Out in the Black Ch. 20

This is a book-length work, so not every chapter will involve sex. If you're just looking for a quick wank, this may not be your story.

Thanks for reading!

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Even after living with Matt for a couple tendays, I still thought of the room as the captain's quarters. It's weird how shit like that gets stuck in your brain and you actually have to practice changing the way you think. The captain wasn't doing nothing to make me feel like I didn't belong; in fact, he told me I could do whatever I liked with the place. He even offered to move in with me if I'd rather, but that would have just made things more complicated. His quarters were bigger, plus he had direct access to the command deck. And I didn't have any special attachment to my bunk, though I had made some rather tasty memories there. It was just that the place had been his, never mine, and I was having trouble turning it into ours.

No matter how much time you spend with a person, moving in together, sharing space on a day-to-day basis, is going to teach you things. You're going to find out they have these little habits that annoy you, and that goes the same the other way around. You'll also see a side of each other you never had access to before. Living with someone means you share "home," so the person you are at your most unguarded, your most relaxed, is eventually going to come out. You can only keep your farts to yourself for so long.

For example, I learned that Matt hated clipping his nails. He would leave it until they were annoying him - and me, to be honest - and then a few days past that. When it finally had to be done, he would complain the entire time about the necessity. It made sense, in a way: before, when the captain had been doing celeb interviews, their teams would give him mani-pedis while fixing his hair and makeup. Nail clipping was not a thing he'd had to do a lot of. I found it equal parts endearing and exasperating that such a small task got under his skin.

One of my biggest surprises was seeing just how much the captain worked. The time we'd been involved hadn't been the norm for his career, but that didn't really sink in until after the first few days we'd been living together. As he got used to me being around and didn't feel the need to hover over me all the time, he reverted to his usual habits. This meant he was always busy. First thing in the morning, he'd be checking the main newsfeeds as he drank his coffee. Then it was meetings on the station or up to the command deck for the day to do all the captainy stuff - with yet more coffee. Back in the room, he'd be checking his messages over dinner and then spending half the night at his console prepping his next project or going over edits that required his input. I always thought of myself as a pretty hard worker, but watching Matt do his thing made me exhausted.

Me and the XO made sure to drag Cap out to have dinner in the galley as often as possible. He'd gone through a lot of effort while I was in the hospital to make sure he connected with the team and I wasn't about to let him piss that away. Plus it got his nose out of his tablet for a few hours. I like my tech as much as the next guy - hell, probably more than most - but the captain took it to a whole different level. As a bonus, it was always interesting to watch him with the crew, the way he charmed them by just being himself. My skills trended toward machines and not people, so seeing him draw the others out and make it look effortless was fucking magic.

That night, the one when Matt asked me to move in with him, after I got done kissing him silly, he gave me this really odd look. "What are you feeling right now?" I asked him. I'd noticed him giving me that look a lot since my first night in the hospital and I wanted to find out what the hell it meant.

"I feel like champagne," he said.

"You want some champagne?" I didn't understand the terran fascination with drinking bubbly shit. "Oh yeah, that's what you dirt eaters use to celebrate."

"Dick," he responded affectionately, shoving at my shoulder. "And no, I don't want champagne; I feel like champagne. Like I'm all full of bubbles, just fizzing over with how happy I am." Oh. Well, that was different. It kind of made me feel a bit bubbly myself, hearing something like that. And yeah, I knew I needed to do something to figure out my feelings. That had been clear since the night I stood outside his door, worrying he might not let me in. It was our door now, and a hell of a lot had happened in the time between, but I was no closer to understanding that part of myself.

Sure, I may not be the smartest guy around, but I'm not stupid, and I was fully aware Matt wasn't going to wait around forever. He acted like he was okay with things how they were, like he didn't need me to say it back, but then there was that instant after he'd say those three fucking words where he'd hold his breath and I could feel him hoping. Each time when I didn't speak up, he'd exhale this little sigh that let me know I'd disappointed him again.

