Fic: It Takes Three to Tango
Title: It Takes Three to Tango
Author: kappamaki33
Characters/Pairings: Gaeta, Hoshi, Narcho, and Dee; Gaeta/Hoshi, Gaeta/Hoshi/Narcho
Rating: R
Summary: Felix and Louis are comfortable with each other, but they’re afraid “comfortable” will turn into “boring” if they’re not careful. Having drinks with Narcho changes all that, but not the way they might have thought it would.
Notes: For the alphabet meme prompt, “O is for Open, Gaeta/Hoshi.” I normally don’t do this, but I shamelessly stole a lot of plot and a few lines (and the title) from an episode of Brothers and Sisters (here). I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing until I got going, and then...well, it’s a funny plot. Apparently, in the absence of the bsg_pornbattle (are we going to have one this year?), I’m having my own personal one. Now, this still means it’s my style of “porn”-in other words, mostly innuendo and fade-to-black, and mostly funny rather than sexy.
It Takes Three to Tango
Felix and Louis were getting dressed in the head and chatting comfortably when it first came up.
Not that that said very much about when it first came up. It seemed like Felix and Louis were always chatting comfortably lately. And if they weren’t chatting comfortably, they were working together comfortably, or sleeping in the same bunk (relatively) comfortably, or frakking comfortably. If he had to choose one word to describe their relationship, Felix thought, “comfortable” would be it.
Not that comfortable was such a bad thing. Yes, the heady rush and butterflies that came with a new relationship were nice in their own way, but there was something to be said for being done with the awkwardness of the getting-to-know-you phase, especially figuring out what did and didn’t do anything for your partner. It was just that there were only so many ways Felix could think of to spice things up in a cramped rack in a bunkroom where eight other people slept. Comfortable itself wasn’t bad-comfortable was great, actually, Felix decided as he gave Louis an unsubtle once-over as he buttoned his uniform pants. His only fear was that it wouldn’t take all that much for him to make “comfortable” slip into “boring.” (Damn Gaius and his penchant for frakking in inappropriate but creative places. Felix was certain he had given him some kind of inferiority complex.)
Paradoxically, that sort of meant that things were going too smoothly with Louis. Felix was determined not to screw this relationship up. Or maybe to screw it up just a tiny bit, just enough to keep Louis interested. (Again, Felix was pretty sure his mindset was somehow Gaius’s fault.)
Which is why, at least when viewed in retrospect, the aforementioned fateful conversation went down the way it did.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Louis said casually as he rummaged in his locker. “I ran into Noel in the mess yesterday.”
“As in Narcho?” Felix asked, trying not to act as interested as he was. “As in your ex?”
“Yep.” Felix could tell Louis was trying not to act as interested as he actually was, too. “He asked if we wanted to have drinks with him sometime. Both of us.”
“Really? That’s nice of him,” Felix said disinterestedly. “Any particular reason why?”
Louis shut his locker and leaned against it, looking at Felix calmly and scratching his chin. “I don’t think so.”
Felix wondered if he would’ve been able to see through Louis’s act if they weren’t so comfortable with each other. Then he shook his head to get the “c-word” out of his mind. Familiar with each other. That sounded much better.
“So, do you want to? We don’t have to,” Louis said.
Drinks with a current partner’s ex? There was no way that couldn’t generate a little drama. Hopefully less than when Gaius invited two of his “interns” to a state dinner that one time, but still.
Felix took a respectable amount of time to pretend to think it over before answering, “Yeah, okay. Tomorrow?”
“Okay,” Louis said with a resolute nod. Felix thought Louis was turning to go, but he stopped. “Any particular reason why you want to do this? Like I said, we don’t have to.”
“No real reason,” Felix said, shrugging. “Narcho seems like a nice guy, and we were probably going to go to Joe’s after work tomorrow anyway.”
He mentally congratulated himself for not saying the first thing that came to mind, which was Because he’s an extremely hot Viper jock, and though I adore you and have absolutely no complaints about your body, darling, I’m curious as to how you and he worked. Also, did I mention he’s extremely hot?
Felix rambled on, “It’s not like I have any reason to be jealous, right?”
