Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue: Twenty-five years ago

Laura Milkovich has been going out of her mind from worrying the past five days. She tosses and turn in the small twin-sized bed in the tiny bedroom made of cinder blocks that she has been provided by the shelter. Every so often, she has to reach for a stack of coarse paper towels and wipe the tears from her face.

It has been five days since she finally gathered up the strength to leave while her husband Terry was too goddamn wasted to keep her from spiriting the boys away. Five days since she took Joey, Colin, and Iggy to the Greyhound station. The younger boys didn’t understand, but she made Joey promise to keep his brothers safe until they arrive safely  in Huntington, WV, where her second cousins Alena and her fiancé Gregory have promised to take the boys in for a while.

Even if Terry figures out she is staying at the battered women’s shelter in Wicker Park, she is not going to let him lay a finger on her sons. She won’t allow him to twist her boys in his own image the way he has with his brothers and nephews.

But Laura had no idea what sending her boys away would do to her. She knows damn well that her boys are far safer where they are than with their abusive father can’t thrash them about and teach them that they’re lives aren’t worth shit. Still, she feels like her body has gone into a sort of mourning. She finds herself getting emotional at the drop of a hat, crying over the stupidest shit. Five days. She hasn’t seen her boys in five days. The mere thought of it has caused her to wake up sick to her stomach daily.

Finally, she gets up. She looks at the time on her off-brand wristwatch. Two in the morning and she is wide awake. Her body is positively brimming with an energy that she can barely contain, nervous energy she has no place for.

Maybe she just has a case of the zoomies and needs to let the nervous energy out.

She slips on her track pants and a shirt so that she can pace the hallway outside her room. And she means to walk all the way from one end of the hall to the other, tucker herself out. But as she crosses through the common room that divides the two wings of the building, something in the chamber catches her attention.

It is an old arcade cabinet, which is hardly out of place in the common room.

The room is also outfitted with a large plasma-screen television, a billiard table, a ping pong table, and still two more arcade machines. She has probably passed it a couple dozen times in the past week, wedged in between Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong Jr.

What really catches her attention is that it is unplugged. She takes the connector in her hand and examines the machine more closely. All it has to indicate what sort of experience the player is in for is a strange insignia like two colliding starbursts and the title underneath: Star Fighter. The game looks ancient, but she has never even heard of it.

At least it will be something to do, she figures as she affixes the plug into the nearby outlet. The screen starts to glow and the air is filled with the tinny sound of an 8-bit video game.

Like the other games in the shelter, it doesn’t require coins. She pulls up a chair and begins to play. A few hours later, finally feeling tired, she punches her initials into the high score.

Laura Milkovich never spent another night in the shelter. In fact, she was never seen again.

****

The Present.

Ian stayed with Carrie the whole time. From the moment they arrived on-scene, keeping her spirits up and checking her vitals while Nando prepped the jaws of life, to the moment started to seize, and finally when they brought her to the coroner’s office.

He insisted on staying with her every step of the way, he thought it was only appropriate. It’s his fault she’s gone. Christ, she was only twenty-one, only a year younger than him. She was in school studying to be a mathematician and minoring in the violin. And now she’s just a body. And she wouldn’t be if Ian had arrived at the right conclusions faster. He should have noticed that her pulse was off.

“You did everything you could, kid,” insists his boss, Sue, later that afternoon at shift change. Ian is sitting on the bench in front of his locker, barely even fiddling with the buttons of his shirt, meanwhile most everyone from first shift have either fled the premises or their in the last stages of getting back into their civvies. Sue herself is just about ready to head out for the afternoon, attempting to straighten her hair from the tight bun she usually keeps it in while she is on-duty.

“She was just finishing her junior year. Did she tell you that?”

“Kid… we can’t save them all. You can’t save everybody, Gallagher. You knew that when we hired you.”

He starts unbuttoning his uniform top in earnest. “I know,” he mutters. “Doesn’t change how it hits, does it?” He pulls the offending article of clothing off and throws it violently to the floor.

Sue stares him down, looking like she is studying a puzzle. Ian hates the feeling like he is under scrutiny just for feeling too deeply. He has learned to accept the glances, the looks of worry. Sometimes, like a broken clock, right twice a day, his family is right on with their speculations. But for the most part, it feels like his emotions are being policed, and he knew ever since he disclosed his diagnosis on his application that it was only a matter of time before it came to the fore on the clock.

“Do you think you might do with a couple days off?”

“Sue—”

“It was your first death, Gallagher. That does a number on you even if you aren’t dealing with what you’ve got to deal with.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“Look, if it’s about the hours, I can rejigger the schedule, but you told me when we hired you—”

“I know what I said!” Ian barks, bulling on a patterned button-down. “It’s just… this sucks. What happened…”

“What happened wasn’t fair, but so would letting you on the rig when your head isn’t on straight. You understand?”

“I guess.”

She places a hand to Ian’s shoulder. “We have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others, Ian.”

Left alone, Ian contemplates just going home and vent to his brother, Lip. Or maybe wallow, throw himself a pity party and veg out in front of the TV for a few days. But he can’t seem to will himself to leave the station, not yet.

He goes into the station’s break room and pulls the lunch he never ate out of the fridge. Ham and cheese on wheat, a navel orange, and a whatever half-caf is left in his thermos. He really isn’t reinventing the wheel with his culinary skills. But he has to keep things simple if he plans on saving up enough to get his own apartment someday. It shouldn’t be this hard, considering unlike most of the people he works with, he isn’t swimming in mountains of student debt. But ever since his eldest sister left home, he and his brother Lip have been shouldering much more of the fiscal burden than they ever had before.

He looks around the room. He has never seen the break room so desolately still before. But then again, he’s usually only in here during an actual break. First shift just punched out for the day and second shift only just headed out on their first round of assignments not half an hour ago.

Empty White Castle containers and pop cans are scattered around the room. Ian sighs. Leave it to him to get his wings clipped and conclude that he can still contribute by cleaning up other people’s messes. Even as he picks up the waste basket and starts collecting his coworkers’ garbage, he tells himself that he’s meant for more than this. He’s supposed to be making a difference.

The flatscreen is still playing WGN-TV and playing cards are still left out on the round card table. They must have headed out in a hurry. He cleans up the mess left out when he spots the two long-rumored  old-school arcade machines that they were due to inherit from the old women’s shelter that shut down a couple months back.

Donkey Kong. Like, the old retro kind where you’re actually playing as Mario to save a princess. He remembers playing that game on Fiona’s old Nintendo before they hawked it.

The other game catches his attention a bit more securely. He may have never heard of Star Fighter, but he is familiar enough with the game. Ian has so many dreams that had to be shelved in the wake of his diagnosis. The armed forces was chief among them, the Air Force was his second choice after the army. Growing up, he always loved the scenes of Luke Skywalker piloting his X-Wing more than the stupid Jedi Knights stuff. He adored flight simulators and fighter pilot games like Space Invaders and Gradius. He may or may not have wanted to be like Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer in Top Gun… and not just because of the gloriously gay volleyball scene.

Suffice to say, he feels inextricably drawn to this obscure arcade cabinet that just lucked its way into MCE Station 34’s break room.  

He sidles up to the machine, and rests his hands on the controls, getting a viscerally electric sensation that courses through his body as his fingers make contact with the twin joysticks. It’s oddly complicated for a retro arcade machine, but it really helps foster the feeling of really being in the cockpit of a real fighter jet, albeit not one like any he’s ever seen pictures of.

The backlighting of the screen illuminates Ian’s face and he grins as he presses a button to start the game. The nostalgic sound of an 8-bit soundtracks fills the air as a male narrator fills the player in on the premise of the game alongside blocky caption text. Ian is playing as the last great hope of the Alliance of Free Worlds against the despotic Verrak’hai Empire. But Ian has played more than a few games in his time. He gets the premise, so he button mashes his way through the rest of the opening sequence.

*****

“Ah-hem?”

Mickey slides out from under the engine of his skimmer, undershirt freckled with yellow perspiration and grey-black benzine spots. He sits up on the gravity-resistant creeper and looks up at the familiar voice addressing him.  

“Well, look at you sporting that fifth stripe on your uniform,” Mickey beams as his twin strides into the hangar where Mickey keeps his PT-400 Star Skimmer along with the other higher ranking Star Knights.

Mandy in contrast is truly climbing in the ranks much faster than Mickey would have expected even if their less-than-desirable background wasn’t always hanging around their necks like an albatross. Mickey is quite content to rest at Star Knight, first class, but as of this morning’s ceremony, Mandy is a major in the fleet, a full two ranks ahead of him.

“What? Not going to stand up and salute me?”

“I didn’t salute you off the clock when you were my captain,” he rebuffs, setting down his spanner and wiping his hands on a towel. “Why do you think being a major would make any difference?”

“You know, I really ought to report you for insubordination. It’s not right.”

Mickey fights the sour expression on his face. Mandy is the only person ranked above him that he is physically  capable of refusing; possibly some quirk having to do with their Terran biology being different from their Chchraian counterparts. “It’s not like I refuse orders on duty. Besides, how would it look if word got out that the one children of the Messiah Who Fell needed to go in for reconditioning?” It would look just as bad for her as it would for him.

“You know, you could climb the ranks if you wanted, too. You’ve been a knight long enough.”

“I’m happy where I am.”

His sister crouches down and looks at the tools laid out at his side. “Are you, though? Your squad says you prefer spending time on your engine more than you enjoy training them.”

“But I do train them.”

It’s part of a knight’s duties. A knight of the second class may train and lead a squad of up to ten enlisted flyers, a knight of the second class can lead up to twelve. Mickey commands a team of only eight, justifying that he prefers quality to quantity.

Even still, of late he has been stepping back from leadership as much as he can considering Alliance conditioning makes it nigh on impossible for its soldiers to refuse a command from leadership.

Contrasted against Mandy, now a major she is cleared to command a small fleet of fully crewed starships, putting as man as fifteen hundred lives under her care depending on how many ships she has under her auspices. By the benchmark she is putting forth, it would seem as though Mickey is slacking. And in a way, he supposes he is. But the higher you rise, the further you fall. Their mother was proof of that.

“You have to put in more of an effort, Mickey. We’re always going to be under the microscope. We have to work twice as hard to be treated like we belong here.”

“By all rights, we don’t.” Mickey stares her down, tacitly challenging her to contradict him.

The twins have been trapped in this paradoxical position all their lives. Technically, Terrans are indistinguishable from Chchraians. In fact, Chchraians originate from the third planet of the Sol system, just as they do, but their disappearance is so far back in history that it blends into myth.

If their mother Laura Milkovich hadn’t been falsely identified as the Savior of the Alliance, they would be back on that little mud ball where they by all rights belong. But her dying wish was that Mickey and Mandy would be raised among the stars. Not sent back to Terra, or Earth as she often called it, nor sent Chchraia or any of the Alliance’s other worlds to be fostered. They spent their entire youth on starships and space stations just like the one they are on now, children of nobody and everybody, neither outcasts nor insiders, the legendary scions of the Messiah who Fell.

“Well, whether we are supposed to be here or not isn’t up for debate. Be amuse we are here, Mick. We’re here to serve.”

“And I am serving.” Insists Mickey as he pulls the jacket of his uniform back on. “Do you think it’s the Alliance Corps of Engineers that keep our birds in the sky?”

Mandy scoffs. “As if either of us have seen a bird in real life… I don’t suppose you’ve taken time out of your busy tinkering schedule to take your evening meal?”

Mickey shakes his head. “That spread they put out for your pinning ceremony kept me going for a while.”

Mandy’s eyes narrow. “Are you telling me you haven’t eaten since breakfast?”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Star Knight Milkovich,” Mickey snickers but stands at attention anyway at the sound of Mandy switching into her authoritative tone of voice. “As your superior officer, I order you to take better care  of yourself.”

“Now, how can I refuse a command like that.”

“We’re all supposed to be protecting the home worlds of the Alliance. How do you expect to do that if we’re passing out from hunger?”

“Alright, mom. You don’t need to do the whole speech.”

Mickey washes his hands at the sonic sink and they are about to head out to the mess hall when Major General Vlis Prox appears at the inner hangar door. Both Milkovich siblings snap to attention with precision that can only be conditioned into the human body.

“Sir!” They both shout in unison.

“At ease, Major.” Mandy’s body relaxes at the verbal order, standing with her feet shoulder-length apart with her arms clasped behind her back. “And consider yourself dismissed.”

“Sir?”

“Dismissed, Major.”

Mandy turns to her brother. “I’ll be at our usual table.” Then she marches out of the hangar, leaving Mickey alone with the highest ranking man in the sector.

“Star Knight Mikhailo Milkovich, I have a task for you. Your people hail from the Sol system, correct?”

“Yes, sir.” Mickey answers, as though the Milkovich twins lowly origin isn’t known throughout the Alliance.

“At ease, knight.” Mickey feels the telltale relief of his body allowing itself to relax. “I’m sending you to Sol-3.”

“Terra? What’s the assignment?”

“Extraction.”

“As in a rescue mission?”

The major general nods. “For the first time in years, we have a Contender.”

Mickey’s stomach drops. He’s talking about Star Fighters. The program disguised as a game meant to divine the fabled Terran Messiah who is supposed to finally bring an end to the Alliance’s generations-long conflict with the Verrak’hai. It’s the same program that put his mother in a mortal peril every day of the first four years of his and Mandy’s lives and eventually led to her death. Whoever the poor fool back on his mother’s homework is, they already has Mickey’s pity. Even if he is being tasked with bringing him to his unenviable damned circumstances.

“Understood, sir.”

“But you’ll need to leave as soon as possible, knight. Tonight.”

“Why the tight timeline, sir?”

“Because the intel has already been compromised. I need this done quick and dirty. And in secret, if you aren’t successful. That’s why I want just you to go, not your squad.”

“They’d only slow me down anyway, sir.”

“Good. I have already taken the liberty of sending you all the pertinent information. Be certain to study the subject’s dossier carefully. Dismissed, space knight.”

 Once he is alone, he silently curses and presses a spot just below his clavicle. Lights flicker along the lapels and buckle of his uniform, indicating that his personal computer is now active. “Computer: Read-out of my current assignment.”

“Compliant,” answers an artificial voice. “Retrieving all known data on Gallagher comma Ian C.”

A small holo projector emits from his wristband, showing Mickey a simulacrum of his mission target.

Mickey’s pulse quickens at the sight of him.

Chapter Text

“You’re joking, right?” demands Mandy staring him down through the view screen. The image is unsteady and he hears the sound of her stomping her boots, making a beeline towards the lower docking pylons now that she knows  Mickey isn’t in the Skimmer hangar bay where she left him. “Who gets sent on a secret mission?”

“When did I say anything about a secret mission?” deflects Mickey wryly as though his sister hasn’t completely seen through his half-assed ruse.

But then again, Prox didn’t give him much to work with. Who is going to believe that Mickey abruptly decided to burn off some leave time immediately after a private  tête-à-tête with the highest ranking officer in the fleet this side of Central Command?

The image of Mandy steadies momentarily as she looks around. Mickey recognizes with intimate familiarity the hangar bay of the first class Star Knights’ skimmers. She makes a throttled scream and practically snarls at him.

“What? Do you think I got where I am without being able to read between the fucking lines? Where are you?”

“Where do you think?” Mickey doesn’t like being evasive like this towards his sister, but the Major General’s commands are iron-clad: Absolute secrecy. If Mickey should fail, Prox won’t want it known that the first Contender, the first potential Messiah, in a generation was lost to them under his watch. But that blade cuts both ways; if Mickey should fail, it won’t be treated as the result of the moral failings of a child of the Messiah Who Fell.

He looks around the pilot’s station of his new ship, getting a sense for the strange new controls, the feeling as his palms grip the helm experimentally. Mickey understands the logic in issuing him a new vessel for this assignment. The N-807 Kidu is the smallest and fastest model the fleet keeps in service capable of  carrying multiple passengers. Even if Mickey’s skimmer was built for long distances, it isn’t built to withstand the strain of a slipstream drive.

Then there is the space issue; physical space, that is. Star Skimmers are meant for dogfighting and short-range patrol and scouting details. Mickey would only slightly be exaggerating to say that skimmers are just a single-person cockpit and a propulsion drive.  

An N-807 Kidu, on the other hand, is a major upgrade both in terms of capacity and creature comforts. It seats three and even has a single bed and a nutrition synthesizer for meals.

On a more practical level, while it lacks the skimmers’ dynamic maneuverability, it can reach and maintain speeds five factors beyond the speed of light. And specifically of importance to Mickey’s current mission, it comes equipped with a slipstream drive. It allows the user to withstand the intense pressures of the galactic slipstreams, interconnected network of the liminal wormhole passages that bridge distances across the galaxy.

It would take thousands of years to get to Terra without one. But he should arrive just outside the Sol system in just over a Chchraian planetary cycle; maybe sooner If Mickey really pushes his engines.

And Mickey is known for his speed. With any luck, he can outstrip the Verrak’hai and get this Gallagher guy off the planet before those six-legged bastards know what hit them.

But they have a head start.

“Trust me, sis,” he insists, sounding more confident than is honest. “I’ll be back before you know it. Not a hair out of fucking place. So will you cool your jets, already?”

“If you’re so sure of things, then why won't you tell me?”

“I just said I’m going to be gone a few rotations. Why are you jumping to conclusions?” Mickey should have known nothing gets past Mandy. There is a reason why she is being fast tracked into higher levels of command.

Mandy taps the spot on her uniform below her clavicle. “Computer-- provide current mission parameters for Space Knight Milkovich.”

“Give me a sec to look that up for you, solnyshko moi,” begins the computer’s voice. Mickey always hates the personalized voice of Mandy’s computer. Everything from the speech patterns to the tone of voice, and even peppering her with another of Terra’s languages all to evoke the memory of their mother. It’s as though Mandy wants to be haunted by her spectre. “Alright, so no record of current mission parameters found. Star Knight, first class Mickey Aleksandr Milkovich is scheduled for 135 cycles of personal leave.”

She tries again, this time using her security clearance, but she is met without success again. Mickey is surprised that the computer doesn’t mention that her access is restricted. Is this mission such a secret that it is completely off the books? The accounts Mickey has read about Laura’s extraction made it sound like there was a goddamn celebration on every Alliance homeworld before the extraction team had even engaged their slipstream drive.

“That’s Prox for you,” she mutters, the image steadies and he hears the sound of the lift lowering her down. “You’d think he’d at least create a more impressive cover for you.”

Even if he cannot utter a word, he silently prays for his sister to do less bitching and find him. His launch is a few minutes from now and he truly does want to see her before he disappears into the void of deep space.

“Listen, Mands. If I could tell you where I’m going, I would.”

“But you’re under orders,” she nods solemnly. “I just want to go on record that I don’t like this.”

“You wanted me to show some more initiative, right?” Not that this was a case of initiative. It was an Imperative. He was given a direct command from the most powerful man in the sector. Thanks to Alliance military conditioning, he could no more refuse the instruction than he could decide to stop breathing.

He hears the doors of the lift swoosh open and once more Mandy is storming her way through the docking pylons, looking for him. It dawns on him that he is hearing her from outside the ship. He switches his view screen to show several views outside the Kidu. But suddenly she is stopped by two guards, obstructing her from getting any further than the control station, where Prox and his chief bogeyman Colonel M’Lyris are initiating the launch.

As his ship comes to life and the outer airlock opens, steers the N-807 Kidu out into the firmament. The image of his sister remains on the view screen to the side of the main display outside him. The expression on her face is obvious: “What have you gotten yourself into?”

****

Ian stands at the bathroom mirror, flipping back and forth between two button-down shirts, still draped on their hangers. One is a simple green and white plaid that he has been told make his eyes pop; the other, a bold, saturated mauve.

“Just pick one and clear out the bathroom already!” Moans his younger brother Carl at the doorway, dressed in his standard-issue training sweats from Chicago Military Academy and smelling like he rolled around in musk like he’s trying to attract a wild bear. “Some of us just did 10K and need to rinse off.”

“You can wait another minute.”

“You’d be doing a public service if you figure out your ensemble in the other room so Carl can fucking hose himself down,” pleads Debbie from her bedroom immediately next to the bathroom. “Franny’s about ready to vomit from the fumes.”

“Alright, I’m going,” hisses Ian pulling on the green plaid. Heaven forbid he take the extra minute to make himself look presentable. He stalks out of the bathroom buttoning his shirt without looking.

Downstairs, he passes by his youngest brother Liam doing his homework at the living room table  and finds his elder brother Lip at he kitchen table with his newborn son curled in his arm, half-dozing, half-nursing on a bottle. Lip glances up and spots him. “You headed out?”

“It’s not a date, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he answers obliquely as he attempts to put the finishing touches on his hair in the using the reflective surface of a stainless steel mixing bowl. “I’m just going to make an appearance at the party they’re throwing my boss.”

“You mean the boss that suspended your ass?” Asks Liam.

“She didn’t suspend me. She just told me to take a couple days.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it was a date.”

Ian turns from his task, eying his brother cautiously. “Who are you kidding? You always hate my boyfriends.”

“Not all of them,” denies the elder Gallagher. “Trevor was alright.”

He was. Trevor was about as decent a guy as Ian was likely to ever find in their rough neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Trevor was a social worker who concentrated his efforts on queer homeless youth. He treated their welfare as seriously as a seizure. He supposes that’s what attracted Ian to him. Trevor was a man on a mission. He had a sense of purpose, just as Ian always strives to have.

But Trevor was so dedicated to his cause that when Ian’s mental health began to slip, the early warning signs went unnoticed. That itself is fine, Ian knows from the therapy he has had in the few years since his diagnosis that it is easy to miss certain things when you aren’t accustomed to looking for the signs. But when those early symptoms evolved into full-blown manic behavior, Ian was simply too much for him.

Trevor made it seem like the decision was simple. The needs of the kids whose lives he sought to better would always come first. And it would be hard to give them his full attention while also dedicating himself to being Ian’s “full-time psych nurse.” And Ian can hardly blame him. How could someone change the world if they’re tethered to a head case like him?

“I’m better off on my own,” Ian insists as he pulls a light jacket on.

“You gonna be out late?”

Ian cocks his head. “I’m going to a work function Do you seriously  think I’m planning to go home the first swinging dick I see?”

“Way to keep it classy, brother,” smirks Liam, tidying up his ninth grade Algebra-2 homework.

“Hey, you wanna put your school books away,” Lip orders, slipping into a parental tone of voice. “‘Cause I don’t want you to come crying to me the next time Carl spills nacho cheese all over your book report.”

“Really starting to sound like Fiona, there,” Liam ribs on his way up the stairs.

“Ignore the literal ten-year-old, Ian. Look, I know you used run wild with guys, but it’s been over a year. And no offense, but you’ve been a miserable pain in the ass for months. Don’t you think this born again virgin routine is over-correcting?”

Ian stares him down. “Don’t wait up for me.”

“That’s the spirit.”

****

The slipstream pulses, stabilizing the ship and preventing the the profound pressures of the slipstream from either causing the cabin to collapse in on itself or tearing the ship apart. In essence, what the drive does is create a localized anti-friction field around the ship that causes the ship and everything inside it to vibrate at a heightened frequency that deflects the ambient energies of the wormhole while also enabling the ship to meet at exceed the currents. Equal parts interstellar engine and protective bubble.

Mickey listens to his computer rattle off the scant details of his quarry. Adult male, twenty-two years of age by Terran reckoning, 1.9 meters tall, 93 kilograms in weight. Born and raised in the city of Chicago.

Chicago. That’s where his mother was from. There are twelve machines scattered around the planet searching for potential Contenders just like her, but this Ian Gallagher found his way to the exact same machine that identified Laura, changing the trajectory o not only her life, but those of her unborn children. According to bio-tracking, Gallagher resides within one kilometer of Laura’s last documented address.

Is Terra really so small a planet as that?

Eventually, he foregoes immersing himself in the base facts of Gallagher’s dossier and instead finds himself studying the holographic simulacrum of him. The footage of him with his fiery orange hair animates reflecting all manner of expressions and emotions Gallagher must have experienced while being challenged by the Star Fighter test.

He has a nice smile. But that hardly goes to explain why Mickey feels such a confusing range of emotions with each twist of Ian Gallagher’s lips.

Get yourself together, Milkovich.  

He’s had passing feelings for guys before. But he has never acted on those feelings. Except for one. And that ended poorly. C’yro Qal was decent enough guy who earned Mickey’s trust. But despite his taciturn nature, he was prideful and arrogant. That arrogance got him killed.

C’yro was Mickey’s first death under his command. He has kept the squires and enlisted men he leads into battle at arm’s length ever since. And he won’t get attached. Never again.

Even if he wanted to just casually hook up as so many in the fleet do, he doesn’t risk it. He has listened to too many guys in the locker room talking unaware that he was among them. He has heard the way the men she has been with brag about “making it” with the daughter of the Messiah Who Fell since they were fourteen.

He will not be made the subject of rumor or treated like a prize to be won.

Mickey is roused from his daydreaming by a beeping that indicates that the ship is reaching the nearest exit path near the Sol system. He slows the ship down just enough to maneuver it into the path of the proverbial off-ramp to the portcullis nearest Sol.

