Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Sulaco always held some sort of ambient noise in its ribcage. It was calming some nights, unsettling on others. Tonight it felt like the ship was moving with you, an internal system mirroring internal organs. Something poetic like that, some thrum of automated energy stitched to your pulse. 

Someone had killed the overhead fluorescents in the common room and left only the low strip-lights and a couple of jury-rigged inspection lamps clipped to conduit. The light came out soft and yellow instead of harsh ship-white, honeying the metal into something almost warm and throwing long ribs of shadow across the deck. A definitive collection of butt rock crackled from a battered field speaker in the corner, tape hiss and static chewing at the twang until it sounded like it’d been broadcast through a dust storm. You thought the texture rather suited the dulcet tones of Buckcherry’s ‘Say Fuck It’. 

The air in your chosen haunt held the lingering scent of half-devoured cake and the clean chemical bite of the scrubbers, a totally appetizing combo that absolutely did not make your stomach feel any particular way. Bottles and ration packs sprawled over the table like wreckage after a storm. Labels half-peeled, condensation rings bleeding into scuffed metal, foil torn back to expose the pale brick of calories no one would admit to liking. The Sulaco’s bones clicked and settled around you, content as any great machine at idle. 

Hudson was in the middle of it all, of course. Birthday boy. Loud, laughing, already halfway drunk.

“I’m just saying!” He announced, words a little fuzzy round the edges. “If I die out there, I want it on record that I died tragically young and incredibly hot —”

“Shut up, Hudson.” Vasquez said without looking up from the deck of cards she was shuffling. “You were old the day you were born.”

The table erupted. Even Ripley smiled, a thin, reluctant curve of her mouth as she nursed her drink. She sat a little apart, shoulders curled in, as if she didn’t quite trust the furniture not to vanish from under her.

You were two seats down from her, shouldered in among the marines with a bottle of something not-quite-legal cooling your fingers, condensation beading under your thumb. Interim lab technician. Temporary assignment. The velcro on your borrowed name tag still rasped when you moved too quickly, the cuffs a hair too long, the boots not yet broken to your gait. The uniform didn’t feel entirely like yours. It was on loan from a better, louder life. You felt if you blinked too hard you’d be back on some clean civilian vessel where birthdays meant sanctioned cookies in the mess ( “Enjoy Responsibly!” in the standard Wey-Yu font printed with icing on each) and a manager’s auto-signed well-wishes.

Instead, you had Hudson doing a slurred impression of Apone while Apone himself smirked into a dented metal cup of whatever Dietrich had liberated from stores and cut with something brown. Drake was halfway through teaching Wierzbowski a game that involved more noise than rules, slapping a fistful of washers and a spent casing onto the tabletop like they were sacred pieces, daring anyone to question the scoring system he was clearly inventing as he went. Laughter spiked and fell, cards snapped like dry leaves, someone’s elbow knocked yours, and you felt the drink start to work its magic.

You took another swallow. It burned, cheap and sharp, but there was a pleasant edge to it now. Your cheeks felt warm. Your thoughts were soft around the edges. The ambient noise of the metal shell you were inside had dropped back, like a cat settling.

“Hey, hey, techie.” Hudson smirked, catching your sleeve with a loose hand. “What’s your official assessment of my birthday so far? On a scale from ‘boring’ to ‘best thing that’s ever happened on this bucket’.”

You tilted the bottle, squinting in mock consideration. “Mmm. I’d say… dangerously close to a court-martial.”

“Ha!” He slapped the table. “Heard that, Sarge?”

“I heard.” Apone said dryly. “And if you puke in my common room, I’ll have your ass scraping it until we hit retirement.”

“Oh, we love it when you talk like that.” Hudson slurred, leaning dramatically across the table. “Don’t we, guys?”

“Jesus.” Vasquez snorted, but there was something like fondness in it.

At some point, somebody got the bright idea to muscle the central table back. Chair legs shrieked against the deck, boots scuffed against each other, a cascade of bottle-necks chimed and then settled. You wound up shoulder-to-shoulder with marines as they cleared a rough conversation-pit style circle. For a minute the common room could’ve been a bar planetside. Laughter rolled and broke, the kind that loosens bolts, and you felt the whole place tilt toward mischief.

“Okay!” Hudson said suddenly, clapping his hands once, the sound too loud in the close space. “Okay, no, listen, we gotta kick this up a notch. You guys are boring me.”

“Uh oh.” Drake dragged a hand down his face. “Here we go.”

Hudson looked around, wild and pleased. His gaze snagged on an empty bottle rolling near your foot, caught by a bump in the deck. You felt the very instant he had the idea.

“Oh hell no.” Vasquez said, already seeing it coming.

“Oh hell yes.” Hudson swooped down, scooped up the bottle in a triumphant flourish, and thumped it onto the cleared patch in the middle of the floor. “Ladies, gentlemen, and science nerds: we are playing spin the bottle.”

There was a current of reaction including some groans, drunk laughter, a little mock outrage.

“You’re not in high school anymore, Hudson.” Dietrich tutted, but she sounded amused.

“Yeah, and? That just means I’m old enough to make my own bad decisions.” He waggled the bottle. “C’mon. It’s my birthday. You gotta indulge the birthday boy.”

Your head was pleasantly light. You watched the bottle’s empty throat catching the low light and thought, dizzy, that it looked like the open mouth of some small, gentle beast. You’d done this once, maybe twice, years ago. On a station where everyone had way too much free time and nobody carried pulse rifles.

“Spin the bottle is kids’ stuff.” Vasquez pursed her lips, leaning back in her chair. “You want something worth watching, we play seven minutes in heaven.”

Someone whistled. Hudson’s eyes got very round.

“Oh, now we’re talking.” He crowed. “You hear that, Sarge? That’s the sound of team-building.”

“What the hell is seven minutes in heaven?” Drake asked.

“You really were raised in a barn.” Vasquez rolled her eyes. She jerked her chin toward the storage closet off the common room. It so happened to be the one you’d visited earlier that day to count inventory. It was unique in that it had one door opening to this room, and another leading out into the short hallway that fed past med-lab and further downship.

“You spin, it lands, you and whoever it picks go in there for seven minutes.” Vasquez explained. “Door shut. What happens inside is between you and the man upstairs.”

