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"Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.” — Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia

—

This is what a Wednesday night on the Unreliable sounds like:

“This book is full of bullshit,” Nell says, tossing one of the vicar’s soft, leather-bound tomes onto the galley table, where it lands with a lackluster flop.

“Bullshi—” Max sputters, affronted, and recovers his book from the table for use as a prop to gesture aggressively in Nell’s direction. “This sacred text is based upon hundreds of years of study!” 

“And it’s all bullshit! Tripe nonsense that keeps the poor poor and makes the rich richer.”

“Then you fundamentally misunderstand the basic tenets of Scientism. We all have our roles, yes, our paths to follow, and in doing so—”

“You can’t honestly believe it’s all part of the Grand Plan for people to die from plague and starvation and getting eaten by the fucking wildlife,” Nell says, unbothered that Max is still talking, “just so the fat cats on Byzantium can live out their easy little lives in obscene—”

“—with enough hard work and dedication, anyone can rise above their station and become something greater.”

“Do you even hear yourself? Do you know one single person who was born in a settlement and made it to Byzantium?” Nell leans over the table toward him and jabs her finger on its surface for emphasis. “If what you’re selling was actually true, we’d have actual success stories of actual people making it. You’re just peddling false platitudes—”

“It’s not a false platitude if it brings true comfort,” Max says through gritted teeth, mirroring her table lean until he’s so close Nell can feel the heat coming off him. “Sometimes all people need is the hope for something more, and that becomes their motivation to contribute their best to the furtherment of humanity.”

Behind Max, Nell sees Ellie sidle up to the kitchen and root around in a cupboard. Max is still ranting: “Just because you’re lost and know no peace doesn’t preclude—” he cuts himself off and whirls on Ellie, who’s seated on the counter, munching happily on a bag of chips.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” she says around a full mouth. “I’m just catching this week’s episode of ‘The Vicar and the Radical.’ It’s our new favorite serial, you know. I’m surprised Felix didn’t beat me here.”

“By the Architect, you people exhaust me,” Max mutters, rubbing his temples with a hand. “I’ll be in my quarters. Ne — Captain, let me know if you come to your senses and want to have a civilized discussion.”

“Don’t be such a coward, Vicar,” Nell shouts at his back. “Or can your little cult not handle some friendly blaspheming?”

Max stops in the hallway, a fist balled at his side, and Nell’s breath catches. She counts backwards: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. But his fingers loosen and he stalks into his room, the door sweeping shut quietly. 

Nell lets out the breath she’d been holding, disappointed. Their argument plays back in her head, but it’s not missed opportunities vexing her — it’s the hard line of his jaw, the vein that snakes down his throat and over his Adam’s apple, the way his vestment fabric bunches and tightens around his arms when he gestures.

“Law,” Ellie says, breaking Nell’s reverie, “if I didn’t agree with you, I might think you’re overcompensating for something.”

“Fuck you, Ellie,” Nell says without bite.

“Not me , Captain.” Ellie waggles her eyebrows and stuffs a handful of chips in her mouth. Heat floods Nell’s face, turning her pink from ears to neck, and Ellie snorts and shakes her head. “You make it too easy.”

With that, Ellie hops off the counter. “Welp, now that the fun’s over, guess I’ll turn in. Night, Nell,” she says. She salutes Nell with her bag of chips and moseys back toward her room.

“Night, Ellie.” Nell waits around a moment to make sure the galley is empty of witnesses, then creeps down the hall and knocks on the vicar’s door. She waits for his muffled “Yes?” before she opens it.

“Vicar, I have a question,” she says, leaning in his doorway with her arms folded.

Max sighs and closes his bookcase. “Yes, Captain, what is it.”

“I wanted to hear what you have to say about inner peace. Because,” she says as she steps over the threshold and closes the door behind her, “I have a theory: I might not ‘know peace,’ but I don’t think you do, either.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”

“Come on, Vicar, I’ve seen you take a tossball stick to a marauder.”

“That’s different. It’s—”

Nell squinches her eyes at him. “Is it, though?” she asks, voice high. 

“If you would just let me finish what I was saying,” Max shoots back, making his point with his hands. “ That is self-defense.”

“Okay, fine. Violent delights aside, when you let me and the crew work you up into a froth over philosophy, is that self-defense, too?”

“Like you’re doing now? What’s your point, Nell?”

“You’re wrong about the Plan, and I think you know you’re wrong about the Plan, and I just want you to admit it already.”