With practiced precision, he disengages the slipstream drive timing it perfectly with his exit from the network. The vivid streams of blues, violets, pinks, and greens are replaced by the stillness of space. And in the distance, he espies his mother’s home system. The system is home to several gas giants. Some of the giants’ moons could sustain life, more still could be prime candidates for terraforming. That is, if the Terrans ever get to the point of expansion. That is if they don’t stray as far from home as their Chchraian cousins did. It would probably be safer for them. The Alliance wouldn’t be in the conflict it has been in for almost two centuries if his adopted people didn’t push their boundaries the way that they have.

Beyond a chain of space debris that looks like it might have once been another planet before some sort of calamity, he looks beyond a red planet with twin moons to see the subject of his quest: Terra. Blue with swirls of white that culminate at either pole.

Mickey can’t help but reflect that he was conceived there. If events had unfolded very differently, this would have been his home.

But that whimsical notion is short-lived. He spots the tell-tale shimmer of a ship disengaging its stealth drive. Settling into orbit around his mother’s homeworld is a Verrakk’hai H/K Hound Cruiser. If he had been five minutes slower, he would have been too late.

He might still be too late if he doesn’t get his ass in gear. He puts the N-807 Kidu into autopilot and sets the computer to lock in on Gallagher’s bio sign and starts warming up the transmat pad.

****

Ian has been nursing the same beer for hours. He shouldn’t be here. His coworkers wanted everyone to come out to celebrate Sue’s tenth year of service. But Ian’s thought keep drifting back to his loss last week. It’s strange. So many people that he has helped rescue or resuscitate blur in his memory. Even the ones that they’ve lost tend to blend together. But Carrie was his loss. He was the one that connected with her. It was his hand she held and he was the one telling her she was going to make it through even as the light left her eyes. He was the one who failed her.

He doesn’t belong here.

He slips out without catching anyone’s notice. An Irish Goodbye. Heading to the El, he just wants to head home and crash.  

But as he passes through a darkened street, something feels off. The air feels too still.

Out of nowhere, he is surrounded by six sickly green flares of light. Frozen in shock, his jaw drops to the pavement when the six flashes are fade revealing a cadre of six six-armed insectoid creatures dressed in grey body armor adorned with silver and onyx accents.

They speak to one another in a clicking, snapping, crackling language Ian cannot hope to understand as the train a small armory’s worth of futuristic pistols and rifles at him.

Ian wants to believe he is dreaming. Because if he isn’t dreaming, he is about to die.

And then a seventh armored form appears.  

“Duck and cover, Ian Gallagher.”

Chapter Text

Mickey’s sensor are blasting like shrill trumpets in his ears as the N-Kidu aligns into geo-synchronous orbit around Terra, the ship’s AI notifying him in an annoyingly calm voice that the Hunter/Killer in orbit around Terra is powering up enough energy to trans-materialize six fully-armed adult Verrak’hai to the surface.

“I’m hurrying, gimme a second.” Therein lies the beauty of a solo mission— Mickey may be running behind, but there is only one of him. The energy demands for the transmat are a fraction of what the bugs use. This is where he makes up time.

He taps his middle and ring fingers to a spot on his uniform right between the left epaulet and collar bone, activating his Alliance-issue combat defense system, which appears in a matter of seconds, liquid metal oozing out of the pores of the fabric and solidifying into a head-to-toe suit of plated elasti-steel ablative armor, earning men and women of Mickey’s rank the the title of “Star Knight,” rather than the more mundane “lieutenant.”

Strapping his bandolier over his shoulders, his elasti-steel boots quietly clank as he all but leaps onto the transmat pad and gives the verbal command. “Computer-- matter shift me as close to that bio sign as possible.”

The ship’s voice isn’t halfway through announcing, “Compliant,” before the sound is swallowed around him and for the briefest of nanoseconds, every molecule of Mickey’s body disincorporates...

And when he reappears, he is planet-side. Nearly dusk, he finds himself in a post-Industrial   cityscape in the middle of a streetway. He looks around and immediately spots the mission target three feet from him. Surprisingly, they are nearly at eye level with one another. The armor furbishes the user with three or four added inches of height.

Surrounding him are six Verrak’hai Scarabs— notorious for their armored carapaces and mandibles that can snap bones like twigs. However, they’re also renowned for their vulnerable brain cavities and even weaker minds. Mickey starts formulating a plan even before his body is fully corporealized.

“Duck and cover, Ian Gallagher!” He shouts as he unholsters his sidearm and quickly adjusts the Omni-Guard's operational setting. But the redhead—hell, and it is so much more vividly red than the hologram could manage—was frozen to the spot, paralyzed in terror. Mickey tries to hide his own panic. How is he supposed to protect this tall drink of water if he doesn’t even have the common sense to hide when directly instructed.

It takes the Omni-Guard ten crucial seconds to adapt to setting changes on the fly. So much can go wrong in ten seconds and Ian Gallagher is in no state to mount an offensive. Mickey takes the frightened Terran around the waist and throws his body around him to deflect the initial volley of caustic plasma of their weapons. He feels the harrowing heat through the armor even if he is safeguarded against it. All the while, Ian Gallagher is attempting to fight his way free of Mickey’s hold.

“What the fuck are you doing?” demands the Terran even as Mickey power kicks one of the Scarabs dumb enough to come close enough to engage in hand-to-hand. Hive minds can’t help them with one-on-one.

He feels the click heralding the completion of the Omni-Guard's recalibrations. Mickey resists the urge to make a wiseass comment or even quickly explain what’s going on. The priority is neutralizing the threat.

He tries to aim his weapon, but this takes precision in order to have the desired effect. And Scarabs have a tendency to skitter about.

Hold still.”  

“I don’t have much of a choice,” grumbles the man whose face is pressed against Mickey’s chest plate.

“Not you. Them.” 

Finally, He choses a target and locks his Omni-Guard on the biggest and  slowest of the Scarabs.

He pulls the trigger, causing a ribbon of greenish-yellow energy to issue forth in a tight spiral, hitting its target. The beam acts a a tether, holding the creature like Mickey’s Omni-Guard were a leash or like the insectoid were caught on a live wire. The goddamn bug is falls backwards from the impact and is stuck in place aside from the flaccid attempt to tremor. Smoke is practically billowing out of what Mickey imagines to be their ears. Within a few seconds, two more tendrils of energy spring forth from the prime target and catch the two Scarabs, then two more, and finally the straggler. All of them make horrendous screeching noises that are definitely going to attract the locals. He gives the trigger a tighter squeeze and the light of the beam intensifies.

Finally, Mickey releases the trigger and his foes crumble to the ground.

Feeling that the threat has passed at least for now, he relinquishes the Terran in distress.

****

Ian falls to his knees, at a loss to believe anything he has witnessed I the past… he doesn’t even think it has been a full three minutes. In less than 180 seconds, the framework of Ian’s entire concept of reality has collapsed from under him.

“What… the fuck just happened?”

“Gee, thanks for saving me with, Mr. Space Knight,” even through the vocal modulation of his helmet, Ian can recognize the gentle mockery in the armored blue man’s tone. “Oh, don’t you worry, good citizen of Terra, all in a day’s work for me.”

The smell of sizzled flesh pervades Ian’s senses and he thinks he is going to be sick to his stomach.

My anti-psychotics must have given up the ghost, Ian rationalizes. My meds stopped working and I’m in the throes of a  full-on psychotic delusion. Christ, I should have fucking listened when Sue thought I seemed off last week.

“Come on, man.” Ian feels an armored gauntlet on his shoulder, attempting to lift him to his feet, but he isn’t having it.

“Fuck off!

“I’ve got to get you somewhere safe. The bugs always travel in hives. These guys were just the advanced scouts.  There are gonna be more of those suckers. A lot more.”

The spaceman tries to take his arm again, but Ian is defiant. “I was just attacked by giant-ass bug things and watched you kill them all with a fucking raygun! Sorry if I’m not in a rush to run off with the masked man with a death count.”

The stranger stands back, his head tilted. There isn’t any way of telling what he’s thinking. For all Ian knows, the man is deciding how best to subdue him. Or silence him.

Instead, the armored man taps a spot below his jawline, causing the face faceplate of his helmet to recede. But it isn’t one single piece, it’s like watching a jigsaw puzzle disassemble of its own accord. Then Ian’s gaze is met by a face barely older than his own. Ocean blue eyes and Cupid’s bow lips; his alabaster complexion is contrasted by two pitch black eyebrows and a few loose, straight strands of damp black hair plastered to his forehead.

“You’re calling this a fucking raygun? This sweet piece here is a state of the art Omni-Guard Mark IV. Ten different ranged tools in one with up to eighteen degrees of articulated sensitivity. It’s linked to my bio signature, so it’s my good right arm and a hunk of junk to anyone else. It’s smart tech, it learns my fighting style and adapts to my needs the longer I use it. So, how about we don’t call it some rinky dink little raygun. ‘Kay, princess?”

Ian thinks he knows what most of those words mean individually, but the way Big Blue arranges those words makes Ian feel like he has only vaguely heard of words before now. So, it’s a big deal of a raygun. Got it.

“So… what you did to the freaky bug things…?”

“Neuro-synaptic agitator, level seven.”

“Neuro… what’s all that mean? You stunned them?”

Spaceman looks at Ian like he arrived at the dumbest conclusion possible. “Stun them?” He laughs as he tweaks the settings on the Omni-Guard. “Shit, that’s actually kind of adorable. We’ve been at war with the Verrak’hai for generations. We’ve learned not to pull our punches with the bugs. I fried their brains from the inside out.”

Verrak’hai. Ian replays the word in his head, wondering why does that word sound familiar? “So, you’re some sort of soldier?”

He is smiling at Ian like they’re sharing a joke. And as horrified as he is, he wants to smile back. “Space Knight, First Class.”

Ian has no idea what that actually mean, but before he gets the chance, something in the atmosphere changes. The Space Knight seems to understand what it means what it means before Ian.

Before he can react, Blue has scooped him up in a fireman’s carry and he is running, although he doesn’t seem to know where.

“Hey! Put me the fuck down!”

“No time. We’re about to have more company.” As the spaceman runs blindly around the streets of Chicago with Ian slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, Ian hears the chittering and clicking sound those creatures were making before. Though even at a distance, they sound louder than before.

The space knight wasn’t kidding— those things are going to keep coming. Ian doesn’t understand why they are after him, but he knows that he is wholly unequipped to protect himself against them. But the man in the blue suit is. Wherever the spaceman is taking him, there must be more like him who know how to fight those things off.

“Computer!” He hears the spaceman shout into the air and a computerized chime in response. “I need a matter shift for two.”

“Calibrating.” Ian hears a monotone man’s voice respond. “Twenty-five clicks.”

“Hurry it up!”

“Blue?”

“Don’t worry, Ian Gallagher. I got this,” reassures the space knight unconvincingly as he serpentines his way through alleys and side streets. “We just need to stay ahead of them a little bit longer.”

The space knight lowers him to the ground squatting behind a rank-smelling dumpster in a dark alley. The raven-haired man spaceman catches his breath. “The smell ought to mask us long enough. Computer!” Ian hears the shimmering jingle again. “Be ready to autopilot us to the nearest portcullis as soon as we’re onboard at factor five.”

“Negative. It is not advised to travel faster than factor three within a planetary system.”

“Fuck. Fine factor three.” The man in blue turns to Ian. “You ready?”

“Ready for what?”

The Star Knight smiles and the answer comes before he can answer. Ian feels as though he is being torn apart by thousands of the smallest knives, cell by cell. The spaceman has a look of goddamn relief as he he disintegrates before Ian’s eyes.

And then all is darkness.

 ****

 Mickey strides to the cockpit as soon as his body is reconstituted, verbally commanding for a split screen view both fore and aft.

“Where are we?”

“Aboard my N-Kidu.”

“Your Enkidu? Was the Gilgamesh not available?”

Mickey looks back at the redhead in consternation. He figures it must be something out of terrestrial televisual entertainment. Terrans are famously fond of their pop culture.

“Sorry,” Mickey hits the hidden button on his uniform between epaulet and collarbone and his power armor begins to recede, seeming to melt and be absorbed into the pores of his Alliance military uniform. “I meant my N-807 Kidu. My ship. For now, anyway.”

He looks at the aft display, watching Terra recede behind them. But not fast enough, not when there is an H/K Hound Cruiser that may fire up its engines at any moment.

“Is that Earth?” Asks Ian, disbelief seemingly giving way to something more akin to somber resignation.

Mickey turn around to face him, though now that he is out of his power armor, he adjusts to the more pronounced height difference, now at eye level with the redhead’s dimpled chin. “Yeah, it is. I’m… I’m sorry it has to be like this. You didn’t have a choice in the matter.” Mickey tries to remind himself that he didn’t have a choice either. But it is little comfort to him.

“And there is no way I can say goodbye to my family?”

He shakes his head remorsefully. “If the Verrak’hai tracked you to your family home, they would all be t risk.”

“We couldn’t take them with us?”

“There is only room and life support for three at maximum. Even if my orders did allow for it, do you want to be the one choose which one comes?”

No. He doesn’t.

“If it’s any consolation,” Mickey offers, “I know this is a lot to take in.”

”Yeah, well. There’s always a chance that this is a nightmare right? Or maybe I seriously need to up my olanzipine dosage.”

Mickey doesn’t quite know what that means, but he can’t focus on it at the moment. The earth may be growing smaller and smaller behind them, but the hostile vessel orbiting is starting to grow.

“Dammit, I thought we’d have a bit more time.” Mickey snarls as he takes his seat at the helm and straps in. “Computer. Disengage autopilot!” Mickey immediately ramps up the speed, planetary system be damned. Not like any of the fucking gas giants are inhabited. “ You better strap in, kid. We’re in for a bumpy ride.”

On the view screen, the H/K Cruiser is gaining on them. Not if Mickey can help it.

“Anything I can do to help?”

There is a gunner station, but now is not the time. He can’t let himself get distracted trying to teach the new Contender the ropes when they’re already under fire. That’s a sure way to get them both killed before they even reach the local portcullis. “I don’t have the time to teach you. Just buckle up and pray to whatever tribal gods you Terrans still worship.”

Ian gives him a perturbed stare, but does as he’s told. And just in time. Mickey cranks them up to factor five once he spots the portcullis buoy in the distance, and Ian is jostled in his seat.

“God, I’m gonna be sick.”

Without taking his eyes off the view screen, Mickey reaches into a hidden compartment in his dash and pulls out a small tin and tosses it to Ian.

“What’s this?”

“Chew on one. They make higher velocity factors easier on you if you’re not used to space travel.”

Ian opens up the tin and pulls out a small tablet and pops it in his mouth. “It tastes like ass.”

“You’ll live. I’m gonna need you to toughen up, Gallagher. You think this is bad? I haven’t even engaged the slipstream drive.”

“The what?”

”You’ll see in a couple minutes.”

“I swear to god, Blue…”

“I hope you didn’t have a big meal,” Mickey jokes as they he slows down just enough the maneuver into the swiftly-approaching portcullis into the slipstream.

“And if I did?”

Mickey shrugs. “The ship’s self-cleaning, at least.”

“Thanks, that’s really the comfort I’m looking for.”

“Any time, princess.”

Chapter Text

Outside the slipstream, space had looked so hollow, an endless gaping void between stellar and planetary bodies. Inside, though, it feels fluid; like it’s a living organism.  

It has been a pretty long time since Ian has been chemically altered, a least for recreational purposes. That was back when he would get himself trashed before his shifts as an underage exotic dancer. He’d be tripping balls, letting any manner of men put whatever they want in his mouth, not to mention allow them to snort a variety of powders off his body. In those days, it mattered not a bit to Ian so long as they looked wealthy enough to pay him for his services. As long as he got the cash, the customer was always right. 

Most mornings after, he could not tell you what happened in between working a john and waking up in his bed. Or more typically, somebody else’s bed. But every so often he would be just lucid enough to look out the car window with his face pressed to the glass and see the way the  car headlights, street lights, all of it would blur together into hazy comet trails flitting across his vision.  

The memories are so hazy five years later, but he cannot help but think that’s what the vivid light show of the inside of the slipstream reminds him of. It’s somewhere riding through a professional Christmas display at breakneck speeds and a viewing of Dark Side of the Moon at Adler Planetarium.  

Of course, that was all part of his life before. Before he started acting so erratically that his sugar daddy Ned asked him to leave. Before mania gave way to the inevitable downward crash. Before his siblings Lip and Fiona tracked him down and dragged him  the flophouse he had been squatting in when he had barely moved in days, before the diagnosis, the pills, the med compliance checks, weeks and months of figuring out just the right cocktail, and monthly therapy with no end in sight. 

He is so fundamentally a screwed up person down to his very brain chemistry. Perhaps that is part of why what the spaceman is telling him just won’t seem to congeal in his mind. 

Or it could be the fact that it just sounds nuts. 

“So, let me see if I got this,” Ian attempts to summarize after listening to the Spaceman explain utter nonsense to him. Perhaps it will sound more reasonable if he hears it from his own lips. “I beat an old Shoot ‘Em Up from over forty years ago and now an alien civilization thinks I’m the fucking anointed one?” 

The spaceman grimaces, but it almost seems like he already reached the same conclusion on his own. “Look, I’m not the one who comes up with this shit. I was just sent to get you.” 

But why would the Crayons’ chosen one be on Earth?” 

“It’s ‘Chchraians,’ for one. And second, it’s because that's where Chchraians came from originally some four thousand years ago.” 

Well, that answers one of the big questions looming in Ian’s mind. “Oh. So that’s why you look human.” After the initial shock of just how beautiful the Star Knight was when he removed his faceplate, the second question resounding through Ian’s mind was why does he look human. Okay, sure. He doesn’t exactly subscribe to the “little green men” idea of what an alien looks like, but he at least expected cranial ridges or pointed ears, or... something. 

Mickey shrugs noncommittally.  

“And you’ve been coming all the way back to Ear— er, Terra looking for your savior?” 

“Not just Terra. It’s a vague-ass prophesy. ‘Look to the founders’ antiquity.’ Five charter members of the Alliance. There was a time when knuckleheads from Oahm and Upash were—”  

But the Star Knight doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence when the N-807 Kidu hits some turbulence, unsettling the vessel. Even harnessed into their seats at the pilot and co-pilot consoles, both men are briefly disoriented. Although Mickey recovers first, his hands never leaving their grips on the helm.  

****  

“We hit a pot hole or something?” 

Mickey can’t quite process whatever made up Terran word Ian just used. His brain is already quickly shifting into fight or flight combat mode. “A what? No, we still got—” the ship rattles. “—bugs on our tail.” 

The Verrak’hai shouldn’t be able to land a hit on them at all with the slipstream drive engaged. The anti-friction is designed to buffer the ship and deflect any oncoming space debris or physical attacks. He gives the panel displaying the technical readout of the drive a cursory glance, but it seems perfectly operational.  

“How the fuck are they hitting us?” 

Unless they’ve lucked into just he right frequency  to counter to the anti-fric. The odds are a billion-to-one.   

Just my luck. 

Mickey could recalibrate it with a little time, maybe an hour with the technical schematics, but definitely not on the fly like this. 

“Tighten your harness, Gallagher. I’m going to have to take evasive maneuvers. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.” 

“What are you doing?” Asks the redhead through gritted teeth.  

“I just need you to trust me.” Mickey abruptly changes course, detouring into the nearest branching artery in the slipstream’s network. He knows what he has to do. And he’s confident he can do it. Or at least mostly confident. Okay, this is only the second time he has piloted through the slipstream without oversight, and his plan is a little reckless, but he has been studying the slipstream network since was young enough to dream of leaving the Alliance behind. 

“I just fucking met you! I don’t even know your name! And you are expecting me to take a lot on faith.” 

He doesn’t have an answer for that. Not because the redhead doesn’t have a point, but because Mickey doesn’t have the room in his brain pan. The landscape right now is survival. Making sure that he has Gallagher’s trust is important, but it can wait.  

The view screen is lit up with orange-red flashes as Mickey makes barrel rolls and hairpin turns to dodge each barrage of their assault. Mickey is in his element. This is what Mickey has been doing since the first time he harnessed himself into the cockpit of his first skimmer as a Novitiate back when he was twelve. 

Mickey zig-zags his way through the network, his hope being that the H/K Cruiser is neither stupid nor crazy enough to follow after him. The Terran has his fingers wrapped around the armrests of his seat like gnarled claws. His teeth are clenched like it’s the only thing preventing him from screaming bloody murder.  

Mickey tries to remind himself he isn’t on his skimmer back home. He may be trying to give the Bugs the slip, but he’s got a passenger’s safety to think of; precious cargo. Prox would throw him in the hold and throw away the key if anything happens to the shiny new Contender. And he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t worried about the guy. 

“Just hang tight a bit longer, Red.” 

“Don’t got much of a choice,” he chokes out. 

“We’ve just about given ‘em the slip.” 

Looking around, he realizes that  already have. Mickey managed to take a ship meant for pure speed and still managed to nimbly work his way through the network until he had essentially put the equivalent of a labyrinth between them and their pursuers. 

He eases up on the clutch. 

“We should be okay now.” 

“Good. I think. Any idea where we are?” 

“Sure. I think.” 

“You think?” 

“I’ve studied the layout of this place since I was a kid. It’s all up here somewhere.” He taps at his temple. “I just haven’t ever had an excuse to explore before.” 

“Well, it’s not as though I’m getting into work on time tomorrow, anyway.”  Ian huffs wryly. “What’s wrong with the scenic route?” 

“Sorry about the rough ride,” Mickey concedes. “My usual line of work is usually dogfights, not escort details.” 

“A fighter pilot, huh?” The Contender sounds pique. “I thought you were a knight.” 

“Star Knight is just a rank. Commissioned. I’m right between Star Knight, Second Class and Captain.” 

“Oh. So, like a Lieutenant back home.” 

“Are you on your planet’s military, too?” 

“Um, no. I wanted serve my country, but that didn’t end up working out.” 

Mickey notes the frosty delivery and allows a silence to settle for a few minutes.  

“I wanted to go to West Point. It’s kind of this huge deal military officers’ school. But… I never had the grades.” 

“You couldn’t just enlist?” 

“Sometimes things just don’t work out, alright?” 

Mickey decides to take the hint and gives it a rest. He should clam up and focus on navigating them back on track without running into the Verrak’hai again.  

Still. He doesn’t like the idea of leaving the conversation go silent on a shitty note. 

“Mickey.” 

“Huh?” 

“You wanted to know what my name is, remember?” 

“And I was just getting used to calling you ‘Blue.’” 

There’s something in the way Ian Gallagher is looking at him that makes Mickey nervous in a way he really doesn’t mind. Not at all. He bites his lower lip and smirks cavalierly back at the potential Messiah. “Not the worst nickname I’ve ever had, ‘Red.’” 

“You’re a bad-ass space knight from an advanced alien civilization and your name is ‘Mickey?’” 

“I don’t expect you to be able pronounce my given name.” Which is true. Everyone in the goddamn Alliance knew the names of the children of the Messiah Who Fell before their mother was even cleared to bring him and his sister home from the station’s  hospital ward. It’s an unwanted form of celebrity that has hounded them all their lives, one that pushed Mandy to excel beyond her years and caused Mickey to cling to a sweet spot out of the limelight. And in all those years of being a household name, his sister is the only other person he knows who consistently pronounces it right.  

“Mickey,” Ian echoes like he’s getting a feel for how it sounds. “Alright then. Pleased to meet you.” 

Mickey takes his eyes off the view screen. “Is that a Terran custom?” 

“It is when you introduce yourself. Why? Don’t your people say, ‘hi, hello, how are you,’ that sort of thing?” 

Mickey shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe planet-side. I was always taught to salute.” 

“You’ve never been to your home planet?” Ian asks in disbelief. 

“Sure I have. Just the one time, though.” Technically not a lie. “But me and my sister are textbook space babies, born and raised on space stations and battle cruisers.” 

“You never got to see a sunrise or anything?” 

“In terrariums, yeah. Look, it was my mom’s wish that we didn’t get shipped away after she f… after she died.” Mickey turns away. He should be keeping his eyes on the view screen, anyway.  

“Oh,” gasps the Terran. “Sorry, I didn’t know.” 

“It’s fine. Shit happens.” 

“I lost my mom, too. Aneurysm. What about your dad?” 

“He was never in the picture.” 

“Same.” 

Mickey looks over at the redhead’s earnest expression. He has been on edge and understandably so ever since Mickey met him. And understandably so. But the soft and tender smile on the guy’s face, that simple look of understanding, commonality, makes Mickey’s whole body seem to relax.  

Almost ten minutes pass in companionable silence. As Mickey gets increasingly unsure whether they are where he thinks they are on the grid of the slipstream network. He almost thinks it would be a good idea to dip out of the nearest portcullis and cross-reference the star charts to figure out just how far afield they’ve gotten.  

A slight rattling noise distracts him and for a moment, he worries that it’s a technical problem that’s going compound their already less than stellar circumstances. His head darts around the chamber expecting to see a panel indicating a lose wire or even see something sparking. Instead, he spots Ian extracting three little orange cylinders from the inner pocket of his jacket. He holds one up to the light as though he were trying to tally its contents. 

“What’s all that?” 

“Meds.” 

“You sick or something? We have quarantine protocols.” 

“Not that kind of sick. Don’t worry about it.” The Terran looks around. “You got food in here? I’m not supposed to take these on an empty stomach.” 