Apone groaned theatrically and tipped his head back, as if praying to the ceiling. “You people are gonna shorten my life.”

“Live a little, Sarge!” Hudson smirked wolfishly. “Or at least let me live a little. You’re the one who signed off on the whiskey, man.”

Apone clicked his tongue. “I signed off on nothing. I just didn’t see it. That’s different.”

Ripley rubbed her hand over her face, laughing under her breath. She’d had enough to drink that her cheeks were flushed, her eyes softer. When she caught you looking, she tipped her cup in your direction, a slanted little toast, like you were both in on a private joke: what the hell are we doing, out here, with these lunatics?

Seven minutes in heaven, apparently.

You swallowed another mouthful of your drink. It sat heavy in your stomach, burning. There was a buzzing in your ears now that wasn’t all to do with the ship.

“Okay, okay.” Apone said finally, throwing up a hand. “You clowns keep it PG-13, you hear me? Nobody’s losing any clothing. And if I see so much as one hand out of place, I swear I’ll—”

“Copy that, Sarge!” Hudson was already moving to sit cross-legged on the deck. He set the bottle down before him with great ceremony. “Consent is sexy, people. We can all agree on that, right?”

There was scattered laughter. Someone shouted: “Just spin the damn thing, Hudson.”

The first few rounds were more comedy than anything else. The bottle wobbled and rolled, clinking against the deck, pointing at one marine after another. Drake went in with Vasquez and came out again with their hair mussed and laughing, both denying everything. Hicks got saddled with Hudson and shoved him into the closet by his collar to general applause. When they emerged seven minutes later, Hudson’s hair stuck up in five different directions and he was loudly insisting that nothing had happened, which absolutely nobody believed.

“Door on the far side’s for an easy escape.” Hicks jerked his thumb toward the hallway entrance when he sat back down. “If you see it open while you’re waiting your turn, that means your ass is not worth seven minutes.”

“Rude.” Hudson said. “So rude.”

“You love me.” The corner of Hicks’ mouth curled.

It went on like that. The room got louder, edges blurring. You clapped, you hooted, you hid your face in your hands when the bottle pointed at you and then stuttered past at the last moment.

Your sense of time dissolved. At some point, you realized you were leaning more of your weight on one side than you’d meant to. Your body was pleasantly heavy, your thoughts lagged by half a second behind your tongue.

Then someone spun again. You watched it move, glass flashing in the low light, your vision stuttering in little jumps as the room tilted.

It slowed.

Stuttered.

Stopped. Pointing directly at you.

A chorus went up. “Oohhh —”

You blinked down at it. For a moment your brain refused to connect the dots. Then Hudson whooped, pointing.

“Science! Get in there!”

“Oh, come on.” You started laughing, heat rushing up your throat. “Who even spun it this time…?”

When you looked around, it seemed like everyone had gotten so sloshed they couldn’t recall.

“Fate spun it, babe!” Hudson smirked like he was in on some big secret. “And fate wants you in the closet.”

“Don’t call them babe.” Vasquez said, but she was grinning.

Your pulse trip-hammered. Not entirely from the alcohol. You pushed yourself upright, steadying a hand on the table as the room slid sideways and then re-anchored. The deck had tilted, or you had. Somebody clapped you on the back; somebody else made a show of whistling.

“C’moooon.” Hudson urged. “You’re not gonna punk out on my birthday, are you?”

You looked around, cheeks singing. The marines’ faces wobbled together, a blurry collage of expectation and amusement. Ripley met your gaze across the table, her expression unreadable for a beat — and then she smiled, small and encouraging.

It made something in your chest ease.

“All right, all right.” You wobbled a little on your feet. “I’ll go.”

The storage closet loomed a few steps away, door currently ajar and dark inside. You crossed the distance on careful feet, each bootstep loud in your ear. The air felt suddenly too warm, too thick. Seven minutes, you told yourself. You could survive seven minutes of awkwardness. You’d been through worse on crew evaluations.

You reached the door, put your hand on the metal, and turned back to the room with a sloppy half-bow. Laughter rippled through the crowd.

“Remember!” Apone called. “You break anything in there, you fix it.”

You gave him a loose salute and stepped inside.

The door shut behind you with a soft hiss of air, cutting off most of the noise. It went dim at once. The only illumination came from the thin emergency strip on the floor, low and blue-white, and a narrow band of light at the base of the door. The smell hit you immediately: machine oil, plastics, rusted metal. Boxes stacked along the walls threw squat shadows. The familiar noise of interior fans came through the plating, close and intimate.

You leaned back against a crate, exhaled, tried to slow your pulse. Your head was spinning just enough that every breath felt about a half second behind the last.

Okay. So. You were in. Whoever the bottle chose would follow in a second, or however this game worked now that everyone was too out of it to care.

Unless they chickened out, said a traitorous little voice. Maybe you’d be standing in here alone for seven minutes with nothing but a box of catalogued spare parts as your date.

You snorted softly. The sound bounced back at you in the close space.

On the other side of the door, muffled voices rose and fell. You couldn’t make out the words, just the cadence: laughter, mock outrage, someone chanting something. You imagined them spinning the bottle again for whoever would join you, rules of the game forgotten under the haze of booze. 

You let your head rest back against the crate and shut your eyes. The alcohol sloshed slow and warm through your veins. Your skin buzzed. 

There was a soft click, metal on metal.

You opened your eyes.

The main door, the one that opened into the common room, was still closed. Its seam glowed faintly. The sound had come from behind you— no, from your right.

From the hallway door.

You turned just as it slid inward, letting in a spear of harsher corridor light. A silhouette filled the threshold for a moment: smallish, narrow, squared shoulders. You had a half-second impression of someone in standard-issue coveralls before the door shut again, cutting off the glare and plunging you back into dimness.

“Took you long enough.” You giggled, drunk courage putting a grin in your voice. Your heart hopped against your ribs like it was trying to escape. You pushed yourself off the crate, grounding yourself on the emergency strip’s pale line.

“Ah—” The figure shifted, a clear, careful voice forming the start of words. “I wasn’t aware—”

You didn’t really hear the rest. Your nerves had wound themselves so tight that the sudden need to move, to do what everyone else had been laughing about for the last half hour, overwhelmed your good sense. You crossed the gap in two slightly staggered steps, reached, and found the front of a jumpsuit under your hands. Warm. Solid.

