Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fir’s first step into Atlantis is one of great relief, understandably so after an entire month spent trapped in a cabin the size of a shoebox on the Daedalus.

Relief is all he feels for a few minutes, and then he and the rest of the contingent of new scientists, researchers, and staff are shuffled into a large, open atrium, and he is filled with wonder instead. The ceiling is a wide glass dome and through it he can see the city’s silver spires and the alien sky, and it fully hits him for the first time that he is standing on another planet, in another galaxy.

“Woah,” says the guy next to him, sounding awed. “Look at that! That’s fucking bonkers, right?”

Fir recognizes him, barely—after a month of sharing a small number of living areas on the same admittedly enormous spaceship, he at least recognizes all the new scientists and staff by face—but he doesn’t remember his name or what he does.

“Sure,” he says, because he feels obscurely like a response is expected of him.

The guy grins at him. He’s wearing a threadbare hoodie and torn jeans, which is ridiculous. Fir had at least opted for a neat button down today, since they only get one chance to make a first impression. The fact that they’ve already gotten lucky enough to be selected for this is irrelevant; now that he's here, Fir intends to stay.

“I’m Tanner,” the guy says. “What’s your name?”

“Fir,” says Fir shortly.

“Dr. Fir?”

“No,” Fir says, and doesn’t bother to return the question.

“A researcher then? Lab assistant?”

“No.” Fir wishes Tanner would stop talking to him. He’ll have plenty of time later to meet his future coworkers, and he’s not in the mood right now.

Colonel Sheppard is standing grimly at the front of the room with a couple other military-looking personnel, overseeing the commotion as a wiry man with wild hair—Dr. Zelenka, Fir remembers; he had memorized Atlantis’s current senior staff manifest weeks ago just in case—and a few less notable staff members hand out badges and room assignments.

Dr. McKay—whom Fir definitely recognizes on sight—strolls in, shouting something rude over his shoulder at someone Fir can’t see, and Colonel Sheppard smirks. Dr. McKay sees him and stomps up, waving his arms and saying something irate that Fir can’t hear over the commotion.

Fir watches them bicker with mild interest—these are two of the highest-profile names in Atlantis, after all. They banter back and forth for a bit, then both turn and survey the crowd for a minute. Dr. McKay rolls his eyes dismissively and says something snappish, Fir still can’t make out what, and then storms out again. Colonel Sheppard sniggers at his back.

“Wow,” says Tanner, and Fir jumps a little. He’d forgotten Tanner was there. “Was that Dr. McKay? He seems like kind of a dick.”

Fir ignores him.

One of the staff lackeys finally hands Fir his badge and papers, and gestures him towards a door on the far end of the room.

“Hey, it was great to meet you,” Tanner calls as he turns to leave.

Fir frowns and says, “Same,” a little white lie, and then beats a quick exit.

Fir’s quarters are sparse and he doesn’t have many personal belongings to make them less so. He wasn’t allowed to bring much to begin with but he didn’t have much to bring anyway, and that is all right with him. He won’t miss anything he left behind.

“The mess hall opens for dinner at five and closes at seven,” says the woman in military fatigues who escorted him here. “You’re free to get settled and do whatever you want today, more or less, but you’re expected in the central spire at, let’s see—” She flips through the papers on her clipboard. “—five fifteen tomorrow morning for your meeting with Dr. Weir. You’ll be given new instructions from there.”

“Right,” Fir says, and takes the packet she hands him.

There’s a laptop on a desk in his room, and after unpacking—which takes fewer than three minutes—Fir gravitates towards it. He spends a little while doing general computer setup, fixing settings and adding shortcuts, and then he pulls up the browser and explores what sort of access he has to the intranet, which turns out to be not a lot at the moment. After a minute he starts browsing through the public profiles of the other new personnel members, and for some reason he pauses on Tanner’s.

Tanner turns out to be Dr. Ant, a premier up-and-coming figure in the field of molecular biology and the owner of two PhDs. That sort of resume isn’t even remarkable amongst the scientists here at Atlantis, who all stand at the tops of their fields, but it’s still impressive.

