The BLTS Archive - Not Regulation
by Apocalypse (beth.tereno@gmail.com)

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Disclaimer: These people aren't mine. I just steal them and make them
do sex.

A/N: I wrote this as a present for Pixienymph, kind of at random but
partly 'cause she wasn't feeling so good so I said "I will write you
slash!" So, here is slash.

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Malcolm closed his eyes, his face tilted upward into the heat of the
shower. He stroked himself matter-of-factly, not even pretending to
himself that he wasn't thinking of his latest session in the
decontamination chamber.

Proximity was supposed to breed contempt, wasn't it? It was absence
that made the heart grow fonder. Well, his heart - as always a rather
stupid and uncooperative organ - disliked cliches.

As did, apparently, other somewhat more insistent parts of his body.

His mind's eye watched Trip Tucker spreading the decon gel up his
arms. His mind's fingers remembered the sensation of smearing the
stuff up and down the other man's back.

The sound he made as he climaxed was half-moan, half-grunt. Then he
returned to the more traditional showering tasks of cleaning himself
up.

He got out of the shower and was toweling himself off when there came
the little chime of someone at the door to his quarters.

Malcolm frowned. Who would be coming by here?

"Half a moment, just out of the shower," he called. He shrugged into
his bathrobe, regretting that he didn't have time to climb back into
his uniform jumpsuit, and cinched it tightly about his waist.

"Come," he called, stepping out of the bathroom.

The door hissed open to reveal a diffident-looking Trip Tucker.

"Hi, Malcolm," Trip said. "You busy?"

"No, not really," Malcolm said, feeling suddenly very awkward standing
there in his bathrobe.

"I've had something I've been meaning to ask you," Trip said.

"Yes?" Malcolm prompted.

"Er ... are you gay?" Trip asked, his tone as nonchalant as if he
inquiring about the weather.

"What?" Malcolm said.

"Are you, uh, interested in men?" Trip said, rubbing at the back of
his neck with the palm of his hand. "You don't have to answer if you
don't want, I guess, but I thought ..."

"Why do you ask?" Malcolm said guardedly, although he suspected that
if he weren't interested in men the correct response would've been an
immediate and vigorous refusal.

"Well, I guess the right question would've been 'are you interested in
me?'" Trip said, his face reddening.

Something in Malcolm's brain broke. He stared at Trip for several
seconds, frozen.

"I mean," Trip said, "I thought I saw you looking at me, you know.
That way. But then I thought it was just wishful thinking. And
there've been times when I've thought - but then I just ... I mean,
you know how it is. But ... I don't know, you seemed ... kinda, you
know, in the decon room, and I was trying not to look, but ..." He
trailed off.

"Regulations," Malcolm whispered.

"Oh." Trip looked abashed, and then hopeful. "So you are ... ?"

"God help me, Mr. Tucker, I want you more than breath," Malcolm
managed to choke out, around a cascade of emotions. He sat down hard
on the edge of his bed, or tried to, but missed and ended up on the
floor.

Trip's eyes went very wide. "Oh," he said. He crossed the room and
squatted in front of Malcolm on the floor. "Uh ... Malcolm?"

Malcolm looked up at him, hunted.

Trip said, "To hell with the regulations."

Trip's mouth on his tasted of heat, and life, and hope. They kissed
fiercely, hungrily, as though each were expecting the moment to
dissolve in fantasy.

Malcolm nodded, robbed of protestation by that one searing moment of
mutual attraction.

His fingers closed on the zipper of Trip's uniform jumpsuit and
started to pull it downwards. "To merry hell with the regulations," he
agreed.

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The End