There is a synthesizer, but even if Mickey felt comfortable letting Gallagher walk about with the slipstream drive engaged, it isn’t as though he would “Just rations. Pop open your left armrest.” 

Ian feels around for the release and grins with self satisfaction as he lifts up the cushioned top and extracts a small vacuum sealed packet. “What is this? Greek? I can’t read this shit.” 

“It’s a compressed grain bar with protein and fiber-rich infusions.” 

“Granola bar. You could have just said so.” He tears open the package and scarfs it down. “Just an FYI, if I seem woozy like I might have a dizzy spell or if my hands or left leg starts to tremor after I pop my pills, that’s normal.” 

 “That’s supposed to be medicine?” 

“The side effects only last for an hour or so. And it beats the alternative.” 

Mickey wonders what is so wrong with him that those are the acceptable terms of treatment. Also how far behind is Terran medicine? Is he okay? But there is a ray of hope in this discloser. Perhaps Mickey he can argue for Ian to be disqualified as a Contender and bring him home before Prox’s ambition gets Ian killed. 

Mickey watches out of the corner of his eye as Ian scarfs down the ration and throws one of each pill down his gullet.

“You know if your medicines do that sorta shit to you, there’s a bed in the back if you want to rest.” 

“What about you?” 

“What about me?” Mickey’s left eyebrow flares defensively. 

“Have you slept at all since you took off?” 

“I can sleep after I get you back to base.” 

“You gotta rest, Mickey. Haven’t you ever heard of highway hypnosis?” 

“What’s a highway?” 

Ian rubs his temples on either side of his forehead. “Anyone ever tell you that you need to take care of yourself in order to take care of others?” 

“Annoyingly, my sister. So, yeah. There’s not much ship to this ship. If you just head to the back—” 

“No, I’m good. I guess someone ought to keep you company. Or, you know if you wanna show me how the controls work—” 

“Fat chance of that."

“How am I supposed to help fight an interstellar war or whatever if I don’t even know how to fly a damn ship?” 

“All in good time, Ian Gallagher.” 

Chapter Text

The tumultuous quaking all around Ian wakes him up. He didn’t even  realize he had dozed off. It can’t have been long. He doesn’t even remember dreaming. So much for the hope that he’d wake up back in his bedroom on North Wallace.

“Blue? Mickey?”

“Kinda busy at the moment,” Mickey is struggling in a frenzy to convince the ship to right itself. Something doesn’t look right. Ian doesn’t know why, but Mickey seems as though he’s suddenly uneven?

Ian doesn’t have to look around long to figure out what’s going on. They’re out of the slipstream, but now they’re hurtling headlong, spiraling like a football down through the stratosphere of a world with a light purple sky.

“I only meant to take us out of slipstream long enough to cross reference the N-Kidu’s star charts,” he grunts as he manages to stabilize the the ship. Ian is thankful that the ship isn’t  Tilt-a-Whirl  even though they aren’t out of the woods yet. They are still loosing altitude. “It dropped us off on the edge of a fucking meteor field and we got slammed.”

Ian takes in the news, his eyes wide and alert. It’s hard to believe he was snoozing a minute ago. The adrenaline makes him feel like sleep is an utter impossibility. “Are we gonna crash?”

“Not if I can help it. Just a matter of finding somewhere safe enough to bring us down before we’re a crater on the landscape.”

“Any idea where?”

“Are you shitting me? I don’t even know what planet this is, man! All I know is propulsion is down and gravity is a bitch!”

The nose of the N-Kidu dips sharply and Ian feels his insides lurch, as though his stomach is still fifty feet above them desperately following after. Mickey lets out a string of words  that Ian has no way of understanding, but he figures they’re curses.

“Fuck, I don’t think we’re gonna make it far enough for a soft landing...”

Mickey sounds like he is in freefall, and not just the ship. He’s doing what he can to keep them aloft, but Ian can hear the sound of bravado layered over defeat. It comes naturally to him.

Ian can’t be just a passenger. He can’t go to his maker and not be able to say he tried to help prevent them from ending up scorch marks on the landscape. He has been strapped into the co-pilot's work station for hours. Even though he can’t read a lick of Chchraian on the console, he has observed Mickey enough to make some educated guesses.   

He reaches for the lever to the slipstream drive and activates it. The level makes the sounds of gears cranking that Ian wouldn’t have expected in something that looks like it’s out of Star Trek.

For a moment, the ship, even in its precarious state, begins to vibrate and a blue shimmer of light spreads across the chamber like a blanket.

“What the fuck do you think—”

“This thing repels friction, right?” asks Ian by way of explanation.

“That’s only supposed to be used in the slipstream!”

“Why?”

“It’s because--- because... shit, Gallagher! I could kiss you!” Ian thinks he’d be feeling butterflies in his chest if the fear of getting splattered on the planet’s surface wasn’t paramount.

Keeping one hand on the helm, he leans into Ian’s space, the back of Mickey’s shoulder brushing against Ian’s chest as he adjusts five or buttons on the touch screen and sliders that remind Ian of dimmer switches. For an instant, Ian needs to struggle not to focus on the heat of Mickey’s  body or the allure of his scent. Mickey is close enough for Ian to hold for an eternity of a few seconds before he’s sitting upright again.

But what snaps him out of that minuscule moment of pleasure isn’t the fear of impending doom, the idea that Mickey may have taken him six hundred light years from home just to crash to their deaths in some unknown world. No. What snaps Ian back to attention is Mickey’s forearm. It’s limp and broken. He must have slammed it hard into his console in the collision.

Ian wants to say something, but something tells him Mickey would shrug it off even if he wasn’t in the middle of making sure they don’t die in a fiery wreck.

“Ye gods, that’s fucking genius. Okay. So, you see those two switches?” He points to two very different silver toggles. “When I give the word, I need you to hit both of ‘em. You got me?”

Ian nods wordlessly. They are so close to landfall now that Ian doesn’t have any inclination to ask Mickey to explain the process. Bracing himself against the dashboard, thumbs at the ready, Ian’s eyes are locked on his companion, determined not to let him down.

At the last second, Mickey swerves sharply to port. “Now, Gallagher!”

Ian punches the knobs, not fully understanding what he is doing. He feels the N-807 Kidu vibrate even more intensely, energy practically pulsing from it. But more alarmingly, he hears two very mechanical sounds from either side of the ship. 

And the view screen turns a vivid shade of green.

****

Mickey has always thought the Chchraians’ approach to the prophesy is utter bullshit. And it’s understandable. The prophesy literally led his mother to an early grave with more weight on her shoulders than Mickey can possibly grapple with.

If it weren’t for that damn prophesy, maybe his mom would have lived to a ripe old age. She could have been lucky enough to die warm in her bed surrounded by children and grandchildren.

Mickey could have known his native world. He would have grown to manhood a mere stone’s throw away from Ian. He wonders if they would have known one another.    

But he didn’t. Laura Milkovich was spirited away from Terra and the tender age of twenty-three. And when she fell, rather than being mourned by the people that elevated her so high, she became a figure of pity and scorn in equal measures.

It makes his blood run cold to think she was a year younger than Mickey is now when she was snatched away from her planet. And if he does the math, he thinks Ian is even younger than she was.

But on the other hand, perhaps at least in one aspect, Mickey figures the Chchraian method might actually be onto something. A Chchraian would never think to use the slipstream drive this way. There is no room for innovation in the Chchraian military training method. There is a very strict delineation of what is the right and wrong way to implement equipment. And it is sometimes very literally beaten into them.

But with Ian’s stroke of brilliance, Mickey thinks they just might come out of this in one piece. On the last lingering air currents Mickey had been riding to keep them aloft, he swings hard to port bringing the N-Kidu barreling into a dense, verdant rainforest.

“Now, Gallagher!”

The first switch sends a pair of posterior tow cables, while the second reverses the polarity of the slipstream drive. Instead of safeguarding the ship itself, now the field is directed outward, acting as a mild repulsor field. Meanwhile the tow cables hook themselves around the giant centuries-old trees.

The ride is bouncy. Mickey and Ian both get knocked around even with being strapped firmly into their seats. The repulsor field cushions their fall while the tow cables give them some drag. It could have worked even better if the trees had been as robust as they seem. Instead, the N-807 Kidu ends up uprooting them. The trees give them the drag they need to slow them down regardless.

Mickey squeezes his eyes shut, as though the onslaught of branches in the view screen might pop out and poke him in the eyes. Even after the ship settles, his eyes stay clamped shut. He doesn’t know if they survived. For all he knows they could be dead. He doesn’t know much about Terran views of the afterlife, but the old Chchraian religion put coins in your eyes on a ferry and some lizard monster eats you if your heart isn’t lighter than a feather. Freaky shit like that.

And Mickey knows damn well that his heart hasn’t been light as a feather since he was four years old.

“Mickey?”

He hears the click of Ian deactivating his harness, then feels the gentle pressure of a large hand bracing his arm.

“Here, let me take a look at that.” Mickey slowly unclenches his eyes to see the latest messiah looking down on him solemnly. Ian is bathed in the stark yellowish-white glow of the emergency lights. It vaguely reminds Mickey of these magical creatures him mom used to tell him and Mandy about. Winged spirits that always looked after you.

“How does it feel?”

“How does what feel?”

“Your arm, Mickey.” The seriousness of Ian’s voice doesn’t bode well. He looks at the appendage cradled in Ian’s hands. And he sees that the forearm is at a strange angle.

“Shit.”

“You couldn’t feel something was wrong?”

Mickey hesitates. “No, I couldn’t. You were in danger.”

“And you were hurt.” The Terran insists as he extracts a small red item from his pocket. He pulls off his jacket, laying it inside out and flat, revealing the tan, plaid inner lining. With a flick of his thumb, he reveals the red item to be the casing for a pocket knife and starts tearing at the inner lining, creating a collection of long, thin strips.  

“It’s just how we’re trained.”

Alliance conditioning, their soldiers are trained to ignore their own pain or discomfort during combat engagements. Of course, the pain he can cast aside pales in comparison to his fellow soldiers, being Terran and not Chchraian without their millennia of inherited mental discipline. They could lose a limb and manage to work through the pain.

“Well, that’s messed up. Do you have something long and flat? I need to make you a splint.”

“Are you a medic or something?”Mickey tries to loosen his harness with his one good arm, but Ian pushes him back to sitting.

“Yeah, I am. And that’s why you’re going to listen to me and hold still. Where can I find something? We need to make sure your arm heals properly to it has to lay flat.”

Mickey is tempted to push back. This is his ship, he makes the calls. But there is something oddly intriguing about watching Ian ply his trade. As tall as he is, Ian seems to stand taller, seem older and wiser than his years.

He watches in surprise as the Terran boy locates his toolbox and uses the largest spanner to brace his arm against before he begins binding it with the strips of cloth. Mickey is tempted to tell Ian about the bio regenerator in the med kit that will reduce healing time down to a day or two instead of weeks. But not yet, not while Ian is standing so close.  

“I thought you said you weren’t allowed to serve.”

“I wasn’t. Not in the armed forced, anyway. I wanted to be a soldier on the front lines.”

You just might get your wish, Mickey thinks ruefully. “You know, saving lives is important, too.”

Ian sticks out his chin. “I didn’t say it wasn’t. But it wasn’t what I dreamed of growing up to be when I was a kid.”

“I’m sure someone on earth thinks you’re their hero.”

“Tell that to Carrie.”

“Who’s Carrie?”

“Never mind,” he hums dejectedly. “This is the best I can do without supplies. Do you have a first aid kit or something?”

****

As he wands the Chchraian bio regenerator over the fracture, Ian can’t seem to reason why Mickey didn’t point him towards the med kit in the first place. Or why Mickey was impressed with Ian’s medical knowledge. The device about the size of an electric toothbrush, essentially renders Ian obsolete.

“Okay, that should be good enough,” after fifteen minutes under the glow of the regenerator’s orange light. “I’ll be good as new in a few days.”

“What’s our next order of business?” asks Ian as he fashions the remains of his jacket into a sling. The Star Knight bristled at the mild physical constraint, but says nothing.

Mickey reflects for a moment, closing his eyes as though there is a cheat seat under his eyelids. Then he rises to his feet, and

 “Okay. You triaged out of order, but that’s fine. Next, we shelter in place, then come assessments— our environment, the damages, repair time.” It reads as protocol that he is regurgitating from rote memorization. That very well could be the case. “Computer, run diagnostics and environmental scan. That’ll take us about half an—” he yawns, trying to force the word out, “half an hour, maybe.”

Ian takes stock of his face, the way Mickey’s eyes seem red and tired. “Mickey, when was the last time you slept?”

“Would you relax? I’ve got Alliance military training. I can go fifty-one point five hours without needing to sleep.”

“And I’m sure you’re pushing your limit. Christ, your worse than Lip.”

“Than what?” Asks Mickey, giving very little resistance when Ian guides him to his feet.

“Not what, who.” Explains Ian. “My older brother. He’s a stubborn jackass who always thinks he knows better, too.”

“You’re out of your depth, Red. You’d be digesting in some bug’s thorax if it weren’t for—”

“Lemme break it down for you, space boy.” The door to the back of the ship swooshes open as they approach it. “You’ve been up for over two days, and sleep deprivation impacts your reaction time. Probably why we just had a rousing game of ‘try not to die.’”

“Fuck off,” mutters the Chchraian without any heat behind it.

“You just had a physical injury and I’m no shrink, but I’m guessing medical trauma. And the guy who saves lives for a living is telling you to get some rest.”

Past an airlock and a small room Mickey calls “waste extraction,” they enter a chamber. There isn’t much to the room. It reminds Ian of the sample furniture he sees when he goes apartment-hunting. Two portholes illuminate the room in pale sunlight while circular sconces dot the walls.

A single bed, a little larger than Ian’s twin bed at home, is built into the wall. Similarly, there is a table that is designed to slide in and out of the wall as well as two chairs beside it. There is a strange panel on the wall opposite that looks like a cross between a microwave and a vending machine.

“You don’t need to fuss over me, Gallagher.”

“You’re supposed to be protecting me until we get back to your home planet or whatever, yeah? You can’t keep me safe, if you aren’t keeping yourself well. Isn’t that right.”

“Fuck’s sake…” the Star Knight grumbles even as he gives in and lets Ian lay him down on the bed. “Fine. I’ll get my forty winks. But you gotta stay here, where I can keep an eye on you.”

Ian has to suppress a laugh. He’s on an alien space ship and he can’t even verbally command the ship the way Mickey can. “Where else am I going to go?”

He sits at the foot of the bed, watching attentively as Mickey fights his body’s need for sleep.

“I’m not tired.”

“Yes, you are just let it happen.”

“I’m still too keyed up from before. Could you tell me about your life back on Terra or something?”

The corner of Ian’s mouth tugs upward sharply. “Are you asking me to read you a bed time story?”

“Fuck off, is what I asked for.”

“Okay, okay. Not like I have anywhere to be, anyway.” Ian takes a seat at the foot of the bed, leaning his back against the wall. Mickey’s feet are resting by the side of Ian’s thigh. Boots on the bed like he grew up in a barn. Ian slowly removes them, revealing a pair of small feet in black socks. If Mickey minds, he is too tired to put up a fight.

“So, to start off, me and my siblings were raised by my big sister, Fiona…” He tells Mickey about his siblings, his neglectful stepfather and equally neglectful and mentally ill mother. He related childhood stories, the scams they used to pull just to put food on the table and keep the lights on.”

Ian doesn’t know when Mickey fell asleep, but he is thankful he didn’t have to tell him that he didn’t end up having to tell him about the back half of his teen years.

He stays as he promised even though Mickey clearly isn’t keeping watch over him as the light of this world’s white star recedes beyond the horizon. He is careful to watch the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. He notices the way Mickey’s expression softens into something rather angelic when he sleeps. It’s rather calming, almost soothing to see him like this. He wants a closer look, but doesn’t want to wake his strange new companion. It doesn’t take long, but Ian too finally manages to drift to sleep himself.

Chapter Text

Mickey lays on his back beside Ian as he explains the ins and out of fixing a Chchraian grav/anti-grav propulsion unit. It’s excessively frustrating that he has no choice but to do this way. With his arm in a sling, he can’t get what he needs to do alone.  

“Okay, now use the radial equalizer to—” 

“Flatten out the dented area around the self-sealing stem bolt. I heard you the first time, Mickey.” 

He’s getting cocky now. Mickey doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or not. Confidence will win him support within the Alliance leadership. They have been at war with the Verrak’hai for so many generations, both morale and resolve so close to depletion, that they would leap at the chance to yield the reins to some hapless Terran suddenly made to feel important.  

But that cockiness could also get him killed.  

Keep him humble, Mickey.  

“Yeah? Well, you didn’t seem to hear me the second or third time.” 

“Yeah, yeah. But I’m getting it now.”  

“Well, it helps that Mouth showed you the basics. Even if you guys are still using fossil fuels.” 

“It’s ‘Lip,’” Ian corrects with a half smile. 

“Yes. Because ‘Mouth’ would be a silly name,” Mickey deadpans. 

**** 

Mickey had fallen asleep the prior night listening to Ian expound upon his siblings back on Terra. It made him feel a certain warmth, but also a twinge of jealousy, to hear about Ian’s robust if complicated family. Almost as long as he can remember, it’s always been just him and Mandy. He isn’t altogether certain what he remembers of their mother firsthand versus what he was taught in school. 

But listening to Ian last night unlocked a memory. Laura wrapping them asc warmly as possible in military-issue blankets and tucking them into either end of a bed that they were small enough to share in those days. She told them of brothers who wanted to meet them on the opposite side of the galaxy, three older brothers he would never know. Older brothers who wouldn’t know him to look at him and vice versa.  

He had woken up this morning (far longer than the short ninety minutes he had intended) and found the Terran redhead curled up by the foot of the bed, head rolled back and propped against the wall.  

I’m supposed to be the one taking care of him, Mickey thinks ruefully, feeling heat on the back of his neck.  

He ambled out of the glorified cot and despite his dominant arm being out of commission and strapped to his chest, he managed to reposition Ian flat on the bed. The redhead muttered about charting moods before settling against the foam pillow.  

Mickey looks him over. It’s the first time he has had a chance to really look at him without worrying about being caught staring. He brushes a few damp strands of red off his warm forehead, admiring the way, pale skin complexion notwithstanding, the guy’s freckles remind Mickey of an unending horizon of constellations.  

Reluctantly, he left Ian to rest and returns to the cockpit to assess the ship’s damage analysis summary. They could have ended up in much more dire straits if it weren’t for Ian’s creative thinking. Still, Mickey had some work ahead of him.  

According to the star charts, they landed on an uninhabited planet that is so inconsequential to Chchraian purposes that it never even warranted a name (in Mickey’s experience, this generally means the planet was neither rich in resources nor strategically advantageous), merely an alpha-numerical designation that they never even bothered updating from ancient Chchraian, Samek-4. Mickey forgets the name almost as soon as he reads it. Most importantly, they discovered that they are only twenty-three light years from base without delving back into the slipstream, at most a two-day journey at most. 

But with that one win came a few uphill climbs ahead of them. Rebuilding the propulsion system being one, limited access to ship’s resources due to power conservation being the other. The N-807 Kidu didn’t even give them the option, the Chchraian military philosophy is imbued even in their technology. 

It’s only fortunate that the portcullis dropped them off  on the doorstep of a world oxygen-rich atmosphere, Mickey didn’t look forward to having to do external repairs through a rebreather. So, two in the win column. Three, if you count the fact that they survived the crash. 

Planets and moons of a white dwarf that are capable of supporting life are depleted of their resources typically. Either the sapient inhabitants have vacated the husk of a world in search of greener pastures or they’re in the throes of driving themselves to extinction.  

But this world’s timeline is further along than is typical of a planet orbiting a star so far along on its life cycle. Either the dominant sapient species left so long ago that there is no surface traces of their civilizations or there never was one to begin with.  

But conversely, the N-807 Kidu picked up signs of an extraordinary range of biodiversity. If there there are any threats to them while they work on getting the ship spaceworthy is most likely going to come from the planet’s animal kingdom. 

****  

“How does that look?” Asks Ian, rousing Mickey from his daydreaming. Ian has finished the task that the have been working since they shared a meager morning meal of field rations. 

Mickey inspects the Terran Contender’s handiwork, repairing the outer casing of the engine. It’s hardly perfect work, but Ian takes instruction well. The engine itself is definitely going to be trickier. It’s a sensitive design that takes years of experience in order to master. Even doing it with one hand might prove more expedient than trying to talk the redhead through it.  

“Yeah, that’s great.” He says, hoping he sounds encouraging. He’s a little rusty. It has been nearly a year since he has taken on a new recruit, preferring to work with the tight squad of eight he has refined since he earned his third stripe on his uniform. “But let me take over from here. How about you try and rustle us up some grub.  

“Are you sure?” Asks the Terran boy. “I’ve got two hands and a long reach.” 

“The next part’s delicate work, Gallagher. One wrong move and you’ll either you’ll double my work or it’ll take forever.” 

“Oh,” Ian responds uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” 

Mickey can tell that his companion isn’t pleased with the instruction, but he doesn’t say anything to contradict him. Ian ascends the boarding ramp, Mickey waits until the Terran’s feet disappear into the vessel before he exhales, letting his shoulders slump.  

****  

Ian is slowly starting to understand the layout of the N-807 Kidu. The panel back in the sleeping quarters is a high tech food processor of some sort, but it’s offline because of the crash. He opens the drawer by Mickey’s console. He would hardly say that they are running low on rations, but the supply is dwindling.  

And he is tired of rations. What’s the use of all his ROTC and wilderness survival training over the years if he can’t use them when it counts? 

“Computer, can you equip me with a hunting weapon?” 

The ship makes a dissonant sound. “Voice pattern not recognized. Armory access requires level three or higher authorization.”  

Ian huffs in annoyance. How do these crazy aliens expect me to turn the tide of an interstellar war when I can’t even get a damn ship to listen to me? But within seconds, he is already is cooking up a Plan B. He thinks Liam has made him sit through enough Star Trek Lower Decks reruns to pull this off. 

“Computer, can you pull up records on Ian Gallagher?” 

The computer makes a chime that evokes the sense of thinking and Ian is caught off-guard when a hologram is projected from Mickey’s console. The image is a perfect copy of him in miniature, rendered in twitchy blue light.  

“Subject: Gallagher comma Ian C. twenty-two terrestrial years of age, 1.9 meters tall, 93 kilograms in weight. Born and raised in the city of Chicago. Update: Maternal parent Gallagher comma Monica née Darrgen. Deceased. Paternal parent, biological unknown, surrogate Gallagher comma Francis.” 

Ian wonders just how much information the ship’s computer knew about him to begin with versus whether the ship has been listening to him and updating as it goes. But that honestly isn’t his focus right now. 

“Computer, what is the significance of Ian Gallagher to the Alliance?” 

“Subject: Gallagher comma Ian C. has been identified as a Contender in the Chchraian subdivision of the Messianic Inquest program, the first in twenty-five years to be identified from any Alliance charter world, the previous entrant being Milkovich comma Laura L comma née Rozhenko.” 

“What clearance does Gallagher have?” 

“Clarification needed: before or after the Trials?” 

Ian doesn’t like the sound of that. “Let’s go with before.” 

“Prior to the Trials and official induction, Subject: Gallagher comma Ian C. possesses clearance level 4.” 

“Okay, good. What’s the problem then?” He thinks, then, “Computer, how was Gallagher located?” 

 “Subject: Gallagher comma Ian C. was identified and located by biological signature from readings taken during initial testing.” 

“Can you locate the Terran bio signature on the ship and cross-reference him with Gallagher’s bio signs?” 

“Seeking specification: There are two Terran bio signatures within vicinity of the N-807 Kidu, serial number…” 

Ian groans, running his fingers through his hair. He figures the ship must have been frazzled even more than he thought during the crash.  

“Computer, cross-reverence Gallagher’s bio readings with mine.” 

“Compliant.” 

The hologram of himself disappears and it is replaced by a flurry of lights scanning him up and down. He holds still and extends him arms and legs as though he were the Vetruvian Man, though he doesn’t know if it’s actually needed.  

“Subject: Unknown user has been identified as Subject: Gallagher comma Ian C.” 

“Does that mean I have clearance to the ship’s armory?” 

“Processing. Please state name and create password.” 

“Ian Clayton Gallagher. Password…” Ian thinks for a moment. He hates coming up with new passwords; he always forgets them. 

The computer makes a dissonant error sound. “Negative. Password cannot be ‘password.’” 

Ian has to laugh. Even an advanced civilization has shitty computer systems that make logging in a nightmare. 

“Okay, how about 2119 Wallace?” 

“Negative: Please avoid street names, significant other names, pet names, etc. when selecting your password.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

****  

Mickey is starting to think Gallagher must be stuck trying to figure out how the synthesizer works. He sent the Terran inside to grab some field rations over an hour ago.  

He has mostly gotten the grav/anti-grav engine running. They might even be able to leave before nightfall. Not to pat himself on the back or anything. He had told his sister the other day that he never pursued promotion above Star Knight because he would rather avoid a high profile position. But that’s honestly not the entire truth.  