Louis smiled. “Nope. We’re ancient history. And I don’t have any reason to be jealous either, right?”
“Right.”
“Good. Tomorrow, drinks, Joe’s. Around 2030?”
“Good.”
Felix smiled, and they kissed each other goodbye as Louis headed toward CIC and Felix went off to his morning briefing with the Colonel.
That had probably been the most awkward we’re totally comfortable with each other conversation he and Louis had ever had, but Felix couldn’t help but notice there was a little extra spring in his step, and maybe even the pleasant flutter of butterflies in his stomach.
~~**~~**~~
Drinks with Noel certainly did add a little spice and drama to his and Felix’s relationship, Louis would note in retrospect. Too bad it didn’t do so in any of the ways he’d envisioned.
He wouldn’t ever admit it out loud, but the biggest reason behind Louis accepting Noel’s invitation was he wanted to show off a little, both to Noel and to Felix. With Noel, it was the obvious “look at the incredible guy I’m with now, don’t you feel like a moron for letting me go” shtick. Though less obvious, with Felix...Louis recognized that he wasn’t exactly an exciting person. How the hell he and Noel had ended up together for six months was one of the more unusual, mysterious things about Louis. So could anyone blame him for playing that angle up a bit when Noel presented him with the opportunity?
The problem was, Louis reflected as he sipped his drink and stared at his past and present lovers at their table in Joe’s, that even though he knew that angle existed, he couldn’t figure out how the hell to actually play it. As the common link between Noel and Felix, it was his job to keep conversation flowing. But for some reason, the only stories he could think of ended in either, “and remember how after that, you bent me over the back of the couch and frakked me within an inch of my life, Noel?” or “and then you gave me the blow job of the century, Felix?”
Yes, Louis thought he had dated and was dating two very secure, non-envious men, but even they had limits.
Noel was especially quiet that evening, and thoughtful-looking. That always made Louis a little nervous.
“Might as well ask you guys the question I came down here for, huh?” Noel said, knocking back the last of his drink and motioning to the bartender for another. “Did you two secretly get married, and if so, when?”
Felix and Louis exchanged befuddled looks. “No,” Felix said slowly. “Why...?”
“Frak Pool,” Noel said, as if that answered the question. When that didn’t dispel the confusion, he added, “Redwing has thirty cubits on you having been secretly hitched since three months after New Caprica. It’s my job as Commissioner of the Frak Pool to settle open questions like that at some point.” The bartender brought over another drink, and Noel took a sip. “It was a long shot, but even you have to admit, it wasn’t that out there.”
“What...?” Felix asked. Louis was glad at least one of them was still semi-articulate.
Noel looked surprised. “I don’t know, you just seem so...married.” For some reason-even beyond the fact it came from Noel-that struck Louis as an insult. Noel gestured with his drink. “Hell, look at you. You even sit together like you’re posing for a Saturnalia card.”
Louis and Felix looked down at themselves. Felix had an arm around Louis’s shoulders, and Louis’s hand rested on Felix’s knee. He’d actually been going for you-can-look-but-he’s-going-home-with-me, but now that Noel phrased it that way...frak. Apparently, he was too boring to even get being possessive right.
Louis sighed, his shoulders sinking in defeat. Then Noel narrowed his eyes and gave him a look-that scarily perceptive look he recognized well from their time together. The one that had made Louis accuse Noel of being a mind-reader.
“So.” Noel set down his drink and dropped his hands to the table. “You guys want to get out of here? The storage closet on B-Deck isn’t the best, but it’s big enough, and not like we really need a mattress anyway, right?”
Louis could only blink back in shock. That was the last time he would ever suspect Noel of mind-reading.
Felix spluttered on his drink. “Are you...propositioning us?”
“Yeah,” Noel said slowly, like he was confused at their surprise. “What? I know from experience that Louis is a great lay, and you have a nice ass and have to be at least decent to be able to keep up with him.”
Louis looked at Felix only to find a mirror of his own stunned (but sort of interested? maybe?) expression.
Noel continued, “Just because you’re weirdly co-dependent doesn’t mean you’re dead. You can still play together, right?” Noel folded his arms over his chest and grinned smugly. “It’s not like you have anything better to do tonight.”