Fir does not have a PhD. He doesn’t even have a Master’s; hell, he barely has a Bachelor's, and even that is in art history. During college he had treated engineering as a hobby, a little pastime to keep his mind occupied between his important classes, but slowly it had taken over his life. He was largely self-taught, but he had demonstrated an immediate and impressive aptitude, and some of his little personal projects had apparently caught the eye of some people in high places.

Fir had been struggling to find a job in his field after graduating when he had received an unexpected and unsolicited job offer from Raytheon. Fir, generally a pacifist on principle, had hesitated, but the pay had been too good to turn down. From there it had been relatively simple to prove his worth in the sea of fools that made up his coworkers.

A few years after that he had accepted a similar but significantly more interesting job offer from the US government, and it had all escalated from there into a barrage of NDAs and increasing levels of security clearance. And now here he is, twenty-nine years old and standing in an alien room in an alien city on an alien planet in an alien galaxy.

Fir stares at the little photo of Dr. Ant at the side of his profile. It’s a bit awkward, like the photographer had told him to say cheese and then taken it just a second too soon, but there is something personable about it anyway.

With a sigh, Fir closes the tab out and leaves in search of the mess hall.

Fir is already intimately familiar with Ancient technology, of course, but over the next couple months he discovers just how much he still doesn’t know or understand. His work is mostly centered around interfacing all the computers and servers and software the expedition team had brought along with the existing Atlantean technological infrastructure, and he is busy, absurdly busy, routinely working eighteen hours a day. It’s everything he was hoping for.

He doesn’t see Dr. Ant again for a few weeks and has all but forgotten about him, when one day at dinner he plops his tray beside Fir and says, “Hey, can I sit here?”

“I’m sure you can,” says Fir, but this admittedly immature dig at his grammar seems to go right over Dr. Ant’s head.

“Cool!” Dr. Ant says. He sits and starts digging into his reconstituted mashed potatoes. “It’s Fir, right?” he adds after a moment.

“Er, yes,” says Fir, and adds, “Dr. Ant.”

Dr. Ant laughs. “No, no, good grief, call me Tanner please. I never got used to all that formal crap.”

Fir doesn’t really care. His work does not intersect with Tanner’s almost at all, so he doesn’t see much point in making nice.

“I haven’t really seen you around,” Tanner says with a friendly smile, and it’s not a question so Fir doesn’t bother with a response. “Have you been offworld yet?” Tanner asks, after an awkward pause.

“No,” says Fir shortly.

“Me neither,” Tanner says, “but I’ll be going next week. I’m going with Major Lorne’s team to M5X-651. It’s supposed to be a pretty routine mission, you know, and I guess there are supposed to be some really cool bacterial specimens I’m supposed to collect. But you know, it’s still kind of scary, right? Going through the Gate? Have you been through the Gate before?”

“No.”

“Me neither,” says Tanner. “But there’s a first time for everything, right? And I bet it’ll be really cool, like, woah! Wormhole physics, not my area of expertise, obviously, but I did some advanced physics courses for fun in college and I’ve read a bunch of papers, especially since I learned I was coming here, and it seems totally insane, right? I wonder what it feels like.”

Tanner keeps babbling on and for some reason Fir lets him. He even finds himself bringing his fork to his mouth a little slower in order to draw it out. There’s something soothing about the way Tanner rambles, just spilling out everything that comes to his mind and not asking for much from Fir in return.

Eventually Fir’s tray is clean and he really needs to get back to work. He stands up and Tanner pauses mid-sentence and blinks at him. “Oh, sorry,” he says. “Are you done? I didn’t mean to just keep yammering at you.”

“It’s fine,” Fir says, and is surprised to find he means it.

Tanner gives him a big, bright smile and says, “Okay well, I’ll talk to you soon, Fir!”

Their schedules don’t really sync up well, but after that Tanner finds and sits by Fir in the mess two or three times a week.