“Are you—” Max brings his palms together and raises them to his mouth, thumbs under his chin, and takes a deep breath. “I have dedicated my life to deciphering the Plan,” he says, rotating his joined palms out toward her. “I can assure you, there is little room for doubt in my mind.”

Nell clears herself a space and sits on Max’s desk. The good one. The one made from real wood. 

“Have you no—”

“You know I don’t, Max. None at all.” Nell grins up at him. “Okay. Tell me all about your inner peace and where I can get some.” 

“Well,” Max says, stepping forward and reaching around her to rescue an open book that’s partly wedged under her backside, “you can start by not sitting on the texts.”

He doesn’t immediately move out of her personal space, so the front of his thigh brushes her hand where it’s braced on the desk and his arm nearly touches her shoulder. Nell tilts her head to look at him, eyes roving up his form-fitting tunic to find his face.

“And instead,” he continues, looking down his nose at her, “you can read them.”

“Uh-huh,” Nell says, preoccupied with staring at his mouth. “Seems like a lot of work.”

“Oh, it is. Decades of study, and you still may not be any closer to finding the answers you seek.” His eyes slant sideways away from her, suddenly pensive, and Nell can feel the heat between them begin to dissipate in his distraction. She shifts and pulls her heavy hair out of its loose bun, letting the dark waves spill around her. That draws back Max’s attention; his glance follows the fall of her hair down her shoulders.

“And what if I’m more interested in instant gratification?” Nell asks when his eyes flick back up to meet hers.

Max hums thoughtfully, seeming to come back to the moment. “Of course, there are other, quicker ways.” He gathers a lock of Nell’s hair and wraps it loosely around his fingers. When he just barely grazes her jaw, Nell shivers. “If you’re looking for something more temporal…”

Nell stretches up toward him, at the same time curling her hand around a bicep to urge him closer. He moves easily, but stops short when their noses touch. Max closes his eyes and takes a deep, careful breath, holding himself still.

“Don’t overthink it,” Nell whispers, drawing her fingers up his bicep and shoulder to curl in the hair at the nape of his neck. Max shivers and his eyes dart up to meet hers — then he leans in to brush his open mouth against hers.

Nell tightens her grip on the back of his neck to bring his mouth more cleanly in line with hers so she can trace her tongue around the inside of his lips. Max responds in kind, curling his hand around Nell’s jaw and tangling his fingers in her hair. When he steps to the side so they’re face to face, Max winds an arm around Nell’s waist to drag her closer as he leans over her, and Nell, thrown off balance, closes her knees around his hips and braces a hand behind her on the desk. 

Max ducks his head to lay a line of kisses down her jaw and throat while pushes her suspenders off her shoulders and fiddles with her shirt buttons. Once Nell shrugs her shirt off, Max splays his hands around her belly and ribs, then gently drags his fingers up the small of her back. Nell arches her back, boosting herself off the desk to press closer against Max, who grunts and tightens his arms around her to bring her with him as he stands upright.

“Max—” Nell exclaims, throwing her arms around his shoulders when he nearly drops her because he’s fighting with her bra. “Just — let me.”

He stabilizes her with an arm under her ass and one around her waist, and buries his face in Nell’s neck while she makes quick work of her bra.

“Happy now?” she gasps as he drags his teeth against the sensitive skin at the hinge of her jaw.

Max just growls and turns around to push her up against his bookcase, and Nell sucks in her breath at the shock of cool glass against her skin. She brings her arms back around his neck and runs her fingers through his hair as she tilts her head to drag her teeth down his jaw, then run the tip of her tongue down his neck. She runs into trouble when her nose hits the top of his high collar.

Nell unwraps her legs from around Max’s hips, clinging briefly to him by her arms until her feet hit the deck. She grabs his tunic by the seams at his hips and pulls up, and he hastily unbuttons his collar and shrugs out of it by pulling from the back of his neck. His undershirt follows, and he pauses, chest heaving, and just looks at her. 

Nell reaches out toward him, fingers grazing an old, yellow-green bruise above his hip. Max leans in and braces a hand on the bookshelf behind her, and Nell stretches up, expecting his kiss. Instead, he hooks his fingers in a belt loop and spins her around so her back is to him. He presses up to her, chest to back, and pulls her hair aside to lay heady, biting kisses along her shoulder. When he sets his teeth in the curve of her neck and sucks, Nell sighs and leans back against him, raising a hand to curl her fingers in his hair. 