~~**~~**~~
When Louis pinned Felix against the bulkhead for the fifth time on their way back from Joe’s, the only thing Felix could think of besides Louis’s lips and hands and chest and groin (and oh they needed to get home fast) was that if this was how much of a turn-on getting propositioned for a three-way was, it was a good thing they hadn’t taken Noel up on the offer, because Felix probably would have died from the excitement.
As loath as he was for Louis to stop doing what he was doing with his tongue to that sensitive spot behind Felix’s ear, he breathed out shakily, “Racks. We need to get...oh wow.”
“Two decks away, so not going to make it that far,” Louis muttered before diving back in.
Felix groaned. This was hot, but this particular corridor wasn’t exactly a secluded one, and Felix really didn’t have a public sex kink. At least, not anymore. (Again, thank you, Gaius.) He half-flailed, half-pointed at a hatchway. “What about that one?”
Louis looked up, then looked at Felix. “That’s pilots’ barracks.”
“I heard Dee talking about some kind of pilot party tonight. It’s probably nearly empty.”
Louis grinned at him but was still wide-eyed. “If they ever find out, they will kill us.”
Felix wrapped his fingers around the back of Louis’s head and pulled him in for a hard kiss. “Totally worth it.”
Almost before Felix knew it, they were crashing into an empty bunk, pulling the privacy curtain shut, and yanking off any and all clothing that came within their grasps.
“Watch the buttons!”
“Screw the buttons,” Felix growled in a voice he hadn’t known he had. Louis moaned very loudly.
Felix was surprised that he heard something above them over all their heavy breathing, kissing, and thrashing around in the bunk.
“What’s that?” Louis said at the noise, too, stilling. They heard a shift in the rack above them again. “I thought that rack looked empty, too.”
“I honestly wasn’t paying attention,” Felix said. “Never mind. Just someone turning over in their sleep.”
Felix tried to return to kissing and stripping, but Louis’s attention was still on the noises above. “Wait a minute,” Louis whispered. “If this is the pilot’s bunkroom on B-Deck...oh frak, that’s Noel’s rack!”
That made Felix stop, too. “Did we just subconsciously accept his offer?”
Louis opened his mouth several times before he finally managed to say, “Do you-are we-are we on the same page here?”
“If you-I-okay?” Felix stuttered. “Okay,” he said with a little more certainty.
They both jumped at the unmistakable squeak of a person slowly climbing down the ladder from the bunk above.
“Oh my gods, he’s coming!” Felix whispered. “What do we do? I’ve never done this before!”
Louis shook his head. “I don’t know. As surprising as this may sound given that I dated Noel, I haven’t ever done this, either.”
“Look seductive, I guess?” Felix ventured.
Louis nodded vigorously. “Here, on our sides, facing out. You have the better abs, so you get in front.” They quickly rearranged themselves, and Louis stripped off the last of their clothes, making sure to grab the bottle of lube from his pocket before kicking his pants to the foot of the bunk.
“Anything else?” Felix asked once they were in position.
He felt Louis shrug behind him. “Uh, maybe open the back door?”
“Wha-oh, ohhh!”
Despite the very pleasant haze that came with back-door-opening, Felix heard a pair of feet drop to the ground beside the ladder. Both of them held their breath, waiting for the curtain to open.
Instead, there was a knock on the frame, like someone knocking on a door. Felix looked back far enough so he could mouth what the frak? to Louis. Louis shrugged and motioned for him to open the curtain.
Felix slid the curtain back, and-
“Oh my gods-”
“What the frak-”
“Dee!”
Felix scrabbled for the blanket and pulled it up to his chin. If he hadn’t had a full-body blush before, he certainly had one now. Mercifully, the bunkroom was fairly empty, but a few heads poked out from behind privacy curtains to see what the racket was all about.
Dee paced beside the rack, a hand over her eyes. “Oh my gods, I so did not ever need to see that. Honestly, are you guys trying to make it so I can’t look you in the eye in CIC without having traumatic flashbacks?”
“Hey, you’re far from the only one traumatized here,” Louis said, throwing a protective arm around Felix. Felix would have found that a bit more comforting if his own body’s position hadn’t saved Louis from the brunt of the embarrassment. “What were you even doing in that rack?”
