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If Ushijima blames anyone for the undoing of his sanity it is Daichi Sawamura, the Head-of-Security on Ushijima’s ship Eagle Summit IV, previous experience in the Academy and before that got his Academy pre-requisite flying experience on the contract ship Feather Fall.
A contract ship, one known for taking dangerous missions and succeeding, is a boon for any space captain.
Ushijima doesn’t blame Daichi for that, because he knows that although everything that he’s accomplished that Feather Fall has played a part in him and his crew could have done without them but they have done it more efficiently and therefore better with them.
No. The true blame is not Daichi’s connection with Feather Fall, but rather his connection with the current Captain of Feather Fall.
Captain and Navigator, Sugawara Koishi.
The first time Ushijima meets Sugawara it is hardly memorable. Neither is the second or the third.
Each time there is a brief greeting made between captains, a rundown of the mission and then Captain-Navigator Sugawara has a friendly chat with Head-of-Security Daichi Sawamura until it’s time for Feather Fall to undock from Eagle Summit VI.
The fourth time, however, Daichi goes to chat with Feather Fall’s trainee-Navigator Kageyama and Sugawara walks over to Ushijima and asks with idle, small talk pleasantness:
“You’ve traveled league farther than our humble little ship, right? What’s been your favorite place so far?”
And Ushijima blinks at him and says something so banal and practiced like, “There are so many places that I couldn’t possibly pick.” Or, “Every planet in space is special in its own way.” that he can’t even remember which it was if it was either.
Then Sugawara snorts, tilts his head back and laughs. The action is just like Oikawa but lacking in the spitefulness that seems to be the only feeling Ushijima can engender in Blue Castle’s captain.
Ushijima can see the playful disbelief in Sugawara’s eyes when he settles from his laughing conniption. Then Sugawara is looking at him, but no, not just looking but seeing Ushijima, as if Sugawara is a bird and Ushijima is a particularly shiny object that he’s set his sights on.
Ushijima brushes it off, (although it is disconcerting) but he finds out later that that moment is the moment Sugawara digs his claws in and decides to never let go.
It is the beginning of the end.
Sugawara starts bringing him things.
He brings a crate of fruit or a handful of trinkets and passes them around but when he hands them to Ushijima he looks into Ushijima’s eyes so intensely that half the time Ushijima is saying thank you before he even looks at what’s been given to him.
Seashells. Pottery. Consumables.
Lots of consumables.
Curry from Utruna. Caramelized beef skewers from Pachars. Taffy from Lillion FXF7.
He eats whatever Sugawara gives him and keeps the trinkets gifted, at first just for decency but it reaches the point where he treasures the useless for sentimental reasons and once sentiment starts Ushijima finds it never stops.
At night Ushijima dreams of an Ostean mango bursting open between Sugawara’s thin but defined lips. The soft skin of the fruit resists teeth for only a moment before the pomegranate seeds spill out, red rushing over the yellow and pink hues of the fruit and down Sugawara’s chin.
“You need to take all five senses into account when it comes to love,” dream-Sugawara tells him, echoing the sentiment the real Sugawara had told him
Sugawara holds the ruined fruit in one hand and with the other he is leaning forward and then Ushijima’s taste buds are assaulted with the overwhelming taste without having taken a single bite of the Ostean mango.
When he wakes, the soft glow of his lights turn on automatically as he sits up. He feels heat ride through his body and for the first time since he entered the Academy Ushijima wishes he were on a planet, if just to have solid ground under his feet. His room, for the first time, feels bare. He stands, strides over to the seam were his dresser is built into the wall.
He pushes the top panel and it pops out. He digs out one of the useless baubles Sugawara has gotten for him - the first one his fingers brush a conch shell from Dolinia. He brings it up to his nose where he can still smell the sweet water the vacation planet is known for, rubs his fingers along the ridges then presses it against his ear.
He hears the ocean in the resonating air bouncing around the inner coil. His brain weaves Sugawara’s laugh in.
Closing the panel he gets back in bed. He presses his lips briefly to shell before laying down with it cupped gingerly in his hands.
Being Captain is not an idle job. Everything on Eagle Summit IV is his responsibility. Every success his success and every failure his failure. Daichi makes a wonderful Head of Security and all of the other Heads he has chosen are just as capable (if they were not he would replace them the next time they were on an Academy planet.) But still, there is work to be done. Maintaining progress of missions, research – if not actively doing it then hearing report after report -, checking every notice and approving or denying requests throughout the entire ship and even some decisions that require attention off-ship.
He does not have time to be distracted.
But he is.
Ushijima can’t look away from Sugawara’s mouth when he eats or talks or exists in Ushijima’s sight range. Ushijima wants to send him away and he avoids getting Feather Fall’s help but then Daichi suggests it and then Sugawara is there and then Ushijima knows the name addiction and for the first time in his straightforward and accomplished life he is not disciplined enough to deny himself
Ushijima Wakatoshi is losing his mind.
“Looking over your reports I see you’ve been commissioning Feather Fall hm… Quite a lot,” Captain Oikawa says with false levity.
Ushijima turns to address him, as Oikawa had followed Ushijima as he was leaving to board his ship, (leaving to meet with Sugawara as Feather Fall is on standby to report on their scouting of Cruna NC). The man, beautiful as always, is scrolling through a tablet, no doubt reviewing his reports as is his right as a fellow captain.
“My Head of Security did his pre-Academy experience on Feather Fall,” he explains himself simply.
