marlowemuses | Written in the Stars

Ronan had been expecting this. He knew what he was getting into, knew he wouldn't like it, and knew there weren't many other options. So he shouldn't have been surprised at how cramped the whole ship was. Turned out, his quarters were even worse.

Though he'd been mostly when entering, he kicked the door closed behind him. He dropped his bag onto the floor and stared at his navigator. His life would depend on this man and vice versa and he couldn't even stay awake.

"How much beauty sleep do you even need?" He started to walk closer but stopped. If that wasn't enough to wake him it was better to just let him be until he woke from his coma.

Adam was a light sleeper, so he woke quickly, glancing over this stranger who was meant to be his partner. Sitting forward, he rested his elbows on his knees, looking Ronan over in silence. He knew the name--Ronan Lynch--from the assignment letter, but nothing else. This presumably was Ronan because the door shouldn't have let anyone else in.

"I'm Adam," he said, rising to his feet and offering his hand in greeting.

Ronan stared at his navigator for a long moment. So this was Adam, ready to sleep at a moment's notice and irritatingly polite.

"Ronan. But you knew that." After another moment, he awkwardly held out his hand and shook Adam's. "So you're the one I'm stuck with." He gave him a not so pleasant grin. "Or the other way around."

“I think it’s mutual,” Adam replies, taking his hand back. He returns a wry smile, more pleasant than Ronan’s but unruffled by Ronan’s attitude. As long as Ronan doesn’t seem inclined to hit him, Adam doesn’t see any reason to feel intimidated by his partner. Even though Ronan looks the part of a fighter. Dangerous. They’re in a war. It’s good to have a dangerous partner.

Oh good, this Adam didn't seem to be some sensitive, wilting, or otherwise fragile flower people expected him to coddle. He knew he shouldn't believe any of the bullshit the other fighters spewed on the way over here.

Ronan let go of his hand and took a step back to regain the distance he needed.

"You couldn't wait to ask me which bed I wanted? Do you have narcolepsy or something?"

Adam definitely wasn't about to be made to feel guilty over not giving this dick fighter first choice of beds. "Guess you should have gotten here faster," he replied. He didn't really care which bed he had, and looked over the bunks again, thinking that he certainly wouldn't mind the top, and he hadn't done anything more than set his bag on the bed. "You want bottom?"

Ronan only glanced at the beds before looking back at Adam. "No," he said. "I don't care."

It wasn't a deliberate attempt to size Adam up, his general abrasiveness was ingrained by now. The habit was too strong to break. But it did tell him more. Adam wasn't a push over and he wasn't going to start a fight over petty shit-- or at least not a bed. This might work.

He grabbed his bag again and slung it onto the top bunk, making the arrangement official.

"They said you guys are smart but weak," he spoke as close to conversationally as Ronan was capable of, which wasn't much. He wasn't built for intimidation and constant posturing, but he'd learned it so well he couldn't drop the act.

"True in my case," Adam agreed. He had some muscle on him, but he was also scrawny and underfed, and he harbored no delusions about being able to match any fighter in an arm-wrestling contest. "They said you guys are strong but stupid."

Adam couldn't help the surge of jealousy that went through him as he looked at Ronan. As proud as Adam was of who he was and what he'd accomplished, Ronan's body was healthy, strong, and powerful, and he had a sort of sharp, dangerous beauty. Adam ached with want to be that confident in his own skin.

It felt pretty good, though, knowing that Ronan had been assigned to him. Adam liked the idea of being seen beside a fighter like this one. It was obvious from a glance that Ronan was a fighter by nature. From the look of him and the way he carried himself, he was also probably pretty good at it. Ronan looked impressive and intimidating, which would make Adam seem impressive and intimidating as a navigator.

"Probably true," he admitted. It didn't bother him. Ronan knew his main strength was quite literal. Any tests he took made that one clear. He was best described as strong, brash, reckless-- they always avoided using the word "brave"-- and the "clever" had never come up. But the only people who'd asked him to use his brain were either dead or at home.

What might bother him was the way Adam looked at him. It'd take time to pin him down, but he figured that Adam had at least judged him as more than passable.

"Do they starve navigators or is that just you?" Ronan asked, doing more to prove that he was in fact thoughtless than anything else he'd done.

"Just me," Adam responded, shrugging off the question. "Let's go and train. I'd like to see if we're compatible."

Or they could go eat. Adam knows it. He's hungry. But it seems like a lower priority. If they eat, they'll be slow and sleepy, and the training will be put off until tomorrow. Better to go hungry a little longer.

Ronan might not be in touch with his feelings, but he was observant. He also wasn't absent not just training but also practice in fighting. He'd known when it was fair to pick a fight when his brother and when he was too tired for a good fight. Adam didn't looked like he fell in the latter category, even if he was just navigating.

So he continued to dig his own grave, even if it was for a noble cause.

He lifted one eyebrow briefly while Adam talked, to show he wasn't so easily distracted. Then followed it up verbally. "Or we can shove food in our mouths then train."

"Fine," Adam agreed. He doubted that his new fighter wanted to hear about the probability of their reaction speed being slowed by digestion, and things were too close on the heels of Ronan asking about Adam being starved. He was hungry, after all.

Not waiting for further discussion, Adam headed out the door. He hadn't yet been to the dining hall, but he'd memorized the layout of the ship from the map they'd been given, so he had a pretty good idea which way they were going.

Ronan rolled his eyes, not that Adam saw since his back was turned. So his navigator wasn't terrible but this was definitely going to be an adjustment for both of them.

He followed him out. While he caught up to him, he remained just a step behind. Ronan hadn't bothered to memorize anything except where to go for training.

He glanced at Adam, unsure of just what to say next. If there was anything he failed at more than being smart it was getting along with people.