Dee uncovered her eyes long enough to give Louis a look of you’re asking me what I was doing? “The pilots are having a rather loud and drunken wake for Whirlybird in my quarters. I have to go on shift at 0500 and needed to sleep, so Narcho said I could use his rack while he was at the party. I didn’t know it was you two down here, but you were being even louder and more annoying than the drunk pilots, so I came down to tell you to shut up. Now.” She put her hands on her hips and got out her badass Pegasus XO voice. “What the hell were you two doing?”
“Did they skip the unit on gay sex in Sagittaron sex ed class?” Felix joked, trying to sidetrack the conversation. Dee folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. He shrunk back into Louis a little bit.
Then Louis did something verging on unforgivable.
“Felix wanted a three-way and we were trying to look enticing!” he blurted, all in one breath.
“Louis! What the frak?” Felix yelled. If the bunkroom had had a couch, Felix would have been making Louis sleep on it. For a week.
Dee stood in stunned silence for one horrible, horrible moment. Then she doubled over with laughter.
“It’s not that funny,” Felix groused.
“Oh yes, it is,” Dee choked out between laughs. Then she sobered and straightened for a moment. “You didn’t want a three-way with me, did you?”
“No, no! We didn’t think it was you up there at all,” Felix said.
Louis added, “And no offense, but girls...ew.”
“So who did you-” Her face lit up with realization. “Narcho! You thought I was him! Nice choice,” she added, still grinning.
Felix pulled the blanket up over his head. Narcho, Dee, Louis-he was going to kill all of them, if he could just manage to not die of embarrassment himself first.
~~**~~**~~
Louis and Felix didn’t really talk beyond the basic, “Never, ever tell Dee anything about our sex life again,” and “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life, and considering the pilots’ skill at pranks, that’s saying something,” until the next morning in the head as they were getting ready for duty.
“I’m so sorry,” Louis said first, figuring that was as good a start as any.
Felix sighed as he laced up his boots. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It takes three to tango, after all.”
Louis tried to hide his relief. “I’m still sorry for blabbing to Dee.”
Felix considered that for a moment. “Yeah, that part was your fault. Point taken, apology accepted.”
“Are we okay?”
Felix looked up. They did that thing Louis liked so much, where they communicated without even speaking to each other, and sat down side-by-side on the bench.
“I am,” Felix said. “I’ve been thinking. Part of why all this started-for me at least-was I was getting worried that we were getting too comfortable with each other. Complacent.”
“Me, too.”
“But...between being on the run for our lives and dealing with the relationship drama of all our friends, maybe it’s okay if things between us are just comfortable. Maybe I think it’s nice to have one part of my life that doesn’t generate a whole lot of stress.”
“I agree,” Louis said, smiling and taking Felix’s hand. “Maybe we look boring to the outside world, but I like us.” He lowered his voice and added with a smirk, “And if nothing else, last night proved we’ve still got that spark between us, if we just stoke it a little bit.”
Felix leaned in for a kiss and muttered, “And apparently we can even stoke it with fantasies of turning down three-ways. Who would’ve thought?”
They only broke apart when someone at the sinks called out, “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Noel! Uh, hi,” Louis said, nerves fluttering a little again.
Noel smirked at them in the mirror. “So. I had an interesting little chat with Dee at breakfast this morning.”
Felix flushed, and his head dropped into his hands. “Dee is never going to let us live this down.”
Noel stopped brushing his teeth long enough to say, “Actually, I’m kind of disappointed I missed the show. I get why the appeal was lost on Dee, but it sounded like fun to me.”
Louis and Felix took turns staring at each other and at Noel. After all that, was he still...?
Noel spat out his toothpaste and picked up a towel. “Well, time for a shower. See you guys...around?”
He smirked at them over his shoulder, then very, very slowly pulled his tanks up over his head before disappearing into the very back shower stall.
Damn him, Louis thought, swallowing hard.
He saw Felix’s eyes were large and dark, too. “How much time do we have before shift?” he asked, his gaze still on the shower stalls.
“Enough time for a shower,” Louis answered.