He is a fighter pilot and a gear head. He does his best work when he rolls up his sleeves and gets his hands dirty— just him and that engine working in tandem. At most a Star Knight coordinates with ten other soldiers with skimmers of their own. Accepting promotion, a captaincy, would mean assuming command of a fully staffed starship, dozens of men and women under him. It means delegating and signing off on assignments collaborating with ship’s department heads when the truth is he is exactly in the role he is supposed to be. He is content where he is, just him and his ship. 

So why did he feel so shitty about shooing Ian away earlier? 

Mickey climbs the boarding ramp expecting to find Ian either at the synthesizer or digging through storage for something better than concentrated nutrition bars. But instead, he finds the ship empty and the armory hold open, the wall displaying the ship’s allotment of armaments on full display.  

“Computer?” He calls out feeling bile rising up the back of his throat. “Why is the armory open?” 

“Subject: Gallagher comma Ian C appropriated one Diktynna Mk. 7 photonic rifle and two personal shields.” 

“And you let him, why?” 

“Subject: Gallagher comma Ian C stated he was quote “going hunting.” 

“He what?” 

“Reiterating: Gallagher comma—” 

“Computer! Disregard!” 

Mickey’s stomach drops. Surely, Ian knows better than to go off on his own on a stranger planet. But then, he was raised on Terra. They haven’t even achieved manned space travel to their nearest neighbor planets. Of course, he wouldn’t know any better.  

He reaches for the jacket of his uniform and— dammit. If his uniform doesn’t align to his body properly, he cannot activate his elasti-steel armor cannot deploy properly. He doesn’t have a choice. 

Fucking seven hells…  

He wrestles off the sling so at least he can armor up properly, even if he’ll have to manage his Omni-Guard with his non-dominant hand. He snaps the closures of the jacket into place in record time and grabs his bandolier. His armor is bleeding out of the pores of his uniform and solidifying into place as he sprints out of place.  

With two quick verbal commands, the Heads Up display on the inside of his faceplate is attuned to Ian’s bio sign and he is plowing out into unknown terrains. 

****  

Quiet and still, Ian stalks between the thousand-year-old trees on the edge of a stream without any of the animal life paying much mind to them. Why should it? These creatures have probably never seen a human before. To hear Mickey tell it, there hasn’t been a sapient species on this planet as long as Chchraians having been charting star systems.  

Pay no attention to the human with the futuristic shotgun, friendly little critters. 

It may have been some time since Ian handled a firearm, but by the time he quit ROTC, he had a rating of Sharpshooter on rifles. He could shoot a freckle at two hundred paces. And as long as his hands don’t tremor, he shouldn’t have any trouble now. 

He sets his sights on something moderately sized creature about the size of Pitbull that looks like it might be some sort of particularly burly, feathered cat with speckled orange plumage . He has played Oregon Trail. He knows there is only so much he can carry back to the wagons. Don’t aim for the bear or the bison when a deer will suffice. And with any luck, they won’t need more than enough for a few meals. 

The animal is by itself, unlike many of the other creatures assembling at the stream who seemed to believe in safety in numbers. Good. The last thing he wants today is testing out the strength of the energy shields strapped to his forearms.  

Shouldering the alien rifle and aligning the reticle to his eye, it takes him aback that the screen seems to be analyzing the creature’s physiology, determining where to aim in order to ensure the most painless kill. If he were on a hunting trip back home, that would be damn annoying. But here on an alien world where he has no idea what he is even looking at every bit helps. He lets the tech do the walking, following the light on the reticle until he is aligned just right.  

He releases the trigger, unleashing a pelt of crackling kelly green light  and a the air cracks as the landscape shakes. No, Ian shakes. For a moment, he thinks his goddamn hands caused him to tremor at just the exact wrong time. Rather, it was the recoil. He wasn’t expecting that. Mickey’s neuro-whatever hadn’t made a lot of noise yesterday. He had assumed this would be the same case.  

Instead, birds crow and screech, flying out of their trees, blackening the sky like storm clouds. The ground-level animals scatter in a disorganized panic. But then the world around Ian settles and he zeroes in on the spot where his target had been. The felled creature lays down, the last hitched, staggering breaths croaking from its muzzle as plumes of smoke rise into the air. A few more wheezing gasps. And then it lies still. 

Feeling, not to be too full of himself, proud for bagging his target on the first try, he pads across the loamy grass to collect his quarry. 

But that’s when he hears another rumble, causing a the canopies of the trees to tremble as though filled with dread. Ian needs to steady himself as he kneels next to his kill. Whatever is coming sounds like it could plow him over in an instant. Slinging his weapon over his left shoulder, he hefts the lifeless creature over his right shoulder. 

He is about to run when two creatures bigger than bull elephants appear thrashing their way out of the dense woods. All three of them look like much larger, intimidating, and very angry versions of the creature now dead in Ian’s arms. Though rather than the small one’s orange speckled plumage, these ones have shed their feathers to reveal spiky brown fur with white stripes along their temples. The upper half of their muzzles have a certain beak-like quality to them. If Ian had to give a name to them, “griffin” would have to serve. 

And then with sickening realization, he understands. He killed their baby. A cold chill runs down his spine and he backs away until he’s right up against the water’s edge.  

He has  one sneakered foot planted in the muddy water as the mother pounces at him, taloned paws slashing at him in baleful rage. The only reason he hasn’t been torn to ribbons is due to the shielding units strapped to either forearm. A shimmer of crystalline ultramarine blooms around him as the beast’s claw makes contact.  

“Aaaggghh!” But he still feels the impact. Instinctively, his hand reaches for his chest and he feels the gash in the fabric, the thin fissure in his own skin, the stickiness of his own blood seeping out onto his fingers.  

The shields aren’t foolproof. 

Ian’s eyes go wide with terror, even if his vision clouds at the corner. He realizes with haunting certainty that he might be moments away from death. He takes another ill-thought-out step back and loses his footing, falling back-first into the water. Drenched in the stream and bleeding, he feels the shields fizzle. Shit, these highly advanced aliens haven’t learned how to water-proof their tech? Ian can’t help but think of Mickey’s jape the day before about whatever tribal gods Terrans worship. He could use their help right about now.  

Both creatures close in on him and Ian knows this must be the end. He doesn’t how what will kill him first—the bloodloss or the griffins’ continued assault 

And then all he sees is electric blue. Mickey is armored for battle. His plating of his dominant arm, still recovering from its injury, has been fashioned into a large oval-shaped shield with serrated edging. In his left hand, he brandishes his Omni-Guard, set to function as a hard light broadsword. All he needs is to ride a horse and Ian would never doubt the moniker of “knight” ever again. 

The fight is short, but brutal. Mickey puts a stop to it when the male seems as though he is about to devour Mickey’s head, but instead, receives a maw full of off-brand lightsaber, decapitating it from the inside out. The female puts forth one last salvo before Mickey slashes the Omni-Guard against her extended talon, causing her to flee.  

Ian’s savior turns toward him, still sitting up in the stream. Mickey taps at a point under his jawline and his face comes into view, his expression a mix of annoyance and relief. “I could kill you, you know that?” He groans as the metal that formed the shield melts back into his armor. Immediately, he presses his arm across his chest as though he were wearing an invisible sling. “Never go off half-cocked by yourself in unknown terrain!” 

“Could we put a pin on the lecture until later?” asks Ian as he accepts the Space Knight’s extended hand. “My pride’s injured as it is.” 

“Not to mention you’re gushing blood. I need to get you under a bio regenerator. And find you a new shirt.” 

“I’ll live.” 

Mickey looks at the two dead creatures, laying lifeless on the mossy earth. “Well... At least we won’t have to rely on rations.” 

Chapter Text

Mickey has to admit it— Ian Gallagher has some grit to him. Or could it be that he’s too in over his head to know what’s good for him? Or maybe he’s crazy. Or just plain dumb. In any case, it all adds up to one thing: Mickey going out of his mind with worry. It had nothing to do with failing a high profile mission and everything to do with Ian himself.

Still, he has to hand it to Ian, the fact they managed to get back to the ship with their new source of protein in tow, before Ian passed out from the blood loss is impressive, at least in terms of resilience. He has known seasoned members of the military with their eyes trained on High Command who get woozy at the mere sight of their own blood. They must raise them to be tough back on Terra.

Comparatively, Mickey feels utterly weak now that he half-kneels hunched over the bed soaking in the sight of Ian Gallagher stripped down to the waist. Even ignoring the slash across his chest, which looks like it should heal nicely thanks to the bio regenerator, his body is a wonder to behold. And try as he might to control himself, not all of Mickey’s anatomy seems to be getting the memo.

He tries not to let it bother him. And if Gallagher doesn’t notice, he’ll count that as a win.

“Would you quit your laughing, Mister Jiggle Tits?” He snaps, “This shit’s delicate work.”

He makes a concerted effort to sound much more annoyed than he actually is. If he doesn’t train his face into a disgruntled scowl and sound like he’d rather be somewhere else, then he has to focus on the fact that Ian is laying flat on his back before him in nothing but a snug white undergarment that only covers his posterior and crotch. And if the curvature of his front is any indication, then it is taking all Mickey’s willpower not to explore what may be lurking behind the Y-shaped fly on the garment.

Even focusing on the wounded area in question is making it difficult to keep from salivating. Between the gentle slope of the v-line that extends southward, and the abdominal and pectorals muscles of his chest looking like he was carved from marble, Mickey doesn’t know how he could have maintained a veneer of professionalism. But he manages to wrangle in that impulse to guffaw over Ian and converts it into playful teasing instead.

“I can’t help it, it tickles!” Ian laughs.

Mickey bites his lip. He has no intention of letting the Terran have any indication of just how much he enjoys the sound of Ian’s laughter. It has this low, robust timbre to it that makes Mickey feel like he could hear that sound forever.

But he doesn’t have forever, does he? Once he arrives at base aboard The Asterion, Prox will dig his claws in but good. Then he’ll put Ian in some impossible situation just like what happened to his mom. And then he’ll be gone, too. This journey, full of mishaps though it may be, is the most time he’ll ever have with the only other man from Terra he has ever known.

“Well, at least your case of the giggles means this shit’s working.

“What is that stuff anyway?” Asks Ian as Mickey gingerly applies the cool to the gash running diagonally across Ian’s torso.

“Dermal epoxy,” he explains as centimeter by centimeter he applies the salve to Ian’s wound, then presses the cleaved dermis together. “Helps bind the skin so that the bio regenerator has an easier time making sure your skin heals properly. No weird scars or anything this way.”

“Oh, so like liquid sutures.”

Mickey nods. “And as a plus, it anesthetizes you. Hence why you’re laughing and not groaning anymore.”

“I wasn’t groaning.”

“You were bellyaching like a four-year-old who just lost his mama,” snickers Mickey, jabbing his unharmed lower torso playfully.

But Ian isn’t laughing now. His upper lip curls and his eyes narrow. “Shit, did you lose your mom at four, too?”

Ian’s eyes widen, then his expression slackens. “What? No. It was a few years back. But Mickey… you were four?”

“It’s no big deal. Life moves on, right?”

The Terran boy’s fingers wrap themselves around his forearm. “Is that how you really feel? I mean, my relationship with my mom was complicated, but she was still my mom.”

Mickey is torn between the flutter in his stomach that Ian’s touch causes and the melancholy threatening to push through the numbness about his mother that he has spent the past twenty years cultivating.

“Look, my mom was this big deal back where I grew up. And everyone’s keen to remind me,” Mickey has been keen to avoid talking about her with Ian, or his personal history. In fact, he has been content to give Ian every impression that he is just another run of the mill Chchraian.

Though he isn’t entirely sure why.

Ian has just been plucked from the only life he has ever known. From family, friends, a worthwhile career, and, from what Mickey has gleaned from Ian’s stories last night, a hard-earned stability after years of struggle.

He and his sister Mandy are the only other Terrans for thousands of light years. They’re his people. And yeah, they were literally in utero when Laura was spirited away from Earth, but they know what it means to be resident aliens. Outsiders, despite the posturing of being embraced by Chchraian society. And they may not be the infamous Laura Milkovich, but they know what it means to live under weight of the Messianic prophesy.

Why is he hiding from Ian in plain sight?

“So, you’re the son of some Chchraian big-wig, huh?”

“Something like that,” Mickey’s shoulders roll half-heartedly. “Arms up,” Mickey instructs as he begins wrapping a long cloth bandage around Ian’s upper torso, further stabilizing the newly epoxied area of Ian’s chest with a bandage.

Maybe he is keeping his own background to himself because as Mickey the Star Knight, he gets to be a person. Mickey Milkovich carried too much baggage to be anything besides the son of the Messiah Who Fell.

“Okay,” Mickey sighs. “Turnabout is fair play. I want you to lay back and take it easy for a few hours.”

“But—”

“That’s an order from the commander of this vessel,” Mickey insists with a tone of authority usually reserved for raw recruits.

“Could you stick around until I fall asleep at least?” Ian asks earnestly. Despite his stature, he curls onto his side and makes himself as small as possible so that they’ll both fit. He truthfully thinks it’s adorable, but he would never admit it. “I grew up sharing a cramped room with three noisy brothers. And it…”

“And the ship gets quiet.” Mickey nods, understanding. He and Mandy shared a room their whole lives until Mandy hit puberty. The officer who had fostered them from the time their mother's death until they were assigned their commissions, decided to separate them after that, though Mickey was a stupid kid and didn’t understand why. All he understood was that his sister was being reassigned quarters on the other end of the habitat ring. He remembers that sense of loneliness hollowing him from the inside out.

He looks Ian up and down again. Even pressed against the inner wall of the bunk, Ian is a big, strapping figure. He would have to lie close enough to count every freckle for them to share the bed side by side like that. Hells, he may literally have to lay on top of Ian. When he’s practically naked.

He inhales sharply and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. How many opportunities like this is he realistically going to have?

“Yeah. I’ll stick around, princess.”

****

Ian’s consciousness drifts. He sees monsters coming at him. Claws slashing at him. He sees the rotating disco lights of the Fairy Tale. He sees the stark white lights of a hospital room. He sees the blood stained on the kitchen floor where Monica had been.  He dreams of being chased down an alley, shafts of spiraling greenish-yellow light flying over his head, and giant insects with bone-crushing mandibles cornering him at a dead end, murder in their compound eyes.

He startles awake and finds himself in the  bunk of the ship again. He can’t have been asleep long. Mickey is dozing softly beside him, boots and uniform jacket discarded. The snug, practical undershirt he has on leaves his alabaster smooth arms exposed. The Chchraian is curled on his side to face him, Mickey’s head resting on Ian’s shoulder and a hand laying limply on Ian’s hip. He feels something stiff pressed against his thigh. And it isn’t Mickey’s sidearm.

He tries not to read into it. Maybe Mickey is accustomed to sleeping with a body pillow at home. Though there is no use denying that Mickey is difficult to read. Prickly as a cactus one moment, then soft and sensitive with him the next; he acts like he’d be better off alone, and yet he makes Ian feel like he’s more than just Mickey’s current assignment.

Ian can feel himself dozing again, a yawn trying to drag him back into the land of Nod like an undertow. But before he lets sleep take him, he experimentally wraps an arm around the peacefully sleeping alien, letting his hand rest gingerly on Mickey’s lower back.

Unconsciously, Mickey nuzzles in closer.

Ian wakes up sometime later feeling refreshed, alone in the bed. Ian’s disappointment is tempered by giving himself a dose of realistic expectations. Mickey only laid down beside him because he begged him too. Shit how pathetic is that? Ian doesn’t even know if Mickey leans towards guys. And even if he did, he seriously doubts Mickey would go halfway across the galaxy in search of a boyfriend when someone who looks like him probably has his choice of dick back home.

He reaches over to where Mickey had been resting before. His indent in the bedding is still there even if he has been gone long enough for the sheets to feel cool. Mickey’s scent lingers. He could get high off the man’s natural musk—an earthy, peppery scent that almost reminds him of wandering around the community gardens up in Wicker Park. With it comes the lingering scent engine grease. He breathes in deep, but then puts a stop to it.

If he really is the messiah of some alien empire, then he has to focus. Funny to think Fiona once thought that being an EMT would be too much stress for Ian to manage his bipolar under. Now he has entire star systems that need him to take care of his mental health so he can take care of them.

God, his bipolar… Lucky for him, he had his meds with him just in case he did end up going home with someone after Sue’s celebration the other night. He has the better part of a ninety-day supply. But then what? Can they synthesize his meds? And what about therapy and tracking his moods? Maintaining a routine? How much stability and predictability can he expect to find as a galactic savior figure in the middle of a war?

He wonders if Mickey has some answers.

He should tell Mickey. Ian knows that his experience with Chchraians is limited to literally only one singular man. But something tells me he lucked out with the one they send to rescue him. Like it was supposed to be Mickey.

He thinks he an trust Mickey with the truth of his diagnosis. Mickey’s made of sterner stuff than just about any guy he’s ever met. Mickey can handle it.

But then again, he thought Trevor could handle it, too.

He throws his legs over the side of the bed and feels his chest, still bare and wrapped in dressing. He wonders how necessary it actually was. After all, the bio regenerator supposedly cuts down healing time to a fraction of what it ought to be. If the progress with Mickey’s broken arm is any indication, Ian might have to start believing it. Not only that, but Mickey essentially glued his chest shut.

He places a finger carefully along the length of the laceration beneath the dressing. Sure, it still aches, but it still astounds him to see just how much he has mended in just a few hours.

At least he thinks it has been a few hours. He has no idea how long a day last on this planet and the time on his dying Samsung Galaxy is pretty much meaningless.

He stands up, the floor of the ship cool against his bare feet. He is careful not to stretch as he normally would. Sophistically medical technology or not, he doesn’t want to risk popping a proverbial stitch. He looks around for his clothes. His khakis are dry, but that’s pretty much the only thing salvageable at the moment. His socks and sneakers are a soggy mess, swollen and covered in muck from the stream. The thought of slipping his feet back in them in their current state makes his flesh crawl.

Then there is his plaid button-down, slashed open across the chest and drenched in his own blood. He already feels gross enough having not bathed in over twenty-four hours without attempting to salvage it.

Hopefully, Mickey has a spare he can wear or the rest of this trip to Mickey’s base is going to be a tits-out operation.

As he approaches the boarding ramp, he takes a mild comfort in the planet’s mild temperatures. It reminds Ian of that sweet spot in the calendar year during late May when it actually does feel like Spring before the Summer heat takes a stranglehold.

In the air, he smells the scent of burning wood and the alluring aroma of meat cooking. He licks his lips as his bare feet touch the tall blades of alien grass and he sees Mickey standing at a makeshift fire where he is slowly turning both of the slaughtered animals skewered on metallic spits.

Before he comments on the cooking, he hears a mild beeping and notices a device affixed to a tall pole impaled into the soft ground beside the hull of the ship. It emits the beeping in time with a dim, blinking green light.

“Smells pretty good out here.”

Mickey looks up at him. Ian feel’s the Space Knight’s eyes on him, eyes wide. It makes Ian feel like he’s on display. He doesn’t know where this feeling comes from. Back on Earth, he was hardly inexperienced with men. For a minute there, he was a literal sex worker. But for some reason, the way Mickey looks at him makes Ian feel like a virgin all over again. And if he doesn’t lose his V-Card soon, he might implode.

Mickey looks away as quickly as possible. Ian is convinced he is just imagining Mickey being sheepish. Someone brash as him? No way would he just get shy out of nowhere.

“It’s nothing fancy,” Mickey demurs, looking away. “But I’ve taught emergency wilderness training enough times to know how to roast wild game. Though full transparency, I tell my charges to aim for something smaller.”

“At least we’ll have leftovers. If we can dehydrate the meat, we can make jerky.”

Mickey looks up at him again like he is going to say something. But then seems to second-guess the decision. Ian wonders if he said something wrong and Mickey’s too proud to admit it.

“What’s up with this?” He changes the subject, pointing to the chirping device.

“That’s my back-up plan. I should only need a couple hours after we eat to get us off this rock, but we don’t have enough P-Benz to get us home.”

“P-Benz?” Asks Ian before Mickey’s lesson from this morning comes back to him.

“Peribrillion-Benzine,” Mickey reminds him, his eyes trained fixedly on the meat.

“Oh, right,” Ian responds heatedly.  “Engine fuel. So what’s this thing doing? Mining some for us?”

“What? Ye gods, you think a planet in our territory wouldn’t have an Alliance presence if there was anything worthwhile here?”

Ian doesn’t get it. Drinkable  water, breathable water, seemingly unending rainforests, and teeming with all sorts of strange, exotic wildlife. This place is Eden as far as Ian is concerned. It makes him very curious to know what the Alliance of Free Worlds does and doesn’t think has value.

“No,” Mickey continues, “This here is a rescue beacon.”

Ian’s face twists itself into a question mark. “Why didn’t you do that in the first place?

Mickey scoffs. “What do I look like? Some Nova? We don’t give up until we burn out all our options.”

“Nova?”

“The Novitiate. Cadets who don’t know their asses from their elbows. And technically, this mission is on a need-to-know basis. So, I’m not exactly going through official channels right now. Osur below, is she going to kill me.”

“She?”

“My sister. Mandy.”

****

It had to be done, Mickey thinks to himself as they sit around the fire letting their meals digest after they had both eaten their fill. Calling in his sister was completely necessary. On multiple fronts, they are at a crossroads and Mickey is fearful that if he doesn’t get Ian back to base soon, he is going to make a fool of himself. And if there is one person Mickey can rely on to both pull his ass out of the fire and prevent him from acting like a clown, it’s Mandy.

Ian keeps looking at him like he has something important he wants to tell Mickey. But he cannot let the Terran speak the words. Because Mickey doesn’t know if he has the resolve to deny him.

And that traitorous lack of self-restraint just might make things worse for Ian. The guy already has the unfortunate fate of being the Alliance’s newest sacrificial lion. Mickey can’t compound Gallagher’s problems by splitting his focus. Laura’s focus was split between her children and the Alliance and look what happened to her.

Mickey is starting to suspect he has been done in from the moment he saw Ian’s determined smirk in the holo-projection. And it has only gotten progressively worse ever since he swept a frightened Ian into his arm moments after meeting him.

But he ignored that ache. He figured he has had passing interest in other guys but it passed easily enough. No need getting attached to this Terran who was both destined for bigger things and doomed to a short lifespan.

Then a couple hours ago, nothing felt more perfectly natural waking up from a nap to find Ian’s arm wrapped around him, feeling his lower lip pressed to Mickey’s temple. All the times he shrugged off what he was feeling in the past two days feels like empty rhetoric now. He wanted Ian so badly that if he didn’t extract himself from the man’s embrace, it would have been all over. He would have exposed himself for the lovesick idiot he has striven not to be ever since C’yro Qal. And in that moment, he would have done so contentedly, convinced Ian would reciprocate.

He wishes he could say he dodged a bullet.

But he realizes that the damage is done whether he tells Ian how he feels or not. Because now Mickey knows beyond a shadow of a doubt. Ian has wrecked him with his smiles and his soft embrace. Years of building up his emotional armor all for nothing.

“Mickey?”

Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t.

“Yeah, princess?” Mickey tries to play “I hope you’re not about to ask about the second course.”

The Terran boy laughs nervously. “No, it’s just, I was wondering… this morning. Would you say that me running off like was impulsive?”

Mickey shrugs. “Yeah, sure. But then again, it’s not like you know about xeno-planetary precautionary procedures. You weren’t raised on this shit like I was.”

“Okay, so I was being impulsive, but…” he sighs. “Do I seem fine to you?”

Mickey doesn’t know what Ian is getting at. But at least he isn’t going down the emotional event horizon Mickey is dreading. “I guess.”

“I don’t sound erratic or like I’m talking nonsense or talking to fast.”

Mickey slides closer to his companion on the log that they are seated on. “Ian, what are you getting at?”

“I can trust you, right?” Ian is looking deep into Mickey’s eyes like he is trying to assess the core of his very soul. “Like, this is really serious, Mickey. I had a support system back home and I’m going to need one out here, too. Can I trust you to have my back? ‘Cause I’m not always going to be in right the frame to notice when I’m off.”

This is’t what Mickey was expecting, but it’s earnest in a way that he has come to expect from Ian. His right hand suddenly feels warm and protected in a way it hasn’t felt since Mandy was sent to live on the other end of their star base, may not since he lost his mother. He looks down and sees Ian’s fingers laced through his.

“I wasn’t sure if or when I should tell you. But I think I can trust you. I wanna think you trust me, too.”

Mickey gulps and nods.

“I think I want to tell you while it’s still just us. You and me.”

“Osur and Zo! Just spit it out, princess! The suspense is killing me.”

Ian takes a few deep breaths, seeming like he is psyching himself up. “Okay, and I need you not to get freaked out or anything.”

“Gallagher…”

“Okay.” He sighs. “So, you know those pills that I take…?”

Chapter Text

The floor beneath their feet rumbles only for a moment, but then settles. The subsequent motion is surprisingly fluid and if the external view on the screen didn’t show them gradually elevating into the canopy, Ian would have been convinced they were still on the ground. Instead, they gently bob in the air, held aloft on an anti-gravity field.

Feeling confident, Ian looks out his peripheral vision and sees the hint of a smile on Mickey’s face and a single utilitarian nod. He’s on the right track. He’s learning.

Mickey doesn’t generally make him feel nervous. In fact, he feels more himself around Mickey than he has felt in a long time. Still, the urge to impress him is strong. After telling him about his bipolar the other night, Ian is keen to make sure Mickey knows he is still just as capable as he was before he told him.