Fir doesn’t understand why. Tanner is immediately popular with the other scientists and even a significant section of the military personnel, and anytime they’re in the mess together there are multiple people from multiple different tables attempting to beckon him over. But Tanner just gives them a cheery wave and comes to sit with Fir, alone at a table in the corner, instead. Pity, perhaps.

“Dude, it was so cool!” Tanner says excitedly. “They have, get this, not one, not two, but three moons! And that makes their months really weird, apparently, and during harvest season they have these crazy festivals like every week! The one I was at, it was called, god, I don’t even remember, something really foreign-sounding, but it was wild, man! They make this stuff, some kind of booze, out of apples or I don’t know, something a lot like apples anyway, and it is insane. I swear I had one little glass of it and I was practically on the floor! I barely even remember the rest of the night, which is a shame actually because there was this one really pretty girl who kinda seemed into me....”

Fir saws his knife into his advanced Salisbury steak substitute and listens, content to let Tanner pour information—useless and incoherent as it is—into his ear.

“Hmm,” he says during a pause, and Tanner immediately zeroes in on something wistful in his voice that Fir hadn’t intended to betray.

“What about you?” he asks. “Do you think you’ll get to go offworld sometime soon?”

“No,” Fir says.

That really isn’t part of Fir’s job. There’s already so much for him to do here, and there are plenty of people here who can do what he does so much better and those are the people who are allowed offworld. Who are entrusted with the safety of a team should something go terribly wrong.

“Oh,” says Tanner. “Do you want to though?”

Fir isn’t interested in the dangerous aspect of offworld missions at all, but would he like to see and explore totally alien planets? Obviously, who wouldn’t? That’s half the reason he’s here.

He shrugs, but apparently this does not fool Tanner, who grins.

“Maybe I’ll bring you something cool next time then,” he says, and launches into another ridiculous story about his drunken mishaps.

“Here,” says Tanner, and Fir startles.

He had been focusing on this funny little Ancient device that he thinks might emit a powerful electromagnetic pulse, if he can just figure out how to trigger it properly. It’s either that or it’s some kind of Ancient birth control field, and honestly Fir is pretty stumped.

He’s in his office, which is a dank, cramped sub basement level room that barely fits the two desks crammed into it. Normally the other desk is occupied by this insufferable little twerp of a man whose name Fir refuses to remember on principle, but Fir has been trying to rearrange his schedule to avoid overlapping shifts with him as much as possible. As a result it’s nearly one in the morning right now, and Fir doesn't know how Tanner even knew where to find him.

“What?” Fir snaps, somewhat unfairly annoyed by the interruption considering he hasn’t made any progress in over an hour, and then he looks up.

Tanner is holding out a rock. Or not a rock, actually—on closer inspection it’s a large, colorful bead, a deep purple color speared by streaks of dark red. It’s quite pretty, and Fir has no idea what to make of it.

“I got it on M4X-013. There’s a little city there and they do a lot of beadwork, apparently. This one is made out of some kind of quartz that’s unique to the planet’s geosphere,” Tanner explains. “They told me what it was called but I forgot, sorry, it’s like magma quartz or lava quartz or something.”

Fir doesn’t know what to do with that. “Okay,” he says slowly.

Neither of them do anything for an awkward moment, and then Tanner frowns a little and says, “It’s for you.”

“Oh.” Fir takes it and turns it over in his hand. Even in the dim lighting it sparkles, light glancing off the inclusions and little internal imperfections that only enhance its beauty. “Why?”

“Dunno,” says Tanner. “I thought maybe you’d like to see something from another world.”

“Huh,” Fir says, and: “Thank you.”

Tanner grins at him, then looks around. “Dude, is this really your office? This place kinda sucks.”

Fir shrugs; Tanner isn’t wrong, after all.

“You could bring your work up to my lab if you want,” Tanner continues. “There’s only three of us in there right now and there’s plenty of space.”

He looks expectantly at Fir, who has absolutely no idea where Tanner’s lab is or why he would offer such a thing. “Maybe,” he says, though he has no intention whatsoever of doing that.