She takes Max’s hand and guides him to her breast, and she feels his smiling scoff against her neck. Nell tightens her fist in his hair, and Max grunts in pain, then gives her nipple a firm pinch in response. Nell whines, high and throaty, and cranes her neck to find his mouth. He’s all too eager to be found, all open mouth and roving tongue, even if the awkward angle makes it sloppy.

Max pushes a knee between Nell’s and kicks at her feet, so she spreads her legs and takes her hand out of Max’s hair to support herself against the bookcase. While one hand still toys with her nipple, Max’s other wanders down her stomach and under her waistband. Nell gasps, breaking their kiss, and Max grins against her mouth as he slides his fingers between her slick lips. Nell lets out a strangled groan and bucks her hips into his hand, grateful Parvati spends most nights on her cot in the cargo hold and won’t be in her room to hear them. She scrabbles at her pants buttons, and when she pulls one side over her hip, Max slides his hand around to pull her pants down the other hip.

Then he backs away from her completely, and Nell turns her head to watch him undo his own pants and pull his cock free. He looks at her, a question in his eyes, and Nell nods. She spreads her legs wider and leans over, bracing both hands on the bookshelf. Max runs his hand from between her shoulder blades down her spine, then pushes on the small of her back to angle her hips how he wants. 

Nell whimpers and buries her face in the crook of her arm when he enters her, canting her hips back to meet him. He winds an arm around her waist and curls around her, dropping his forehead to her shoulder and groaning. And then he’s still for what feels like an age, until Nell is so desperate she tilts her hips away from him, seeking friction instead of just fullness. Max inhales sharply and tightens his arm around Nell’s waist to pull her back flush against him, then braces his other hand on the bookshelf and thrusts. His movement is agonizingly slow, until Nell gasps a choked “Max—” and he catches on and picks up the pace. 

Nell braces herself with a hand on Max’s arm around her waist and pushes up on her toes so Max can thrust deeper; he responds with a small noise that sounds like her name, and thrusts into her harder and faster. Nell reaches down between her legs to slide her fingers around her clitoris, letting her head fall against the bookcase and biting her lip to keep from making noise.

The lip-biting was a useless gesture, since Nell keens quietly despite herself as the pressure in her lower belly builds. Max takes the encouragement, breath quickening as his thrusting gets faster and choppier. Nell, matching his enthusiasm, rubs her clit directly, finger slick and slippery. Her orgasm catches her by surprise: She sighs out a moan as the tension releases, heat flooding her body and sparks dancing behind her closed eyes.

She leans further onto the bookshelf, relying on Max’s arm around her waist to keep her upright as her legs tremble. Max gasps, then moans, hips slowing as Nell convulses around him. His knuckles are white where they grip the corner of the bookshelf, his skin damp where his forehead meets her shoulder. 

“Don’t stop,” Nell whispers as she shudders through the last waves of her orgasm. 

He doesn’t; Nell turns her head and bites the inside of her arm to keep from crying out as he drives into her faster, overcharging her raw nerves. It’s not long before he comes: He grips her waist tighter to pull her closer toward him, shudders, and groans quietly.

“Holy shit, Max,” Nell says, her forehead pressed against fogged-up glass. 

Max grunts. His breathing is hard, but shaky, as he pulls away from her to lean on his desk.

“Does that ‘temporal pleasures’ trick often work for you?” Nell looks at him over her shoulder as she shimmies her pants up her hips.

“Never tried it,” Max says, keeping his eyes down as he adjusts himself and buttons his pants.

“Huh.” Nell reaches around him to scoop her shirt from the desk and shrugs into it, neglecting her bra. 

“This isn’t exactly — protocol, Nell.” He hasn’t bothered putting his vestment back on and is watching her, his chin cupped in a hand.

Nell pauses and tilts her head at him, shirt only half-buttoned. “You don’t say.”

Max sucks in his breath and clicks his tongue, eyes on her neck. He steps in close to push her shirt out of the way and rub his thumb at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

Nell cranes her neck, but can’t see a mark. “Is it bad?”

Max frowns, shrugs, covers it with a chunk of her hair. “Nothing a little clever misdirection won’t fix.”

“Oh, that’s my special-ity.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with your method, seeing as I am the lucky one who takes all the hits while you cavort around doing Law knows what,” Max says.