They looked at each other and grinned.
Author: kappamaki33
Characters/Pairings: Gaeta, Hoshi, Narcho, and Dee; Gaeta/Hoshi, Gaeta/Hoshi/Narcho
Rating: R
Summary: Felix and Louis are comfortable with each other, but they’re afraid “comfortable” will turn into “boring” if they’re not careful. Having drinks with Narcho changes all that, but not the way they might have thought it would.
Notes: For the alphabet meme prompt, “O is for Open, Gaeta/Hoshi.” I normally don’t do this, but I shamelessly stole a lot of plot and a few lines (and the title) from an episode of Brothers and Sisters (here). I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing until I got going, and then...well, it’s a funny plot. Apparently, in the absence of the bsg_pornbattle (are we going to have one this year?), I’m having my own personal one. Now, this still means it’s my style of “porn”-in other words, mostly innuendo and fade-to-black, and mostly funny rather than sexy.
It Takes Three to Tango
Felix and Louis were getting dressed in the head and chatting comfortably when it first came up.
Not that that said very much about when it first came up. It seemed like Felix and Louis were always chatting comfortably lately. And if they weren’t chatting comfortably, they were working together comfortably, or sleeping in the same bunk (relatively) comfortably, or frakking comfortably. If he had to choose one word to describe their relationship, Felix thought, “comfortable” would be it.
Not that comfortable was such a bad thing. Yes, the heady rush and butterflies that came with a new relationship were nice in their own way, but there was something to be said for being done with the awkwardness of the getting-to-know-you phase, especially figuring out what did and didn’t do anything for your partner. It was just that there were only so many ways Felix could think of to spice things up in a cramped rack in a bunkroom where eight other people slept. Comfortable itself wasn’t bad-comfortable was great, actually, Felix decided as he gave Louis an unsubtle once-over as he buttoned his uniform pants. His only fear was that it wouldn’t take all that much for him to make “comfortable” slip into “boring.” (Damn Gaius and his penchant for frakking in inappropriate but creative places. Felix was certain he had given him some kind of inferiority complex.)
Paradoxically, that sort of meant that things were going too smoothly with Louis. Felix was determined not to screw this relationship up. Or maybe to screw it up just a tiny bit, just enough to keep Louis interested. (Again, Felix was pretty sure his mindset was somehow Gaius’s fault.)
Which is why, at least when viewed in retrospect, the aforementioned fateful conversation went down the way it did.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Louis said casually as he rummaged in his locker. “I ran into Noel in the mess yesterday.”
“As in Narcho?” Felix asked, trying not to act as interested as he was. “As in your ex?”
“Yep.” Felix could tell Louis was trying not to act as interested as he actually was, too. “He asked if we wanted to have drinks with him sometime. Both of us.”
“Really? That’s nice of him,” Felix said disinterestedly. “Any particular reason why?”
Louis shut his locker and leaned against it, looking at Felix calmly and scratching his chin. “I don’t think so.”
Felix wondered if he would’ve been able to see through Louis’s act if they weren’t so comfortable with each other. Then he shook his head to get the “c-word” out of his mind. Familiar with each other. That sounded much better.
“So, do you want to? We don’t have to,” Louis said.
Drinks with a current partner’s ex? There was no way that couldn’t generate a little drama. Hopefully less than when Gaius invited two of his “interns” to a state dinner that one time, but still.
Felix took a respectable amount of time to pretend to think it over before answering, “Yeah, okay. Tomorrow?”
“Okay,” Louis said with a resolute nod. Felix thought Louis was turning to go, but he stopped. “Any particular reason why you want to do this? Like I said, we don’t have to.”
“No real reason,” Felix said, shrugging. “Narcho seems like a nice guy, and we were probably going to go to Joe’s after work tomorrow anyway.”
He mentally congratulated himself for not saying the first thing that came to mind, which was Because he’s an extremely hot Viper jock, and though I adore you and have absolutely no complaints about your body, darling, I’m curious as to how you and he worked. Also, did I mention he’s extremely hot?
Felix rambled on, “It’s not like I have any reason to be jealous, right?”
Louis smiled. “Nope. We’re ancient history. And I don’t have any reason to be jealous either, right?”