Tanner seems satisfied with that answer anyway. He wishes Fir good night and leaves, and Fir stares down at the bead in his hand in quiet bafflement. It takes him a while before he’s able to focus on work again.

Fir likes to sit on the east pier whenever he’s not working, sleeping, or eating, which is extremely rarely. He brings his laptop even though the intranet connection is pretty poor all the way over there, but doesn’t really use it. Instead he stares out over the vast ocean and tries to quiet his mind.

He’s all the way in another galaxy, surrounded by alien planets and civilizations, and this endless ocean is the only alien planet he personally gets to see. It figures it's one that looks a lot like Earth.

Atlantis itself is amazing, though. It’s all endless corridors and high ceilings and secrets, towering spires, something astonishing around every corner, and Fir loves it here. He wouldn’t trade it for anything, even with the eighteen-hour work days and obnoxious coworkers.

About a week after the bead incident, Tanner sits down next to Fir in the mess and hands him a flower.

“Um. What,” says Fir. His cheeks are hot and his face feels stiff, and he kind of wants to sink into the floor and disappear.

Tanner doesn’t seem to notice his distress. “I just got back from M1C-103,” he tells Fir. “There was a whole field of these! They looked crazy all together, I wish I could’ve taken a picture. I thought you might want to see one!”

“Oh,” Fir says with some relief, and takes the flower. It has bright orange spines for petals that look like they should be sharp and rigid, but instead they’re soft and flexible. The spines wave gently despite the lack of a breeze, and Fir stares at it. He’s never seen anything like it.

“Cool, right?” Tanner says happily.

“Yeah,” Fir tells him honestly.

Tanner starts talking all about his earlier mission, and Fir twirls the little flower between two fingers, only barely listening, lost in thought.

He makes a detour on his way back to his office to drop off the flower in his room. He presses it between two pages of a textbook and makes a note to retrieve it in a few weeks.

Tanner keeps bringing him little things about once a week, which Fir eventually works out is about how often he goes offworld. It's nothing big or all that exciting, just trinkets and keepsakes he finds while out there: once a leaf that is such a bright color of blue it almost seems to glow in the dark, another time a carved stone, and once even a leatherish pouch sewn together with something that looks disturbingly like human hair. Apparently anything that can fit in his pocket is fair game. The shelf in Fir’s room is slowly filling up, and Fir... Fir likes it. It makes his room feel a little more lived in, a little more like a home and less like a hotel.

Fir has yet to connect with a single other person in any meaningful way, but that’s all right with him. He has never thought of human interaction as particularly essential to his wellbeing.

Perhaps that’s why he’s so puzzled with himself when Tanner seeks him out in his office once more, pulls a stupid face, and says, “God this place is really a pit, isn’t it? I can’t believe they put you in here. It’s like thirty square feet and windowless, it’s practically a closet! This city is massive, how is this the best they could do? C’mon, you can set up at one of the desks in my lab. I’ll show you,” and Fir gets up and follows him.

But Tanner’s right; Fir’s office is a really unpleasant place to be, and it’s definitely possible it has affected his work. He's being practical, that's all.

Tanner’s lab is one of four active biology labs right now. It’s filled with specimens and one wall has been almost entirely taken over by a plant with long, quivering vines, and it would be creepy if it weren’t so well-lit.

The other two people currently stationed there are Dr. Lycel, a botanist, and a lab tech whose name Fir doesn’t know, and they’re both there when Fir hesitantly enters, a second or two behind Tanner.

“Hey Tanner,” Dr. Lycel says in her charming Australian accent, without looking up from the petri dish samples she’s preparing. The lab tech, a sweet-looking young woman in an oversized lab coat, does look up, and immediately breaks into a wide smile.

“Ooo, is this the friend?” she says, and it should have sounded teasing but instead it mostly sounds kind.

“Er,” Tanner says. Fir shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders awkwardly, as though he can somehow escape this conversation by making himself physically smaller. “Yesssss,” Tanner adds. “This is Fir, guys. Fir, this is Katie and Rachel.”