Nell pats his chest, then rests her hands on his shoulders. “As long as you know who’s calling the shots here,” she says with a smile that’s all sarcasm.

Max sighs and begins doing up her shirt buttons. “Nell—”

“Let me guess,” Nell says, batting his hands away and finishing the job herself. “This is the part where you say this was a mistake, we shouldn’t have let this get so out of hand, this can never happen again, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Oh, no, it’s far too soon for regrets,” Max scoffs, picking up his discarded tunic and shaking it out to hang it up. “Ask me again tomorrow, after I’ve spent a sleepless night agonizing over my inability to think with my head in matters involving you.”

Nell tucks half her shirt into her pants, but loses the will to finish her task and doesn’t bother at all with her suspenders. When she looks back up at Max, he’s watching her again, and he takes a breath, as if on the verge of saying something.

“I’d hate to get in the way of your peaceful contemplating, Vicar, so I’ll make myself scarce.” She picks up the book she’d been sitting on and waves it in a question. “May I?”

“By all means,” Max says. “Please, educate yourself.”

It’s not until she’s outside his cabin and rounding the stairs to hers that she looks at the title: To Take One for the Team: A Comprehensive Review of the Teleological Implications of the Hammersmith Thunder’s Victory in the 24th Annual Tossball Championships . Nell snorts and cracks open the cover anyway, settling into her bunk for the night.

—

Nell wakes early enough the next morning that no one else is in the kitchen when she hurriedly pours herself some cereal and runs it back to her room. She’s deep in her bowl and even deeper in that book when there’s a knock on the hull by her door, followed by, “Captain? Can we talk?”

Nell scrambles up, dumping cereal all over her desk. “Shit. Vicar. Hi!” She looks at him over her shoulder and waves a hand in the direction of her bunk. “Hand me that towel, will you?”

Max glances around, locates the towel draped over a crate, balls it up and throws it at her, tossball-style. It hits square on her arm, and Nell knocks the bowl off the desk and onto the floor in her efforts to catch the towel before it hits the ground.

“Law, it’s a miracle you’re able to aim a gun at all.”

“Shut up and help me with this, this is your fault anyway,” she shoots back, mopping up the mess on her desk.

“And how am I to do that? You’re in possession of the only towel.”

Nell gives Max a withering glare and pushes the towel off the desk. She steps away and sweeps an arm toward the mess. “All yours.”

Max sighs and bends down, righting the bowl before scooping up its contents. “We should just get SAM in here, it would—” 

“Maybe I like seeing you on your knees.”

He jerks his head up to look at her, eyes dark and mouth slightly agape. The moment stretches, and Nell’s about to bury her fist in his hair and tilt his head back to take what she wants, but he snaps his jaw shut and looks away. Max stands slowly and rubs his hands together, looking about for a place to wipe them and settling, with a grimace, on the front of his tunic.

Then he taps his nose with a finger, remembering, and produces her bra from a pocket. “I believe this belongs to you.”

“Oh, thanks.” Her fingers brush his as she takes the scrap of fabric, and Max’s hand tenses briefly against hers before he pulls away. 

“You wanted to talk about something?” Nell tilts her head at him, but he won’t meet her eyes anymore, and his silence is telling. “Ah, so now is the part where you say last night was a mistake, it can never happen again and all that.”

“Nell, you have to admit—” 

“It was good.”

Max’s mouth twists, first into a grimace and then into something resembling a smile. “It was better than good, I hope.” His hand chops through the air suddenly, emphatically. “That’s not what I was saying. You have to admit, it would be — inadvisable for that to become a habit.”

“And besides,” Max continues, “I need to focus on my studies. I can’t work to decipher the Plan if my focus is divided by other… distractions.”

“Are you saying it wasn’t part of the Architect’s Plan for you to fuck me?”

“That’s not technically—” he sees the look on her face and stops. “Oh. I see. Mocking me again.” 

“Sorry,” Nell says, grinning. “It’s just too fun.”

“If it’s fun you’re looking for, I can think of better ways,” he says.

Nell raises her eyebrows. “But Max, you just said we were done with that.”

“I said we shouldn’t make it a habit. And twice hardly constitutes a habit. But of course, you’re right. I spoke out of turn.”

“Mm-hmm,” Nell hums, nodding. She keeps looking at his face, and when he meets her eyes, he nods too. They nod together.

“Right,” Max says, still staring at her. “I’m glad we can agree on one thing, at least.”