"You do know where we're going right?" Yeah, that was definitely smooth, Ronan.

"Probably." Adam slows a little, looking over at Ronan, so that they can walk side by side. They're a team. That's important and Adam knows it, even though he has no idea how to put it into practice. "I memorized the layout."

Oh, and here's the dining hall. Adam hesitates in the doorway, shifting a little closer to Ronan. He's a lot more confident with following a memorized map than he is at navigating a room full of judgemental strangers.

"Overachiever," Ronan said almost dismissively. What he thought was now he had no excuse for fall back on for not knowing the place. At least they'd already established that he was not a smart man.

When they reached the dining hall, Ronan first took in the people and concluded that he already hated being just as menacing as roughly half of the population on this ship. Then he noticed the food and made a face.

"Almost makes me wish we skipped to training."

"We're committed now," Adam remarks, enjoying Ronan's grimace. At least he wasn't the only one who felt nervous about this. Feeling reassured, he moved forward, keeping close by Ronan's side as they entered the cafeteria line.

He liked that his fighter was intimidating. More intimidating than most of the fighters, from Adam's perspective. Adam liked having an impressive fighter. Now as long as he could keep up in training, maybe they could do well together. The idea of partnership appealed to Adam, and his mind lingered on that, already picking out training programs that he wanted to run through with Ronan.

"I'm feeling like breaking up," Ronan said dryly. Though it was a joke, the feeling behind it only increased as he waited. It didn't take long but the only time Ronan liked to be idle was during a bout of insomnia or drinking. He could do with the latter about now.

He had to force himself to take the food. What he didn't manage was to keep his expression in check. There was a reason he'd always skipped cafeterias in the past. Junk food was tastier than this.

He immediately picked a less populated table and headed toward it. He leaned into Adam as he walked. "Some shit, huh?" Meaning the food, which he hadn't even tried yet.

As they get the food and assess the room, Adam notices that most of the tables are all navigators or all fighters, with relatively little mingling. Surprised when Ronan picks a table by itself, he followed him over, though he missed it when Ronan murmured something into his bad ear. "Everyone's sitting according to role. Even the technicians are sitting off on their own."

He suspects Ronan's going to look uncool sitting next to him, but he still wants him to stay.

Ronan forced his lips to mostly remain neutral, only the very hint of a smile worked its way to his mouth. Pissing people off and picking fights was how he got here. If the powers that be wanted him to stop now, they should've known better.

"Your point?" He gave Adam a smug look as they reached the table and received a few expectant stares, clearly waiting for them to split.

It pulls a smile from Adam's lips, and he sits down, starting to eat. He keeps half an eye on Ronan and half an eye on the rest of the room. He's about as interested in Ronan as he is in everyone else combined. Their peers don't interest him, since Adam plans to outdo them all, but he's intrigued by some of the senior fighter-navigator pairs and the authority figures, most of whom he admires an wants to be.

He can't help but wonder what Ronan would look like as one of them, with a captain's uniform and all that authority. The thought makes him smile again, and he squints at Ronan, who does not express either uniform or authority. Power, though. He definitely looks powerful.

Once Ronan sat down, he stopped paying attention to everyone else. More accurately, he made sure it looked that way. That was easy. What proved more difficult was not poking his food and whining some more about it.

Life was such a bitch to have led him to this moment with shitty food in a shitty ship. He took a bite, forced it down, and noticed that Adam still had his eye on him. He took this to mean one thing-- the only logical conclusion one could make. He was being judge.

"What?"

Adam returned the look calmly, continuing to study Ronan. He wanted to know more about the fighter he was assigned to, and the best way to learn was by attentive study. He didn't mind so much being caught looking. At least not by Ronan, his partner. Adam was generally better at hiding his attention from other people.

"You're up for training after we eat?" Adam still wants to train as soon as possible. Training with fighters previously has always been painful. They'd never been well-matched, just tossed together for learning purposes, or, more often, Adam had done his training simulations with a computerized partner. He desperately wants to know if he's compatible with Ronan.

"I'm always up for training," Ronan replied. This trip to the cafeteria hadn't been for his benefit. Whenever he tasted the food it felt more to his detriment.

He smiled unpleasantly. "Why? Think I'll disappoint you?"

Somewhere inside, Ronan was half afraid he would. He was good but he knew there were plenty of fighters here who had come from the colonies. This was their only shot and they'd known it, or else they were so desperate to get away from home that they would do anything to stay. Ronan wasn't like that.

"I've seen your scores," Adam responds, with a tiny lift of his brow that's both appreciation and challenge. They're decent scores, though they suggest that Ronan's aptitude is better than his dedication. "I want to know if we work well together."

He eats hungrily, only just managing to keep from looking starved as he eats. The quality of the food doesn't slow him at all. It's worlds better than what he's used to eating back home, and he's never had much to compare it with. There's plenty of it, too, and it's nutritious, since the Alliance wants to keep their navigators smart and their fighters strong.

As soon as he's done, Adam stands up and picks up his tray. "Let's go."

Ronan was all too eager to abandon his tray. After shoveling his last bite of food into his mouth (being a snob didn't mean he wanted to go hungry), he stood and walked with Adam. It didn't take long to set the trays away and leave this forsaken place.

He knew he'd have to come back more often than he'd like, not just for himself. Adam had wolfed down the meal just as expected but it'd take more than one meal to get him to a healthy weight. Ronan didn't work well with anyone, but he could make sacrifices. His taste buds would be the first to go.

"What'll you do if we don't work well? Whip me into shape?" he teased.

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in which Adam is oblivious as to his own gay feelings

just like canon, Ronan is initially clueless as well

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in which Ronan continues to be oblivious

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