Dr. Lycel’s head whips around. “Ohhhh! We’ve heard so much about you!” she gushes.

Fir shrinks in on himself a little more. “Uh, nice to meet you,” he mumbles, and nearly winces at how stiff he sounds.

Katie is bouncing on the balls of her feet and looks like she’s barely stopping herself from launching into an enormous hug, and Fir is grateful for her restraint because he really doesn’t like people touching him. She says, “Tanner is always talking about you!”

“I am not!” protests Tanner, sounding affronted. Fir doesn’t know why; it’s obviously a joke. What is there even to talk about?

“Aww she’s just teasing, isn’t she?” Dr. Lycel says, and Katie laughs.

“Just, chill you guys, okay?” Tanner says. “His office is such a shithole, you have no idea. We have like twelve hundred square feet and five free desks!”

“Dude, it’s fine,” Katie graciously assures him. “I don’t think he’s going to be a bother. Welcome to the club,” she adds to Fir.

Fir kind of wishes he hadn’t come here. He hates being the center of attention, hates people talking about him. “Uh,” he says, “it’s okay. Maybe I should just go.”

“No!” Tanner says. “Ignore them, they just think they’re being friendly. They won’t bother you while you’re working.”

He leads Fir to the far side of the room where there are a number of unoccupied desks clustered together. All of them have at least something strewn on top, papers or seed samples or whatever random detritus doesn’t have another obvious place to belong, but Tanner quickly clears everything off one of the bigger desks and makes a grand, sweeping gesture at it.

“This one is good!” he declares. “You can clear off some of the other desks too, if you want to spread out a bit more. None of this crap is important. Er, I don't think.” He examines a large mug that has something clearly growing inside it with suspicion for a moment, and then tosses it aside.

It is a much nicer desk in a much nicer space than Fir’s crummy little office, and Dr. Lycel and Katie really can’t be worse than the tool with whom Fir is currently sharing a workspace, so.... “Okay,” Fir says, after a bit. “Thank you.”

Fir doesn’t work in there all the time. His immediate superiors do not seem to care where he works as long as the work gets done, but the other three tend to be rowdy and loud, teasing at each other and free with their affection and humor, and Fir doesn’t really feel like he fits in. He does work there sometimes, though, when he can’t stand the dark little corner of his office anymore.

Sometimes he even likes it. The others mostly leave him alone, and it’s... nice, being near Tanner, hearing him laugh and fool around with the others. For the first time he also gets a glimpse at just how wickedly intelligent Tanner truly is, watches him make complex observations and rip some sort of order out of the chaotic mass of data the expedition has been acquiring. For all that he comes across as a talkative goof, it’s clear he’s earned his spot here on Atlantis.

Fir likes the late, late nights best, when it’s just the two of them. They often don’t even talk much, just sit in comfortable, companionable silence, and Fir gets a lot of work done on those nights.

“Do you have a TV in your room?” Tanner asks, swinging his legs from where he’s sitting on the edge of Fir’s desk.

“Yes,” Fir tells him. It’s standard issue in all the rooms, but he’s never used it; he doesn’t really have time for anything but work and sleep.

“Cool, cool. Mind if maybe I come by and watch a movie sometime? The one in my room is broken and there’s one I’ve been wanting to see.”

Fir pulls his legs up and tucks his knees under his chin, swivels his chair, and considers this. Normally he doesn’t like other people in his space, but he thinks it might be okay just this once. “All right,” he says. “I can let you in whenever you want, just don’t make a mess.”

Tanner frowns a little. “I meant that you should watch it with me, you know. It’s more fun to watch movies with someone.”

“I have a lot of work to do.”

“You always have a lot of work,” Tanner tells him. “I think you work way too much. You could use a break.”

Fir thinks about arguing, but he has been feeling pretty worn down lately. He’s been working eighteen-hour days, six or seven days a week, for several months now, and that means he’s been averaging around four or five hours of sleep a night since he arrived in the Pegasus galaxy. He’s not surprised Tanner can tell; he knows he has dark bags under his eyes and his complexion has been leaning more towards sallow than his usual pale. He knows he has been looking a little unhealthy lately, but he feels fine. More or less fine.