“Hi there.” You said softly, which wasn’t really what you’d meant to say at all.

Then you kissed them.

It was clumsy at first. Your aim was off in the dark, your nose bumping theirs, teeth nearly clicking. You found the corner of a mouth, corrected, pressed your lips to theirs properly. They were softer than you’d expected, cool compared to your too-warm face.

The figure went absolutely still.

For a heartbeat, you thought they’d push you away. Panic fluttered in your chest, sudden and sharp. But you were already in motion, hands sliding up instinctively to frame their jaw, thumbs finding the hinge of bone, fingers curling behind their neck. You rose on your toes to chase the contact.

They made a small, startled noise low in their throat.

“Wait…” They tried again, words brushing your mouth. “You’re— this may not be—”

“Shh.” You giggled loosely again, not quite forming any particular word. The alcohol smeared your consonants. Your brain felt gloriously, recklessly empty. This was what the game was, right? This was what everyone had been going in here to do. Heat and contact and seven minutes with the volume turned down on the rest of the universe.

Their hands came up — not to shove you away, but to steady you. Careful palms settled at your upper arms, fingers spread, firm enough to brace you without pinching. Their mouth went still under yours, but there was something there in the angle, the give. The way you inhaled against their lower lip when they shifted incrementally, and you leant in closer.

The crate pressed cold against your shoulder blades as you pulled them back. They followed without ever actually crowding you. The metal edge dug into your spine. You didn’t care. Your hands had migrated of their own accord: one in their hair, fingers sliding through strands that felt softer than they looked under the meager lighting; the other fisting loosely in the front of their suit.

They didn’t taste like whiskey or beer. No alcohol on their breath at all. Something clean instead, neutral, like the recirculated air in the lab, like ship-standard soap and the faintest metallic tang. It should have made a small, sober part of you wonder, should have sent bruised neurons firing toward a recognition you weren’t quite making.

Bishop, that same buried part of you suggested slowly. This is —

But the thought dissolved when you adjusted the angle again and the kiss deepened by a fraction, their lower lip catching yours. Heat rolled down your spine. Your pulse climbed up into your throat and stayed there, a hitching, ridiculous thing. A faint sound leaked out of you, surprised and breathless.

Their fingers flexed on your arms as if in response. Even now, even with you hanging onto them, there was nothing rough in the way they touched you. Every point of contact felt… measured. As if they were constantly readjusting to keep pressure in a safe range, to hold you up without bruising.

“This is… highly irregular.” They said quietly between your kisses, voice sounding faintly bewildered and a little hoarse, like they were trying to process something and failing. “You’ve consumed significant alcohol. Your motor functions —”

“I’m fiiine.” You insisted against their mouth, which was a lie, but it was a nice lie. The room swayed pleasantly around you. You shifted closer, closing the last sliver of space between your bodies. The front of their uniform was solid against your chest, unyielding in a way that made you feel startlingly grounded.

Your hand slipped from their front to the unzipped edge of their collar, fingertips brushing skin. It was cool, almost room-temperature, startling against the heat of your own fingers. You felt the fine, unreal smoothness of it, the lack of stubble, the precise slope of an artificial throat.

Bishop, your brain whispered again, a little more insistently. That’s Bishop.

It should have absolutely floored you, the mere thought of it. The Sulaco’s assigned synthetic. Your very direct coworker. More importantly, the one person on ship you’d been thinking very specific thoughts about for months now. All of that, ruined, in one stupid drunken act. You were too gone to realize the implications of this, of course. The ways this might make him think you’re so stupid, immature, disgusting, weird… 

“You’re… good at this.” You laughed softly, a foolish and giddy sound, alcohol knocking the filter out of your voice. “Didn’t know… you’d… come to play.”

There was the tiniest pause, as if he were trying to decide which part of that sentence to address first.

“I am attempting to respond appropriately.” He said at last, carefully. His lips brushed yours with each word. “But I believe there has been a… misunderstanding.”

“Mm?” You were already starting to drift. The world had pulled back further, sounds from the common room reduced to distant, oceanic noise through the wall. The closet was your entire universe: dark, close, pulsing in time with your heartbeat.

“I entered to retrieve inventory.” He explained, still in that low, patient tone he used when explaining systems failures. “I was unaware there was a game in progress.”

You should have been mortified. On any other night, that line of data would have knifed through the fog of your brain and planted itself like a flare: wrong person, wrong situation, abort. But the alcohol had melted your embarrassment into something syrupy and slow. The words reached you and then slid away, leaving only his familiar, careful voice and the feel of his hands steady on your arms.

“’S fine…” You slurred thickly. “You’re here now.”

You tried to kiss him again. The motion tipped you slightly off-balance. The room swayed harder, a lazy pendulum of movement that your inner ear didn’t quite track. You felt your knees soften in a slow collapse.

He caught you before you could sag all the way down. His hands tightened fractionally, one moving from your arm to the small of your back with impossible quickness, redistributing your weight across stronger supports. To you, it felt like the deck rising unexpectedly to meet you, a smooth reorientation of gravity.

“Careful.” There was a new edge to his voice now, concern knitting through it. “You’re about to lose postural stability.”

“Already did.” You mumbled against his shoulder, which was suddenly right in front of your face. Your cheek pressed to the stiff fabric of his jumpsuit. The emergency strip’s glow had become a white blur near the floor. 

“You need to sit down.” 

“M’fine here.” You protested, though you couldn’t quite feel where ‘here’ was. Your fingers were still curled loosely in his collar, but your grip was slackening. Darkness pressed in from the edges of your vision like someone slowly dimming the lights.

He adjusted his hold again, one arm bracing around your back, the other coming up to cradle the base of your skull with almost ridiculous care, as if you were something irreplaceable and fragile.

“I don’t believe you are.” His breath brushed your temple. “You’re experiencing acute alcohol intoxication. Your heart rate is elevated. I need to get you to med-lab.”

You made a noise that might have been agreement and might have been nothing at all. Your body felt far away, a puppet whose strings had been cut. The only real things left were his hands, cool, precise, unwavering… and the faint, antiseptic-clean smell of him, nothing like the sharp tang of whiskey filling the common room outside.

