marlowemuses | Written in the Stars

"You did, too," Adam pointed out, picking at a seam on his trousers and dropping his stare for a couple moments. Confessions did not come naturally to Adam. Secrecy was much easier, largely because he'd never been able to trust anyone with his confessions. "We were both startled. I was warned that kind of casual intimacy was common, but I still didn't expect it."

He knows that doesn't quite answer the question. They were both startled, and yet Adam's reaction had still been different, and he had startled again shortly afterward. "The fighter. The way he looked at me."

Ronan was not so good at figuring out when someone felt lust. A pity. Recognizing the expression would've saved him a lot of pain.

"What about it?" He pushed himself off the wall and unfolded his arms. Now that Adam was talking, there was no need to maintain the tension.

Now that Adam was talking, he felt vastly more tension. He wanted out of this situation, but he didn't see any good escapes, and he didn't want to lash out at Ronan, who he was starting to trust. "Like I was prey," he snapped. Now he refused to meet Ronan's eyes, hating that he was vulnerable and the fighter had seen that. Pushing himself up, Adam turned toward the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower."

Ronan didn't stop him. Instead he turned over those words in his mind. He'd looked at Adam like prey and yet Ronan hadn't noticed anything. Admittedly, he had been distracted, but he'd noticed the look on the fighter's face. He knew what it was like to challenge someone to a fight. That was not it.

It clicked for him a moment later and he immediately felt mortified at the thought. It was somehow dirtier than watching the fighter get a blow job. Suddenly he remembered how much he needed his own shower. Maybe then he'd feel clean.

Adam felt better once he was alone in the bathroom, with no one to see his weaknesses. He stripped down, turning on the water and stepping under it, glad for the cold shock of the water and then the increasing warmth. His tension melted away and he lingered under the water, knowing that the water reclamation units were powerful and provided water to whole wings of the ship. Unless there was a run on the showers, he wouldn't run out of hot water.

Now that he shared a room, the shower would be the only privacy he was going to get, and Adam wanted the opportunity to blow off a little steam. He clasped his hand around his cock, thinking--as he always did--of some anonymous girl, just enough of a concept of a person to make his task efficient. But he kept thinking instead of the pair in the hanger bay, and imagining himself on his knees like that. Or leaning back against a ship, with Ronan on his knees before him.

Adam came fast and suddenly, flushed with surprise and guilt. Rinsing off, he stumbled out of the shower and realized his next mistake. His clothes were gross, and he hadn't brought his sleepwear into the bathroom.

Drying off, Adam wrapped a towel around his waist and headed into the main room. He hated his body, knowing that he was underfed and scarred, body carrying evidence of old beatings, and his scrawny body only emphasized his awkward appearance. But he would have to get used to Ronan seeing it. They shared a room now, and pretenses of modesty wouldn't last long. Better to just accept it and move on.

Pulling a worn old t-shirt and boxers out of his suitcase, Adam hesitated only a moment, keeping his back turned and his head down, and then he dropped the towel and got dressed.

Ronan had stripped off his shirt. There was no sense in keeping on the sweat soaked thing. He bore no scars. The most his fights earned him were bruises. His fighter's physique stood in contrast to Adam's build-- all muscles and all tensed from stress.

The stress only built when he saw Adam drop the towel. For a long moment he could not move. he stared at him, taking him in scars and all. Once he flushed, he found himself capable of movement and he made a beeline straight to the bathroom.

He didn't bother with hot water. Instead he kept it cold util he was confident that his cheeks were no longer red and the image of Adam standing naked before him was hidden away, safe and secure. Hopefully it'd stay there.

When he stepped out, he found himself in much the same dilemma as Adam: naked save for the towel around his waist. Never having bothered to unpack, he had to drag his bag off of his bunk first. The whole time he tried not to meet Adam's gaze. He desperately hoped his cheeks were as pale as ever.

Adam couldn't help the knot of envy in his gut at the sight of Ronan shirtless. He was flawless, strong, and healthy, everything Adam wasn't.

Long-ingrained habits of avoiding interaction and conflict served him well here. Adam kept his eyes down, careful not to stare.

While Ronan was in the shower, Adam lounged on his bed and worked on his studies, scanning through his device and reports to see what was relevant to them. It was cold in the ship, because all the heat produced by the engines was routed to keep back some of the eternal cold of space, so the whole ship was kept at only barely livable temperatures. Adam's warmth from the shower had quickly begun to fade, so he'd tucked under the covers to keep that warmth a little longer.