Mickey took the disclosure of Ian’s mental health struggles fairly well. There was neither that sense of suddenly treating Ian like something he has to fix like his older siblings still tend to slip into, nor was there the sense of blithely pretending it isn’t a problem at all until suddenly it becomes one, the way Trevor had reacted.

Mickey had listened patiently, understanding or at least trying to understand. Ian isn’t sure if he gave Mickey a complete mental picture of what living with his condition is like, but fortunately, Mickey asks good questions. The most important question was undoubtedly his last of the evening. “How can I help?” Having spent the past five years dealing with either people who insist they know better or want to ignore it, Mickey asking Ian specifically how Ian would like Mickey to be his support meant the world to him.

“Okay, you’ve just engaged AG at level 1. Which means…”

“Which means we’re just hovering ten feet off the ground.”

“Good. Now what’s your next step gonna be?”

“Inertial thrusters.”

“Terrestrial inertial thrusters.”

“Right, I know.” Ian insists. The set-up isn’t too drastically different from the flight simulators he has played over the years, but the added layer of space travel does make it tricky. Case in point, Mickey’s ship used different thrusters within an oxygen-nitrogen-rich terrestrial planet’s atmosphere than is does a gaseous world with helium and hydrogen atmospheres, and still another in the vast void of space.  The terrestrial inertial thrusters make Earth’s rocket ships look about as sophisticated as a Neanderthal’s club does compared to a katana, but when you get down to brass tacks, it’s still a combustion engine. It relies on oxygen.

He reaches for a switch on the control panel, only for Mickey to swat Ian’s hand away.

“Watch what you’re doing, princess. That’s the Trifurcator. And we aren’t exactly in a combat scenario.”

Among the more ludicrous features of the N-807 Kidu is its ability to trisect itself into three smaller vessels. A partition running the length of the cockpit would drop down and divide the anterior of the ship into two smaller dog fighters meant to either protect whoever is left in the posterior “life raft” or at least run interference to give non-combatants time to escape.

Ian throws his hands up in frustration, heat crawling down his spine. “Well, how am I supposed to know what’s what here when I can’t even read this shit?” Ian feels like an ass. He may not be a genius like his brothers Lip or Liam. But he isn’t exactly Carl either. He figures out procedures and equipment pretty easily when he can actually read the displays in front of him.

“Look, when we get back to base, we can get you chipped with a universal translator.” Mickey takes Ian’s hand, and Ian lets his arm go limp. Beneath the simple dark green shirt that Mickey synthesized for him, he feels his forearm break out in goose flesh  and his breathing shallows slightly as the older man guides his fingers to the appropriate key. The delicate way the knight guides his thumb to the appropriate silver button in front of a panel of several dimmers.

“Remember— you gotta prime the terrestrial thrusters first.”

He remembers. He depressed the button, pumping it three times like Mickey taught him, then holding it down until he hears the click. Turning his attention to the small panel of knobs that resemble dimmer switches, he gingerly presses the two furthest to the left with his first two fingers. Slow and steady just like Mickey told him.

He feels the rumble of the thrusters firing up beneath them, the horizon around them receding from view as he gradually slides the switches higher.

“That’s it, Gallagher. Time it so you don’t hit the max until we enter the exosphere. Then you’re gonna want to—”

“—adjust my trajectory for orbital turn.” Ian finishes, though admittedly he is reminding himself as he walks through the steps. He angles the the ship, prepping to cut the thrusters and shift into orbit instead of its upward trajectory.

As they rise higher and the pale pink of Samek-4’s atmosphere gives way to the inky dark vacuum of space. Ian spots a thin band come into view in the distance. Higher still, the thin band seems to shift idly. Wider and wider it grows as they crest the planet’s exosphere until Ian realizes what it is he is looking at: an asteroid belt cincturing the globe at a seventy-degree angle.

It must be asteroid field they smacked right into when they exited the slipstream. It make him wonder if the planet had more than three moons before some sort of collision and the ring of asteroids is its last remnant.

Cutting the engines four hundred miles above the planet’s surface and letting forward momentum carry them into apoapsis feels counter-intuitive. But then, up until now his objective when learning at flight sims like Pilotwings and Ace Combat was to soar the skies. The fact that (with supervision) Ian is piloting the ship off the planet altogether is messing with his head a little bit.

Even with the artificial gravity, Ian feels a temporary sense of  weightlessness in the two treacherously long seconds the vessel lists adrift in the void, carried only by the wake of their own momentum. They wait for what happens next. Mickey sounds confident that Ian did alright, but by his own admission, Mickey has lived on space stations all his life. He doesn’t understand what it feels like to live an entire life with one’s feet tethered to solid ground, the way Ian has. All Ian can think of in the two-second limbo is that they are hundreds of miles above the planet’s surface without any power source keeping them aloft. The last time they were in this position several days ago, it took some quick last-minute thinking that prevented them from becoming a smear on the landscape.

The higher you climb, the bigger the fiery wreck when you fall.

Ian’s throat tightens and he forgets how to breathe. But then he feels the sensation of a sensation almost like his stomach, as well as the world around him has been hooked on a fishing line. It gently pulls the ship into the gravitational pull of geosynchronous orbit.

Ian is temporarily frozen in shock that he actually managed to do it. So astounded that he jumps at the feeling of a firm yet velvety-soft hand squeezing his shoulder.

“Not bad for someone who can’t read the language, huh?” Ian thinks this is the first time he has seen his rescuer-slash-abductor smile so unguardedly. He wishes he could make the older man smile like that more often. Mickey’s smile makes Ian melt like a pad of butter on warm bread. Ian lets himself exhale, leaning back in his chair, he feels his whole body unclench from the fear and ease into Mickey’s touch.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Ian counters. “So, now that we’re back in the air—”

“Or lack thereof,” jokes Mickey, unfastening his safety harness and rising to his feet.

“—what’s next?”

****

Mickey shrugs nervously as his digits squeeze the back of his chair. “Now we wait. Assuming my sister started readying the Sekhmet right after she sent the signal last night, the earliest I’m expecting her is tomorrow night.”

Maybe he’s being too bold, thinking that Ian would want to spend the rest of their time together cooped up on the ship with nothing to do but bank time together. After all, for the past few night, yes they sleep side by side in a small bed. And certainly, Mickey has woken up more than once in the middle of the night to find them wrapped up in each other.

But neither of them have broached the subject.

Mickey knows what is holding him back. C’yro Qal, Star Wing 2nd Class. The lifeless face and unseeing eyes of the boy he had fallen for at eighteen. And Mickey was so intoxicated by his cocky sense of bravado that it blinded him to the gap between the boy’s confidence and his capability. He let C’yro get away with more than the others. Mickey didn’t push him hard enough, convinced that C’yro was indestructible. He wasn’t. Mickey has made a point of training the men and women under within an inch of their lives and yet keeping them at a distance ever since.

But why hasn’t Ian mentioned it? He has to be feeling what Mickey is, right? Why else would he keep agreeing to climb into bed with him? Why would Mickey keep waking up in the middle of the night practically enveloped in his arms, Ian’s nose buried in his hair? His length pressed against Mickey’s thigh?

“And it’s not like we can joy ride, right?” Ian asks. “Not if we expect your sister to track us here.”

Mickey shrugs. “Now that we’re back in the black and the dark matter converter is keeping the secondary systems fully powered, if I figured there are some Terran films in the data banks.”

“You have movies from home?”

Mickey shrugs. “Chchraia does anthropology surveys on Terra every couple of decades. I’ve never heard of most of them, but I figure you’ll know what’s good.”

This is a lie. It’s a minor lie, but it feels relatively massive. The Terran films in his data base were all found among Laura’s files after she died. Mickey and Mandy were only granted access to Laura’s data after they turned thirteen and underwent the ceremonial ritual of ascension. Among her files were the twelve films that now take up space in Mickey’s storage. Apparently she had requested them from the Chchraian Archival Program in the first year or so when she was homesick and had far too much time on her hands. Having two newborns in need of constant attention prevented her from being much of a Messiah to anyone. In the time since Mandy and Mickey inherited her things, Mickey has watched all of them at least once. But by his own admission, he doesn’t know enough about Terra to make sense of them.

Mickey presses on. “I could synthesize us something to eat and you could pick some things to keep us occupied.”

“Dinner and a movie?”

“Is that not a good thing?” Mickey asks, feeling insecure. “I think there are some other Terran things in the data banks. Some music—”

“No, dinner and a movie is fine. I just wasn’t expecting it.” Ian seems lighter somehow. That must be a good thing. Mickey will need to remember to find more ways to help Ian feel connected to Terra if the ways he is smiling is any indication.

****

Dinner and a movie, Ian thinks. Is this a date? Does Mickey even know enough about Earth to know this is a date?

Mickey has retracted the cockpit chairs into the floor and he has taken the blanket from the bed and laid it out on the floor. A synthesized meal, as well as the jerky they ended up with from Ian’s hunt is laid out ready to be eaten. This feels so much like going to a Movies in the Park night that all it needs to complete the picture is passing a joint back and forth.

It is up to Ian to select the film, considering Ian probably has a better frame of reference for Terran cinema. Though Mickey  still needs to rattle off the entries in the data base because the titles and file descriptions are listed in Chchraian. It’s not only frustrating but also baffling that he needs to read things off to him at all. By some quirky coincidence, Terran English and Chchraian basic are mutually intelligible, despite the utterly incomprehensible writing system.

Though listening to Mickey read off the descriptions in his own voice, honeyed but also with a bit of a gravel to it, makes it at least tolerable.

“What about this one? Noisy Ghost.”

“Never heard of it.” He asks encouragingly.

“It’s about this little girl who gets eaten by a house.”

“That’s the description?”

“No, that’s me summarizing. Here’s the actual description. ‘A mother, a scientist and a medium work together to rescue a child from unnatural creatures—’”

“That’s Poltergeist.” Ian laughs fondly. “Fiona used to chase me and Lip out of the room during the meat scene.”

“So is this the one?”

“Depends. Can you handle horror?”

Mickey puffs out his chest indignantly. “I’ve been fighting in a war since I was  thirteen. What do you think?”

****

This might have been a tactical error. Mickey didn’t expect Ian to go for the scary shit. Then again, what does he know about Terran pop culture? Maybe the average Terran likes the heart-pounding terror because they have never had to face down a Verrak’hai Mantis in hand-to-hand combat.

He was expecting Ian to choose the one about the space rebel with the energy sword, or maybe the one about the love story on a sinking ship. Or even the one about the craftsman who tricks a rich amnesiac into being his wife after she falls off a boat and they fall in love. Or Daniel-San. Ian seems equal parts idealistic and sentimental.

But no. He goes for the terrifying movie about the family whose child is spirited away by forces beyond their reckoning. Mickey opts not to focus on the fact that Ian has been spirited away by forces beyond Terran reckoning. I rescued Ian, he convinces himself. I didn’t abduct him or steal him away. And as soon as I convince Prox that he’s not emotionally equipped to handle the job, I’m taking him home.

Ignoring all the nightmare inducing imagery that his mother apparently loved enough to keep it on her short list, the film still provides Mickey with a cornucopia of questions about his long-lost homeworld to inquire Ian about before the introductory Terran text is done cluttering the view screen. He inquires about Terran family structures, single-family homes, swimming pools, residential communities, the various toys he sees the children playing with. Though, he does recognize the images on the little boy’s bedsheets, oddly enough.

“So, on Terra companies buy huge swaths of land and just build the same house over and over again?”

Ian looks over at him looking about as uncertain as Mickey is. “I don’t know. I guess. Not anywhere near where I’m from.”

“So, what is Chicago like then?”

Ian hesitates as he takes a long swig of his glass of Upashi Gold. “Depends. Are you asking me about Chicago or do you wanna hear about South Side?”

“I wanna hear about whichever one you’re from.”

The Terran smiles.

****

“Osur below! His face!”

Not for the first time over the span of the movie, Mickey buries his face in Ian’s side, screaming in an utterly un-knightly manner. Ian almost wants to tease him for claiming that he can handle horror. But he opts not to, leaving Mickey his dignity.

“Yeah, there’s a reason why Fiona never let us watch this scene,” Ian says comfortingly as he squeezes Mickey’s bicep. As a child, yes the meat scene would have messed him up, too. But as an adult, he can tell exactly when the director switched from the actor to a special effect.

“You know, if you want we can put on something else.”

Mickey leans against him, affronted. He throws his shoulders back, stiffening. “What? No, you don’t gotta worry about me. I’ve seen worse.”

“You don’t have to fake it with me, Mickey. You know that, right?”

“Fuck off, Gallagher,” he grumbles with no heat behind it. “I’m not faking anything.”

Ian’s hand finds its way to Mickey’s jawline, the skin soft despite the tickle of his incoming stubble. They are so close to each other now that their noses brush against each other. “I mean it, Mick. You don’t have anything to prove. Not to me.”

Ian expects Mickey to shrug off his touch, all prideful bluster. Instead, Mickey leans into the touch. “Wish that were true.”

What is that supposed to mean? “Mickey?”

Ian feels Mickey’s hand on his side, slowly lowering to his waist. Ian’s heartbeat quickens. Their lips are so close Ian can feel the sweet warmth of his companion’s breath.   “Something you gotta understand about Chchraia— the whole Alliance, I mean. Guys like us, we’re always gonna have to prove ourselves.”

“What do you mean ‘guys like us?’”

Mickey sighs and shrugs out of Ian’s touch. Ian recoils at the sense of cold that replaces where the older man had just been.

“There’s something I ought to tell you about me, Gallagher. Something I shoulda told you a while ago now.”

Ian waits expectantly. He figures this is it. Mickey must have figured out that the feeling is mutual, right? Is this the part when Mickey tells him that Chchraian culture is homophobic? Or maybe open? Is this when he tells me he has someone back home and he needs to let me down gently?

“Okay, so I guess there’s no use pussyfooting around it anymore. There’s this thing about me is that I’m not your average—”

Without warning, the ship shakes as though they were on an actual boat caught in the wake of a superior vessel. Then suddenly it stabilizes and Ian feels a tingling sensation that seems to spread across the ship. A klaxon blares. In  a panic, they are both leaping to their feet.

“Do you think it’s the Bug guys again?”

“Not likely, this is well within Alliance territory.”

Mickey presses a button on the console to silence the alarm and suddenly the movie image of the Freeling household disappears and is replaced by the stern, if wry, face of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Mickey. She is in a blue uniform similar to Mickey’s except that she had several more badges lining her left shoulder and two additional stripes along the cuffs of her sleeves.

This must be the sister. Mandy.

Mandy eyes Ian up and down like she is sizing him as a potential threat. She doesn’t make a remark about him, but instead she turns her attention to her brother. She smiles mischievously. “Can’t go a whole week without me needing to save your ass, can you?”

Chapter Text

The tractor beam slowly reels in the ship into the cargo hold of the Sekhmet. Ian’s gaze is locked on the view screen, face lit up from the screen and eyes full of wonder. Mickey needs to remind himself that all of this is new to his Terran companion. Ian is seeing everything around them with eyes as new as fresh seedlings in the aeroponics bay. He has to account for the excited twinkle in his eye over things that Mickey finds utterly mundane.

Mickey is hardly a whimsical person, but perhaps he would have the same sense of wide-eyed amazement if he saw some of the things Ian has told him about Terra. He had a taste of it on Samek-4. The feeling of grass and soil between his toes, seeing wild creatures outside of holos or zoos, sitting beside someone he’s starting to care for and watching the sun set together.

Comparatively, Mickey has seen plenty of his sister’s ship. It’s hardly the flagship of the fleet, but it has earned quite a reputation based on its decisive captain and her handpicked command crew. It’s almost as though she is gunning to become a legend in the making.

However, the truth is Mandy could have coasted by on their inherited renown and would have still made the history books. The fact that the starship is commanded by the significantly more affable of Laura Milkovich’s twins earns the ship its reputation all by itself. As the only Messianic offspring in the Chchraian history (or at least the only ones that aren’t half-Chchraian), everything the twins ever do is considered an historic accomplishment or a novel curiosity, depending on who you ask.

The tractor pulls them in slowly. He swears Mandy is doing this intentionally to build up suspense. Or maybe this is petty torture in retaliation for leaving on his mission without spilling the details to her. Either way, the anticipation as the tractor beam tugs them along at such a languid pace makes him feel like there are Pfoxian fire ants crawling under his skin. It makes him feel, in a rare turn of events, that all he wants to do is get off his damn ship.

Mickey can’t think of any other reason why he should feel as nervous as he does, though, other than the prospect of having to bring Ian before his sister. The thought of her using her authority to demand a debriefing makes his blood run cold. How does he explain, under orders or not, that he is having a hand in perpetuating the cycle that cost them their mother? He rocks on the balls of his feet and tries not to imagine that he lives in a world in which she would be okay with him having to lead Ian off to his inevitable doom at the forefront of the Alliance’s forces.

Assuming that Mickey is ever allowed to explain himself to her. He is still under orders to keep the nature of his mission a secret. Not that she has any more ability than Mickey does to refuse commands from above than he does. But he needs to know that Mandy isn’t okay with watching history repeat itself. Even if in the end neither of them can do anything to stop this, he needs to know his sister hates this as much as he does.

He silently curses the training that has him and everyone else in the service of the Alliance, conscripted or voluntary, yoked like chattel to the whims of Central Command.

It is commonly held that the Alliance Military would have fallen into chaos centuries ago if it weren’t for the Chchraian star armada’s compliance conditioning. All five of the semi-autonomous armadas that make up the Alliance Military have imbedded the practice into their training for centuries. And Central Command takes great pride in the fact that they never have to worry about failure being the fault of disloyalty— only individual incompetence.

Mickey can only pray to Osur, Zo, and all the rest that Maj. Gen. Prox knows better than leadership did twenty earlier, the way they declined to provide his mother with the support she needed and treated her inevitable failure as a Messiah as a black mark on her character. Maybe, he hopes, that is why Mickey is bringing Ian in secretly— so that they can vet him before getting the Alliance’s hopes up. Mickey tries to tell himself again and again that as soon as they subject him to some sort of psych evaluation, they’ll have Mickey fly Ian back home just as quietly as they sent him out in the first place.

“Shit, that thing’s like the Enterprise-D.” Ian remarks, voice full of wonder. He has no idea just how much of a viper’s den Mickey is leading him into. He reminds himself yet again to put himself in Ian’s shoes. Terran space travel is in its infancy, still. They don’t even have a unified government. A mere handful of nation states have rudimentary extra-planetary propulsion programs. And of those, they have only sent out manned exploration vessels as far as their own moon. They haven’t even figured out how to manage artificial gravity controls in their vessels yet.

“I don’t know what that means,” admits Mickey, smiling shyly. Terrans and their pop culture references again.

“All you gotta know is it’s huge.”

 “Hyksos-class ships aren’t even the biggest model out there,” Mickey demurs. “Get all of this out of your system now. I don’t need you giving my sister a swelled head.”

“Okay.”

“And while it’s on my mind, try not to mention you’re from Terra until I give you the word.” Mickey stops to reflect. “In fact, it might be a good idea to pretend to be mute or something.”

“Mickey…” Ian sighs good-naturedly. “Your sister’s an admiral or something, right?”

“Major.”

“So, she’s not exactly fresh off the turnip truck.”

Mickey quirks a single eyebrow towards his hairline. “One of these days, you and me need to sit down and write down our vernaculars so we can figure out what the other’s saying.”

“Your sister’s gotta be smart, to get where she is, right?”

Mickey nods. “And determined, competitive, pushy… She’s got a bullshit detector like a sixth sense. Which is why I want you to be careful what you say about her.”

“I thought the messiah was supposed to be this big, huge deal.”

“It is, but… look, it’s complicated. Remember how I said my mission was secret?”

Ian nods.

“And even if I was at liberty to tell her, I’d want it to come from me. The whole messiah thing is complicated for us.”

“Why?” Inquires Ian as the ship stutters to a halt, indicating that the N-807 Kidu is securely moored in the Sekhmet’s cargo hold.

“Because…” Mickey pushes him to make a decision. Does he trust Ian or not?

“Because we knew the last Messiah.”

Both men look around to see where the answer came from even though Mickey knows damn well who said it. Right on cue, he hears the very familiar cadence of his sister’s stride up the boarding ramp.

“What? Are you eavesdropping on me, now?” Mickey demands heatedly.

“Maybe next time you should cut the confidential chatter after you lower the ramp,” she fires right back. “Your voice tends to carry.”

“I thought you said the last Messiah was twenty years ago, you had to have been a little kid when she died?” Ian asks as Mickey glimpses the sight of his sister ascending into view.

“And we were,” Mandy answers.

“I can speak for myself, Mands.” he snarls at his sister, rank meaning nothing in that moment.

“What? No saluting your superior officer?” She scoffs.

Mickey contemplates the single-digit salute, but swallows back his pride.

“You know, if it was any other ship’s captain, you wouldn’t be able to refuse.”

“Yeah, and I would've figured fallen on my Omni-Guard before I asked anyone else for an assist.”

“Come on, big brother,” she insists. “I’m keeping this little retrieval mission off the books. It’s the least you can do.”

Mickey rolls his eyes and tries to suppress the smile. He tries to hold onto the annoyance as long as possible, but his sister pulling rank in this specific “pissing contest” kind of way is actually endearing. He makes a show of saluting his sister in the crisp Chchraian manner, his whole body steady as as a duro-steel ballast board.

“You happy?”

“Much. At ease, knight.”

“Fucking pain in my ass...”

“Aren’t I, though? Also...”

Mickey knew it was coming

“I’m lost. Is there something I’m missing here?”

“Did you seriously abduct a Terran days ago and never explain our whole deal?”

Mickey’s eyes turn into slits and his eyebrows furrow into a menacing squiggle across his forehead. “I was just getting around to telling him.”

Mandy smiles. “Well?”

Mickey closes his eyes and counts to ten, attempting to mitigate the urge to rattle off a sequence of profanities at his sister. Making  a concerted effort to relax his facial features into something not so scowl-like, he turns to Ian. “I didn’t want to make a huge deal about this, but Laura Milkovich was our mother.”

***

“Milkovich?” Asks Ian as he watches Mickey deploy the boarding ramp. He has heard that name before but he doesn’t know why. True, a few days ago, the computer mentioned her by name, but the computer’s inflection was off. It didn’t sound the way it does rolling off Mickey’s tongue.

“I thought you said you had some alien name I wouldn’t be able to pronounce.”

Mickey’s face had been stony and solemn, as though he expected Ian not to take the revelation well. But one corner of Mickey’s mouth creases into a smirk and he sniffs out a hint of a laugh. “I never said it was alien.”

“So what’s your real name then?”

“‘Mickey’ is my real name, jackass,” He gives Ian an impish smile.

“But if you’re asking what's on his natal record,” Major Mandy intercedes, “It’s ‘Mikhailo Aleksandr.’”

“Mikhailo?” Ian echoes.

“More back of the throat with the ‘kh’ sound, but you’re a lot closer than most.” Mickey grins despite himself.  He had seemed just about ready to throw hands with his sister moments ago, but something about invoking his actual name seems to relax him. “Don’t worry about memorizing it, though. Nobody ever uses it.

Major Mandy extends out her hand in greeting. The playful venom she had for her brother, vanishing in seconds. “And you are...?”

“Ian,” he says taking her hand, but she brushes it away.

It would seem that the Chchraian customary greeting is pronouncedly different from Terran. She extends her arm past Ian’s hand on the back of his arm until he knuckles graze his elbow. “Like this,” she corrects his positioning. “Chchraian social lesson number one, men and women touching hands uncovered is considered intimate.”

 “Oh,” Ian recoils his hand as though he were pulling it from a lion’s mouth. Ian recalls the various times that Mickey’s fingers have guides his hand along the dashboard of the N-Kidu or taken Ian’s hand to lift him off the ground back on Samek-4, or even the times he has woken up to find Mickey’s digits threaded through his as they slept. Is it intimate between two men as well?

Ian looks over at Mickey, but he is pointedly looking away, seemingly very interested in a scuff on the cold metal floor.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize,” he murmurs.

“It’s alright,” she sighs, turning around and gesturing for the men to follow her down the ramp. “It’s not as though Mickey is a stickler for Chchraian tradition.”

“I taught him to walk upright and eat with utensils. Give me some credit,” Mickey jokes.

“Come on,” she insists leading them out into the hallway. “I only came with a skeleton crew, so there is plenty of space for your rooms. I’m sure you both are tired of being cooped up together on that little ship.”

Not particularly. In fact, Ian had missed what it felt like to wake up beside someone again. Still, he keeps that thought to himself.

“You should probably give us adjoining quarters, though,” Mickey counters. “He still doesn’t read Chchraian basic yet and he can barely use the synthesizer.”

Mandy turns back and stares both of them down incredulously. “You seriously didn’t teach him how to use any tech?”

“Ship’s systems were on reserve. We had to hunt and cook our food and everything.”

“Teaching Wilderness Survival finally paid off for you, huh?”

“That and ending up with a Terran who knows his way around firearms.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet considering he passed the first of the trials.”

That’s the second mention Ian has heard of there being multiple trials. He knows that by all rights he should probably be asking questions. But the truth is something in the pit of his stomach doesn’t want to know.

