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“Come on, Colonel,” Rush says, dragging Young's heavy, barely cooperative form along. “We're almost there.”
“Rush,” Young mumbles, letting his head loll against Rush's shoulder. “You're a nice guy when you're not being a secretive ass.”
Rush rolls his eyes and contemplates dropping Young right here and leaving him to the sentient flower aliens on the planet.
“Well, aren't you a charmer,” he answers dryly, instead, as he keeps moving in the direction of the stargate. It's taking forever because Young insists on being a difficult, unhelpful lug of useless weight, and more than once has Rush had to stop to reposition Young's wandering hands.
“I don't feel good,” Young moans into Rush's throat. Rush feels his own fingers tighten in the fabric spanning Young's arm and shoulder, because all of this feels too much like... Too much like something else.
“You got stung by four of those flowers. I think you should count yourself lucky to be alive,” he says. From what he'd gathered over the radio, Morrison had been a drooling mess after only one dart, and Scott hadn't been doing much better.
Young huffs out something resembling a laugh, and Rush can feel it against the skin of his neck. “You helped me.”
“Not really,” Rush says.
“Yeah, you did,” Young insists. “You helped me and now you're helping me again.” He takes a deep breath that ends up sounding like a sigh. “I don't know how I feel about that.”
“Well, you'll probably want to parse that when you're back on the ship. In your quarters. Without me present.”
“I like how you smell,” Young murmurs suddenly, inhaling deeply against Rush's skin. “Always have.”
Jesus. Rush pushes at Young's head, but Young refuses to budge.
“Colonel, you're not in your right mind,” he says, trying for unaffected and probably failing miserably.
“Hmm,” Young answers, obviously not listening at all. “Wanna know what you taste like.”
Fucking Christ.
“Do not taste me,” Rush warns, hoisting Young's weight up higher on his shoulder.
“I need to sit down,” Young says unhappily.
“You can sit down when we get back to the ship,” Rush says, urging him forward.
“No, I mean it,” Young says. “I think I'm gonna be sick.”
Rush lets out a deep sigh, and tries in vain to push Young's head away from his neck again.
“Rush,” Young says, and he sounds so miserable that Rush finds himself looking around for a safe place to rest. The flower aliens stopped chasing them about two kilometers back, as far as he can tell – thankfully the creatures were not the most mobile, or they would have caught up with them easily. Still, he'd prefer not to take any unnecessary risks right now. Not with Young compromised like this. Not with only a handful of bullets left in Young's gun.
“Over there,” he says, pointing at a natural alcove in the rock formations to their right, a few dozen meters away.
“Urgh,” Young moans pitifully, and Rush hauls him to it, hoping Young won't vomit all over him the entire time.
“Sit down,” he says, as he lowers Young's body to the ground. His back protests angrily, and shit, the gate is still at least a kilometer away. He sits down next to Young, deciding a break might be a good idea right now.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, as he opens his canteen and offers it to Young. Young looks at it oddly for a second, but he accepts it and takes a few careful little sips before handing it back to Rush. Rush drinks and leans back against the sun-warmed stone.
The attack had come seemingly out of nowhere. One minute they were walking back from the cave, debating whether to meet up with the rest of the group or to head straight back to Destiny, and the next minute the plant life had grown hostile and shot a number of barbs into Young with frightening accuracy. Young had drawn his weapon immediately, emptying it into the flowers before they could attack again. Rush had barely been able to yank him out of the way of another barrage of darts from a row of flowers behind Young, and then they'd been running for their lives.
“Like shit,” Young says after a long pause, leaning his head against Rush's shoulder.
“Are you going to throw up?”
“Nng,” Young says, and then he's nuzzling into Rush's neck again. “Rush.”
“What?”
“Why aren't you... You always flinch away when I touch you.”
Rush frowns. “You never touch me.” It's true. Young never touches him. The last time they touched was probably when Rush grabbed Young's hand just in time to keep him from bouncing off the hull of Destiny, and even then they were entirely wrapped in the space suits. Their last contact... well, their last skin-on-skin contact, before today, was Young choking him on that alien ship. Afterwards, they had helped each other with a few of the clasps on the suits, but that doesn't constitute actual touching, Rush is quite certain.