Though he tried to focus on his reading in order to offer Ronan as much privacy as he could, Adam was hyperaware that Ronan's mostly-naked body was very close by the side of his bed, and he was about at the level of Ronan's crotch. He kept his eyes focused on his device. "Duty roster's released for the next week," he announced, giving them both something else to think about than nudity. "Lots of training for us both, and you've been assigned mostly shifts in the cargo bay."

Edited 2018-08-18 03:29 (UTC)

Ronan got his shirt on first. His towel began to slip but he caught it before revealing too much. When it was time to get his pants on, he turned away from Adam.

He knew this desperate need to preserve his privacy couldn't last. It wasn't like he'd never undressed in front of people before. But this was day one and they weren't in a locker room, where there were other people in a similar position. It was just the two of them.

Fortunately, Adam managed to snap him out of it. Their schedule. Right.

"Great. Maybe they only make out there." Sometimes, a small part of him very briefly wished he thought before he spoke. The rest of him ignored that part. "Do we have any downtime or is it train all day?" Ronan hoped it was the latter. He liked the ache of his muscles and exhaustion only helped him sleep. And if it stopped him from thinking about the fighter and navigator and Adam stripping in front of him, that could only help him.

"There's a fair amount of downtime, but most of the training is your fighter drills and my navigator drills, which are separate. We're not scheduled together. I think it's meant to be assumed that we'll spend the downtime on simulations and practice flights together."

Out of the corner of his eye, Adam caught the vague impression of body parts when Ronan's towel slipped enough to have slightly more of a gap, and then he turned and bent partway, and his pale Irish ass was as perfect and sculpted as the rest of him.

Adam was glad that he'd chosen to lay on his belly, as it helped to hide the pulse of blood to his groin. He reassessed the possibility, given the evidence of the past hour, that he was at least a little bisexual.

Testing the theory, Adam chose an attractive male schoolmate from the academy--careful not to think of Ronan--and considered kissing him. The idea was appealing. He reconsidered the blowjob in the hangar more objectively than when it had flashed into his thoughts during masturbation, and found the thought of having the attractive male schoolmate on his knees to be appealing. The prospect of kneeling before an attractive boy like that was more uncertain, but... intriguing.

This whole process took less than a minute, and Adam had his conclusion by the time Ronan was dressed. He was bisexual. He would have to modify his behavior and thoughts accordingly.

When Ronan turned to face Adam again, he remained oblivious to whatever revelation Adam was going through. He had enough trouble repressing his own epiphanies than to trouble himself with others.

"I guess I could spend a few hours kicking simulated ass with you." He ran his hand over his head instinctively. He'd spent so many nights smoothing down curls before they tangled that it had become a habit he'd yet to break.

He forced himself to look at Adam. This time, when the image of his nude body flashed before his eyes, his lust didn't immediately overwhelm his thoughts. Adam was no fighter, so why did he have all those scars?

For a moment, he looked like he might ask, but Ronan had a past of his own. And it didn't take a genius to guess Adam's. There were few explanations and none of them pleasant to relive.

...What was that look Adam was giving him? He tilted his head in response, unaware of the similar expression on his own face.

Once Ronan was dressed and Adam could safely look at him again, Ronan was already gazing back at him. Adam held his gaze for a few moments, finding himself somehow more calm and more alert in this new habit of staring each other down that they were developing. He stayed on his stomach, aware that he was half-hard and his thin, tattered pajama pants would do little to hide that.

"Good night, Ronan," he said, turning off his device and tucking it safely to one side. He glance toward the door, even though he knew that it locked automatically and was coded to open only for the two of them except in emergencies. When his eyes returned to Ronan, they lingered again for a few seconds, drawn to the way that Ronan looked at him. Then he reached for his pillow and laid his head down, closing his eyes and waiting for Ronan to go to sleep.

~

Over the course of the next few days, Adam learned several things in quick succession. He learned that there were multiple fighters--and at least one navigator--who liked skinny boys, who found him 'cute' or 'pretty' and had no qualms about saying as much. He learned that, despite being assigned to a fighter, he was still considered available because Ronan had made no show of possessiveness over him, and in the hypermasculine hierarchy of the starfighters, social status weighed heavily upon dominance and whether one fucked (mostly fighters) or got fucked (mostly navigators).

The bullying that followed Adam was familiar enough that it was almost comforting, because it reminded him of his place in the universe and renewed his stubborn determination to overcome that place. What was less familiar was the overtly sexual tone to bullying. Previously, in public school and the academy, Adam was used to shoves and schoolmates trying to trip him or playing keep-away with his things. Here, the bullying came in the form of ass-swats and unwelcome touches, and it wasn't anything Adam knew how to deal with. He dealt with it the way he had always dealt with such things, by ignoring it and waiting for it to stop, because he knew that struggling against these things always made them worse.

