had become an impromptu holiday celebration. The heavy fall of snow had created a difficult terrain among the tables and benches, heaps of the snow formed into peaks that many attempted to slide down on food trays. Soon, the room was littered with snow angels and make-shift snowmen built amid the vicious snowball fight that had broken out between navigators and fighters.
Deimos watched Ethos blow a large breath into the cold air, marveling at the steam rising from his mouth with a giggle. The navigator’s cheeks were a bright pink, and Deimos mused as to whether it was the cold or the heavily spiked eggnog warming his icy complexion.
The small fighter deftly slipped in beside Ethos to breathe into his ear, “How much have you had to drink?” He did not withdraw from his position, observing him closely with an amused smile.
“U-uh– well– I mean– Not much! I’m not drunk!” he spat out, tripping over his words with a remarkably flustered grin.
Deimos was awfully close, he could feel the fighter’s warm breath against his skin, his mouth was inches from his own. His thin, bowed lips in a tempting smirk.
Ethos turned his head incrementally to face Deimos and their warm breaths began to intermingle.
Deimos looked down at Ethos’ lips with an open-mouthed expression that was a mixture of contemplative and entertained. “What are you waiting for?” Deimos’ husky, low voice uttered against his lips.
Their lips were virtually brushing, but Deimos would not advance. He wanted Ethos to come to him.
“W-why–” Ethos wasn’t sure what he had begun to whisper, words left him as his eyes fluttered closed and he gently pushed his lips to Deimos’. It was such a tentative and delicate kiss, Deimos very slightly parted his lips as an invitation, which Ethos sweetly accepted as he deepened the kiss with the same soft grace.
Deimos had never been kissed like this before, their lips met with such slow and tender motions. He felt a warm hand brush his hip, it was guided by uncertainty as the tips of his fingers moved timidly against the exposed skin below his shirt.
Deimos sighed. Oh, this was something else than being seized, taken in possession, subjugated by men that got off on power the same way they assumed he got off on submission. It wasn't even true, he realized only now, maybe never had been true in the first place. The careful, strong hands around his waist made him think that he might be someone else entirely, deep inside. Someone that never had been perceived before. Someone that was awoken only now.
It made him vulnerable, being kissed that way, being reverenced that way, it made him helpless. But the comforting hands on his flesh were struggling just as much as he was to do the right thing, and that was what lifted him up. Deimos leaned forward and grabbed the other man's collar, plunging deeper into the kiss, feeling a burning passion in his guts that needed to be quenched soon or he would be consumed.
--
Wedge leaned over Vicks’ shoulder and snorted. “A burning passion in his guts? What is this?”
“Nothing!” Vicks snatched the tablet away. “It’s private!”
“Yeah, until you post it on Fumblr. Or is it Wadpat?”
“I’m not thirteen! I post on OT3.”
“I see! Very classy...VapeOrRub.”
Vicks gasped. “How did you know?”
His colleague winked.
“Wait a minute…you could only know if you…EnterItRight? My biggest fan? Is that you?!”
“I’ve been dropping hints for months now, and you were always too dumb to get it. Looking forward to reading this next one.” Wedge grinned, saluted, and strolled out the door.