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Taeyong finds Doyoung in the USS Enterprise's Stellar Cartography viewing lab at four in the morning, testing a series of projections Taeyong doesn't entirely understand on various viewscreens. He had a feeling the science officer would be here. Doyoung has all the lights off, leaving the lab entirely illuminated by the glow from the enormous panoramic screens encasing the entirety of the bay and the backlight of his console. As Taeyong steps through the door and onto the walkway to the elevated command center platform, he feels like he's stepping out into space itself.
Taeyong always feels so small in this lab. From the high domed ceiling and long rings of lights to the huge viewscreens surrounding the suspended platform, encasing it like a fishbowl, he feels absolutely miniature. He lives in space, works here, sees it all the time through windows and screens on the Enterprise and space stations and various forms of transportation, but there are few places that really drive home how surrounded he is by it as much as this lab. He wonders how Doyoung can work here so often.
But it's beautiful. So beautiful. Taeyong looks around at the stellar systems Doyoung is guiding the viewscreens through, changing formations of stars and planets and nebulas, and walks towards him.
Doyoung is perched on the stool in front of the console on the small command center platform, and Taeyong enters the ring of railings around it as slowly as possible so as not to startle him. "Shouldn't you be asleep?" Taeyong asks quietly, once he's standing by Doyoung's side.
Doyoung startles anyway and jumps to his feet, almost going into a combat position before realising the intruder is Taeyong. "You scared me!" Doyoung yelps, clutching his heart, and glares at Taeyong accusingly. "Don't scare me!"
"Sorry." Taeyong smiles sheepishly. "It's hard to not scare someone while walking up behind them in an empty lab at oh four hundred hours."
"It's not empty. I'm here." Doyoung frowns, turning away and looking back out at the viewscreens. "Shouldn't you be asleep too?"
"We both probably should be."
"I can't. I have too much to do." Doyoung taps a few more buttons, and suddenly they're speeding through a ring of light, emerging in a different planetary system. He zooms in on four planets of varying sizes, with multiple rings on each, then weaves through them to the star they're orbiting. "I found this star. It's almost identical to the other two we found that were near-perfect matches for the one we're studying. If it behaves like those two, then that will be three. Three matches, all behaving the same, and ours … doesn't. It just doesn't and I don't know why."
Doyoung's body seems to sag with defeat. Taeyong makes a soft sympathetic noise, which seems louder in the silence of the lab. He takes a step forward to rest his chin on Doyoung's shoulder, arms naturally circling Doyoung's waist. Doyoung leans back into him and sighs.
They've become very physically comfortable with each other during all the time they've spent together over the past several weeks, as two-thirds of a team specially assembled to research, plan and prepare for the execution of a mission of moderate importance. They should be maintaining Starfleet officer formalities, to some degree, but those were gradually dropped as they went from barely-contained hostility and enmity to deep friendship.
And, of course, that includes Yuta — the other third of their team. The blunt, undiplomatic and hot-headed nature of the tactical officer was a large part of the reason their small team was barely cohesive during the first two weeks. Yuta clashed viciously with Doyoung, Taeyong always pulled into the middle of the arguments as he tried to smooth things over, until they were only on speaking terms due to having been forced to be on the same special mission team. But the genuine animosity has faded now, and what's been left between the three of them is comfort. An almost indescribable trust, and comfort.
So it's not strange. It's not strange when Taeyong holds Doyoung close against him, and when Doyoung reaches down to hold Taeyong's hand absentmindedly as he continues to talk, voice rising in frustration.
"I just want to know why. We can't finalise any plans, can't make theoretical ideas concrete, can't actually do anything until we know why. And I want to do something. I want to finally, actually do something."
Doyoung turns around to face him, and Taeyong shifts his grasp so that Doyoung will stay in his arms. He looks up, and their eyes meet. Their gazes hold in a way that makes Taeyong's heart beat hard enough that he can almost hear it. He can't tell if Doyoung is searching for something in his eyes, either a question or an answer, but he's searching for one of those in Doyoung's. It hits Taeyong how easy it would be right now to lean in and kiss Doyoung.
He shouldn't. They're co-workers, on the same mission team no less. There aren't rules against relationships onboard, other than disclosing them to a superior and never letting them affect performance or professionalism, but there's a reason so many of the crew have their own personal rules about it. Relationships can make things complicated, and can easily be ruined. And ruined relationships are never a good thing when those involved are stuck on a starship in the middle of space together for a fixed term of several years, in close quarters and frequent situations forcing interaction.
But it would be easy to kiss Doyoung. Doyoung's eyes drift down to Taeyong's lips, and Taeyong just wants to kiss him so much —
At that moment, Taeyong's communicator chirps. They jump at the noise, simultaneously moving apart so Taeyong can tap the device pinned onto the chest of his uniform and answer. They already have a pretty good idea of who it will be.
Sure enough, it's Yuta's voice that replies. Yuta jumps straight to the point. "I don't think I woke you up. If I did … oh well."
"You didn't." Taeyong laughs quietly. "What's up?"
"I can't sleep. I'm just — going fucking crazy thinking about this, about why the USS Epiphany would alter its course in some weird way for seemingly no fucking reason, and my roommates are going to kill me if I don't stop pacing, but shit, I —"
Taeyong cuts Yuta off, because he knows all too well what will happen if he lets Yuta's stressed energy build to frantic levels. "We're in the Stellar Cartography viewing lab."