“Bishop?” You tried, not sure if you were speaking aloud or just thinking at him. The name tasted strange and right on your tongue.

“Yes.” He replied immediately, voice very close to your ear now. “I am here.”

That felt important. You clung to it as the dark rolled in, as your eyelids slid shut. The closet tilted one last time, slowly, and then the motion evened out, like a ship easing onto a stable trajectory.

You let go, finally.

The last thing you registered was the sensation of being lifted (effortlessly, like you weighed nothing at all) and the faint vibration of his chest against your cheek as he turned toward the hall door, his voice coming from somewhere above you now, calm and unruffled, addressing someone you couldn’t see.

Then even that blurred, and the Sulaco swallowed the rest.

Chapter Text

You woke up to light.

Too much of it. Shoved under your eyelids like someone had taken a welding torch to your skull.

You groaned and turned your head. The pillow chafed against your cheek. It was clean but stiff, that standard-issue Wey-Yu linen that always smelled faintly of detergent and a weird amount of aluminum. Something tugged at the back of your hand when you moved, a pulling sensation that wasn’t quite pain.

IV, the part of your brain that still knew its job supplied. Cannula. Fluid drip.

You cracked one eye open.

Ah, med bay. Of course.

The overheads were on low, but even that felt like noon-day on a desert planet. Pale light slid over stainless-steel surfaces, caught the edges of cabinets, glared off the polished lip of the sink. The curtain half-drawn around your bed glowed faintly, lit from behind. Machines clicked and breathed softly nearby, little green and amber LEDs blinking in measured rhythms.

Your mouth tasted like you’d tried to swallow a filter. Cotton and chemical and a bitter trace of something that had been fun at the time.

You swallowed, winced. Your head throbbed in earnest now, a slow, ugly pulse behind your eyes. Your stomach rolled a warning.

“Okay.” You whispered hoarsely to yourself. “Bad idea. Deeeefinitely a bad idea.”

You tried to piece things together. There’d been music. Bad music. Hudson loud in the middle of it, red in the face, hollering about it being his birthday. Vasquez’s dry voice. Ripley’s rare smile. Apone pretending he didn’t see anything. The bottle, clattering across the deck. The supply closet, dark and close and —

Your thoughts snagged. You lay very still. Somewhere behind the curtain, something beeped in a slow, patient pattern.

The closet.

You squeezed your eyes shut, as if that might hold the memories back, but they were already coming in ragged little flashes: the click of a door, not the one you’d been expecting. The shape in the light. Your own hands, reckless and sure, catching the front of a uniform. The feel of a mouth under yours, cooler than it should have been, tasting of nothing but stale breath and air scrubbers. Fingers steadying you with infinite care. A voice saying careful in a tone you associated with malfunction reports and blood oxygen readouts.

You felt your face go hot; a violent, traitorous surge of heat that hurt despite the chill in the rest of your limbs.

“Oh, no.” You winced. “No, no, no…”

You’d kissed someone in that closet. More than kissed. You’d hung off them, dragged them back against a crate, touched their throat. Your brain had written the situation off as this is the game, this is what we’re doing, and your body had followed without waiting for your better judgment to catch up.

Inventory, the remembered voice said quietly. I entered to retrieve inventory.

You put a hand over your face. The IV line tugged again, complaining quietly.

Bishop.

You didn’t remember the walk to med bay. The last solid image you had was of the closet tilting and Bishop’s arms wrapping around you with that impossibly careful strength, one hand under your shoulders, one behind your skull. Then the world had gone down like a ship losing atmosphere. You must have blacked out on him.

You rolled your head to the side, squinting around the curtain as far as you could without moving too much. No one immediately visible. The med bay’s other beds were empty, sheets tight over their mattresses like untouched snow.

Your heart tried to climb up behind your sternum. Shit. Had he carried you through the common room? Had everyone seen? What exactly had you done before you passed out? How much of that had been your imagination and how much had been real?

If you concentrated, you could feel it again: the way he’d adjusted, just enough pressure to stabilize against you, nothing to suggest fear or disgust. Like he was witnessing a new specimen’s behavior and afraid to disrupt any variables. Maybe you were just humoring yourself, though, and the sad little crush you’d been nursing for however long. He was, in the end, probably wanting to forget any of it every happened. That should be the end of it.

You were deep in that mortifying little mess of recollection-turned-resignation when the med bay door sighed softly open. You froze. Footsteps. Even, light. Not the heavy, heel-first clomp of marines. The quiet, economical sound of someone who never wasted energy. The curtain rippled once, then drew back a hand’s breadth.

“Good evening.” Bishop said.

Your watch must have been removed for ease of access earlier, you surmised. You had no idea what ship-time it actually was, but Bishop wasn’t the type to humor a person about wake-up-time embarrassment. If he said it was already evening, then… so it was.

He stepped fully into view, letting the curtain fall back behind him. He was dressed in his standard shipboard uniform, sleeves folded up neat, collar straight and unzipped to just below the collarbone (you swallowed thickly and tried not to let your eyes linger there). The way he held himself, spine aligned, shoulders relaxed and square, made the space around him feel more ordered. His hair looked slightly mussed, like he’d run his fingers through it at least once in the last few hours, which on Bishop was the equivalent of wild disarray.

He was carrying a small tray. On it sat two metal mugs, one with steam curling out of the top and one likely carrying water. Next to them was a disposable med cup with two pills rattling quietly inside. A folded packet of something stood propped against it — rehydration salts, by the look of it.

He glanced at you, quick scan from face to IV, then set the tray carefully on the small built-in ledge beside your bed.

“You’re awake. That’s good.”

“Define good.” You groaned.

His mouth did that almost-smile you’d seen a handful of times, more in his eyes than on his lips.

“You’re capable of conversation, which indicates your neurological status has improved significantly since last shift.” He noted. “You were unresponsive when I brought you in at 0200.”

Fuck. Had it been that late? You swallowed. The movement scraped like sandpaper. “I, uh. I remember… some of it.”

He nodded once, as if he’d expected that. “You’re experiencing a hangover. Elevated blood pressure, moderate dehydration, mild nausea. I’ve already started a saline drip. The pills are for your head and stomach.” He tapped the steaming cup with a fingertip. “And the tea is… tea.”

He said it like an apology.