Then there was his interfering best friend. The XO had flat out told me to figure it out. I'll admit, after that kick in the ass, I did dedicate more of my energy to the issue. Not that I wasn't already working on it, but I kept making excuses to myself, too, about how I'd have more time after changing out the fuel core or once we'd left the Ring. Getting my face shoved in the fact that other people knew stuff about how things were between me and the captain - even if those "other people" was just Alix Li - well, that gave the whole deal a new sense of urgency.

I thought it would be easier if I made a game of it, asking Matt how he felt whenever I caught him looking at me in that certain way: his head tilted a bit, lips slightly parted, eyes all soft and kind of dreamy. Sometimes he'd give me a short answer - "happy" or "in love" - but other times he would get really descriptive. Then I'd compare that to how I was feeling, trying to see if anything matched at all. Yes, it made me happy to be around him and he was on my mind a lot when we weren't together, but I wasn't confident that qualified as love.

Unfortunately, though not really unpredictably, the whole thing backfired. Trying to judge my feelings based on how the captain described his was a recipe for failure. I ended up feeling more irritation than anything and then I would snap at Matt over the smallest shit. He gave me these wounded looks that only made me more angry. Not at him - no, it was never him pissing me off: it was me. I was frustrated this thing that everyone else found so simple was causing me so much grief, and then I'd go and hurt the person who meant more to me than anything and have yet another reason to be angry at myself. It went on like that for days. We always made up because, honestly, the bunks weren't big enough to sleep with someone you're trying not to touch, but I could tell my bullshit was taking a toll.

And then the XO stormed into the engine room one day and told me the captain was lying in bed, taken out by a migraine. I don't remember if I even said anything in response. I have no recollection of travelling the distance between engineering and the crew deck. I was looking at Li, listening to her say Matt was hurting, and then I was standing in the door to his - our - quarters, looking at the sheet outlining his hip. My view of his face was blocked by the table, so I couldn't tell if he was sleeping or not. The lights were turned down low and I became aware of how much illumination flooded into the room from the corridor behind me, even with my body blocking most of the doorway. Staying as quiet as possible, I stepped around the table and froze, wincing as the door hissed shut and I waited for my eyes to adjust.

A damp cloth was on the pillow next to Matt's face and I realized the XO must have wet it to cool his head. He had rolled onto his side while he slept, allowing it to fall off. Retrieving the washrag, I wet it again and replaced it on his forehead, taking a moment to brush my thumb lightly over the crease between his brows. The furrow disappeared, skin smoothing under my touch, and the captain even smiled a little in his sleep. Invisible bands tightened around my ribs, squeezing enough that I couldn't actually breathe for a bit.

I knew he hadn't been sleeping well recently, that my moodiness had been getting under his skin and keeping him up. He needed this sleep. Badly. So I just sat there, elbows on my knees, and dropped my head into my hands. Matt's breathing provided the soundtrack to uncounted rounds of self-recrimination, randomly interspersed with attempts to argue myself into some sort of coherence as far as my feelings went, these always derailed by worry about the cause of his headache. I was afraid that, after everything else, it would turn out I'd caused some deeper damage when I tackled him and his head bounced off the floor at the station.

Over and over I argued to myself that I loved him. I had to, right? What else could make me feel this way? But I couldn't know for sure. And, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find a way to get to that point. After everything else, I refused to tell him I felt that way if there was a chance I didn't. I would not put him through that. So each time, I argued myself right back out of it.

After an eternity of the same shit I'd been doing for tendays, Matt shifted a bit behind me and made a quiet noise. Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed he had dislodged the cloth again at some point. While he was still asleep, it seemed likely he wouldn't stay that way for long. Headache or no, I knew the captain, so I slipped out of the room and went to brew some coffee. I hadn't even made it back to the bed before he was stretching out an arm, demanding caffeination. I couldn't fight the smile - equal parts fondness and relief - that spread across my face when I saw him acting so, well, him.

