#clone ship

Mayday didn’t mind it when the inner world of his lover was a challenge to navigate and had no problem with a bit of peace and quiet. Silence was good, welcome even, when the inside of your brain had a habit of screaming about the intrusive, copper-and-tibanna-fume-flavored memories that you couldn’t seem to walk out of for long enough to breathe Pabu’s salt-tinged air.

Mayday had dragged Crosshair to one of Pabu’s bi-weekly open-air markets. The silver-haired man had folded his Pantoran Marsh Reed thin body in on itself when asked to leave their shared bed, demanding “another kriffing hour” to let the haze of nightmare-filled sleep dissipate. Mayday had compromised by giving him twenty minutes to relax before dragging him, bleary eyed, through their familiar morning routine and leading him outside into the tropical, morning sunshine. Crosshair had complained the whole way, but his complaints didn’t have any real bite to them, and they stopped and were replaced with quiet contentment when the couple reached the market itself.

At present, Crosshair was examining a tiny lothcat sculpture carved from some kind of iridescent stone. He turned it over and over in his long fingers, ignoring the attempts to make conversation from the Pantoran woman sitting on the other side of the booth counter, beads of sweat glistening on her brow and cheeks. Mayday wondered if he should scold Crosshair for being impolite, but decided that this was not a good use of the commander privileges that Crosshair had relinquished to him. He instead opted to place a warm, broad hand on the small of his partner’s back and to acknowledge the merchant himself.

“Good morning,” Mayday said, flashing a toothy smile through his thick, brown beard, “please excuse my partner: he’s still not had his caf.”

Crosshair shot him a sharp glance before putting down the lothcat and moving on to examine a figurine depicting some kind of large bird of prey.

“Is okay,” the Pantoran woman replied, her accent thick and her Basic a bit clumsy. “My brother is quiet like him, so I understand. He has noisy boyfriend who talks enough for both of them. Is like you, I think.”

“Ah,” said Mayday, “Don’t think I’m that loud. My lovely boyfriend here just likes to keep things low-key.” The word “boyfriend” felt too light and childish for the agonizing and perfect bond that he and Crosshair shared, but this woman’s Basic was limited, and Mayday wanted to use a word familiar to her, so “boyfriend” it was.

Crosshair looked up at Mayday again, straining to bite back a smile “You are loud. You wouldn’t shut up when I was trying to sleep in this morning.”

“You love it, though,” replied Mayday, his hand rubbing up and down Crosshair’s bony back, “you needed to get up instead of rotting in bed all morning. Gotta look out for my boyfriend.”

There was that too-weak word again. Mayday moved his hand to Crosshair’s neck and stroked the spot between his ear and jaw that made him sob out a moan whenever he kissed it. Crosshair huffed and shuddered.

“Never said I didn’t like it, just that you were loud,” said Crosshair, placing the stump of his missing hand affectionately onto Mayday’s broad shoulder and giving it a quick pat. The two men shared a fond glance.

“Thinking of buying, or want to make space for next customer?” the Pantoran woman asked, gesturing to an exasperated-looking Bith waiting in line directly behind them.

“Give me the bird carving,” Crosshair said, “I like it.”

“Thirty credits,” the Pantoran said, holding out her blue hand and wiggling her fingers.

As Crosshair reached into his pocket to pull out a pile of jingling credits, Mayday placed his own thirty credits onto the wooden counter and smirked at Crosshair. “I’ve got it, sweetheart.”

Crosshair’s cheeks darkened with a blush, “you don’t need to.” It was too late to protest, though, because the Pantoran merchant had already taken the credits and bagged up the purchase. She worked quicker than most civilians, and Mayday could respect that. Civilians didn’t tend to do anything with any kind of urgency.

“Well,” replied Mayday, “I’m going to treat ya, like it or not. Let me pay. That’s an order.”

As Mayday spoke, he deepened and sharpened his voice into the GAR commander tone that he had (thanks to Crosshair) repurposed from the battlefield to the bedroom. This had the intended effect on Crosshair, who shifted to hold the now bagged-up stone carving in front of his crotch. It was time to go home and deal with Crosshair’s problem, it seemed.

“Home. Now,” Crosshair said, turning to say it wetly into Mayday’s ear.