****

Mickey sits alone on the bed of the room Mandy assigned him, feeling untethered. He put on a good show for Mandy as well as Ian, but an anxiety he fears to name is gnawing at him ever since Mandy locked he tractor beam on their vessel. His vessel. Mickey needs to keep reminding himself that Ian is only temporary. And nothing ought to drive that home quite like being here on Mandy’s ship. His ship drawn in without  by-your-leave into the Sekhmet’s hull like krill into a whale’s gullet.

They should have stayed on Samek-4. Mickey is almost certain that they could have made a go of it. They both know how to handle themselves in the wilderness, and Mickey knows his way around a ship’s secondary systems. With enough time and effort he could have jury rigged some other natural power source to compensate for the Dark Matter converter to keep the ship’s internal systems running. They could have simply disappeared altogether. Just him and Ian eking out a living together in the forest primeval.

But who is he kidding? Compliance conditioning runs deep. He can stall, he can self-negotiate a temporary out, he even could try to tune out the compulsory commands for a short while. But he’ll always be subject to his training. He would always end up having to give Ian up in the end. He would always deliver him to the Alliance.

He quite literally never had a choice.

This can continue. He’s already getting too attached. He’s only going to get hurt if he doesn’t put a stop to this now that they are actually in a place to put some distance between one another.

There is a knock from the en-suite waist extraction room. Mickey looks up to see the door. It gently whooshes open to reveal his Terran boy on the other side. “Mind if I come in?”

“You’re already in here, anyway,” Mickey sighs glumly.

Ian takes a few tentative steps into Mickey’s chamber. “Some place here, huh?”

“It’s only going to be for the one night, Gallagher,” Mickey bites back the urge to tell him that they’re delivering Ian to Prox like a prize.

“It’s kind of lonely in the other room.”

“Yeah.”

Ian takes another step closer, that bright smile of his lighting up the room. “Do you mind if—”

“Actually, yeah. I do mind.” Mickey says quickly. “I’ve been babysitting you for days, making sure you don’t get yourself killed. And now I just want a couple hours to myself.”

His smile falters and Mickey feels a stab in his heart. But it has got to be done. “Sorry, it’s just—”

“Yeah, yeah. You had family coming out the bulkheads back home. Well, news update, Messiah— you gotta get used to being alone. From now on, even when you got shithead Chchraian dignitaries acting like they’re your best buddies, you’re alone. And you need to look out for number one or you’re gonna get yourself killed. Now do you mind? I’d like a fucking night off my mission.”

“I didn’t think you … I thought we were a team, you and me.” Mickey hears Ian’s voice crack and will someone please come put him out of his misery?

“Well, you thought wrong. Now could you please find something else to do for a couple hours? I’ll help you figure out the damn synthesizer later.”

A few seconds later, the door swooshes shut behind Ian. Mickey contemplates walking headfirst out of an airlock.

In the silence, words from a few days ago slowly drift back into his thoughts. “I had a support system back home and I’m going to need one out here, too.”

Mickey feels like shit. Ian has nobody out here, cast adrift into a military conflict and an insane military that practically wants to march Ian to his death. Me. I’m his support system. He all but chased Ian away because he didn’t want to get his heart broken. Mickey feels like a selfish asshole.

“Can I trust you to have my back?”

Ian deserves far better than him. But Mickey is all he has.

He crosses the en-suite and taps the klaxon, which chimes softly. “Ian?”

“I thought you told me to fuck off,” sniffs Ian bitterly from the other side of the door.

“I was having a moment.”

“You sure were.”

“Look, do you mind if we talk?”

“What do you think we’re doing?”

“Without a door in the way, I mean.”

“What happened to me needing to learn to be alone?”

“Can I come in or not?”

“You do what you want, Milkovich.”

Mick presses for the door to slide open and is surprised that Ian is standing immediately in front of him. He expected to see Ian sulking on the bed, but Ian is more assertive than Mickey gives him credit for. Still, he doesn’t like those thin circles around his eyes.

Without thinking, Mickey’s hands find their way to the redhead’s hips. “Will you just say whatever it is you got to say?”

Mickey licks his lips, meaning to speak. But words fail him. He has so much to say and he has never been a great communicator when it comes to feelings. And “sorry” has really never been in his lexicon. But he follows his instincts and his body does the talking. He leans in, getting on the tips of his toes. And he crushes their mouths together. Communicating as much as possible just by caressing Ian’s lips with his own.

Ian freezes up and for a second. Is he going to pull away? Mickey thinks he has made a huge blunder. But then, Ian’s arms slip around him, hands palming his buttocks through his uniform. Time seems to stand still, and just for a moment, a brief glimmer of time, Mickey gets to know what happiness feels like. And he never wants it to end.

Chapter Text

“News update, Messiah— you gotta get used to being alone. From now on, even when you got shithead Chchraian dignitaries acting like they’re your best buddies, you’re alone.”

Ian didn’t know what to expect when he slipped in through the en-suite between their temporary dorm room. Mickey isn’t exactly a smooth operator; he doesn’t pull his punches and he doesn’t mince his words. But he has never been cruel before.

Why now?

Mickey may have come into his life because he was assigned his mission. But Mickey has never treated him like he’s just an assignment. Ian was never just some bag of groceries he was sent out to deliver. So why is Mickey talking to him like they just arrived at the end of a strict business arrangement? He feels like a john caught by surprise that the hustler just wanted his money.

Mickey’s diatribe hurls on forward. “And you need to look out for number one or you’re gonna get yourself killed. Now do you mind? I’d like a fucking night off my mission.”

Something isn’t right. What has changed. Ian feels his throat go dry. “I didn’t think you’d… I thought we were a team, you and me.”

“Well, you thought wrong.” Ian sees Mickey’s lips move but the tinnitus that accompanies the blood rushing to his head tuned it out. His fists are balled up at his sides. He contemplates something vicious he can say in return, but nothing comes.

Spinning on his heels, he barrels back through the door of the en-suite and doesn’t stop until he is alone in his quarters. The door automatically slides closed behind him, but right about now he would love to have a door to slam. It reminds him of when his sister Fiona and her best friend Veronica would complain about missing the satisfaction of slamming down the receiver when they used to hang up on someone with old landline phones.

He looks around at his room; his plain, barebones, utterly alien quarters, which at least for the night is the closest thing he has had to privacy in days. Wait, no. It’s the first time he has had a room to himself really ever. In the boys room, at basic training, the psych hospital, even when he was squatting in a flophouse when he was manic and running wild, he was hardly the only one there.

Now, there’s no Fiona. No Lip. None of his family or friends. And now maybe no Mickey. He made it clear. Now that he isn’t solely responsible for keeping him alive, he wants to be unburdened. Ian is just a burden he has been forced to bear.

But then Ian rationalizes that Mickey has led a life full of burdens. Orphaned at four, raised by aliens, a child soldier by age thirteen. He didn’t ask to be tethered to the one man in the galaxy fated to pick up where his mother left off.

He never talked to me like that before I found out his mother was the last Messiah.

Perhaps keeping it a secret made it feel easier. Mandy telling Ian the truth clearly didn’t sit well with Mickey. He looked as though Mandy had torn something away from him that he could never get back. There will never be another chance for them to live in a world where Ian can look at Mickey without thinking about his mother’s death— that he is only here because she is not.

He wipes at the heat under his eye with the back of his thumb, flicking away the droplet. He needs to focus. He can’t afford to let Mickey giving him the cold shoulder send him for a tailspin. This new role that the universe tossed into his lap is essentially service, just like any worthwhile cause he has ever wished to do with his life. As with the army or as an EMT, becoming this alien race’s messiah still hinges on one very crucial fulcrum: if Ian doesn’t have his head in the game, people die. And now, it’s not just his brothers in arms or 9-1-1 victims— hundreds of inhabited worlds are depending on him now. He needs to put them first, and he can’t do that if he gets so worked up over some guy he just met that he sends himself into a depressive episode or flying off his hinges.

And the first step in ensuring that he keeps himself healthy and tethered is to create some semblance of stability for himself. Routine. Ian is utterly unmoored from his daily pattern back in Chicago. He was starting to develop a bit of a daily cadence with Mickey, but it seems he’ll need to start over. But first thing’s first: meds.

He throws himself at the mercy of the synthesizer in his endeavor to end up with something resembling just a slice of buttered toast to take before he medicates and a mug of tea to wash it all down. He plays a game of twenty question for the better part of half an hour just to get one slice of bread. The Sekhmet’s computer might be passive aggressive. The tea is easier, but he has really only ever had basic Lipton’s with a slice of lemon, so it isn’t as though he is a tea snob by any stretch. His only request to the computer is something soothing.

Mickey made this look so easy before.      

He quickly scarfs down his toast and washes it and his meds down with the tea.

He supposes the next step in getting things on track is sleep. The bed linens are folded and awaiting him on the foot of the bed. He laughs to himself that with all their advanced technology, at least something is familiar to back home. But he ends up having to kick himself when he realizes that the sheet doesn’t have an end, as though it were a large sac that had been sealed shut from within. He struggles for a while to figure out how he is supposed to get it to become the bed spread, even asked the computer if there is some sort of command code. But instead of a simple explanation, the Sekhmet’s AI keeps prompting Ian to watch a tutorial on his personal holo projector. Except he doesn’t have one.

After fifteen minutes of exhausting the last stores of his patience, he throws the offending sheet on the floor and is contemplating simply making himself into a blanket burrito on the bare mattress for the night when he hears a chime coming from the en-suite.

“Ian?” He wants to let his whole body relax at the sound of Mickey’s plaintive tone on the other side of the door. But he doesn’t like being jerked around.

“I thought you told me to fuck off.”

“I was having a moment.” He can hear the mix of embarrassment and shame in his companion’s voice. Ian almost thinks he can see Mickey rubbing at his left eyebrow with his admission.

“You sure were.”

“Look, do you mind if we talk?”

“What do you think we’re doing?” Ian crosses his arms, even though Mickey obviously can’t see from the other side of the door. He uncrosses them. Then crosses them again.

“Without a door in the way, I mean.”

“What happened to me needing to learn to be alone?” Ian strides to the door. He hasn’t heard anything resembling an apology for being a dick out of absolutely nowhere yet, but he hears it in Mickey’s tone. He’s trying. Still, despite what is written to the contrary inside one of two bathroom stalls in Boystown, Ian knows how to play hard to get. He’s standing right at the door, the only thing separating them. Mickey practically shoved Ian out the door not a full hour ago. And now he’s asking Ian to let him back in, like an indecisive house-cat who can’t pick in or out.   

“Can I come in or not?”

“You do what you want, Milkovich.” A dare, even if it comes out bitterer than he intended. Ian isn’t mad at Mickey. Okay, sure. He was. Now, he’s more mad that the bedsheet and the synthesizer than anything else, but he has been nursing the hurt of Mickey attempting to White Fang him for almost an hour now.

Have some stones, Mickey. Earn it. Be as bold with me as you are with with your Omni-guard in your hand.  

The door whooshes open and Mick eyes wide like he almost wasn’t expecting to find Ian in here. Not like Ian can exactly tie bedsheets together and sneak out the window. Not like he can do much of anything with these bedsheets, really. He stares Mickey down after a pregnant silence.

Why won’t the words come to your mouth, Mickey? You aren’t exactly short on words any other time.

He feels Mickey’s touch and almost looks down. But he’s playing chicken. He knows better than to look away. He knows Mickey’s hands are cradling his hips. He has woken up with Mickey’s hands resting just so just about every morning for almost a week. But he wants Mickey to be the one to take the next step. He steadies his voice, knowing that it might hitch if he doesn’t and he leans in close.

“Will you just say whatever it is you got to say?”

And Mickey practically launches himself on Ian’s mouth. It makes Ian lightheaded but also painfully aware of every inch of his body and not knowing what to do with it. He’s kissed other guys before. He has kissed them and more. But they weren’t Mickey. He hesitates only for a moment. Trying to decide in the moment whether this makes up for the fact that Mickey hasn’t even bothered to explain why he had been such an ass earlier. But then, at least for now, it doesn’t matter. He has wanted this since the moment a knight in shining armor swept Ian up in his arm and saved his life.

If Chchraians think hand-holding is intimate than kissing must be downright pornographic, Ian almost giggles into the kiss.

He reaches around and squeezes Mickey’s butt and hears the man whimper. Ian is beside himself and does not know for the life of him what he is supposed to do with the fact that his brave, strong Mickey is actually capable of making that sound. Maybe he can sort it when more blood is heading towards his brain than his cock.

The raven-haired man’s lips feel velveteen against Ian’s mouth. He wants more. The tip of his tongue prods between Mickey’s lips and he feels like the sun is shining down on him when Mickey’s lets it in. Mickey doesn’t seem to know what do with his tongue now that it is in his mouth, but he allows Ian to take the lead. Ian supposes Chchraia doesn’t have a France and thus no French kissing. It’s up to him to teach Mickey this vital Terran custom.

He should feel very well-acquainted with Mickey’s body by now. He has woken up every night for the past five days beside him. No, not just beside him, immersed in him. But there was always something chaste in it before, as though there was something almost reverent about the way they held each other. All alone on Samek-4, they were each other’s strength and support.

Yet despite living in very close quarters, Mickey’s body is a mystery to him. He doesn’t know how Mickey has remained dressed all those nights this past week that they shared that cramped little bed on the N-807 Kidu. All he ever removed was his jacket, shoes, and occasionally his long-sleeve shirt, leaving him still in a form-fitting sleeveless undershirt covered in stains from his time under the engine.

He has been in the same change of clothes all week. Ian wishes he could say the current desire to rip them off of Mickey were hygienic, but the truth is that would be incidental

Now, all Ian can think about is  is what Mickey looks like uncovered, exposed for him and him alone to see.

He reaches for the top corner of the squared off button closure of Mickey’s double-breasted uniform jacket and attempts to manipulate the self-adhering buttons.

“This isn’t as easy as you make it look.” Ian snickers.

“Practice,” Mickey shrugs off.

“You ever been with another guy?”

“One, but he’s… it’s been a while. You?”

A deviously prurient impulse wants to tell Mickey that he used to do this for a living, but the more the phrase reverberates in his mind, it doesn’t sound like the brag he’s going for. “More than one, but it’s been a while for me, too.”

Ian feels Mickey palm the front of his khakis. And now Ian is the one letting out an involuntary whimper. A moan, even.

“You know how long I’ve wanted to get my hand on this?”

Mickey tries to undo the fly of Ian’s pants, but he puts a bit too much mustard on his movements  and the button goes flying.

“Careful,” Ian giggles. “This is my only pair of pants.”

“I’ll synthesize you a new one.”

They’re both laughing their way into another kiss when a sharp, officious set of three chords chimes, emanating from some point on Mickey’s person.

“Major Milkovich to Star Knight Milkovich.”

“Our below,” grumbles Mickey. But then he begins peppering Ian’s neck with kisses as he figures out Ian’s zipper.

“Shouldn’t you answer her?” Ian asks, suddenly very curious whether there is some comm badge like on Star Trek that he simply has never noticed.   

“She can wait. She’d have to give me a direct order to pull me away.”

“Star Knight Milkovich, report to my ready room on Deck One.”

“Gimme a couple minutes, Mands. For crying out loud…”

“Captain’s prerogative.”

“Goddammit…” moans Mickey balefully as his body tenses and he has to extract himself from Ian’s hold. “I hate it when she does that.” He taps a point in the center of his uniform right at the sternum. And the epaulets of his uniform light up momentarily. “I’m on my way.” 

“Should I come with you?”

“No,” Mickey says automatically as he makes an effort to put his uniform back into a crisp, tidy condition. It’s strange that Ian is more accustomed to wearing his uniform in a cavalier, almost roguish style. Rebellious. But here on his sister’s ship, he plays the part of a dutiful soldier more readily. His body language is almost robotic, like he’s being puppeteered.

“Look, she probably wants to strategize when and how she’s going to drop us off without making it obvious that she pulled my ass out of the fire. Wait for me?”

Ian smiles coyly as he reclines coquettishly on the unmade bed. “Where else do you think I’m gonna go?”

Chapter Text

Mickey seethes silently as he navigates the deserted corridors of the Sekhmet. Through some glitch in the universe, Mandy is the only person above him in rank that Mickey is able to refuse. Though he doesn’t quite know the reason. It must have something to do with their Terran heritage. But more specifically, is it because they are scions of a Messiah? Ian said it himself: the only reason Contenders are chosen to become Messiahs because of some test. There is no divine right, no years studying the art of war or devoting themselves to the body politic. There’s no prerequisite qualifications other than superb hand-eye coordination and hailing from the same blue and white marble that they left high and dry millennia ago.  

Of course, Mickey doesn’t have much other information to go on. There is no record in the Chchraian historical data bases of any other Messiahs being permitted to bring their families with them when they have been culled from Terra. It is only  by dumb luck that Laura happened to be in the early stages of her pregnancy that he and Mandy ended up out here in the first place.  

The prophesy never said anything about the Messiah coming with a babe at each breast. That should have been a sign that they should have sent her back to Terra to live out her life. But High Command concluded that the test doesn’t make mistakes— Messiahs simply fail. And Messiahs can be replaced. 

Ian is about to replace Laura. And if Ian  isn’t careful… Mickey viscerally shakes as a cold chill runs up his spine. He can’t even think about what he’ll do if something happens to Ian.  

Ian, who is back in his quarters waiting for him.  

Mickey could throttle his sister.  

Mandy ought to know better than to pull rank on him over uncoded transmissions. Mickey can resist her orders, but a starship’s internal transmissions are a matter of public record. And if it came to light that Mickey and Mandy can resist compliance between the two of them, then it is only a matter of time before the wrinkle in the system is ironed out.  

That can’t happen. He may only ever use this odd quirk that he and his sister share to give her a hard time, but it’s still the only narrow loophole that makes him feel like he has any control. He doesn’t know if his experience would have been different if they had been raised on Chchraia, but if being reared to manhood on military star bases has taught him anything, it’s that he lives in an Alliance of Free Worlds, but not of free people. 

He is no stranger to his sister’s ship. He served as the commander of the vessel’s squadron of star skimmers  for a while when Mandy was serving as XO before she was promoted ahead of him.  

He transferred, accepting the position he holds to this day on Star Base Asterion not long after Mandy made captain. He didn’t want to live in her shadow and neither did she. If they had stayed at the same duty posting, she would have never relented. Whereas Mickey preferred the obscurity of a star knight’s helm, Mandy would always driven him to advance. Even now, Mickey doesn’t know whether Mandy pushes them both so hard so that they can forge their own path not predetermined by their mother’s fate, or whether Mandy thinks covering themselves in glory will redeem Laura’s memory. 

The ship has had some refits to upgrade its munitions payload, but the interior itself has barely changed at all. And yet it feels so foreign as he navigates his way from their temporary quarters on Deck 7, Section Gamma to the bridge up on 1-Alpha. Though, it doesn’t take him long to realize why: the people. The Sekhmet generally boasts a crew compliment between four hundred and fifty to five hundred. But his sister set out with a skeleton crew as  a favor to him— easier to maintain secrecy with fewer people to loop in. There could be as few as forty men and women aboard the ship; maybe sixteen if Mandy’s Ops chief thinks she’s clever enough to patch the secondary systems to the command bridge.  

But now? The Chchraian people can hardly be called the most animated and lively people in the galaxy, at least not when they are sober. By nature, they are inclined to be staid and stoic. They like to say its core to their resilience. They withstood the mythic calamity of ancient Terra, they braved the cold vacuum of space until they found a promised land. They worked the land and prospered. They forged lasting bonds that were the bedrock of the Alliance. They have withstood foes like the Verrak’hai for centuries. And they’ll attribute all those accomplishments to their stony resolve and their wholesale and unwavering embrace of discipline. 

He boards the lift that services section Alpha and takes it up to Deck 1 at the top of the ship’s spire. A quick quiet sweeping sound filling the small chamber each time it passes one of the decks on the way up.  

The doors slide open with gust of compressed air and Mickey steps out onto a wide, hexagonal space with two concentric raised tiers built into the center of the chamber. On the smaller central tier is the captain’s chair, which directly faces a view screen that fills one full wall of the room.  

The seven work stations of the commander crew on the second tier and another eleven essential albeit subordinate work stations on the floor level fan out in a circle around the captain’s chair, like the points of a compass, everywhere except directly in the captain’s vantage of the view screen.  

The captain’s chair is the only one who faces it directly. Chchraian philosophy translated into design— the ethos of the command structure built into the layout.   

A figure rises from the captain’s chair, taller than Ian, but not filled out. He turns around and Mickey is greeted by the distant but not unkind face of his sister’s second-in-command Reevak Djan.  

“Welcome aboard, Star Knight Milkovich.”  

Djan gives him a polite, perfunctory salute. He always does whenever Mickey comes aboard as a sign of respect. Although, Technically he doesn’t have to. He’s an SK-1, just the same as Mickey. 

Being appointed the XO of a starship, puts him in a nebulous grey area. The inner circle of Mandy’s command crew are all SK-1’s as well and department chiefs functionally, rank over other Star Knights without those leadership positions. Meanwhile, being executive officer, Djan  notches in above the rest of the command crew, a first among equals, second only to Mandy.  

Mickey may be an SK-1, but so are dozens of others aboard the Sekhmet. He is fairly confident that the only reason Djan  salutes him is because he owes his assignment to Mickey announcing his transfer when he did. Ship’s scuttlebutt was certain that Mandy was going to tap him for the job. That would have just invited more scrutiny that Mickey in no way shape or form wanted.  

Mickey returns the salute as Djan  approaches him. “Gotta thank you and your team for the assist.” Mickey replies doing his best not to sound uncomfortable with the formality when another man’s tongue had been down his throat ten minutes earlier. 

“At ease, Mikk-hay-lo.” Djan  mispronounces Mickey’s name, but he opts against addressing it. He has met Djan  enough times and ignored the faux pas so regularly that correcting him now is just one more uncomfortable social interaction he can just as easily gloss over.  

Mickey relaxes just in time for the back of his forearm to greet Djan’s in a more informal greeting. Djan  has always been surprisingly friendly to Mickey, which is a surprise considering Mickey always tries to keep things cool and detached with coworkers both past and present.  

But Mickey supposes he and Djan  have an outsider cache in common. Djan  is from a younger colony planet, Jarda, that had managed to stay off people’s radar for over three centuries and experimented with rejecting technology altogether in favor of an agrarian orthodox philosophy. The Jardani Chchraians reopened their lines of communication a couple generations ago, but seeing them in the fleet is still a bit of a novelty. 

“Are you quarters to your satisfaction, Milkovich?” 

“I don’t know. I was only just getting settled in when your captain issued a late-night summons.” 

“Speaking of which, she’s waiting for you in her ready room.” He gestures to a door on the starboard side of the ship, even though Mickey knows quite well where it is.  

****  

Mandy is seated at her desk, her jacket removed and draped across the back of her chair. The long sleeves of her shirt rolled to her elbows. Her face is lit up by a cyan light as she listens to a report on a holo. Mickey has no idea what the woman in the image is saying because Mandy is listening with an earpiece. A few seconds pass unremarked. He clears his throat to get her attention.  

She looks up. “Well, you sure took your sweet time getting here. Sit down.” 

“Is that a command?” 

“Like you do anything I say, anyway,” she chides, not looking away from the report on the holo in front of her.  

“I kind of have to if we don’t want anyone catching on,” he reminds her as he seats himself. “So, what do you want? A debriefing? Strategy plan for when you drop us off?” 

“How are you feeling?” 

Mickey feels as though the artificial gravity has been pulled out from under him. “What? Fine. What sort of fucking question is that?” 

She grimaces at him, dislodging her earpiece as she turns off the holo. “Let’s just take a tally of everything you’ve been through since the last time I got to talk to you. One. You got sent halfway across the galaxy by one of the most important men in the whole Alliance without even giving you time to grab your toothbrush. He didn’t let you tell me or anyone else for that matter where you were going.” 

“I really did want to tell you.” 

She snort-laughs. “What? You think I’m mad at you?” She sighs. “We all know Prox is a manipulative bastard. Now where was I? Oh, right. He sent you to our home planet, I forced you to kidnap one of our own—” 

“I would have needed to even if I wasn’t under orders. The Bugs sent a colony of Scarabs after him.”  

“Okay, so part abduction, part rescue. And then you got your ass lost and crashed on a derelict planet around a dying star.” 

“That sounds like the long and short of it.” 

“For five days,” she adds emphatically. Her hand reaches across the table and finds his. “You were stuck practically handcuffed to the next Messiah for five days.” 

“It’s fine. We both got through it.” 

“Mick. This is me you’re talking to. You were actually on Terra Firma. You seriously don’t have any feelings you want to unpack to literally the only other living person in the galaxy who understands?” 

“You know, I thought it would be weird, especially since Red’s, er, Ian’s from Chicago.” 

Mandy makes an expression like Mickey just told her he’s pregnant, mouth eyes wide and bulging. “Chicago?” Mickey can practically see the gears whirring behind his sister’s eyes. “As in where Laura was from?” 

Mickey nods. “Same neighborhood, even.” 

“That’s… Zo above...” 

“Right? We could’ve gone to fucking school with the guy.”  