"Both of you?"
"Yeah." Taeyong looks at Doyoung, and smiles. "Doyoung's going a little crazy too."
"I am not!" Doyoung interjects, swatting Taeyong on the arm, but none of them are fooled. He pauses a moment, then sighs loudly. "Fine. I guess I can put up with you for a while if you want to come up here."
"I'm on my way." Almost immediately, Yuta ends the transmission.
"Great," Doyoung grumbles. "Just when I'm having a peaceful night, Yuta happens."
Taeyong feels a little twinge of fondness at the smile Doyoung is hiding.
And Taeyong should probably be disappointed. Yuta's going to come up here and interrupt whatever moment he was just having with Doyoung (well, interrupt it more than he already has). But Taeyong isn't. He isn't disappointed at all. He feels the same kind of fluttery energy he felt while holding Doyoung, knowing he's going to see Yuta soon. He realises then that he wants to see Yuta so much. He wants to be around Yuta right now, always does; he feels a little better whenever he's around Yuta, just like he feels a little better whenever he's around Doyoung.
So much can change in a few weeks.
At four in the morning it's hard to be logical, and it's hard to think about the world of reality while alone in the glow of vast and innumerable galaxies. With Doyoung so close, and Yuta almost close as well, it's hard to put up even the slightest facade of boundaries. All those boundaries are gone, and Taeyong knows exactly how it happened.
The three of them have had endless heated discussions over rushed meals and quickly knocked back synthehol drinks in Ten Forward, often something between mild arguments and excitable hypothesising, but always driven by an intense passion. They spend more time together than apart as more and more often they've been excused from their usual duties to hold lengthy and exhausting meetings in astrometrics labs, tiny conference rooms and constantly shifting locations around the ship. These meetings usually alternate between them being at each other's throats and keeping each other together, with Taeyong rubbing Doyoung's tense shoulders to keep him breaking down from stress and weariness as Yuta tries to make them both laugh. They must have travelled several thousand miles together: racing around to various relevant places around the ship for research, pacing in whatever secluded areas Yuta's security officer clearance can get them into, running experimental simulations in the holodeck. They've spent countless long nights talking and laughing in Doyoung's quarters (Doyoung's not sure if he's lucky or cursed to be rooming alone), sometimes accidentally nodding off to sleep on each other's shoulders. And then there was last night, when they floated around theories until Taeyong and Yuta were too tired to go back to their own quarters, and the three of them squished into Doyoung's bed to kick each other's legs and complain about blanket hogging until they finally fell asleep tangled together.
Taeyong can't pinpoint exactly where along the line the boundaries disappeared, only that they disintegrated until there are now no longer any left.
Taeyong puts an arm around Doyoung's waist, and Doyoung tells him incredibly specific details about the star onscreen as they wait for Yuta. Soon, the familiar swoosh and chirp of the door sounds — they've all been granted special access to each other's domains — and the lab door opens. It closes behind Yuta, cutting off the fluorescence of the hallway, and Yuta takes a few steps inside.
Yuta looks so beautiful bathed in the light from the faraway stellar formations surrounding them. He smiles at them, and there's something so open and genuine about it that it overwhelms Taeyong. Taeyong gestures him over, and Yuta ascends the walkway towards them.
When Yuta is standing on the platform in front of them, his eyes go to Taeyong's arm around Doyoung's waist. It's so familiar, so comfortable, that Yuta doesn't need to question anything. Just like always, he understands.
"I want to show you something," says Doyoung. "I was looking for something like that star up there, but then I found a nebula that looks like a soccer ball."
"What? Really?" Yuta asks, with great interest. He's known onboard the Enterprise as a fearsome player of Parrises Squares and anbo-jyutsu, but his true formidability and passion lies in one of Earth's oldest sports. It's deeply endearing how worked up he can get about it, and of course Doyoung remembers. Doyoung remembers every detail like that.
"Over here," says Doyoung, and takes Yuta's hand. For a moment, Doyoung doesn't actually lead him anywhere. The three of them stay like that, connected, until Taeyong finally lets go of Doyoung's waist so he can pull Yuta over to the other side of the console. Doyoung taps a few buttons, explaining them to Yuta as the view on the screens rotates and zooms in until the nebula is visible in the distance. Doyoung points it out to Yuta — probably unnecessarily, since it's clearly in range and in focus — but Yuta's eyes follow his finger anyway. Yuta's hand is still in Doyoung's, and he doesn't pull away.
Taeyong hangs back for a moment. His heart feels like it's overflowing with something he can't name as he watches them there together, fingers intertwining, leaning against each other's sides. Doyoung increases the magnification further and brings the nebula closer to Yuta, telling him excitedly about the molecular cloud it must have been created from and showing him the star that's forming inside it.
"I think I might've discovered that nebula," says Doyoung. "But I'm not going to name it after you."
"You're mean," Yuta says. "You say that, but I know you're going to."
"I'm definitely not."
At that moment, Doyoung looks back to see if Taeyong has followed them. "Are you just going to stand there? Come look at the star."
Yuta looks back too, grinning. "Yes, come here and look at the Yuta Nebula."
"It's not called that!" Doyoung protests, over Yuta's laughter.
Taeyong smiles, and goes over to join them in front of the forming star.