“Right.”
“Good. Tomorrow, drinks, Joe’s. Around 2030?”
“Good.”
Felix smiled, and they kissed each other goodbye as Louis headed toward CIC and Felix went off to his morning briefing with the Colonel.
That had probably been the most awkward we’re totally comfortable with each other conversation he and Louis had ever had, but Felix couldn’t help but notice there was a little extra spring in his step, and maybe even the pleasant flutter of butterflies in his stomach.
~~**~~**~~
Drinks with Noel certainly did add a little spice and drama to his and Felix’s relationship, Louis would note in retrospect. Too bad it didn’t do so in any of the ways he’d envisioned.
He wouldn’t ever admit it out loud, but the biggest reason behind Louis accepting Noel’s invitation was he wanted to show off a little, both to Noel and to Felix. With Noel, it was the obvious “look at the incredible guy I’m with now, don’t you feel like a moron for letting me go” shtick. Though less obvious, with Felix...Louis recognized that he wasn’t exactly an exciting person. How the hell he and Noel had ended up together for six months was one of the more unusual, mysterious things about Louis. So could anyone blame him for playing that angle up a bit when Noel presented him with the opportunity?
The problem was, Louis reflected as he sipped his drink and stared at his past and present lovers at their table in Joe’s, that even though he knew that angle existed, he couldn’t figure out how the hell to actually play it. As the common link between Noel and Felix, it was his job to keep conversation flowing. But for some reason, the only stories he could think of ended in either, “and remember how after that, you bent me over the back of the couch and frakked me within an inch of my life, Noel?” or “and then you gave me the blow job of the century, Felix?”
Yes, Louis thought he had dated and was dating two very secure, non-envious men, but even they had limits.
Noel was especially quiet that evening, and thoughtful-looking. That always made Louis a little nervous.
“Might as well ask you guys the question I came down here for, huh?” Noel said, knocking back the last of his drink and motioning to the bartender for another. “Did you two secretly get married, and if so, when?”
Felix and Louis exchanged befuddled looks. “No,” Felix said slowly. “Why...?”
“Frak Pool,” Noel said, as if that answered the question. When that didn’t dispel the confusion, he added, “Redwing has thirty cubits on you having been secretly hitched since three months after New Caprica. It’s my job as Commissioner of the Frak Pool to settle open questions like that at some point.” The bartender brought over another drink, and Noel took a sip. “It was a long shot, but even you have to admit, it wasn’t that out there.”
“What...?” Felix asked. Louis was glad at least one of them was still semi-articulate.
Noel looked surprised. “I don’t know, you just seem so...married.” For some reason-even beyond the fact it came from Noel-that struck Louis as an insult. Noel gestured with his drink. “Hell, look at you. You even sit together like you’re posing for a Saturnalia card.”
Louis and Felix looked down at themselves. Felix had an arm around Louis’s shoulders, and Louis’s hand rested on Felix’s knee. He’d actually been going for you-can-look-but-he’s-going-home-with-me, but now that Noel phrased it that way...frak. Apparently, he was too boring to even get being possessive right.
Louis sighed, his shoulders sinking in defeat. Then Noel narrowed his eyes and gave him a look-that scarily perceptive look he recognized well from their time together. The one that had made Louis accuse Noel of being a mind-reader.
“So.” Noel set down his drink and dropped his hands to the table. “You guys want to get out of here? The storage closet on B-Deck isn’t the best, but it’s big enough, and not like we really need a mattress anyway, right?”
Louis could only blink back in shock. That was the last time he would ever suspect Noel of mind-reading.
Felix spluttered on his drink. “Are you...propositioning us?”
“Yeah,” Noel said slowly, like he was confused at their surprise. “What? I know from experience that Louis is a great lay, and you have a nice ass and have to be at least decent to be able to keep up with him.”
Louis looked at Felix only to find a mirror of his own stunned (but sort of interested? maybe?) expression.
Noel continued, “Just because you’re weirdly co-dependent doesn’t mean you’re dead. You can still play together, right?” Noel folded his arms over his chest and grinned smugly. “It’s not like you have anything better to do tonight.”