“Because you hate it when I do.”
“Well, what do you want me to say, Colonel?” he says, feeling defensive and slightly pissed off because of it. “Physical contact with you usually results in bruises.”
Young makes a pained little sound at that, and takes his head off Rush's shoulder. Then he's crouching over to the other side of the alcove and Rush watches him with something that almost feels like guilt – maybe he shouldn't have said that – until Young retches in the grass. Not much comes out; they've been rationing the protein slop since awakening from stasis.
Today's expedition to this planet was supposed to be a food gathering mission. Instead, it turned into a clusterfuck of typical, Destiny-sized proportions, as the native plant life had proven to be more sentient (or at the very least more territorial) than they'd expected. Scott had been attacked at the same time as Young, as had a number of others, and Young's radio had been atwitter with panicky updates before Young had dropped the thing mid-run and nearly sagged to his knees. Rush had been just in time to catch him and sling Young's arm around his shoulder as they fled the flowers that had somehow detached from the ground and were using their oddly muscular, short roots to chase them.
Young coughs weakly and sits back up. “Urgh. I hate throwing up.”
“I believe the general consensus is that it's not fun, yeah,” Rush agrees, taking a quick, last drink from his canteen before handing it to Young. He's feeling a little queasy himself after watching Young vomit.
Young drinks slowly, with a pensive expression on his face. He doesn't look good – he's sweating and his eyes look hazy – and for the first time Rush worries whether they'll make it back to the ship in time. Whether Young will be alright.
“Rush?” Young asks, letting his head fall back against the rock wall behind him.
“Yeah?” Rush answers with a sigh.
“Have you ever been with a man?”
What? Rush damn well refuses to sputter, but what the fucking fuck?
Young just rolls his head towards him and gives him an intense look. It would probably be more intimidating if he didn't look clammy and deathly pale aside from the feverish flush high up on his cheeks.
“Why the hell do you want to know?”
Young narrows his eyes a little and gives him a long, searching stare. Then he turns his head back so that he's looking straight ahead again, out into the tree-studded grasslands. “So, yes.”
“I don't see how that is any of your business,” Rush bites out.
“Did you know that otters hold hands when they sleep?” Young asks, closing his eyes and taking a shallow breath high in his chest. “So they don't drift away.”
Goddamnit, Young is a mess. He's all over the fucking place, and Rush isn't sure what to do. Best to keep him talking, perhaps. Even at the risk of having Young throw him for a loop with his inappropriate questions and confessions.
“Is that so?” he asks.
Young hums quietly, and Rush nudges him against the shoulder roughly to keep him from falling asleep.
“Come on, keep talking. Any more animal facts you want to share?”
“Sometimes you look at me funny,” Young says.
“Yes. Well. Sometimes you say inane things.”
“That's not what I meant.” Young blinks his eyes open slowly and looks over at him again, and that earlier dazed expression is completely gone. “I'm not stupid, Rush.”
Rush feels his heartbeat spike, and tries to cover it with a derisive snort, as if the worst thing he's trying to keep in right now is 'You could have fooled me, Colonel.'
“God, my mouth tastes bad,” Young mutters suddenly, making a slightly disgusted expression and squinting at a patch of grass a few meters away.
“Have some more water,” Rush says. “We should get moving again.”
Young makes a sound that is somewhere in between pitiful and childishly unwilling, but he clumsily screws open the canteen and takes another sip, and then he lets Rush help him up.
He's still not steady on his feet, and his knees almost buckle a few times, so Rush pulls Young's arm around his shoulder and takes most of his weight. Damn, his back twinges unhappily. Sitting down for a break may have been a mistake, because now his muscles feel all stiff and knotted up. He has no choice, though, Destiny will jump in little over an hour, and Rush does not want to get stuck here on this awful planet with its awful flora and a colonel that needs medical attention.