In a flash, Mickey visualizes as best he can a different life. He only had a few minutes with his boots on the ground on Terra, running through the city with Ian slung over his shoulder in the darkened streetways. But somewhere between Terra’s deteriorating cityscape and their long days in the lush rainforests of Samek-4, he imagines what a life on Terra would have been like.  

He was born in space, grew up aboard starships and orbiting bases. Artificial gravity, recycled and purified oxygen, synthesized food. He never tasted real meat before this week or eaten fruit that hadn’t been force-grown in a carefully curated terrarium. Until this past week, he has never spent so much time on a planetary surface before. It should have been a harrowing, foreign experience for him. But maybe it’s because he had Ian to worry about. And Ian worrying about him. He’s never felt so connected to another person before. It made him feel grounded. 

“There are supposed to be twelve of those damn machines. What are the odds?” Mandy ruminates. “Mom and now this Gallagher... does he understand what’s going to happen to him? What will be expected of him?” 

“Mostly. I keep meaning to go into detail with him. But it’s hard.” 

Mandy stands and comes around to the opposite side of the desk, taking a seat next to her brother. “I figured. That’s the reason he didn’t have the faintest idea we’re Laura’s kids?” 

“I didn’t want him to know. It’s bad enough Prox handpicked me for extraction in the first place—” 

“Which feels political, now that I know what he was up to.” 

“Yeah?”  

“If you  failed, oh, well. The failed Messiah’s less popular son failed, too. But when you show up on the Asterion with the new Messiah in tow...” 

“It’s a windfall for him,” Nods Mickey, understanding.  

“Exactly.” 

“We can’t let him become that man’s pawn, Mands,” Mickey insists. “Ian doesn’t deserve what’s coming down the pike for him.” 

“Oh.” Mandy says suddenly.  

“Oh, what?” 

“No, it makes sense. You’ve been with this guy for days. You got attached.” 

“Fuck off,” Mickey murmurs feebly. He feels the blood rushing up his cheeks. He scratches nervously at his face with the pad of his thumb. “Mom didn’t deserve it, either.” 

Mandy smiles devilishly. “Oh.” 

“Oh, what, now?” his brows furrow. 

“Sorry, it’s... it’s none of my business.” 

“Mandy...”  

“Is the feeling mutual?” 

“Osur... we are not having this conversation,” Mickey bristles, getting to his feet. “Am I dismissed, Major?” 

“Oh, no you don’t!” she snatches him by his bicep, getting a vice grip on his brachial pressure point.  

“Agh! Fuck’s sake, Mandy!” 

Mandy has that icy intensity in her crystal blue eyes that makes her pivot from appearing welcoming to an immediate threat in seconds. “This is the first time you’ve been interesting in years. And I get to know the details. Do I make myself clear?” Mickey and Mandy may be immune to using Compliance on one another, but Mandy is hardly bereft of methods to make her brother do what she wants.  

He could fight her, but Mandy always wins. It's what makes Mandy who she is—relentless and indomitable. Mickey decides the only way out is through, and so he sits back down and tells her. Now that she found out the nature of his mission for herself, she is a loophole in Vlis Prox’s direct orders. She already discovered the key bullet points that were meant to be kept secret for herself. Everything else is personal information that the Major General has no authority over.  

He tells her, hesitant at first, starting with the Scarabs’ attack and just how very out of his depth Ian had been. Then their scattershot flight through the slipstream that resulted in them spiraling headlong onto Samek-4's surface, had it not been for Ian’s quick thinking. It’s strange, though. Mickey had only meant to give his sister only the most essential of details, but the more he confides in her, the less he is able to hold things back. Everything from the palpitations he felt when Ian ran off half-cocked to hunt them dinner to the goosebumps he felt as he mended Ian’s wound. From waking up in Ian’s arms and not knowing how to react to breathing in the acrid scent of Upashi Gold on Ian’s lips moments before the Sekhmet’s arrival.  

The one thing he keeps from her is Ian’s confession about his mental disorder. Even though he is fairly certain making it know just might be the key that saves Ian from sharing Laura’s fate, it’s a secret that almost feels tangible, as though it were an item Ian entrusted in Mickey to guard with his life.  

“I’m happy for you, Mickey. I haven’t seen you like this in ages. And I’ve never heard you talk about someone like this." 

It’s a relief to know that Mandy is there for him. He never broached the subject that his interests leaned towards other men. Not even when he was with C’yro. She only ever assumed that that he was seeing someone when she caught him I  good mood once too often, and it must have ended badly when he rewrites to his brooding self. She seems misty-eyed, like seeing a side of her he had never shared before has made her now cloyingly sentimental. 

But Mickey can sense something melancholy behind her reassuring smile.  

“There’s a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?” 

She hesitates, but then exhales ruefully. “I am happy for you, Mickey. But. We both know what’s in store for him.”  

“I know,” he concedes, still convincing himself that he can change Ian’s stars. 

"I want you to be ready for it when it happens.” 

He is sorely tempted to shrug her off and tell her that he’s a big boy and can take care of himself. But Mickey knows in his very core that he would be telling himself more than his sister. Barriers that he has maintained meticulously for the past five or six years have been crumbling ever he swept a panicked Ian up in his arm outside a Terran drinking establishment. Maybe even sooner than that. 
Mickey can tell himself that his heart is as hardened as it ever was. But the truth is that it might wreck Mickey if he can’t keep Ian safe.

**** 

It is almost 27:00 hours by the time Mickey finds his way back to his quarters on Deck 7. He didn’t mean to spend so long explaining himself to Mandy. Though, he doesn’t regret the time spent with his sister as much as the time lost with Ian. This might be his last night with the impending Messiah. He wants to make it count.

The door of his quarters slides open and he is already unfastening the various closures of his uniform as he bypasses his room entirely and makes a beeline right for the room on the other side of the en-suite.

He wants to be bold. He means to burst into Ian’s chambers and pick up exactly where they left off. Ready to strip down and bare himself before Ian, kiss every little brown spot on that freckled body he has and see if that bulge in Ian’s pants tastes as good as it looks.

But it is not to be. He finds Ian conked out on the bed, curled on his side on the bed, dozing softly.

Taking in the sight before him, Mickey smiles. The bedding had been cast aside when he left, semi-permeable self-sealing sheets and viscous polymer pillow cases being a bit much for Ian to get the hang of. Now, though, the bed looks like it has been put together with a sense of crisp, military efficiency belying Ian’s aborted military background.

Ian must have fallen asleep waiting for him because he never sleeps above the covers back on the N-807 Kidu. Not that he’s complaining. Ian seems to have also figured out how to use the synthesizer to produce fresh clothing. His Terran threads were getting pretty ripe. His tan canvas pants, the short Mickey gave him after the hunting mishap, and the baggy plaid undergarment have all been discarded in a corner (Mickey makes a mental note to show Ian the matter recombiner in the morning). And in their place on Ian’s freshly washed frame is a plain white pair of military issue briefs.

As he works his way out of his clothes to a similar black undergarment, Mickey’s mouth waters at the very sight of the stretch material hugging Ian’s hips or the curvature of the Terran’s equipment down below. Mickey feels so very anything but normal about Ian that he might implode. He wants to pounce on the redhead right then and there. 

Instead, he gently sidles in alongside Ian on the bed and secures an arm around Ian’s waist; the big spoon for a change. Nuzzling his nose against Ian’s back, he inhales Ian’s fresh, clean scent deep and waits for sleep to take him.

Chapter Text

Ian’s eyes flutter open and feels an emptiness in his arms. Before his vision clears, his hand searches  the mattress for Mickey. He hasn’t woken up without his knightly companion there in his embrace in days. He’s not there. His brain is still catching up with his body, still feeling slow-witted from dreaming. It takes a few seconds longer to realize that they aren’t in the cramped little bunk on Ian’s N-807.  

Then he feels a warmth on his hip and a thumb hooked into his waistband and he feels his whole body feel lighter, warmer. Sighing, he slowly turns about, careful not to wake his dozing sleep mate. He goes from bleary-eyed to wide and vividly in focus, finding Mickey in a state of near-total undress.

Up until now, the most Ian has seen of Mickey’s exposed body was when the Star Knight’s arm was broken and he allowed Ian to roll up his sleeve to run the bio regenerator. He surmises it was either the result of timidity (which doesn’t match Mickey’s personality at all) or remaining suited up while they were stranded on Samek-4 was a protective measure; his armor housed in the pore of his uniform’s material.

Now, though, he takes in the sight of Mickey’s exposed skin, feeling like he has been handed the keys to the kingdom. He is clad in only a simple pair of white briefs made from alien  synthetic fibers that molds to his form. Ian  wouldn’t have taken Mickey for a briefs man, but considering the synthesizer spat out an identical pair in white for him last night, he wonders whether this is Chchraian military standard.

Mickey’s body itself is a pale, milky white hue, reminding Ian of carved ivory. His muscles are compact but well-formed. The musculature of his torso, but having held the man as he slept, Ian knows very well that the soft appearance belies a firm body. Mickey has the arms of a mechanic— powerful but not over-developed. He earned these working on engines, not at the gym. He has slim, toned thighs that lead Mickey’s hands to a heart-shaped posterior.

Ian is frozen in place for seemingly hours, maybe days. Possibly just minutes. He can do very little else but look on with adoration, taking in every minute detail of Mickey’s countenance, remembering Mickey’s warning. Mickey’s mission is over once they arrive at their destination. He’s more than a mission to Mickey. Ian knows it even if Mickey can’t put it into words.

But what happens after Mickey delivers the Messiah safely? What if Mickey’s next mission sees him cast away to yet another far-flung corner of Alliance space? What if the Asterion isn’t Ian’s endpoint? As Messiah, will he be brought to Central Command or Chchraia? Does he fall under the purview of the Alliance as a whole or the Chchraian government? Is Messiah the kind of gig where he’d have weekends free?

Good god, Gallagher. Get a grip.

They’ve kissed. Once. He isn’t the type of person to just fall for a guy this way. When he catches a guy’s eye, he’s usually simply up for whatever. It has only been recently that he has tried for actual relationships and he has been burned both times. He wasn’t enough for Caleb, he was too much  for Trevor. Relationships have never worked out for him, and he really doesn’t have a frame of reference for what a healthy relationship looks like.

He’s not the kind of guy who sucks face with a guy and begins thinking about wallpaper patterns and white picket fences.

But then, none of those other faces belonged to Mikhailo Milkovich before. It is remarkably hard for him to truly believe that Mickey hails from Terra. There is no earthly way of convincing Ian that Mickey Milkovich’s beauty is humanly possible. From his expressive eyebrows so inky black that they almost seem painted on his alabaster skin down to bowed lips as soft as down feathers, he is a wonder to behold. He could stare into those ocean-blue eyes for hours at a time, if Mickey would let him.

But stare too long into the sea and and you risk falling in and drowning. Just ask Narcissus.

****

Mickey startles awake at the sound of a summons chiming from the jacket of his uniform. Years of training has him conditioned to snap to attention even in the deepest slumber at the sound of those chimes.

Jolting upright in bed, his hands posed into the Chchraian salute, he announces, “At your command!” The summons quiets as the room fills with cyan illumination and the image of his sister being projected from wristband of his uniform jacket hanging on the wall.

“Mickey? What’s —?”

He hears a dull thud and turns to see Ian fall clumsily off the side of the bed, taking the bedding with him, leaving Mickey exposed in front of the holo-projection of his sister. He reaches for Ian’s pillow and makes a half-assed effort to shield his body from sight.

Mandy is giving him a withering stare and Mickey imagines any number of caustic barb she could fling his way. He gulps. Mandy deduced last night that he’s got it bad for Ian, but he didn’t mention that they’d been curled up together every night for days. Or that Ian’s tongue had been down his throat minutes before she called him to her ready room.  

But Mandy’s expression softens as she looks around to make certain that  she is alone. “You know, I could have set you up in a room designed for cohabitation if you had said anything.”

“The fuck do you want this early in the morning?”

“It’s almost oh-nine hundred, Mick.”

“What?”

“Did you get into the habit of sleeping in back on that jungle planet?”

“Shit.” Mickey, like any other Star Knight worth his skin wakes up at 0500 like clockwork. This is embarrassing not just because his sister caught them in bed, but on a level of professional pride. He immediately wants to blame it on Samek-4’s longer nights, but the truth is it’s hard to want to get out of bed when Ian is what he wakes up to. Consequently, he has gotten into the habit of drifting back to sleep for a little while, allowing Ian to be the first one actually out of bed in the mornings.

He reaches for the blanket and tugs at it to at least give him so partial coverage, but in the process, it leaves Ian exposed. The hapless Terran had still just been getting his bearings when Mickey snatched away the covers, but he sure seemed to shake off the sleep. His eyes bulge and he makes a silly yelping sound as he hugs his knees, attempting to make his lanky frame as small as possible.

But the damage is already done.

“Zo and Deca…”

Mickey stomps out of bed and pulls on the jacket of his uniform and adjusts the holo so that she can only see him.

“Dammit, way to go.”

Mickey very much wants to call out his sister for ogling his bed companion, but he would rather just smother the conversation in its cradle and move on. “Did you just hail me for the wake up call?”

“That and I wanted to see if you two want to meet in the executive dining hall. We have a lot to go over before you two disembark.”

“I’m still supposed to be keeping my mission secret. There won’t be…”

“It’ll just be the three of us. There’s barely enough crew to run this ship right now, let alone crowd us at meal time.”

Mickey nods. He hardly feels comfortable enough to put a label on what is going on between him and Ian, but at least Mandy is making him feel welcome. “Yeah, we’ll be there in fifteen. Still on Deck 3?”

“She nods. Tell lover boy that the dress code is informal. But maybe not as informal—”

“Fuck off, Mands.”

She laughs. “Love you too, assface. See you soon.”

He presses a spot on the wristband and the holo of his sister disappears. Then he turns back around to find the Messiah presumptive struggling to close the fly of his baggy newly synthesized pants.

“Why are there no button holes?”

“Long-press the  button to seal.”

Ian does as instructed and he is rewarded with a light vacuum sound. The loose waistband of the garment shrinks to fit Ian’s waist as the closure locks into place and the leggings follow suit until it fits neatly on his person. Ian glances at the pants, then at Mickey looking befuddled. Once again at the simple black slacks, then  back at Mickey this time with guarded approval. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s the same principle as the bedsheet,” Mickey explains. “Get it into position and it fits the form it needs.” Mickey turns to the synthesizer and rattles off his access code to request a fresh uniform. After a week without access to a functioning synth, he is grateful for a fresh set.

While the device manifests the garments molecule by molecule, Ian closes the gap between them. The proximity makes Mickey very keenly reminded that Ian still doesn’t have a shirt on, meanwhile he is wearing his outerwear and underwear, but missing the essential in between.

Mickey swallows back the butterflies and shrugs nonchalantly, “The Chchraian military only does made-to-order when they’re arming you or sizing you up for a casket.”

“Charming people. Why are you out here with them, anyway?” Ian asks. “You guys were so young when your mom died. Why didn’t they send you back to Earth—Terra? You know what I mean.”

He contemplates the ginger’s question as he hitches up his pants. Mickey has wondered that himself. His mother’s request was specifically that the twins were not to return to Terra until they were eighteen. An arbitrary number. Nor did she want them placed on Chchraia or one of its colony or client planets— she didn’t want her children becoming political pawns.

Instead, they were political prisoners. A lonely childhood spent on star bases couldn’t have been what his mother had in mind for them. In fact, he knows it isn’t. She had meant for them to be fostered with a trusted friend. Mickey can’t even remember the woman’s name now. Prox’s predecessor Seial Krup sent her on a mission and she never returned. From then on, he and Mandy were under military protection.

He shrugs. “It was my mom’s request. She must’ve had her reasons.”

Ian is staring at him as he pulls his undershirt on, then proceeds to the long sleeve top of his uniform. It makes Mickey nervous when Ian looks at him so fixedly. But it isn’t the scrutinizing probe of a look that Mandy would give him under similar circumstances, that pressing insistence for him to get all his feelings out. Nor is it pity, which Mickey historically reacts poorly towards whenever their very existence becomes fodder for discussion whenever his mother’s Remembrance Day rolls around.

Then Mickey remembers that he and Ian are quite the same in this regard— lost a mother, never knew a father.

“H—how did she go, anyway?” He asks haltingly. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

Mickey contemplates it for a moment as he pulls on the under.

“The short answer is the Bugs got ‘er.”

“Okay.” Ian sounds dissatisfied. “What’s the long answer?”

And that’s where Mickey puts on the breaks. Because if he gets started, he won’t stop. “C’mon, The Major’s waiting for us.”

Chapter Text

Breakfast with Mandy proves to be an education. Ian and Mickey arrived to a decent spread because Mandy insists that she doesn’t know the first thing about Terran cuisine and she figured Ian would be just as clueless about Chchraian delicacies.

She would be right. In all the time they were stranded on Samek-4, the synthesizer was offline along with most other non-essential systems. Other than the Upashi Gold (honeyed beer) and roasted Yrstoc (venison?) that Mickey synthesized for their dinner last night, Ian is a tabula rasa about the names of their dishes.

“You two were stuck on that rock for almost a week!”  Complains Mandy when she realizes Ian doesn’t even know the difference between Chchraian ornis eggs and Plxovi pheasant eggs. “Didn’t he teach you anything?”

Mickey looks up from tablet displaying the Sekhmet’s most recent schematics, looking affronted.

“Engine repair, mostly,” Ian offers up before Mickey ends up mouthing off to his superior officer again, sister or not.

Then again, he and Lip have given Fiona plenty of guff. They know it doesn’t mean anything. He supposed it must mean even more for Mickey and Mandy. They are all each other has.

“Because of course he did,” Mandy deadpans.

 “And I gave him some flying lessons,” Mickey adds. “He got us into orbit without any help.”

“Well, that’s at least something,” she mutters. “And Mickey tells me you were some sort of healer or soldier back on Terra?”

“I’m an emergency medical technician,” confirms Ian between bites of a meat whose name he already forgets, but tastes like bacon. “I tried to join the army and got through Basic, but it wasn’t in the cards.”

“‘In the cards?’”

“Terran expression. He’s got loads of ‘em.” Mickey smiles. “I could probably write a book of all his odd expressions.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Ian clarifies sounding darker than intended.

“Why not?”

“You gotta excuse my sister,” Mickey intercedes flippantly. “It’s hard for her to imagine a life outside a command structure.”

“What? As if you have a vast store of civilian life experience I’m not aware of?”

“Never said that, but I’m not pretending that this is the end all, be all. And unlike you, I have a skill that actually transfers well. I could be pretty happy with my own garage somewhere out of the way. Enjoy the quiet life, fix civilian and commercial vehicles instead of—”

“But we both know we can’t just up and quit.”

“If you don’t want to serve, couldn’t you just resign your commission? Or is there a set time you serve for?” Ian asks.

They both look at him like he asked them to solve string theory, consternation and bewilderment etched onto their alabaster white faces. Then Mandy turns to face her brother, eyebrows knitting violently.

“He doesn’t know?”

“Know about what?”

“There’s no reason why he should.” Mickey says irritably. “The reason we can’t resign is because they want us right where we are. And we can’t exactly refuse.”

“So… this is for life?”

“For us, anyway.”

“It’s not the death sentence Mickey is making it sound like,” Mandy insists. “If we climb high enough in the ranks, we could be the ones calling the shots.”

“Well? How high is Major?”

“Not nearly as high as she’ll make it sound, Red. She’s still just a ship’s captain except she can also command two subordinate vessels.”

“But if I keep up the good work, I can get a posting in Central Command, make changes from within the system.”

“Pfft. Keep telling yourself that, sis.”

Could I make a difference? Ian wonders. They wouldn’t be plucking people like me and Mickey’s mom from their lives if they didn’t expect us to see what’s going on and make their lives better, right? That’s what a Messiah is supposed to be—a savior. And that doesn’t just have to be at the front of an army.

“So what was your life like back on Terra?” Mandy asks. “My brother tells me you’re from Chicago like our mother was, right?”

Ian’s eyes widen in surprise. He had no idea that the previous Messiah hailed from Chicago, too. Then again, he had no idea that he spent the better part of the past week curled up in bed with her son. He should really do something about all these knowledge gaps before they bite him in the ass.

“Is that so?” He asks casually.

Mickey nods awkwardly. “Er, yeah. If bio tracking is to be believed, she was from South Side, like you were telling me about.”

“So, what’s it like?”

He starts telling them about life in Chicago on autopilot, but all the while all he can think about is the sheer proximity they could have had to one another. They could have known each other, grown up alongside each other their whole lives. They could have been friends. Would they have been more?

But then a second, less wistful, series of thoughts pop into his head. Milkovich. South Side. Synapses in his brain make a connection and he feels a sour, metallic taste in his mouth. Terry Milkovich. Ian knew he had heard that name before. One of the worst men the Back of the Yards ever churned out. Rumor had it that his wife and kids went missing and he was accused of murdering them. But nobody could find enough evidence to convict him. And years later, when they finally did put him away for good, none of their bodies were among the ones exhumed from his back yard.

That doesn’t make sense to Ian. None. How does a bastard like that give way to someone like Mickey? Or Mandy for that matter?

Ian doesn’t even know if he’s just speculating wildly. Even if he isn’t, he can’t bring himself to disclose this to the Milkovich twins. They have enough on their shoulders with the memory of their mother casting a shadow that spans whole star systems. They don’t need the added burden of knowing what legacy their family name carries back on Earth.

“Ian?”   

****

He reaches out and takes Ian by the forearm, unconcerned that Mandy is observing them being familiar. Fuck it. She’s already seen plenty.

“Ian?”

The native-born Terran startles, shaken. “Mickey?” He fulfills the call and response. Mickey sees dread in his eyes. Why shouldn’t he.  This is the second time in as many days that he has been asked about home. Chicago. His sisters and brothers. It must be dawning on him that he’ll not see them again.

I’m a fucking bastard for taking him away, robbing him of everything he’s ever known, and pretending it was some daring rescue.

“You were lightyears away. You were going on about white socks and then you froze up mid-sentence. You okay?”

“Who, me?” Ian asks as though Mickey asked the impossible, acting as though he shouldn’t have any reason to worry about him. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” He searches Ian’s countenance. It’s something Mickey tries to do as a squad leader. He may not be their bosom buddy, but a small team means he can check in with them when something feels off.

“I mean it, Mick. I’m fine. We’re good.”

It reminds Mickey of this Terran expression his mother had been fond of. A stiff upper lip. Another phrase from their home planet that really doesn’t track on a literal sense, but Mickey understands the meaning: don’t let them see you struggling, smile even when it hurts. Is this a Terran thing in general or a quality that the Star Fighter trial seeks out?

He had been far too small to understand it when he was little. But in the years since he lost his mother, Mickey has understood it more year by year— mainly from watching his sister. He knows Mandy felt the loss of their mother every bit as much as he had. But Mandy didn’t grow up with the same chip on his shoulder that Mickey developed. She strove to show the Alliance that she is more than just the remainder of the Messiah Who Fell.

He wishes he could be as strong as Mandy. Or as Ian.

“Maybe it’s time we shifted focus to your exit strategy,” Mandy suggests.

“Yeah,” Mickey agrees, turning back to face his sister, but keeping Ian in his periphery. “You got us refueled?”

She nods, “Chief Nuxis says you did good job repairing your main injection line. He should be finished refilling your P-Benz tank by now.”

“Nuxis is here? I thought he retired?”

“I guess he got restless.”

And he is one of the best in the Chchraian Star Armada. He has earned a level of respect usually reserved for top brass even though he never had any intention of accepting an opportunity to transition into an officer’s position, which had been offered him three times in his career. But he never had any interest in pursuing a role beyond his engine room or ship’s systems.

Chief Specialist Diu Nuxis is a non-comm who was at the top of his career ladder and already entrenched aboard The Euryale long before Mickey and Mandy were posted aboard the ship as newly minted Squires. Mickey would probably still be just another flyboy interchangeable with thousands across the fleet if Nuxis hadn’t pulled him aside as a Squire and taught him a thing or two.

The old codger is a miserable bastard. And he is the nearest thing Mickey to a legitimate role model. He must have made an impression on Mandy as well. When she earned command of The Sekhmet years later, she requested a ship-to-ship transfer for Nuxis specifically.

“Does he know I’m here?” He asks, hesitating.

“He knew before anyone else,” she smiles.

“Sounds about right.”

“In case it comes up, he’s been told Gallagher is one of Dux Karapa’s nephews and you were on a standard escort mission gone sideways.”

Mickey grimaces and feels a bead of sweat roll down his neck. In other words, Nuxis definitely plans to chew him out over the repair job. He wipes the crumbs from the corners of his mouth and pushes away from the table. “How soon until you plan on cutting us loose?”

****

They go directly to the  cargo hold from their meal with Mandy. They didn’t have any reason to stop back in the room. The only things Ian had on his person when Mandy led them aboard that truly matters to him are his meds an his phone. And he left the room with both this morning. Of course, he needs his meds to stabilize his mental health. But his phone has become more of a totem to him. Even though it is essentially a paperweight without a charge, he holds it close at all times. It’s a lifeline to the world he left behind. If he ever gets back to earth, he wants to be able to reach his family and let them know he is okay.

They would want to know. Of that, he is certain. It isn’t as though Ian hasn’t disappeared on them before. But it has been years it has happened and certainly not since he accepted his diagnosis. They either think he’s gone off his tether again and disappeared to fuck knows where. Or they think he’s dead in a ditch somewhere.