~~**~~**~~
When Louis pinned Felix against the bulkhead for the fifth time on their way back from Joe’s, the only thing Felix could think of besides Louis’s lips and hands and chest and groin (and oh they needed to get home fast) was that if this was how much of a turn-on getting propositioned for a three-way was, it was a good thing they hadn’t taken Noel up on the offer, because Felix probably would have died from the excitement.
As loath as he was for Louis to stop doing what he was doing with his tongue to that sensitive spot behind Felix’s ear, he breathed out shakily, “Racks. We need to get...oh wow.”
“Two decks away, so not going to make it that far,” Louis muttered before diving back in.
Felix groaned. This was hot, but this particular corridor wasn’t exactly a secluded one, and Felix really didn’t have a public sex kink. At least, not anymore. (Again, thank you, Gaius.) He half-flailed, half-pointed at a hatchway. “What about that one?”
Louis looked up, then looked at Felix. “That’s pilots’ barracks.”
“I heard Dee talking about some kind of pilot party tonight. It’s probably nearly empty.”
Louis grinned at him but was still wide-eyed. “If they ever find out, they will kill us.”
Felix wrapped his fingers around the back of Louis’s head and pulled him in for a hard kiss. “Totally worth it.”
Almost before Felix knew it, they were crashing into an empty bunk, pulling the privacy curtain shut, and yanking off any and all clothing that came within their grasps.
“Watch the buttons!”
“Screw the buttons,” Felix growled in a voice he hadn’t known he had. Louis moaned very loudly.
Felix was surprised that he heard something above them over all their heavy breathing, kissing, and thrashing around in the bunk.
“What’s that?” Louis said at the noise, too, stilling. They heard a shift in the rack above them again. “I thought that rack looked empty, too.”
“I honestly wasn’t paying attention,” Felix said. “Never mind. Just someone turning over in their sleep.”
Felix tried to return to kissing and stripping, but Louis’s attention was still on the noises above. “Wait a minute,” Louis whispered. “If this is the pilot’s bunkroom on B-Deck...oh frak, that’s Noel’s rack!”
That made Felix stop, too. “Did we just subconsciously accept his offer?”
Louis opened his mouth several times before he finally managed to say, “Do you-are we-are we on the same page here?”
“If you-I-okay?” Felix stuttered. “Okay,” he said with a little more certainty.
They both jumped at the unmistakable squeak of a person slowly climbing down the ladder from the bunk above.
“Oh my gods, he’s coming!” Felix whispered. “What do we do? I’ve never done this before!”
Louis shook his head. “I don’t know. As surprising as this may sound given that I dated Noel, I haven’t ever done this, either.”
“Look seductive, I guess?” Felix ventured.
Louis nodded vigorously. “Here, on our sides, facing out. You have the better abs, so you get in front.” They quickly rearranged themselves, and Louis stripped off the last of their clothes, making sure to grab the bottle of lube from his pocket before kicking his pants to the foot of the bunk.
“Anything else?” Felix asked once they were in position.
He felt Louis shrug behind him. “Uh, maybe open the back door?”
“Wha-oh, ohhh!”
Despite the very pleasant haze that came with back-door-opening, Felix heard a pair of feet drop to the ground beside the ladder. Both of them held their breath, waiting for the curtain to open.
Instead, there was a knock on the frame, like someone knocking on a door. Felix looked back far enough so he could mouth what the frak? to Louis. Louis shrugged and motioned for him to open the curtain.
Felix slid the curtain back, and-
“Oh my gods-”
“What the frak-”
“Dee!”
Felix scrabbled for the blanket and pulled it up to his chin. If he hadn’t had a full-body blush before, he certainly had one now. Mercifully, the bunkroom was fairly empty, but a few heads poked out from behind privacy curtains to see what the racket was all about.
Dee paced beside the rack, a hand over her eyes. “Oh my gods, I so did not ever need to see that. Honestly, are you guys trying to make it so I can’t look you in the eye in CIC without having traumatic flashbacks?”
“Hey, you’re far from the only one traumatized here,” Louis said, throwing a protective arm around Felix. Felix would have found that a bit more comforting if his own body’s position hadn’t saved Louis from the brunt of the embarrassment. “What were you even doing in that rack?”