“Come on,” he grunts, as he starts them moving on the path back to the gate. “Less than a mile, now.”
They make their way slowly but steadily. Young doesn't say much, aside from the odd mumbled moan that Rush tries very hard to ignore.
“Rush,” Young whines, when they're about halfway to the gate. “How much longer?”
“We're halfway there.”
“Not what I meant,” Young mutters quietly, and then he's burying his face in Rush's neck again, and Rush nearly drops him on the spot when he feels a wet, sucking heat on the skin of his throat.
“Colonel!”
God, he sounds scandalized – he is scandalized – and this is not... Young is delirious, and he still smells vaguely like bile, and they're right out in the open on a planet that seems rather interested in killing them, but despite all of that Rush's hand is embarrassingly weak when he pushes against Young's head to get him to stop.
“Colonel,” he says again, and strengthens his resolve. “Cut it out.”
He tangles his hand into Young's hair and yanks him away from his neck.
Young looks confused, and then disgruntled, and then his eyes track over Rush's face for a few seconds before his lips curl into a slow, lopsided smile.
“You're blushing.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Young is quiet for a little while, allowing Rush to get them back into the steady pace in the direction of the gate.
“Haven't kissed anyone in a long time,” Young confesses quietly.
“It showed,” Rush lies through angrily gritted teeth. Goddamn Young. God damn him and his fucking shoulders, and his stupid fucking face, and his low, growly voice. Rush should've left him with those ridiculous flower aliens.
“I wanna kiss you again,” Young murmurs, apparently completely unaffected by Rush's internal diatribe at his expense.
“No, you don't,” Rush bites out. “You're delirious and you have terrible judgment, although I'm not convinced you can blame those flowers for the latter. Now if you could please stop talking and focus your efforts on getting back to the gate, that would be much appreciated.”
“Hm,” Young says doubtfully. But he listens, thank fuck, and over the next twenty minutes the stargate finally comes into view.
When they make it through, TJ rushes in to take Young off his hands and Chloe is by his side with a canteen of water as she ushers him out of the path of the gate, and everything is pretty much just a flurry of movement that makes Rush realize how much he probably overtaxed his own body to get Young back to the ship.
An hour later he is in the shower, washing off the muck and the sweat and Young's spit as the ship jumps into FTL. The muscles in his back and shoulders have erupted into a groaning ache by now, and all he really wants in this moment is a hot bath, a massage, and a good night's sleep in a soft bed.
Instead, he'll settle for another all-nighter at a console in the bridge, as he attempts to keep his thoughts away from anything to do with Young.
Young wakes up in the infirmary, feeling like he has a terrible hangover. He lies still for a few seconds, blinking slowly against the painfully bright lights in the ceiling, as wisps of memories flit through his mind. Rush catching him before he fell. Rush settling him down against a warm, rocky wall. Rush hoisting him up higher over his shoulder. Rush looking scandalized and flushed after... oh shit. He groans and throws a hand over his eyes, because shit, he hadn't really—
—Except that he's pretty sure that he did, now, because he can still feel the delicate skin and the wiry tendons of Rush's throat underneath his lips, and Jesus, he owes Rush an apology.
“Hey, sir,” TJ says as she comes into view. “How are you feeling?”
“Not great,” he admits. “But I'll live.”
TJ smiles. “You got quite a high dose of that venom, it seems. Rush said you were stung four times.”
Young doesn't know how to respond to that, because merely hearing Rush's name makes all of this real. Fuck, Rush saved his life. Again.
“I'll get you something for the headache,” TJ says as she puts a cup of water on the bedside table. “You should be fine as long as you stay hydrated.”
After she gives him a small cup of murky green plant juice for the pain, he makes his way to the showers to get cleaned up. He feels grimy and he smells like sweat, and his teeth are in desperate need of a brushing. By the time he finishes, he feels at least marginally more like a person.