The ship feels very much like a maze and they’re a couple of rats working their way through to the cheese at the end. Ian can’t fathom how Mickey navigates his way so effortlessly through the corridors when each one they journey through all look exactly like the one before it. It could be different if the ship weren’t so empty. It’s as though they are trying to hide Ian from plain view just in case that it turns out they were dead wrong in selecting Ian and they’re preemptively saving face.

“Try not to say anything stupid around the Chief, would you?” Asks an anxious Mickey.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Ian laughs. “You know, you didn’t even sound this nervous about meeting your sister.”

“Yeah? Well, she didn’t need you making a big deal out of her in the first place.”

It’s strange to see Mickey getting caught up in his nerves like this. It is as if Mickey is a schoolboy and the outcome of Ian meeting one of Mickey’s fellow gear heads could make or break his grade point average. It’s honestly a sharp pivot to hear that tone of deference in Mickey’s voice. Any time the Alliance’s command structure comes up in conversation, Ian wouldn’t say Mickey is disparaging, but his take on authority is decidedly bleak.

“Is it important to you if this guy likes me?”

Mickey stops dead in his tracks. Ian halts a step later, turning and keeping an eye affixed on his companion. Mickey blinks a few times, obviously making an effort to weigh his answer. “Yeah, I suppose it does. Why?”

“No reason.” Ian can only smile, piecing together what sort of situation he is about to walk into. Maybe it’s just as well that Ian keeps the possibility of knowing who Mickey’s father back on Earth to himself. Because it sounds like this Nuxis is fulfilling the job description better than old Terry could have ever hoped to become.

When they arrive at their destination, the heavy outer doors of the cargo hold open with a growling groan and the even heavier inner doors follow suit. Inside the hangar, very little has changed since the previous night. Crates and large duro-steel barrels are stacked and secured in holding pens along the wall or are stowed on antigravity flatbeds ready to be hauled to a different part of the ship.

The N-807 Kidu is right where they left it. And in front of it, buffing one of the lower nacelles is an elderly man, maybe in his late sixties, thin and spry with a tight crew cut of silver hair. The man hears them coming and turns around to face them. It suddenly occurs to Ian that this is the first Chchraian he will have ever met. And despite Chchraians and Terrans having a common ancestry, the orange within orange of the old man’s eyes make it clear that there are some visible differences.

Then again, the EMT in him makes a quick knee-jerk reaction of a diagnosis. Maybe there is too much keratin in his diet.

“Took you long enough, Mikk-kail-ow.” Ian might have to conceded that Mickey might have a point about Chchraians having trouble pronouncing his name.

Mickey salutes very sharply. And much more enthusiastically than he did for Mandy the previous night.

“Knock it off, kid. How many times do I have to tell you. Me— non-comm. You— officer. I should be the one saluting you.”

“Sign of respect, Nuxis,” Ian insists.

“I didn’t ask for your respect. What I’d like is for you to show this lady here some respect.” Nuxis pats the hull of Mickey’s ship for emphasis.

“I show her plenty of respect. And could you quit acting like my ship is a lady? It’s weird.”

“Have you even given her a name?”

“What? Why would I bother—”

“It’s ‘Enkidu.’” Ian volunteers.

The old man looks Ian up and down circumspect. “I don’t see any rank on you, rusty.”

“Non-combatant.”

“Let me guess. The damn diplomatic corps is wasting our time and manpower with escort missions again. Any luck convincing the bugs to just leave our territory out of the goodness of their hearts?”

“Not exactly.”

“Heh. That’s what I figured. So, what sort of name is Enkidu?”

“It’s from ancient mythology on Earth— Terra.”

Ian catches himself looking for some indication from Mickey if he is doing okay, but Mickey is keeping his expression very neutral, those eyebrows of his that could communicate in pinafore if they wanted to are locked down as Mickey keeps his expression placid.

“A historian, huh? Pardon me for being a humble roughneck from the Crab Nebula, but what’s the significance?”

Ian starts, but then catches himself. The go-to answer in his head is that he’s Gilgamesh’s boyfriend. But Ian has no idea what Chchraian attitudes towards homosexuality are. He doesn’t even know if

“He was a wild man.” Ian turns to Mickey in surprise. He had no idea what Ian was even talking about when Ian dropped the reference days ago. “The greatest warrior in the world fought him, civilized him, and they became constant companions.”

“Well, well, well. You’re cracking open books other than schematics. Who are you and where’s our Mikk-kail-ow?”

Mickey sniffs out a laugh. “Ian here is a good influence.”

“Oh, yeah?” Asks Ian fondly, trying not to flirt in front of Mickey’s mentor.

“Yeah. You make so many damn references that I’ve never heard of before that I end up scrolling through the data banks having to parse out what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Glad I could help?” Ian responds, not knowing if this is a compliment, insult, or pure statement of fact.

“Well, I took a look under the hood and you did a good job of patching Enkidu, here back up. But I think you need to work on technique. You’re a better craftsman than this Mikk-kail-ow. Some of this looks like it was done by a novice.”

Ian almost intercedes to explain that he is said novice, but Mickey pushes forward in a tone that broadcasts to Ian to let the matter drop. “Well, you know how it is out in the field when you don’t always have all the tools you need.”

“Yes, yes. You put her back together with some polymer, an adjustable document fastener, and twine just like your Terran ancestors would. Now, speaking of all the tools you need, I made some adjustments to your ride that I think you might appreciate.”

“You did what?!”

If Ian had any doubts what the dynamic between Mickey and Nuxis is, those doubts are pulverized into smithereens as he watches the two of them squabble over damn engines. It takes all Ian has to suppress the urge to laugh.

Chapter Text

As they cruise away on the newly christened Enkidu, the Sekhmet shrinks into the horizon, its elongated pteravian design seeming especially bird-like as the retractable engine nacelles extend into position and the central spire lowers to assume faster than light factor 1. A flash of light illuminates the void. And then the Hyksos-class starship vanishes into the void.

Mickey turns his gaze towards the copilot’s seat, where Ian beholds the Sekhmet vanishing in a flash. Even after all he has seen, Ian’s mouth is agape and his eyes damp with awe. There is a strange sort of counterbalance with Ian. On the one hand, Mickey has gotten so comfortable with Ian that it’s hard picturing that co-pilot’s chair empty. But on the other hand, Mickey needs to remind himself that this world he lives in is completely new to Ian.

 Mickey cannot help but appreciate seeing his miserable world through new eye. But the ride is almost over.

He looks away, gulping. Stare at the heart of a star too long and you hurt yourself.

A week ago, Mickey would have prided himself on his ability to be alone. He trained his team, sure. He taught them to work both as a unit and independently. But his leadership style is very much about giving his team the tools they need to succeed and trust them to know what they’re doing. That’s the nature of a star skimmer pilot: a dozen knights fighting in tandem, but ultimately flying on their own. Now, though, he has a hard time imagining what life will be like once the seat beside him is empty.

“So, is there anything about Chchraia you think I need to know before we get to the Asterion?”

He looks at Ian askance, uncertainty burning in his chest. “Haven’t you heard enough, yet? It spans eighty-three star systems and three hundred a forty-four member—”

“No, not the Alliance. Just Chchraia. You said the other founding worlds have their own messiahs, right?”

Mickey rubs at his eyebrow uncomfortably. “Um… the capitol city is Hyperis, it’s an absolute republic. One mega continent and four smaller ones. Four oceans. Sorry. I know that’s practically nothing to go on, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in front of an edu holo.”

“What’s an absolute republic?”

“‘The needs of the state are paramount above all,’” Mickey recites from a memory he thought he had long shaken. It is a pledge all Chchraian students proclaim at the start of each school day. “‘Our elected ministers of state were chosen by the hands of Zo and Deca.’ The less flowery version is ‘obey the laws.’”

“I, hearing an implied ‘or else.’”

“Yeah?” Mickey catches the heat in his voice, angry words soaked in years of pain that he has never vocalized attempting to bubble to the surface. But then he swallows them and backs off.

It hurts because it’s true, he realizes. Even for native born Chchraians, the fatherland’s love is highly conditional. And as a resident alien, losing it can have dire consequences. On some level, that must have been why he fell in step with his sister when she decided to enlist. Mandy always wanted to prove herself. But Mickey has made a career of staying just visible enough in the armada that nobody questions his allegiance. Little did he know at the tender age of thirteen what accepting his commission would cost him. A Chchraian civilian is expected to put the needs of the government above their own, but a soldier in the republic’s service has no choice.

He sighs, an ache in his voice. “Do you really need to be asking about all this now?”

Ian hesitates. “N-not if it’s upsetting you.”

“I’m fine,” Mickey lies.

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I’m a nervous test taker. And I know there’s another trial waiting for me when we get to your base.”

Mickey raps his fingers against his dashboard as he weighs a decision that has been pecking away at him ever since the first time he woke up and found Ian beside him. Mickey lowers the ship to a safer cruising speed and engages the autopilot.

Standing, he turns to Ian, hand on his shoulder. Soon, Ian, too, is standing, staring needfully back at Mickey. Ian’s gaze jeopardizes Mickey’s control of the situation, ensorcelled by the sparkling green of his eyes.

“Mickey?” Ian asks as the Star Knight grabs two fistfuls of Ian’s shirt and pulls him close. They’re inches apart again.

“This isn’t how I want us to spend our last hours together.” Their lips meet for only the second time and if anything it is more intense than last night. Maybe because this isn’t meant as an apology, but a declaration. He wants Ian and this might be the last time he can have him.

The last time they kissed, Mickey had no idea how long they were ensnared in each other’s desperate embrace. It was as though they were caught in a time warp, not knowing if they had been interlocked as they were for seconds, minutes, or even hours. This time, Mickey wants it to be hours. He doesn’t want to let go of Ian until he absolutely has to.

He feels the hands he knows so well by now, large enough to easily envelope his own, cupping his thighs, holding them securely before Mickey feels himself being separated from the floor below him. His annual training involves hours spent in zero gravity every year. But he has never felt weightless like this before as his arms wrap around Ian’s neck and his thighs hitch around the redhead’s hips.

Ian does that weird Terran thing where his tongue finds its way into Mickey’s mouth and Osur below, does it drive Mickey practically feral.

He feels Ian moving and he isn’t bothering pulling away from the kiss to waste the precious seconds it takes to ask where they’re going. It obviously isn’t waste extraction.

The bunk. The site of moments of warmth, protection, caring for each other’s injuries. This bed small though it may be, has been a shared cocoon for both of them this past week. Their special place, though until now it has been a chaste place. Mickey curses every time this past week when he found himself wanting to practically mount Ian like a bitch in heat, but held back for fear of rejection.

Ian lays him down gently, kneeling beside him on the firm mattress. Then both of them proceed to ravenously tear at each other’s clothes. Unsealing, unsnapping, unhitching. Mickey will give Terran clothes one thing— they’re easier to get off.

And then they’re both bare, fully exposed to each other. Ian’s anatomy is thinner than his, thickening in the middle, but much longer, maybe half the length of his forearm. The head of his shaft is oblong, a violent shade of pink and purple. It almost doesn’t occur to Mickey to wonder why he doesn’t have foreskin, taking it for some Terran custom. Ian’s sac droops ponderously, nestled in a thatch of red curly hair a shade or two darker than the hair on his head.

Mickey licks his lips as he lowers down to take Ian’s manhood into him, his cheeks hollowing as he looks up to Ian gauging his face for how well he is doing. It has been so long since C’yro that Mickey is afraid his virginity has grown back. He cups Ian’s balls with one hand, massaging them as his tongue tickles up and down a vein on the underside of Ian’s length.

Encouraged by Ian’s sounds of approval and the reciprocal sensation of Ian’s hand on his own member, Mickey continues, swishing and flicking his tongue, rewarded by the sound of Ian’s moans. But then Ian pulls away from him. He hears Ian very audibly spit. The needy moan that escapes Mickey’s lips might be cause for embarrassment with anyone else, but with Ian it doesn’t matter. He wants Ian to know how much Mickey wants him. Luckily, his mouth is given a quick replacement in the form of another series of long, wet kisses as Ian leans Mickey onto his back and two saliva-soaked digits slip between his thighs, teasing his taint before finding purchase at his opening. Mickey curses at the ceiling, swears sounding like a litany of prayers as Ian slowly works his way in and begins to toy with him, idly scissoring his hole open until Mickey is ready.

Osur and Zo! It’s been too long since the last time anything beside his own fingers were in there.

Ian guides Mickey’s legs up until they are resting on either one of his shoulders, then lines his shaft into place, the mushroom head practically kissing Mickey’s winking entry point. Then he stops.

Why are you stopping, Gallagher?

Green eyes meet blue. “Are you ready?” Mickey nods. “Are you sure? I’m kind of big and I don’t wanna—”

“You wanna chit chat some more or do you wanna get on me?” Mickey demands with a bratty sneer.

He sees the flames in Ian’s eyes and a mischievous grin. Ian likes to be challenged.

Ian slowly presses inside him and Mickey feels the slow burn of himself being stretched. And Ian is in him. All nine glorious inches of him. Despite a lifetime spent in space, it’s the first time Mickey has ever seen stars.

Chapter Text

Ian cards his fingers through his companion’s hair as he dozes, damp and shiny from several hours of exertion. Four rounds spent alternating  between giddy pleasures and fervent need. Ian’s fingers, tongues, lips explored every inch of his beautiful space man, mapping out the physical location of each sigh, moan, groan and grunt.  

Ian’s dominant hand glides along the almost invisible hair of Mickey’s forearms. Even after spending the past four hours becoming intimately familiar with ever nook and cranny of his body, Ian still cannot stop get over just how delicate his brave Star Knight’s body is.   

Ian doesn’t know when they’ll get this chance again. He doesn’t know what's going to happen when they arrive on Asterion. And he isn’t altogether certain Mickey knows either. Ian may be a stranger in a strange land, but Mickey was quite literally an embryo when the previous Messiah was located by the Alliance.  

They’re both in uncharted territory. Or they will be. For now, with their limbs entangled and their skin all but glued together with perspiration, they are in a sort of limbo as they bask in the blissful afterglow.  

As Ian’s newfound lover rests, wiped out and boneless draped almost artistically between Ian’s thighs, the space man’s head resting against a thin red pelt of chest hair above Ian’s left breast. The ginger quietly listens to the rhythm of Mickey’s resting heartbeat, the soft wheeze of his left nostril as he gently snores, the way Mickey will periodically wet his lips before he mutters through his dreams.  

Of course, he has spotted all these little mannerisms every now and again in the preceding days when he would wake up to find himself clinging to Mickey or vice versa. But it feels different now. He’s allowed to look, really take in every fine detail and  There is no dismissing their physical closeness as a necessity any longer. They aren’t huddling for warmth while the secondary power systems were down; no pretending he can’t sleep without a Mickey-sized teddy bear. 

They haven’t discussed it. Discussing personal matters doesn’t seem to be Mickey’s bailiwick in general. He expresses himself through his deeds. Bolting headlong through an alien rain forest to protect Ian from harm, then afterward applying a healing balm to Ian’s body by hand, taking great pains to take care of him. Mickey taught him to repair Enkidu’s engines and how to fly him because Mickey entrusts Ian with his knowledge. Mickey has listened to Ian’s every question and concern with patience and understanding ever since the day he struck down seven Verrak’hai scarabs  in one blow in order to save his life. 

And today, Mickey made sure beyond any suspicion to the contrary that he wants Ian. Ian can only pray that it is anywhere near as much as Ian needs him.  

Ian is literally unable to count the number of men he has been with, thanks to a double whammy of party drugs and manic hypersexuality, and even the number he can remember his much higher than he would care to admit. Being with Mickey, however, feels like he just lost his virginity all over again, as though his journey through space provided some spiritual cleansing so that he could be ready for Mickey. Being inside him as those eyes as deep as the sea and as boundless as the heavens poured into him gave him the sense of being connected to Mickey in a profound way he doesn’t trust that he has the lexicon to articulate. It felt as though they were one soul in two bodies.  

But does Mickey feel their connection the same way Ian does. Ian has kissed a lot of frogs, but Mickey said he has only ever been with one other person. How is he supposed to know that Ian is the one person in all the galaxy for him?  

And would Ian be selfish to expect Mickey to tether himself to him? Set him up for heartache? They both know Ian doesn’t have a lengthy shelf-life ahead of him. His  clock is already punched, it’s just a matter of when. 

When. Christ, when. Time is not on his side. The Enkidu is on autopilot destined for their destination, Star Base Asterion, as it has been the whole time they’ve been rolling around the bed like a couple of horny teenagers. Even as he lays here waffling about his feelings, and wondering if Mickey is up for the long haul, Ian might not last more than a few years.  

Maybe less.   

Laura managed to survive until Mickey and Mandy were four. But somehow, he suspects that she was kept away from the front lines of the Alliance’s war against the Verrak’hai while they knew that she was expecting, and probably until her children were old enough to be in pre-school. Everything Mickey has told Ian about the Alliance makes them sound like the sort of no-nonsense people that wouldn’t want their vaunted savior showing up to wage battle with an infant at either breast. She might have been blessed with far more time than she otherwise would have known all because of her children.  

But then again, the more drips and drabs about the Chchraians he ekes out of Mickey, the more they sound like the kind of people that would compel Laura to hand her children off to a wet nurse in order to expedite her duties as their hand-picked Messiah.  

Mickey shifts his weight, murmuring in his sleep, “No, Ian… not like Qal...” 

Who’s Cal? Ian wonders. Is he the one other guy Mickey has been with? Were they together long? Did they have to sneak around? Ian reckons that whoever Mickey’s first was must have been a soldier, considering he has lived his whole life on military installations.  

Ian wonders what the guy was like. Did he make Mickey happy? Does he miss him? Did they hit the skids or did something happen to the other guy? 

After days and days as each other’s only companionship during their unintended stay on Samek-4, Ian feels that he knows the type of person Mickey is, even if the man isn’t exactly forthcoming with personal details. He vacillates between being incredibly tight-lipped about some things and an open book about others. Clever witted to the point where Ian doesn’t know if the sense of humor is off the cuff or carefully constructed, Mickey can and will riff on any topic as long as it isn’t personal.  

If Mickey has only ever obliquely mentioned this guy’s existence once in passing, not even mentioned a name. He must have mattered to Mickey.  

Mattered enough for the loss to hurt.  

Ian wonders how he put Mickey through that again, knowing how well and truly fucked he is? 

****  

“I don’t think I should be wearing this,” Ian protests as he sits on the bed, wrapped in a thin towel after his sonic shower with a folded Chchraian star armada uniform in his hands. “It’s not like I’ve earned the right to wear this thing.” 

Mickey swallows back a sigh. He doesn’t want Ian to don the uniform either, albeit for a different reason. It makes the gears of fate feel too inevitable. Putting that uniform on brings him a step closer to his doomed fate at the head of the fleet. Mickey feels his insides shrivel just thinking that he might have to living through losing someone to this damn prophesy a second time. 

But this isn’t about what he wants.  

“That’s a ceremonial kit you got there, E. Prox isn’t exactly shoving you out into an active war zone after we’re docked.” 

Ian looks uncertain even as he pulls on his sleek new togs. He fastens the fly of his new leggings and the material shrinks to fit his form. The stripe along either side is a pure silvery white, indicating high status but no rank.  

“Y’know, back home I’m only allowed to wear my uniform for ceremonial purposes. And I really did earn that one.”  

He sounds rueful. Mickey is praying that Ian doesn’t have some fool idea that being elevated to the head of a fleet the way he is about to be will make up for the loss of his military aspirations back on Terra.  

“It’ll be expected. They wanna see the Messiah like he just sprang out of nowhere ready for battle. Mandy’s got a holo somewhere of mom’s arrival.” Actually, it’s Mickey’s holo, but he feels embarrassed to admit that he has clung onto his mother’s memorabilia. “She was suited up. It’s tradition. And besides, you’re gonna stand out on The Asterion in civvies.”  

“It’s all military, huh?” Ian is using that tone of voice that makes it sound like the question he is actually asking and the one he verbalizes are two separate things. Colonel M’Lyris’ team could learn a thing or two from Ian’s more subtle information gathering methods. 

Mickey nods. “Yeah, everyone on a state-owned and operated Chchraian vessel is considered a soldier, even civilian services like sanitation, engineering, medical services. They all have their own duty uniforms. Osur below, even me and Mandy used to go around in pint-sized kits.”  

“What? Seriously?” Ian looks incredulous as he pulls the base layer over his head. 

“I have a holo, if you don’t believe me.” 

Ian’s head emerges out of the neck of the shirt looking like one of the smaller mammals they saw back on Samek-4 popping out of the hole of its underground burrow. He grins, pleased with himself. “You offering to show me your baby pictures?” 

Mickey sighs, leaning against the bulkhead. “Assuming you can squeeze me into your busy schedule.” 

Ian closes the distance between the two of them, catching Mickey by surprise as he grips the brunette by the narrow of his waist and pulls him close, standing chest to chest. “You better believe I wanna make time for you. As much as they’ll allow.” 

The way Ian is looking into his eyes makes Mickey’s insides feel molten, threatening to burn him alive from the inside out. They’re minutes away from docking and he wants to be bouncing on this handsome man’s column again.  

He reminds himself to breathe.  

“How much time will they allow?” Ian asks as he begins planting a series of small butterfly kisses along Mickey’s jawline. 

Mickey inhales sharply through his two front teeth. “We’ve got time,” he coos. "Prox isn’t gonna be eager to hand you over to Dux Karajan at Central Command any time soon. Congratulations on becoming the Alliance’s most valuable pawn.” 

“What’s a Dux?” 

“High rank.” Mickey extracts himself from Ian’s hold. How has something as important as some of the most important men and women in the Alliance just skipped his mind? Maybe it has something to do with just how close to the forefront Prox is in his mind. "Shit I should’a done a better job getting you ready.” 

“You told me plenty.” 

A verbal command to The Enkidu later, the room is flooded with a cyan-tinged infographic of the Chchraian star armada’s ranks.  

“Okay, so Chchraian space is made up of twenty sectors. And each sector’s got a major general. You following me so far? A dux oversees four sectors from a cushy seat in Central Command. So, that’s five Chchraian Duxes, plus one for each of the other charter worlds’ armadas. They form the Optio’s governing council.” 

“Wait, so let me see if I get this right—the other founding worlds answer to the Chchraian military?”  

Mickey nods. It’s an oversimplification, but not much of one. In centuries prior, each high commander of the five charter worlds answered directly to Parliament. And they often came at cross purposes. Eventually, it was decided that the Alliance’s disparate militaries needed a unifying voice. As Chchraia had overwhelmingly the largest standing armada, the Optio was appointed to speak on behalf of all armed forces throughout the Alliance. Over time, more and more Parliamentary power was consolidated into the Optio. In modern times, the Optio holds a lifetime seat, lording over the military operations of every Alliance world. 

“Just try not to think too hard about it. The Alliance has been fucked for ages or we wouldn’t need to drag out Messiahs in the first place.”  

Mickey himself can barely muster the ability to be too enthusiastic about the system he serves. Ian questions everything, as you would expect for someone who knows absolutely dick squat about the world he has been dragged into. But Mickey doesn’t have the confidence for Ian to know what questions to ask whom. Not yet. He needs to get a lay of his new terrain first. Mickey has no idea that his lover’s Terran upbringing will make it easy for him to see through the political smokescreen. But for now, it’s for Ian’s own good that he gets in the good graces of men like Prox. He only can pray he sounds convincing.  

He excuses himself to check on the ship’s progress leaving Ian to dress himself. He doesn’t know if he can go on putting a brave face uninterrupted. He takes a series of deep breaths as he watches The Asterion grow ever larger on the view screen as they make their approach.  

The ride is almost over.  

He’s close enough that he hails the base’s Docking Ops Manager. No use in pretending he can stall any further. He opens up a comm frequency. 

“SB-Asterion, this is the N-807 Enkidu, requesting permission to dock.” 

“Chief?” comes a familiar woman’s voice from the other side of the comm connection. “Migg-hay-le-oh, is that you?" 

He stifles a laugh. It’s one of the more idiosyncratic mispronunciations of his name, and one that is easily identifiable. It’s Aelo Mavican. She is from one of the first couple waves of skimmer pilots he trained back when he was still an SK-2. He didn’t know what possessed her to take a stationary posting when she is a perfectly good pilot, but she turned out to be a natural administrator. 

“You got it, Mav. Got a docking port for me?” 

“You know, M’Lyris has been snooping around here for days to see if you’ve gotten back from your little joy ride.” 

“Yeah. That tracks. Where M’Lyris is Prox isn’t far behind.”  

“I can have Theta-6 ready for you in ten minutes." 

This is real. This is the real end of the journey. Mickey’s limbs feel like ice and his throat tightens, he looks away from the holo long enough to blink back an oncoming tear, wiping them away with thumb and forefinger.  

Minutes ago, he reassured Ian that they would have plenty of time after they dock, after Mickey’s normal day-to-day resumes. But the truth is he doesn’t know what comes next. For all her knows, Ian could request quarters on the same deck and section as his once they’ve docked. But by the same token, he could be sequestered, surrounded by Prox’s men, closely guarded like his golden calf. How much leverage will Ian have over his own life from now on? 

It is the not knowing that scares Mickey more than anything.