—

Nell wakes with a start to the sound of clanging in the cargo hold. Not in itself concerning: Parvati’s tinkering is often... percussive. What is concerning: the vicar’s naked shoulder beneath her cheek. 

“Max,” she says, bolting upright and slapping at his chest. “Max, get up. Get out of my bed.”

“Mm?” Max grunts, blinking muzzily. He swats her hands away and sits up, rubbing his eyes. “What — oh. Oh? Oh , Law.”

“Yeah, I know,” Nell says, prodding him out of bed. “Oops. Now get out, before someone notices you aren’t pondering the mysteries of the universe in your own room.”

Nell means to get up and get dressed along with him — Max even casts her own garments in her direction as he sorts through the detritus — but she’s distracted by the play of sunlight on Max’s skin, the way it lends a silvery sheen to his scars old and new. So she just props her chin on her bent knees and watches him while he pulls himself together.

“I can’t believe you’re tossing me out like some — like some rebellious teenager sneaking around behind her parents’ backs,” he says, voice deceptively low as his hands jab the air. 

“Do you want the crew to know?”

Max pauses, hands at his collar, and seems to genuinely consider the idea. His knit eyebrows draw a deep slash up his forehead, and his frown deepens the divot in his chin. Like symmetry.

“We’d never hear the end of it, Max.”

“Point taken.” Max finishes his buttoning and tries — and fails — to tame his hair by running his fingers through it. He still looks thoroughly debauched, and Nell has to hide a smile. 

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” he says, taking in her own disheveled, sheet-clad state.

“Don’t you want to enjoy yourself a little before the Architect inevitably snaps your rubber band back in place?”

“The Architect doesn’t—” he sighs and closes his eyes from her shit-eating grin. “Someday I’ll stop falling for that.”

“I hope not. I’m having way too much fun with it.”

Max grunts, but his expression lightens when he lays eyes on the book she’d borrowed. “So,” he says, looking sly, “same time as usual tonight? I’m looking forward to your thoughts on the 24th championships.”

Nell smiles and finally ducks into her shirt. “You better scoot, then, Vicar, so I can finish my homework.”

And this is what a Wednesday night at the Yacht Club sounds like, at least when the Unreliable is parked at Stellar Bay’s landing pad:

“You’re always strutting around like you’re some enlightened man sent to endow us lowly unwashed masses with your great insights—”

“You are all certainly unwashed,” Max quips from behind a wine glass.

“If you would stop hogging the bathroom, maybe the rest of us would actually have enough time to shower.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“You’re right,” Nell says, slamming her empty glass on the bartop and waving at the bartender for another. “We were talking about what a pompous ass you are.”

“Am I really being a pompous ass if I’m right, though?” Max asks. As he waves his arm, wine sloshes out of his glass and spatters the table.

“But how do you know you’re right? How do you know we’re not following the Plan?”

“I know you’re not because you’re all no-good miscreants living outside the Board’s good graces. Those following their path are productive members of society, doing their part to secure Halcyon’s future through the Board’s vision.”

Nell cackles. “So you admit it! OSI is just another propaganda machine for the Board, made up to keep people in line. A truly great Architect would recognize the diversity of humanity, acknowledge not everyone is well-suited for corporate work, and adjust its plan accordingly.”

“If you had any evidence supporting it whatsoever, I would be willing to entertain the idea that it is possible to ‘go rogue,’ if you will, while adhering to the Plan. But all of the colony’s successes are derived from Board initiatives, so the point is moot.”

“What successes?” Nell takes her glass from the bartender and raises it gratefully in his direction before gulping it down. “All I see are crumbling settlements filled with indentured servants starving without the resources they need to survive.”

“As if your precious deserters are faring any better. Let’s see if they last a year without Edgewater to fall back on.”

“You don’t get to throw that back at me, Max,” Nell says, hiding her sudden pang of guilt and rage by knocking back the drink the bartender’s brought her. “I didn’t see you lamenting Edgewater’s fate when you hopped on my ship and let me spirit you away.”

“You’re right, Captain, I’m sorry. That comment was… uncharitable.”

Nell blinks. “Come again?”

“It was a hard decision you had to make. Supporting the hard-working, dedicated employees of a cannery that supplies the rest of the colony, or throwing your hat in the ring with a malcontented mob of ungrateful, unemployed goons. I can see how anyone would struggle with such a dilemma.”