It's a little late for lunch, but his stomach growls so he makes his way over to the mess hall. It's empty, but Becker is still there, and he prepares a bowl of protein slop for Young without having to be asked. It isn't until Young turns around that he realizes that the mess hall isn't entirely empty. There, at the corner table, is Rush, and shit, shit, he's not ready to face Rush yet, but Rush has clearly seen him, and dammit, now he doesn't have a choice but to go over there and slide into the seat across from him.
Shit.
“I, uh. I owe you a thank you,” he says. “And an apology, I think.”
Rush looks at him and quirks his eyebrow, but Young thinks there's something cagey about the way he carries himself. Like he's trying not to let on how shaken he is, and fuck, none of this is how Young wanted it to happen.
“We're good, Colonel,” Rush says with well-feigned casualness. Becker is in the back, stacking up metal cups, it sounds like, and Young is suddenly very aware they're basically all alone in here.
“No, I know I shouldn't have done that. It was obvious you didn't want it right then, and my head wasn't all there but that still doesn't excuse—”
“What do you mean,” Rush interrupts him. “Right then?”
“What?”
“You just said, 'It was obvious you didn't want it right then.' What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” And Christ, Rush looks angry, and about two seconds away from bolting, but Jesus, they're not kids anymore.
“Rush,” he says patiently, trying very hard not to sound like he's trying to be patient. “Come on.”
Rush swallows, and his gaze darts between Young's eyes, something on the edge of panic and fury glittering brightly in his own.
“What. The fuck. Is that supposed to mean?”
Young sighs, and prepares for this to play out even worse than he'd expected. “There's obviously some attraction here,” he says, deciding his best bet right now is to put everything on the table. “From both sides.”
Rush is quiet, but the hand holding his spoon is wound so tight that his knuckles are white. Young wonders what this is about. Rush doesn't seem like the kind of person who'd be troubled by the whole gay aspect of this. With a slight jolt he remembers asking Rush point-blank whether he'd ever been with a guy before, and Rush's answer had seemed... yeah, it probably isn't that.
“Rush?”
“Jesus,” Rush says under his breath. “Do you have any idea how irritating it is to hear you say my name like that all the time?”
Young leans back a little, offended and a bit off-kilter after that rebuke. But then he takes in the look on Rush's face, and... it's embarrassed. He's refusing to look Young in the eye, and there's the slightest hint of color on his cheeks, like... like he's blushing, and fuck, suddenly Young's stomach lurches like he's being dropped down a fifty story building, because he knew 'some attraction' was an understatement when he said it, but now it just seems flat-out inaccurate.
“I still want to kiss you,” he admits in a low voice, and the way Rush's eyes shoot up to his, the look on his face, makes something twist hot and slippery in his lower belly.
Suddenly he wishes he'd sat down next to Rush, rather than across from him, because the table in between them makes it impossible to reach over and kiss him, and he's ninety percent sure Rush would have let him do it right now.
The moment passes. Rush takes another bite of his lunch, and an awkward silence settles between them.
Becker steps out of the kitchen area. “Colonel Young, I should really get to my infirmary shift.”
“Alright Becker, we're good here. I'll wash up when we're done,” he says, motioning at his bowl.
“Thank you, sir,” Becker answers, and takes his leave.
Young kind of expects the silence to fall between them again, but Rush is looking at him funny now, and it really makes the realization dawn that yeah, they're truly alone in here.
“What?” he asks, but Rush is already getting up, crossing around the table and dropping into the seat next to him.
“This is a fucking terrible idea, even for our standards,” Rush says, and then Rush's hands are on his face and Young is dragged into a rough, needy kiss.
It's easy, much easier than he'd even dared hope for. Rush's tongue is hot and clever, and he makes these little noises of surprise or contentment into Young's mouth that set off fireworks in his chest, and his hands inch up into Young's hair, and that feels right, too. God, he's wanted to do this from the moment he woke up from stasis and everyone was okay, and he has no idea why they waited this long.
“A really fucking terrible idea,” Rush pants, as he strips off Young's jacket.
“Eh,” Young shrugs, pulling Rush closer for another kiss. “I think we've had worse.”