Despite everything, a weak laugh escaped you. “Trying to sweeten the deal, Bishop?”

“Rooibos tea has measurable benefits for subjective improvement in oxidative stress levels.” He said as if reciting it from a handbook. “And these chocolate-flavored rehydration salts have a statistically higher compliance rate than the citrus variant among Sulaco personnel. I thought it might increase the probability that you’ll ingest them.”

He was doing that thing where he spoke in data points because the space between you was full of something neither of you had named yet. You could feel it in the tiny pauses, in the way he looked at your face and then very deliberately at your vitals screen instead.

“Thanks.” Your voice was quiet and hoarse, but you meant it, deeply.

“You’re welcome.” He replied, just as soft.

He moved closer to the bed, within arm’s reach. He did it the way he did everything: announcing his intent with his posture, giving you a clear window to object. One hand lifted slightly, open-palmed.

“May I?” He asked. “I’d like to check your IV site and pupil response.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Your voice tried to crack on the last word. You blamed the dehydration.

He stepped in. “I’m going to touch your hand.” He said, before he did it. “Just here.”

His fingers brushed the back of yours, cool and careful. He examined the cannula, the taped-down veins, satisfied himself that nothing was infiltrating, then released you. Even that brief contact made heat crawl up your neck. You were suddenly very aware that these were the same hands that had been steadying you in the dark, firm on your arms, the curve of his palm cradling your skull. You tried not to think about how this was of course all going to read out on your screen feedback. Not that he wouldn’t be aware regardless, but still, to have it announced on-screen was horrifying.

He shifted, leaning in slightly. “I’m going to check your eyes now. I’ll keep it quick.”

You nodded. He reached into the pocket of his shirt for a penlight. The movement brought him close enough that his head was just above yours, not looming so much as… reassuringly present.

“Look at my fingers.” He instructed, holding up his off-hand. “Good. Keep focusing on them.”

The penlight clicked. A narrow spear of white lanced into your vision. You flinched automatically. He tracked the beam across, then away, minimizing the discomfort as much as he could.

“Pupils reactive.” He confirmed, more to himself than to you. The light snapped off. “No sign of excessive irritation. Your blood alcohol levels were extremely high, but your labs should be back within acceptable limits now.”

“That’s a nice way of saying I was wasted.” You muttered weakly.

“It’s an accurate way of saying you were suffering from acute ethanol poisoning.” He corrected gently. “You’re fortunate you passed out in a circumstance where I was able to retrieve you quickly.”

The words processed into you with a muffled thud.

“Yeah…” You tried not to cringe. “About that.”

His hand withdrew. The penlight disappeared into his pocket. He stepped back a fractional distance, giving you room. His expression was neutral, but you knew him well enough by now to see the tiny lines of tension at the corners of his eyes, the micro-delays in his responses.

“Do you remember what happened?” He asked quietly.

You stared at the ceiling for a second. A hairline crack in the facade tracked across it like a fault line.

“I remember the party.” You began, slowly. “The… game. The closet. I remember going in and waiting for someone to come through the door from the common room.” You swallowed, throat dry again. “I remember the other door opening instead.”

His gaze dropped briefly, then came back up to meet yours. “That was me. As you’ve already inferred.”

You made a miserable little sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “Yeah. I figured.”

“You were under the impression that I was your assigned… partner for the game.” He recalled, choosing the words carefully. “By the time I realized what you believed was happening, you had already initiated physical contact. You were significantly intoxicated and your balance was compromised. My priority, at that point, was to prevent you from injuring yourself.”

“I —” The memory washed up at you harder now. Your hands in his hair. His mouth against yours, uncertain and then very still, a measured shift as he adjusted to what you were doing. The way your knees had simply… vanished. “Did I —”

You stopped. The question jammed in your throat. His expression shifted, the faintest flicker of something like concern. He folded his hands in front of him, fingers interlaced, as if bracing for a hardware test.

“You kissed me.” He said plainly. “Several times. I attempted to verbally interrupt and explain the situation, but your motor control was deteriorating rapidly. When you began to lose consciousness, I repositioned you to prevent a fall and carried you here.”

You shut your eyes for a second, heat and humiliation warring with the nausea.

“I’m sorry.” You whispered, wondering if you might cry.

“There is no need for you to apologize.” Bishop said at once. Too fast, almost. “You were impaired. You engaged in behavior consistent with human social rituals under the influence of alcohol. I was the one who should have removed myself from the environment sooner.”

Your eyes flew open. “You weren’t doing anything wrong, Bishop. You were getting parts.”

“Entering a confined, unlit space adjacent to a group of heavily intoxicated marines engaged in a mating-adjacent game without full situational awareness could reasonably be categorized as a miscalculation on my part.” He said dryly. Despite the pounding in your skull, a short, incredulous laugh escaped you.

“‘Mating-adjacent.’” You echoed. “That’s one way to put it.”

He relaxed by degrees at your reaction, like a pressure leak sealing. His shoulders dropped a millimeter.

“For the record...” He added, quieter now. “I did attempt to maintain appropriate boundaries. Once it was clear that you were not in full control of your faculties, I limited my responses to what seemed necessary to keep you calm and upright. I did not initiate any escalation of contact.” He paused for a moment then, jaw working minutely. It was an oddly humanistic movement on him. “If you feel that I violated your consent, however, I will log an incident report with Apone and request re-evaluation of my interpersonal protocols.”

The thought of Bishop filing an official complaint against himself because you’d drunkenly grabbed him in a closet made you feel like you’d been dunked in ice water. You pushed yourself up on your elbows, too fast. The room swooped. Bishop’s hand darted out, then stopped, hovering a few centimeters from your shoulder, waiting.

“Don’t.” You said quickly, once the ship’s gravity settled under you again. “Christ, please don’t. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the idiot who treated you like…” You flailed for the right word. “Like a prop in some stupid game.”

“That’s not an accurate assessment.” His brows drew together. That little crease between them was back. “You were… affectionate. Overly so, perhaps, but not unkind. I’ve observed human behavior under much lower thresholds of grace.”

“That’s not the point.” You whined.

He tilted his head, studying you. “Then what is the point, in your view?”

“The point is, I put you in a position you didn’t consent to.” It came out harsher than you meant, the edges sharpened by shame. “I was drunk and I grabbed you and I— jeez, Bishop, I kissed you. In a storage closet. In the middle of some idiotic birthday party game. I didn’t even check who you were. I just assumed.”