“Most on your ship have some pre-Academy experience, and yet, slowly you’ve been funneling missions to Feather Fall,” Oikawa’s eyes flicker up. He grins sharply, always ready to make an enemy out of Ushijima, tilts his head back and waves his hand flippantly, “Don’t get me wrong. They’re effective, if clumsy at times, and have occasionally pulled some stellar results but for some of these other ships would have done just as well if not better and sometimes you wouldn’t even need them.”
Ushijima blinks, “Are you insinuating something?”
Oikawa scoffs, “What’s so special about Feather Fall to garner the great UshiWaka’s attention?”
The silly nickname from their Academy years. It’s meant to be insulting, Ushijima thinks but he’s never been bothered by it.
“There’s nothing unethical about having a preferred ship to commission, even based on personal feelings. Everything is above board, I believe.”
Oikawa scowls.
“Of course it is,” he spits out, “That’s not the point.”
They have a stare-off of sorts, Ushijima meeting Oikawa’s burning challenge without heat or interest.
Oikawa smirks, “Maybe I’ll just have to commission them myself to find out what the big deal is. You wouldn’t mind sharing their transmission details? I can’t wait to speak to the captain in person.”
Something thick sits in Ushijima’s throat and suddenly breathing feels impossible. His body twitches and burns. Something in his face must give him away because Oikawa is looking at him like he’s won.
“I’m in love with Captain Sugawara,” he states plainly and once he’s said it it’s true and more comes out the wound he’s opened, “I can’t look away from him when he’s near me and every word is etched into my brain.”
Oikawa blinks rapidly and chokes out a, “Wh-what?”
It’s easier to breathe, now that what’s been brewing for months is out in the open.
Ushijima licks his lips, “Suddenly being captain doesn’t feel like enough. It’s everything I’ve been raised to be the ideal captain, but he’s made me have… Preferences.”
Bias over diplomacy. Opinions over facts. His pride as captain has slid right out of his hands.
An idea that’s been convalescing in his mind suddenly births into clarity.
“He’s mentioned that he doesn’t plan to stay on Feather Fall forever,” Ushijima says slowly and thoughtfully as if what he’s saying isn’t insane, “If he’s interested, maybe I’ll retire and we could travel together.”
He turns from Oikawa’s shocked, pale face to continue on to his ship. He hears the sound of a tablet clattering onto the ground but he doesn’t look back.
It’s Oikawa’s worthless pride that would make him ashamed to be in love. Ushijima has no such reservations.
Toes buried in the sand, his boots stripped off and his socks neatly tucked into them Ushijima feels stiff. Next to him Sugawara is loose and free, kicks at the water as a wave pulls in, the purple hue of it reflected in his silver hair, casting a lavender glow to it.
Dolinia is, objectively, a beautiful planet.
Sugawara is, objectively, a beautiful man.
This is their first stop of the rest of their lives, their small ship docked in Dolinia’s service port. Maybe after they crest the honeymoon period they’ll look into doing commissions just the two of them.
Maybe -
Ushijima takes a deep breath and shakes his head slightly to shed thoughts of work. He tilts his head back to smell the sweet water because everything on Dolinia is sweet.
Ushijima is not.
Sugawara is.
Sugawara’s laughter rings in his ears and Ushijima tries to remember a time that he had laughed like that. He doesn’t think he has. His mother’s culture was a severe one and being raised on a planet that’s less of a home than a Federation command base, Ushijima was a quiet and serious child that grew into a serious man of few words.
Hands grab his and Ushijima opens his eyes to see Sugawara staring deeply into his. The man’s head is tilted to the side and Ushijima feels like he’s being taken apart.
(There is something in the eyes of Karasuno’s people. Something that makes people feel stripped and vulnerable and it’s something that has always intrigued Ushijima, to the point of hiring a fresh-out of the Academy cadet onto his ship.)
The hands shift, sliding up his arms, from wrists to elbows to shoulders until they’re sliding up Ushijima’s neck. For a second, he tenses and then those hands, soft where there are no callouses, are cupping his jaw and rubbing soothing circles.
“Do you like the view?” Sugawara says and it’s a simple question but Ushijima senses that it’s loaded, even as he can’t puzzle out its true meaning.
“I’m not used to looking merely to enjoy the view,” Ushijima states honestly as he greedily drinks in the sight of the man he loves.
Sugawara hums, a thumb stroking his cheek, “Never?” He asks, voice heady.
Ushijima suddenly remembers in his youth his drawings. Planets and nebulas and trees and buildings, all created with the power of his left hand. According to his mother’s culture, his left handedness was a bad omen and his drawings a distraction to duty.
His father, according to his mother’s belief in a patriarchal family structure, had final say and his father had looked at him with warm eyes that made him feel relaxed and loved and like a kid, had said that he loved the drawings Ushijima made with his left hand.
“… When I was young. I think.”
Sugawara smiled, “Just because we mature doesn’t mean the child that we were is gone.”
Ushijima blinks and then looks past him, at the purple water and orange sand and the tawdry hues of the sky’s two suns. He digs into the recess of his brain to remember how he would glide his pencil across the page, how he would carefully color in the two suns and how he would blend the colors to make a gradient reflecting of the sky above.
“You’ve relaxed,” Sugawara notes, and Ushijima looks back down to him.
When Sugawara leans in, Ushijima meets him halfway.
“Where to next?” Sugawara asks.
Ushijima is staring at his mouth and holding Sugawara’s right hand with his left. He feels free and wild and undone, held and stitched together only by Sugawara.
He licks his lips.
There is an infinite universe of possibility and he’s holding it all in his left hand.