It would be a lie if I said it was easy to keep the fear that had gripped me out of my voice when I asked about his headache. Learning migraines were common for him when he was younger stirred up a confusing emotional cocktail. The tension in my neck eased when I realized this meant the headache wasn't caused by a lingering issue from the attack on the Ring. Then the rest of it penetrated. That he hadn't been having migraines for a long time. That I had caused this one. Of course he didn't outright say that, but it was strongly implied. And he was right to hold me accountable. If I wasn't fucking everything up, this wouldn't have happened.

Snatching up the cloth that had fallen to the floor, I moved to the wardrobe to drop it in the laundry. Then I just kind of stood there, pushing our clothes back and forth, keeping my back to Matt. I couldn't make myself turn around and look at him, afraid of the accusation I'd see in his eyes, terrified that there would be lingering signs of the pain I'd put him through that day. When he wrapped his arms around me, pressing his cheek against my back and rubbing his hands across my belly, I had to fight the urge to hold my breath, as if somehow not moving at all would hide me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I absolutely did not. There were few things I could think of that I wanted less right at that moment. But I owed him. So I closed the doors to the wardrobe and carefully turned around, moving slowly to keep from breaking his hold on me.

"I think I have to," I said as I held him tight. I admit it hurt a bit when he wriggled free, but from the sounds coming from the pisser a few seconds later, his bladder hadn't left him much choice in the matter.

In the short time we'd been living together, me and Matt had developed certain habits. One of these was how we sat when we were having one of our Talks. And yeah, you could hear that it was capitalized by how the captain said it. I'd shove the pillows over into the corner of the bunk and sit with my back to the wall, legs crossed under me. Matt would take up a matching position facing me. How close he was depended on why we were having the Talk in the first place. If I'd been a shit and he was pissed, he'd sit with a good half meter between us. The less angry he was, the closer he would be. After how I'd been acting lately and the day he'd had because of it, I was half expecting him not to sit down at all. To say it surprised the hell out of me when he crawled into my lap is an understatement.

I worried my reaction would drive him away, and it turned out I was craving the closeness, so I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him against my chest. "I'm listening. Whenever you're ready," he murmured, nuzzling my throat. My dick, never one to read the room, responded to Matt's proximity the only way it knew how. Inwardly cursing my anatomy, I took a deep breath and tried to figure out where to start. When I exhaled, words just tumbled out of my mouth and everything that was bugging me - from trying to decode my feelings to being on restricted duty to the limitations caused by my injury - was dumped on him.

All my issues were jumbled up together and I doubt I was coherent at all, but Matt listened and didn't laugh at me or judge me. I knew my fears were ridiculous, that he'd be kind to me no matter what, but just the worry itself had been enough to keep me from even considering the idea of confiding in anyone. Even him. Unfortunately, the solution he suggested - and eventually insisted on - was exactly what I hoped to avoid: I had to talk to the doc. The captain wouldn't relent no matter how hard I tried to distract him, and I could be plenty distracting when I put my mind to it.

"It's about time," Walsh said evenly when Matt told her why we were there. I didn't hesitate to agree when he asked if I wanted him to come with me, but I'm pretty sure he offered so he could make sure I actually went. Me being me, I just wanted it over as quick as possible. I already had to visit the doc every other day for physical therapy and spending more time in the med bay wasn't my idea of fun. But the captain wasn't going to make it easy for me. Whenever I tried to minimize anything, he was right there prodding me to give more detail. Even when it came to stuff about me and him. Let me tell you how much my face burned during that part of the conversation.

Overall, it ended up not being quite as awful as I figured it would be. On the plus side, the doc allowed me to start using the gym again as long as I was careful. Since I saw her most days, what with counseling added on to my existing therapy appointments, she'd know if I was pushing too hard and take away my access. That was a hell of a motivator to stay within my limits. She also encouraged me to start a journal instead of trying to keep everything in my brain. I'm not great with words, so writing shit down was never my first solution to anything, but I agreed to give it a shot.

It didn't work. At all.

Matt makes me feel...

"No," I muttered under my breath, "that's not how I'm supposed to do it." I erased the start of my sentence and tried again.

When I'm with the captain, I feel good.