“And once you realized it was me?” He asked gently.

Your mind snagged on the memory of your fingers at his collar, the cool plane of his throat. The way his voice had said I am here when you’d slurred his name.

“I must have realized at some point.” You half-truthed. “It’s all… smeared. By the time my brain really connected the dots, I think I was already on the way out.”

He nodded once, slowly. “Then your culpability is, at most, partial. The responsibility for any boundary management defaults upward, to the more sober party. In this case, that was me.” His mouth tightened slightly. “I could have disengaged sooner.”

There was a charged silence. The monitor above you beeped softly, indifferent.

“Did you want to?” You asked before you could stop yourself.

His eyes widened a fraction, something almost like static flickering behind them. For a moment he looked less like the unflappable synthetic you’d come to know and more like a man caught in an unexpected spotlight. He seemed to choose his next words with extraordinary care.

“My primary directive is crew safety.” He decided on saying. “In that context, disengaging too abruptly might have increased your distress and compromised your physical stability. That was my calculated assessment at the time.” A micro-pause. “Any… secondary reactions I experienced are not relevant to whether you were endangered.”

You were suddenly very glad for the IV keeping your hands occupied. If you’d been holding that tea, you would have spilled it.

“Secondary reactions.” You repeated thoughtfully.

“Yes.” He looked down, then back at you. “You are… a valued member of this crew. I experience elevated attentional focus in your presence. That’s not unusual, in itself. I prioritize individuals with specialized scientific expertise, and we work closely together. It improves mission outcomes. Last night, however, I noticed additional variance in my response patterns. That suggests my model may need recalibration.”

You stared at him.

“Bishop…” You took a breath. “...are you telling me that kissing me messed with your calibration?”

He considered this, then conceded. “In a manner of speaking.” 

Something warm slipped under your embarrassment. Not hot like a blush, but low and steady. You shifted your hand under the IV tape, flexing your fingers.

“So we both did something stupid.” You laughed through your nose, a small exhale of fondness. “I got drunk enough to forget basic boundaries. You walked into a marine party thinking you could just grab a box of parts and not get caught in the blast radius.”

“That seems more accurate.” He agreed.

“And nobody got hurt.”

“You threw up twice.” He reminded you, and you hoped to heaven you hadn’t gotten any on him. “But that’s a transient condition.”

“Emotionally.” You amended.

He studied you for another long moment. “Your self-reproach appears to be outpacing any actual harm done. I’d like to mitigate that, if possible.”

“How?” 

“By addressing your immediate physiological discomfort.” He reached behind him and retrieved the tray again, as if remembering why he’d come. “And by establishing clear parameters going forward.”

He nudged the tray toward you, then lifted the little paper cup.

“These are for the headache and nausea.” He explained. “I recommend taking them with at least two hundred milliliters of fluid.”

You eyed the mug. “Is the tea part of the treatment plan, or just to be nice?”

“Both.” He said without missing a beat.

You managed a real smile that time. Your hand shook a little when you reached for the cup. Bishop saw it; of course he did. He shifted the tray, moving it closer, but didn’t touch you until you tipped the pills back and reached for the mug.

“I’m going to steady your hand.” He said quietly. “If that’s all right.”

“That’s fine.” It was always fine.

His fingers closed around your wrist, light but unyielding, guiding the mug to your mouth like you were some delicate piece of equipment. The tea was a little plain, of course, but it was hot and real and the act of sipping it made you feel marginally more anchored to your own body. When you’d swallowed enough to satisfy him, he let go.

“As for parameters.” He stepped back again. “I propose the following…” He began ticking them off on his fingers, like items on a checklist. “One: I will avoid entering that storage closet during future social gatherings unless explicitly requested to do so in a non-intoxicated context.”

You snorted around the rim of the mug.

“Two.” He continued. “I will not disclose to the rest of the crew that I was the individual you encountered during the game, unless you wish me to.”

Your grip on the mug tightened. “They don’t know?”

“They’re aware that you became ill.” He looked to be remembering. “Apone saw me carrying you out and authorized your transfer here. The specific nature of what occurred in the closet is not part of the official log. As far as the marines are concerned, no game partner showed and you overestimated your tolerance. Hudson has expressed admiration for your ‘commitment to the bit,’ but his recollection is fragmented.”

You closed your eyes briefly in sheer relief. “Awesome.”

“I would appreciate guidance on how you’d like me to answer if questioned directly.” Bishop added. “I don’t normally find reason to lie, but I can omit details that are not mission-critical.”

“Please omit.” You said quickly. “Omit so hard.”

“Understood.” He nodded. “Three: any future… contact of the type that occurred last night will only take place if you are fully sober, fully informed, and have had time to consider whether you actually want it.”

Oh. You lowered the mug, letting the heat settle into your palms until your fingers stopped shaking. The prospect of… future contact? He watched you now with unhidden care and a scientist’s curiosity, and something that had been waiting politely in the background stepped forward. It wasn’t sudden. It was a line of data you’d kept ignoring until the pattern refused to be anything else. You felt it click into place. Want, not panic; choice, not accident. You decided to say it while your courage matched your pulse.

“That’s just it, though… I’ve had time.” You surprised yourself with how steady it came out. “Not just since last night, but… over some weeks. Watching you recalibrate a lab scope like it’s a violin. Listening to you talk a panicked crewmate down in less than thirty words. Sitting beside you in the control room while you run diagnostics, looking out the viewport together to catch formations...” You swallowed. The pills burned in your throat. “I want it, Bishop. But not in that way, not while I’m drunk, not… sloppy and weird and ten seconds from blackout.”

He went very still, the way he does when the computer throws something at him that requires all of his processing at once. No flicker of surprise in his features, exactly. Just a tiny adjustment in the eyes, a softening at the corners, like a suspicion he’d only tentatively demoed in his head had just been confirmed. 