“Don’t pretend you ever cared about them, you insufferable, self-serving bastard.”

“Oh, I didn’t, but if you truly did, as you claimed to, you would have found a way to ensure the prosperity of both camps.”

“Go to hell, Vicar ,” Nell spits.

“Only if you’ll join me there,” he murmurs, and his shift in tone and expression catches Nell off guard. He stands before she can respond, though, and rolls his neck and shoulders, then counts out enough bits to cover both of their drinks. “Good night, Captain.”

—

From her bed, she can’t see Max when he appears in her doorway, but she hears his soft “Nell?” 

“I’m here,” she responds, leaning far enough out of her bunk to see him step just past the threshold and close the door behind him, looking tentative.

“Oh? A closed-door conversation?”

“Not everything we say to each other needs to feature on ‘the ship’s favorite serial,’” Max says with clear scare quotes and a deadpan look. Then he trips over the teetering pile of books by her bed, scattering them across the floor, but catches himself before he tumbles down with them. 

“I see your collection is growing,” he says as he toes a few out of the way so he can sit at the edge of her bunk. 

“Actually, most of those are yours,” she says and lifts the book she’s reading from her lap so he can read the title: The Modern Steel Wrench and You . “Except this one. This is Parvati’s.”

“I don’t remember lending you more—”

“Oh, you didn’t. I nicked them when you weren’t looking. Opposition research, you see.”

Max chuckles. “I see.” He picks up a book and flips through the dogears and bookmarks, fingers tracking the notes she’s made in the margins alongside his own.

“You’re smarter than people give you credit for, you know,” Max says after a while.

“I know.”

“You use that to your advantage.”

“I do.” She closes her book and tilts her head at him. “Is this you trying to flatter me to make up for earlier? Try being less condescending.”

Max goes very still, hand splayed out on a page. “I do want to — apologize for what I said. I went too far. I may disagree with your methods, but I respect that you have the will to do what is necessary for your survival.”

Nell sighs. “You’re a mean drunk, Vicar DeSoto.”

“The same could be said of you, Captain Hawthorne.” Max leans in toward her then, and she shifts onto her knees to meet him halfway, falling into his chest so he can catch her by the waist and pull her into his lap. She takes the book from his hand and chucks it farther into her bunk.

“It’s just the way of things, Nell.” He fists a hand in her hair and pulls her head back, exposing her throat. “The strong survive. The weak do not,” he says as he trails rough, biting kisses up the long line of her neck.

“You make me so fucking angry,” Nell whispers, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her forehead against his, and also loosening the top buttons of his tunic. 

“Trust me,” Max says, thumbs ghosting along the tender skin under her breasts. “The feeling is mutual.”

Nell can feel the outline of his open mouth almost on hers, waiting for her to make a move. But the promise of a kiss, for now, is better than the real thing; Max’s breath warms her lips, and Nell’s stomach drops while her heartbeat picks up.

Hands on his chest, Nell pushes him down to lie flat on the bed. Max grunts in pain when he hits the mattress, then arches his back to feel around underneath him for the obstruction. He throws a book aside; Nell grins at him and leans over to kiss him before he can make a snarky comment. It’s deep, demanding, and Max isn’t ready for it: He groans and rolls his hips up toward her, seeking friction. Nell obliges, pressing flat against him until the only space between them is that created by their clothing — a concern Max airs, though not articulately.

“Nell,” he gasps, and he tugs at the hem of her tank top. She is, again, happy to oblige, and pulls it over her head. Given the logistical issues with removing Max’s tunic while he’s flat on his back, Nell sits up to give him some space, and in a tight, practiced movement, he rolls over and pulls her under him. 

Max stops, one hand at his collar and the other propping him up, and gives Nell an inscrutable look before he ducks into his shirt and pulls it off, Nell helping lift it from the bottom.

“What was that?” Nell asks once his face reappears. She runs her hands up his body, fingers catching in his chest hair. 

“What was what?” At her push, Max sits up, tossing a pillow and another book out of the way to lean back against the head of her bunk. 

It takes some doing, but Nell shimmies out of her pants and follows him up, straddling his hips to settle into his lap. “You looked at me funny.”

A frown flickers across Max’s face. “Not sure what you mean,” he says, clearly almost past the point of being capable of conversation. His hands find her hips and pull her flush against him so he can grind into her. 