This tactic was less successful than it had been in the past, because Adam's passivity only seemed to encourage the fighters to push harder, taking his lack of objection as permission.

On the way to meet Ronan for a practice flight at their ship, Adam got caught in the hall by one of the fighters who had been aggressively pursuing him for days. The fighter backed him against one wall of the hallway, pinning him there with one arm by the side of his head and one hand on his hip. To anyone coming upon them like this, the moment looked intimate, except for the way that Adam was pressing himself so desperately back against the wall, hands locked into fists and head turned away.

Ronan had yet to adjust to how much sex there was on the ship. He didn't know how the navigators were on their own, he was too scared to ask Adam, but the fighters were-- well, there was a reason he preferred to shower in his quarters. More than one fighter had caught on and teased him for it, but the moment one of them lay a hand on him Ronan made it clear he was not going to tolerate being fucked with in any way, least of all that.

He should have realized Adam would be dealing with similar things, but whenever he saw him, it seemed to have it under control. So he gave the concern no thought until he came across Adam and the fighter. His first reaction to seeing two bodies in the hall like that was to turn around and find another route, but there was no mistaking this. No one willing looked had their body twisted like that, trying desperately to get away even while pinned.

Blood rushed to Ronan's heard. He barely heard anything over the sound of it echoing in his ears. By the time the fighter heard him, he was halfway there.

The fighter said something. "I'd ask if you want to join but--"

If he hadn't been so busy taunting, he would've noticed that a quarter of the way there, Ronan had balled his hand into a fist. When Ronan reached him, he didn't grab his shirt. That was too easy to squirm out of. He grabbed him by the back of his neck and jerked him away. Once he as at an angle that Adam wasn't in the way, Ronan punched the bastard.

The retaliation was swift but Ronan took the blow to his stomach and returned it with a kick to the knee. The fighter staggered, dropped one knee, then took the opportunity to throw himself at Ronan's torso. He got in a good punch before Ronan rolled and shook him off. Then when the fighter went to stand, Ronan's kick up landed right in the center of his groin. The momentum sent him back against the wall, giving Ronan the time to stand and punch him again and again until both his nose and mouth were bleeding and he didn't protest when Ronan threw him to the ground.

He gasped, wiped the blood from his nose, and looked at Adam. "Did he do anything else to you?" He clenched his hand into a fist again, just in case the answer was yes.

The feeling of relief as the fighter was suddenly yanked off of him made Adam's knees weaken, and he sagged against the wall, glad that it was there to hold him up.

He watched, quiet and impassive, as the two fighters scuffled, coming up with a clear victory in Ronan's favor. The implications of this were clear to Adam. This would serve as the show of possessiveness that he needed, and any fighter who valued his skin would take care not to touch Adam in the future.

Ready to step in when Ronan threw the fighter to the ground, Adam was grateful when Ronan stopped on his own.

"I can forgive an ass grab," he said, voice surprisingly steady. Pushing himself up off the wall, Adam offered his knuckles briefly in thanks to Ronan and nodded down the hall toward their quarters. He wanted safety and privacy right now much more than he wanted to be in a starfighter.

At the ass grab comment, Ronan turned and growled at the fighter, who was in the process of struggling to his knees. He held up his hand to ward off any other attack or simply to signal his surrender. But if Adam was done with him, then so was Ronan. For now.

He said nothing more to him. There were no need for words. His fists had delivered the message.

During the walk back, Ronan still shook with anger and adrenaline. When it faded, he'd feel the first flares of pain, but for now what little aches he felt only made him feel more alive.

He let Adam enter their quarters first. He closed the door behind them and stripped off his shirt to avoid getting any more blood on it.

"Just how many times has that happened?" he snapped, his rage not directed at Adam but at the idea of this not being a first time. As if the idea of it happening in the first place weren't enough.

"Haven't been counting," Adam replied, more lightly than he felt. His eyes flicked over Ronan's chest as the shirt came off. He was getting used to sharing living space with a statuesque form like Ronan's. His pulse only spiked a little at the sight. "That was the worst that it's been."

Stepping into Ronan's space, Adam studied his face, worried about the blood. "Is your nose broken?" he asked, fully intending to check if Ronan would stay put and let him.

Ronan touched his nose, gingerly prodding it to test where it hurt and how much force it took. "No," he said and lowered his hand again. He didn't step away or shoo Adam off. It would take more fussing than that to get on his nerves. It was a reasonable concern.