“It didn’t start in a closet.” You swallowed, gathering the thread.  “It started in the quiet after lights-out, when you stayed to help label samples, our shoulders bumping now and then, your handwriting careful like you might bruise the paper otherwise. During inventory, when you read the serial numbers aloud just to hear me laugh at your perfect, patient voice, giving each part a friendlier name than its label. When the room was too cold and my notes shook, and you set my coat back over my shoulders, angled the lamp so the page caught a little pool of warmth. When you stayed through two full off-cycles to help me recompile a driver the company forgot to patch, and you didn’t say ‘I told you so’ when I cried over a corrupted log. It’s the way you narrate touch before you do it, like the body is a system you’re honoring. It’s the way you stand in labs that smell like bleach and make them feel… safe.” You huffed a small, embarrassed breath. “I’ve been pretending it’s just admiration because that’s easier to file away, treat as ordinary. But it isn’t just that.”

A tidy parade of white noise ran through the med bay. The air handler, the slow beep of your vitals, the ship’s enormous heart far below. He took it in, and you, and then inclined his head slightly, wordlessly acknowledging the weight of what you’d handed him.

“Thank you.” He said simply, after some moments. “I appreciate explicit statements.”

“I figured.” A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “You like parameters. So, here are mine… I don’t want last night to be the story. I want… a deliberate version. Clear eyes. Doors open. Time to actually feel it.”

He considered this as though it were a sheet of mission specs. It would come off discouraging from anyone that wasn’t Bishop. 

“Parameters received.” He looked down then, thinking, and glanced back up under thick eyelashes. “And… while I don’t have the proper context in my system for it, just yet… I feel these ideas are reciprocated, in some capacity. For clarity: I also want contact that is deliberate. I want to ensure your consent at each stage and maintain my own boundaries, which include avoiding any context where you are impaired or pressured by social expectations.”

You exhaled, some knot you hadn’t noticed loosening. If you couldn’t feel the bite of the IV, this moment alone could have you swearing you were still inside some drunken dream. “Good. Because the social expectations on this ship are a disaster.”

His mouth almost smiled. “I’ve observed that trend.”

“And…” You started to add, because the truth had momentum now. “I like you. Not just the competence. You, in the quiet between-tasks. I like the you that offers to make tea even though you don’t drink it, because you’ve noticed it helps when I’m frayed.” You glanced at the mug, back at him. “I… don’t know what this is going to look like. I just know I want to find out. I don’t want to have ruined it before it can even start.”

He absorbed each line, eyes steady. When he spoke, his voice had a curious lilt to it. “Then we can design it. Iteratively. Slow enough to keep both systems stable.”

You laughed, a breathy, disbelieving sound that didn’t hurt your head this time. “That’s the most sentimental thing I’ve ever heard on a troop carrier.”

“Sentiment is a convention I’m willing to learn.” He beamed lopsidedly, but eagerly. It made something warm and certain settle in your chest. You reached for the mug again, needing the anchor, and your fingers fumbled. He noted it, like always, and lifted his hand a few centimeters, pausing.

“I’d like to touch your wrist to steady you.” He met your eyes. “May I?”

You nodded. His fingers came down, cool and precise, circling your wrist with just enough pressure to guide, not hold. The contact was small, but it lit a neat line of heat up your forearm because it was chosen, because you’d asked for this and he’d asked too. He released you once the mug was secure, then folded his hands again, giving you back your space.

“For implementation…” He went on, switching from intention to plan with that usual Bishop ease of his. “I suggest the following steps. Full recovery tonight, fluids, more rest. A conversation tomorrow when your blood chemistry and sleep debt are within normal variance. We’ll agree on boundaries and signals. Then, a non-closet context of our choosing, at a time we schedule together.”

“Like an actual date, you mean?” You were absurdly charmed by the bureaucratic ring of it.

“Yes.” He nodded, looking like he’d been handed a novel specimen to dissect. “Like that… a ‘date’. We can watch the navigational array from the control room during the next starfield adjustment. It’s quiet. Private. No marines. The opposite of a closet.”

“Sold.” The word came out on a smile you couldn’t quite tamp down.

“Good.” He checked your vitals again, a glance, a micro-nod. “Your heart rate just decreased by eight beats per minute.”

“Because you stopped saying ‘ethanol poisoning’.” You rolled your eyes in mock annoyance.

“Correlation is noted.” He replied, almost dry, and then, after a small pause… “I like you, too.”

It was plain and unadorned, and though you expected such an admittance to light your nerves up, it landed with the same grounding certainty as a successfully seated connector. You felt it click into place inside you.

You took another sip of tea to give your hands a job. “Okay. Then it’s a plan. We’ll… design it.”

“We will.” Bishop affirmed. His words retained a quiet confidence that smoothed the last rough edges inside you. There was a flicker of something almost bashful in the way he shifted, rising a fraction from the chair, then settling again. Like he’d considered leaving and chosen, deliberately, to remain in your orbit a while longer. “I’ll stay until you fall back to sleep, if you’d like. In case you need anything.”

You smiled and nodded your approval. You let your gaze trace the neat line of his shoulders, thought about just how carefully he chose to formulate his demeanor. How even the uncanny stillness of him was endearing, because you knew it meant he was paying full attention to something. To you. You let your eyes half-close. The ache behind them loosened. Your pulse slid into step with the Sulaco’s slow, patient song.

“Bishop?”

“Yes.” He answered instantly. 

“I want this. Really.” No dressing it up, no hedging. Your mouth was dry and honest. “When I’m sober. When I can meet you there. I want this with you.”

He didn’t move for a beat. If he’d been human, you might have missed it. With him, the change was easy to read, if you knew where to look: the tiny release at the corners of his eyes, the tension bleeding out of the mesh tendons across his knuckles, his shoulders settling one increment lower, some background process completing and returning resources to idle. Tiny recalibrations that reflected a machine’s relief.

“I’ll be there.” He rested his eyes over you, betraying something like fondness. It was a simple affirmation, but it always sounded deeper coming from Bishop. You hoped, whatever this new dynamic would bring, that it would allow more opportunities to pick that curious brain of his. His gaze stayed on you for a second longer than necessary, steady and warm without straying into anything that might crowd your nerves. He glanced at your monitors, then back. 

“Your vitals are trending back toward baseline. That’s good.” The corner of his mouth tipped, the version of a smile he used when he was trying not to be pleased with himself. “I’d like to make a small adjustment.”

He waited until you nodded. A rustle of fabric, the smallest forward lean, and then, in that careful cadence he used to announce touch: “I’m going to adjust your blanket at your shoulders. It will take two seconds.”