Nell gasps, rolling her hips even as she tries to make enough space between them to unbutton his pants and get them off. Max cups her face in his hands and pulls her to him for a searing kiss. When they separate, the look is back, pupils blown wide and every line of his face soft. Nell doesn’t look away as she sinks onto him, hand guiding his cock home.

“Fuck, Max,” Nell says, winding her arms around his shoulders and pressing her forehead against his as she sets a steady, rolling pace. 

Max kisses her again before burying his face in her hair and moaning. He moves a hand between their hips, where he slides two fingers on either side of her clit and pinches. Nell cries out, loud enough she startles herself and claps a hand over her mouth, while her other hand clenches around the ball of Max’s shoulder, fingernails digging deep into his skin. Nell’s hips stutter as she tries to accommodate the extra friction, grinding into him with renewed vigor when she finds the best angle. Her voice is muffled when she whines his name again, so Max looks at her with a smirk and pulls her hand away from her face.

She smiles back and flips her hair behind her shoulders, lifting the mass away from her neck to cool the sweat accumulating there. Max takes the opportunity to duck his head and place hot, tender kisses down her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. When he journeys back up her neck and grazes his teeth against the soft skin under her ear, Nell shudders, and moans, and lets her hair fall to grip his shoulders and lift her hips, pumping faster on his cock.

“Max,” she sighs, breathing heavily, “I’m—” 

He rubs her clit directly with the slick pad of his finger, and Nell cries out again, falling forward into his chest as she tries to keep up her rocking. 

Max pulls away then, and Nell whines in protest. “Damn it, Max, I was so—”

“Hush, Nell,” Max murmurs, curling a hand along her jaw and forcing her to look at him. 

Nell wraps her fingers around his wrist and nods, keeping up the hurried cant of her hips. Max keeps his eyes on hers and grazes his finger across her clit. It’s the lightest touch at her tenderest spot, but that’s all it takes to push her over the edge. Nell gasps his name and comes, falling into Max’s chest as her body is wracked with violent trembling. When she clenches around him, Max groans and thrusts up into her, finding his own release.

“Oh, Nell,” Max says when he comes back to himself, cupping his hand around the back of her neck. 

“Mm-hmm,” Nell hums, still trying to catch her breath. She rests her forehead on his collarbone and breathes in the sex-sweat-aftershave musk of him. Nell’s reluctant to move, but her knees are starting to ache and her thighs burn, so she rolls off Max to sprawl out opposite him, legs stretched out toward his head. 

Max slides down into Nell’s bed, pulling both of her pillows behind him to prop up his neck and shoulders. “Nell, truly,” he says, caressing her thigh, “I am sorry I let my temper get away from me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nell says. She sits up and twists her hair into a knot that immediately comes loose, sending her hair spilling down her back. “If you were really sorry, you wouldn’t have made me do all the work.”

Max glides his fingers lightly down her leg and back up again, making Nell shiver. “Our discussions are invigorating,” he says, beckoning her toward him, “and I would hate to endanger such a rewarding working relationship with petty insults.”

“A ‘rewarding working relationship,’ huh?” Nell says, laughing as she settles into his arms. “As long as you know I’m only doing this so you’ll give me good marks on my annual performance review.”

“Naturally,” Max says. “You’ve been nothing but a stellar captain. And as I’m sure you’re well aware, the hallmark of a truly talented manager is taking all the credit for their subordinates’ hard work.” He runs his fingers through her hair, rubbing a silvering streak between his fingers. 

Nell snorts. “Alright,” she mumbles and kisses his shoulder. “I’ll give you credit for that trick with your fingers. A-plus work. You’ve been a pleasure to have in class.”

Max settles deeper into the bed, pulling a thin blanket over them. “Maybe stop talking now, Nell. You’re mixing metaphors again.” 

She rolls onto her belly, curling deeper into his side and pressing her face into the pillow next to his head. “Shut up, Max.”

This is not a Wednesday.

Max doesn’t hear her Nell, clad in pajamas and socks, approach. His room is dim, lit only by the lamp on his desk, where he’s hunched over whatever latest brick-heavy tome he’s studying. The lone light source isn’t especially kind to his face, throwing shadows that deepen the lines in his forehead and around his mouth, and at this angle it glares off his glasses and obscures his eyes. But it’s soft, and warm, and he looks comfortable. Like he belongs.

“Vicar?” Nell says. “You got a minute?”

Max looks up from his work, eyebrows briefly knitting at her formality. “You’re up late… Captain. Come in. What’s on your mind?”