Dee uncovered her eyes long enough to give Louis a look of you’re asking me what I was doing? “The pilots are having a rather loud and drunken wake for Whirlybird in my quarters. I have to go on shift at 0500 and needed to sleep, so Narcho said I could use his rack while he was at the party. I didn’t know it was you two down here, but you were being even louder and more annoying than the drunk pilots, so I came down to tell you to shut up. Now.” She put her hands on her hips and got out her badass Pegasus XO voice. “What the hell were you two doing?”
“Did they skip the unit on gay sex in Sagittaron sex ed class?” Felix joked, trying to sidetrack the conversation. Dee folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. He shrunk back into Louis a little bit.
Then Louis did something verging on unforgivable.
“Felix wanted a three-way and we were trying to look enticing!” he blurted, all in one breath.
“Louis! What the frak?” Felix yelled. If the bunkroom had had a couch, Felix would have been making Louis sleep on it. For a week.
Dee stood in stunned silence for one horrible, horrible moment. Then she doubled over with laughter.
“It’s not that funny,” Felix groused.
“Oh yes, it is,” Dee choked out between laughs. Then she sobered and straightened for a moment. “You didn’t want a three-way with me, did you?”
“No, no! We didn’t think it was you up there at all,” Felix said.
Louis added, “And no offense, but girls...ew.”
“So who did you-” Her face lit up with realization. “Narcho! You thought I was him! Nice choice,” she added, still grinning.
Felix pulled the blanket up over his head. Narcho, Dee, Louis-he was going to kill all of them, if he could just manage to not die of embarrassment himself first.
~~**~~**~~
Louis and Felix didn’t really talk beyond the basic, “Never, ever tell Dee anything about our sex life again,” and “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life, and considering the pilots’ skill at pranks, that’s saying something,” until the next morning in the head as they were getting ready for duty.
“I’m so sorry,” Louis said first, figuring that was as good a start as any.
Felix sighed as he laced up his boots. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It takes three to tango, after all.”
Louis tried to hide his relief. “I’m still sorry for blabbing to Dee.”
Felix considered that for a moment. “Yeah, that part was your fault. Point taken, apology accepted.”
“Are we okay?”
Felix looked up. They did that thing Louis liked so much, where they communicated without even speaking to each other, and sat down side-by-side on the bench.
“I am,” Felix said. “I’ve been thinking. Part of why all this started-for me at least-was I was getting worried that we were getting too comfortable with each other. Complacent.”
“Me, too.”
“But...between being on the run for our lives and dealing with the relationship drama of all our friends, maybe it’s okay if things between us are just comfortable. Maybe I think it’s nice to have one part of my life that doesn’t generate a whole lot of stress.”
“I agree,” Louis said, smiling and taking Felix’s hand. “Maybe we look boring to the outside world, but I like us.” He lowered his voice and added with a smirk, “And if nothing else, last night proved we’ve still got that spark between us, if we just stoke it a little bit.”
Felix leaned in for a kiss and muttered, “And apparently we can even stoke it with fantasies of turning down three-ways. Who would’ve thought?”
They only broke apart when someone at the sinks called out, “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Noel! Uh, hi,” Louis said, nerves fluttering a little again.
Noel smirked at them in the mirror. “So. I had an interesting little chat with Dee at breakfast this morning.”
Felix flushed, and his head dropped into his hands. “Dee is never going to let us live this down.”
Noel stopped brushing his teeth long enough to say, “Actually, I’m kind of disappointed I missed the show. I get why the appeal was lost on Dee, but it sounded like fun to me.”
Louis and Felix took turns staring at each other and at Noel. After all that, was he still...?
Noel spat out his toothpaste and picked up a towel. “Well, time for a shower. See you guys...around?”
He smirked at them over his shoulder, then very, very slowly pulled his tanks up over his head before disappearing into the very back shower stall.
Damn him, Louis thought, swallowing hard.
He saw Felix’s eyes were large and dark, too. “How much time do we have before shift?” he asked, his gaze still on the shower stalls.
“Enough time for a shower,” Louis answered.
They looked at each other and grinned.