Cool fingers lifted the edge, tucked it (not fussy, not parental, just exact), until the draft along your collarbone faded. He withdrew at once, hands returning to his lap, fingers lacing lightly. He didn’t fidget. He never did. But you could see the impulse to do something useful running through him like a current. 

You studied him openly, because you wanted to and because you knew he would tell you if it made him uncomfortable. The composition of his posture. The way he tuned himself to the room, ears catching the compressor cycle in the wall, eyes flicking to your IV pump when it clicked over to a new count. The hint of curiosity in his expression when he looked back at you, like he was as ready to answer a hundred questions as you were to ask them.

“I’m going to ask you something purely for me.” You thought out loud. “Something not medical, not assignment-based.”

“I like that kind of question. It improves my model of you.” He tilted his head fractionally. The line could have sounded clinical. From him, it didn’t. “Ask as many as you want.”

You tried and failed not to look ridiculously pleased with his openness. “Is there a small human ritual you’d like to try with me… later, when my body doesn’t feel like disintegrating?”

He considered it. Not the long, distant kind of consideration you got from officers deferring a decision, but the quick, careful kind he used when something mattered.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Several.”

Oho. You grinned. “Name one.”

“Two.” He countered, gently literal. “First: I’d like to try a proper ‘good morning’ and ‘goodnight.’ The human versions. Not the shipboard versions. We can decide what those look like together.” He looked to the side, considering. “I understand they sometimes involve… brief contact. I’ll ask each time.”

Your chest did a small, traitorous thing. “Okay. And the second?”

“Hand-holding.” He looked back to you when he said this, though it was straightforward as a checklist item. “For a moment, or longer. We can decide later. In a quiet place. With a stop word. I’d like to learn how to do it in a way that’s comfortable for you, to see what grip is best for your hand.”

You laughed under your breath. “That’s very you.”

“I’m aware.” He said, faintly pleased. “I have more. Optional.”

“I’m listening.”

“Hmm… a shared coffee.” He offered, glancing at the mug. “One cup, two sips, alternated. You pick the sugar ratio. I’ll pretend to care.” He let the smallest trace of humor in. “I can also obtain coffee that is not terrible.”

“Promising.” You snorted. “But your body can’t enjoy it, why try at all?”

Bishop shrugged one shoulder. “The ritual of it. My body can dispose of it as needed, that’s no issue.” He glanced from you to your mug once more. “I like to be included in those little moments. Mealtimes. People share things they wouldn’t otherwise.”

You hummed fondly. He was right, of course. It was why he was so eager to pass out accoutrements during mess. 

“Alright. Coffee date, added to the list.” You made a mock movement of checking something off in the air with your free arm. “That all?”

“When we watch the starfield adjustment from the control room…” He continued. “We count ten formations together. You say their names if you know them. If you don’t, I say the catalog names and you decide if you like them.”

“That sounds… good.” You said, surprised by how much it did. You knew about as many celestial body types as the next space marine, but Bishop loved to teach, and so you would indulge him always. It was funny finding out the things he paid attention to and took interest in. 

“And —” He paused, and you knew he was calibrating for risk of overreach. “A question trade. Not mission, not medical, just… satisfying some curiosities.”

“Deal.” You raised your tea in a toast. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.” He repeated. It was decided.

You shifted carefully against the pillow, body settling down thanks to the tea and good conversation. You thought of something else, then.

“What would your ‘goodnight’ be?” You asked, curious. “Your version.”

He looked faintly at a loss, which for him meant a pause of exactly half a second. 

“I’m still compiling options.” He admitted. “I’m aware of several cultural variants. Some include phrases. Some include touch. Some include leaving a light on. Do you have a preferred starting point?”

You thought about it. “Well… I like when I hear my name. So I know it’s special for me.”

“Noted.” He tried it. Your name in his voice, low and careful. “Then I’ll say ‘goodnight’, yes?”

“Mhm. Any order.” You curled into the cot. “Well… unless… you wanted to hug too, or maybe just… exchange a little kiss, on the cheek, or forehead.”

He thought about it. “And this is usual for a goodnight ritual? Between close people?”

“When they like each other, I think so.” You felt a little out of your element yourself, describing it in such terms. “It’s… an expression of care. If you’re inclined to it.”

“I see.” He considered the idea for a moment, then met your eyes again. “I would like to try it, yes.”

You sighed, surprised by the rush of relief his curiosity gave you. “Only if you’re comfortable. I… I would enjoy it, if it’s with you.”

He seemed quietly satisfied. “We can adjust if needed after the first iteration.”

You smiled shyly, swallowing a yawn that sneaked up on you. 

“Headache?” He asked.

“Down to a growl.”

“Good.” He stood, not to leave, but to tug the curtain a little, softening the light another shade. “I’m going to dim the overhead one increment. Then I’ll sit.”

The light stepped down. He resumed the chair, hands folded loosely, attention split between you and the monitors.

“One more question?” You asked, because you didn’t want the moment to end without the little thing forming in your chest getting a shape.

“One more.” He allowed.

“When we do the starfield… what’s your ideal outcome? For the date.”

He didn’t tease you for calling it as much, never would. He answered, simple: “Control room. Quiet hour. No duty rotations. Door locked. We start with the navigation slate dim. I’ll align the screens so there’s no glare. You stand to my left, I’ll narrate the adjustments. You ask anything you want. At fifteen minutes, we try hand-holding. At thirty minutes, if you want different contact… we can do that. At forty-five minutes, we trade questions. At sixty, I walk you back to your berth. We can try the ‘goodnight’ routine.”

You let the picture of it settle in your head, steady and clear. “Yes.” You hummed. “That.”

He inclined his head, like you’d both signed something.

“You should sleep.” He spoke softer now. “I’ll stay.”

“Hmm. Say it, first.” You murmured, eyes already falling.

He didn’t make you point at the line. He gave it to you. Your name, careful as before. “Goodnight.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. “Goodnight.” 

“I’ll be here.” His low register barely lifted above the hum of the machines in the room, soothing as any beloved white noise. You believed him. For the first time since the party, your body let go of the last of its tension and did the sensible thing: it rested.

Seven minutes in heaven, you thought with a wry, aching little smile.

Apparently, you were going to need more time with him.