"Fuck," I grumbled. The doc would tell me it was a solid effort, that I was improving and just needed to keep focusing on me and what was going on inside my head. Reading what I'd written again, I barely resisted the urge to hurl my handheld across the room. Such bullshit. "Good" didn't come close to describing the way Matt could get my heart racing with a look. Or how sometimes I had to blink back tears when he would wrap himself around me at night and just relax completely, sure he was safe in my arms. And I ain't a guy who cries a lot in the normal course of things.

But could I put any of that into words on my tablet? Fuck no. When I tried, it just came out sounding like a primary school exercise. The thought of tossing myself out an airlock before my next appointment with Doc did cross my mind. Didn't matter if I was supposed to be there for therapy of the mental or physical kind because she just blended them all together. If I wouldn't have my gym access revoked and get both Doc and the captain on my ass, I'd just skip the fucking appointment completely. It seemed to me that getting a guy stuck in an impossible stretch and then prodding him to talk about his love life wasn't ethical.

Being with Matt makes me feel happy.

"Fuck this!" My shout covered the noise of the door opening. I was already mid-throw when Alix popped her head in. Her height - or lack of - was the only thing that saved her from catching my hand terminal in the face.

"The fuck, Rusty?" she demanded.

"Shit. Sorry." I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. My head was splitting and I was not at all in the mood to deal with anyone. In true XO fashion, Li didn't care. She grabbed my handheld and, ignoring my protests, proceeded to flip through the last few entries. Ears hot, I snatched the tablet away and told her off for invading my privacy. I was just building up steam when Matt showed up and separated us.

"What the hell is going on?" he hissed. "I was talking to Bailey and could hear you two all the way up there. Didn't you put this crap behind you at the Ring?"

"I thought we had," Li put in, sounding irritatingly calm. "But your boy here tried to brain me with his handheld, Mac - "

"Fuck off. I wasn't throwing it at you. How was I supposed to know you were going to just walk in? Ever heard of knocking?" I knew snarking at the XO wasn't going to help my case, but watching her sit there, acting like she hadn't just been reading my most personal thoughts, was pissing me off. "Anyway, you didn't have no cause to start reading my shit."

"Hang on. What were you reading?" Alix tried to explain, but I talked right over her and tattled like a little kid. Once he heard what was going on, the captain gave Li a dressing down I'm pretty sure I'll never forget. He even made her apologize to me. When it was my turn, and he gently asked what had me so upset in the first place, I fought the urge to stick my tongue out at the XO. She knew it, too, by the way she scowled at me over Matt's shoulder. But then I had to 'fess up to how the simple act of keeping a journal had me wanting to space myself, so any superior feelings I might have had went straight down the shitter.

"Sweetheart, why didn't you say anything?" Matt cupped my face in his hands, refusing to allow me to avoid his eyes.

I shrugged a shoulder, embarrassed as hell. "You and the doc were so sure it was gonna help, I figured I was just doing something wrong."

"Dumbass," Li scoffed from where she leaned against the wall next to the door. Matt turned, eyes flashing, and she pointed at him. "I'm talking about you. Doc doesn't get out much, so she has an excuse, but there's no reason for you not to know better, Mac." He spluttered indignantly. "A journal could work for you, but your man here obviously isn't the writing about his feelings type." A wave of gratitude for the XO swept over me, my feeling of outrage reversing quickly enough to give me vertigo. Honestly, I was over the entire idea of emotions at this point.

After going around and around for a time, we finally figured out what I should have thought of in the first place: I needed to talk to Kells. Well, the idea was that I needed to make vids like I was talking things out with a friend. I was the one who decided I actually wanted to send them to her. She encouraged me to go for it with Cap back before Vegas, even if she didn't know who we were talking about at the time. Kelly Buchanan knew me better than anyone else besides Matt and, in some ways, maybe even more than him.

"That's what friends are for, Rusty," she said in her response to my request, not bothering to hide her smirk. "You tell me what's going on and I keep you tethered by giving you shit about overthinking things." It took some doing to figure out what worked for us, but it turned out that saving up everything for a long message got me all frustrated and irritated and then I basically couldn't make sense of anything, so I just took to sending her quick vids whenever I thought of something I needed to figure out.