"Piece of shit," Ronan hissed. "Tell me next time anyone tries anything."

Adam wouldn't tell him, but he wasn't as worried about it anymore. "Your message was pretty clear," he points out, catching Ronan's hand and checking the knuckles to make sure he didn't break his hand, either. His fingers skimmed over Ronan's hand, squeezing lightly as he checked to make sure everything still felt solid and Ronan didn't seem to be in any kind of unusual pain.

Pulling away, Adam went to the bathroom and ran a cloth under cold water, then brought it back to offer to Ronan to clean himself up while Adam supervised. "Good news, you're still pretty."

He didn't know whether the same could still be said for the other fighter, but he didn't particularly care.

When Adam touched his hand, Ronan splayed his fingers to show that he could still move them. They ached and there were some cracks in the skin where his knuckles met flesh. But that was easily forgotten when Adam's fingers moved over him. Suddenly, the world, or rather the ship, was off balance and all that tied Ronan to it was Adam's touch.

After Adam was gone he sucked in a deep breath. Get a grip. He had to get a grip. What was wrong with him thinking of Adam's hands on him after he'd just found a fighter assaulting him?

His expression was steely once again when Adam returned. He took the cloth from him and wiped at his mouth and nose. "I was aiming for handsome." His voice was muffled until the last word, when he pulled the cloth away from his face.

"Could've fooled me," Adam said, giving him a tiny, private little smile. He's glad to be here with Ronan. He's lucky to have been assigned to Ronan and not one of the other fighters.

"I'd rather postpone our practice flight today," Adam said, drawing away because standing so close to Ronan suddenly felt overwhelmingly intense. Dizzying, like the edge of a precipice.

He went to his bed, which was the safest place within the sanctuary of their room, pulling his legs up.

"Good. My hands could use a break." He remained standing. In a few minutes, he'd crash but for now he was still flooded with adrenaline. Pacing was the more appealing option than curling up in bed.

Ronan wondered if they should talk about what happened. He'd had his share of traumatic experiences, but talking about them was taboo. But it didn't feel right to let this go and the wrongness of the idea grew stronger the more he thought back to seeing the fighter pin Adam.

"Why didn't you tell me they were doing-- that?" There was no accusation and the anger now began to take its usual route, going inward instead of reflecting out in all directions.

It hadn't occurred to Adam to ask for help. He'd learned long ago that no one would help him, and he'd coped with that by armoring himself with pride.

Why hadn't he told Ronan? He didn't have an easy answer for it. Introspective though Adam was, this was one of the questions he preferred to avoid asking himself. He hadn't wanted Ronan to know. He hadn't believed it would do any good. He hadn't wanted to be helped.

"I'm used to it," he says, which is the first answer he finds that he can use to dismiss the question and the whole incident. It doesn't matter, so why talk about it?

"Used to that?" Ronan understood being used to physical attacks. He'd dealt with that. And once-- but that didn't count. It wasn't like what he'd seen just now. There was no denying what that fighter intended.

"Have you--" Ronan stopped himself because some things just shouldn't be asked. "Don't be used to it, okay? Anyone gives you shit, you either fuck them up or let me know. I can teach you how to fight back."

"I don't want to hit anyone," Adam says. The words twist bitterly in his mouth the way the idea twists in his mind. The thought of striking anyone makes him feel ill. Even if it were justified. How would he be able to ever know when such a thing was justified? Didn't his father always think that? If he hit someone, he'd become like that. He wouldn't be able to stop himself.

Adam doesn't know where the line is. He doesn't dare risk it. He'd rather deal with the harassment the way he's always done. He's used to it.

"You didn't have a problem with me hitting him." Ronan pointed out. He didn't know if Adam was some weird kind of pacifist or preferred Ronan to do his dirty work for him. Not that he latter was a problem, but he did have to ask for it to work.

There was some other answer he was missing. Something connected to those scars. Ronan would get it in a bit, but coming from a loving family, the idea was hard for him to grasp. His first thought was regular, run of the mill bullies and who would have a problem punching them back?

"No," Adam agrees. He didn't have any problem with Ronan hitting the fighter. He'd enjoyed watching it, on some level. He's not sure if this indicates that he's a sadist, or simply that the fighter deserved it, or that liked seeing Ronan win, or that he's inured to violence.

"I appreciate the offer," he says, which means no but more politely and also more inescapably, and Adam wonders when he learned how to use politeness like that, because he's never been confident enough to try it before.

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