She steps in and closes the door before saying anything, but hovers against the back wall. “I have a confession.”

Max sweeps a hand toward the chair across from him. “Luckily for you, I’m trained in confessional listening.”

Nell sets the book she’s been lugging around on his desk and folds her hands in her lap. Then she shifts, folding her legs up underneath her, and pulls her hair out of its messy bun, rakes her fingers through it, shakes it out, piles it back atop her head, reconsiders, and lets it fall loose around her shoulders. Her hands land back in her lap, clenched to keep them still.

“I can never tell if you’re being sarcastic about that,” Nell says.

Max takes off his glasses, closes his own book and folds his hands atop it, leaning in toward her across the table. “I know it may not seem like it, but I hold this part of my calling in the highest regard. And I mean that in all earnestness.”

Nell nods. “Okay. So. My confession.” She takes a deep breath and smiles wryly. “This may come as a great shock to you, but I have not always been a thrill-seeking traveler and lover of great renown.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Max says, mouth twitching upward. “Speaking from personal experience.”

Nell covers her smile with a hand and gets lost for a moment in the memory of their latest encounter (rushed, sloppy, not their best work, but he still gasped and shuddered and groaned her name with a kind of mad desperation that turned her blood to liquid fire). 

When she looks back at him, the same moment is clearly on his mind, and the heat of his gaze makes Nell’s cheeks flush. Max leans in, looking predatory.

“No!” Nell says, thrusting a finger in his face. “No. I’m here to talk .”

Max shrugs and sits back in his chair. “Suit yourself,” he says. He props his chin in a hand and settles into a more neutral expression.

“I feel like I owe it to you, since you got so — worked up about that business with your prison buddy.”

“‘Buddy’ is not the word I would use. But we digress.”

“My name isn’t Hawthorne,” Nell blurts. “And I stole this ship from a dead man.” 

“I can’t say either of those things is especially surprising,” Max says.

“And I’m from the Hope .”

“The—”

“Yeah. That one.” 

“How—”

“Doctor Welles found it and woke me up. That’s how we — how I fell in with him.”

“Hm.” Max tilts his chin deeper into his hand so that his fingers cover his mouth. “So the Hope is—”

“Out at the edge of the system.”

“And the rest of the colonists are—”

“Still in cryo. I’m helping Welles get what he needs to wake them up.”

“I see. This is—”

“Big, I know. Way bigger than you lying about a prison contact. Max, I—”

“Shh.” Max waves a hand at her, and Nell goes quiet. “I need a moment.” 

Nell looks down at her hands and worries at her already battered cuticles and fingernails.

“Stop,” Max says absently. “Your fingers bother you enough as it is.”

She drags all of her hair over one shoulder and separates it into sections to braid. Her fingers move quickly, and when she’s hit the end of her hair, she pulls it apart and starts over again. Max looks up and watches her, eyes tracking the deft twist of her fingers.

“Who else knows?” he asks after two more braids.

“Just ADA.”

Max’s eyebrows shoot up, incredulous.

Nell shrugs. “She’s a good listener.”

Max heaves a heavy sigh. “Nell—” he cuts himself off and gives her a questioning look.

“Nell is my real name. Eleanor. It’s just the Hawthorne part I stole.” 

He nods, and they’re quiet for a while.

“I can understand why you’d want to keep this quiet,” Max says at last. “And I thank you for trusting me with it.”

Nell frowns. “That’s it?”

Max quirks an eyebrow. “Were you hoping for a long, drawn-out argument?”

“Maybe a little,” Nell says with a sheepish shrug. “They usually end well for us.”

“True enough,” Max chuckles. “Maybe I’ll muster up some righteous indignation later.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Nell says, standing up to go.

“Wait,” Max says, and grabs her hand. “Sit with me a spell, won’t you?”

She settles back in the chair, struck by his tender hold on her.

“I feel like we rarely get the opportunity to enjoy each other’s company, free from  — distractions,” he says, his gaze fixed on their hands.

Nell turns her hand and gently runs her fingernails up the breadth of his palm before twining their fingers together. “Okay,” she says, nodding. When she finally looks up at him, he’s staring at her with something like relief and — were the vicar the type of man given to such feelings — maybe delight. 

His smile is a small thing, just a bare twist of his full mouth. She returns it, toothy and full, then opens her book in her lap as he turns back to his own reading, hands still intertwined.