“All right,” he says after some thought. “When?”

“Tonight?” Tanner says, sounding hopeful. Fir glances up at him, and he’s smiling down at Fir so brightly that Fir has to turn away again.

Fir has been getting a lot of good work done today, enough that he’s even been able to dig into his backlog a little. If he works hard for the next several hours, he thinks he should be able to swing that. Worst case scenario he can just skip a couple hours of sleep tonight. “Okay.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot!” Tanner says, and digs around in his lab coat pocket. “I got this for you.”

He hands Fir something small and shiny that turns out to be a rudimentary coin. It’s stamped with an image of something vaguely deerlike and looks like it’s made of dulled gold, but it’s heavier than Fir would expect gold to be.

“I got it yesterday on, oh, I forget the official designation, but I think the locals call it Meera. Their society is mostly agrarian, but they have these vast mines also and they make all their currency out of the ore they pull up. I don’t even know what kind of mineral it is, but they have this chemical process they do that makes it look like that. Pretty sick, right?”

Fir realizes he’s smiling down at the coin like a fool and schools his face into a more neutral expression. “Yeah, it is.”

Tanner grins and claps him on the shoulder, saying, “Okay, well, I’ll see you tonight, yeah?” Then he slides off the desk and trots over to the microcentrifuge table on the other side of the room without waiting for an answer.

Fir watches him go, idly rubbing his thumb over the raised ridges of the coin's face.

Fir is trying to figure out why his code won’t properly connect to a minor Ancient database when Dr. McKay storms into the lab like a hurricane.

“Dr. Ant, do you mind explaining to me what the everloving hell this nonsense is?” he barks, waving around a thick stack of paper, and everyone in the lab jumps in surprise.

“Uh, what?” Tanner says, suddenly standing to attention.

“Some idiot sent me this proposal and told me it came from you. What is this crap and why are you apparently bent on wasting my extremely valuable time?”

“Er, wait,” Tanner says, but he’s interrupted when Dr. McKay’s gaze whips over to Fir.

“Who the hell are you?” Dr. McKay snaps, and Fir sees Tanner follow his gaze.

Fir flinches a little. “I’m fixing a connection issue, sir,” he mumbles.

“Ugh, tech support, whatever,” Dr. McKay says dismissively, and turns back to Tanner, who looks uncharacteristically angry.

Fir gathers his things and beats a hasty retreat, face hot.

He’s honestly not sure Tanner is even going to show up anymore, but he returns to his room a little early anyway just in case and to his shock Tanner is already there, standing outside the door.

“Hey,” Tanner says sheepishly. “Sorry about earlier. I thought I had a really cool idea, but apparently Dr. McKay, uh, disagreed. He really is a prick, you know.”

“Ah,” Fir says, and unlocks his door.

He’s a little restless, having Tanner in here, but he ignores it. Like always, the first thing he does is place his gift from earlier, the coin, on his shelf with the other little gifts where he can see it. When he turns back around, Tanner is watching him with a small smile.

“You’ve kept them all,” he says, and suddenly Fir is unaccountably embarrassed about it, like he’s been caught drawing on the walls or sneaking candy behind his mother’s back.

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Cool,” Tanner says, and to Fir’s relief he doesn’t say anything else about it.

Fir has never actually tested out the TV, but it connects easily to his laptop. Atlantis has a shared central server containing hundreds of downloaded movies and TV shows, and Tanner directs him to some relatively recent action flick that Fir could not possibly have less interest in. He doesn’t really care, though—he doesn’t watch movies much in general and has no particular preference.

The TV is somewhat awkwardly mounted on the wall across from the bed, since there’s no couch, and for some reason Tanner seems hesitant to join Fir on the bed.

“You coming?” Fir asks as he hits play, and Tanner starts a little.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, and climbs on.

The bed is some sort of awkward alien size between a single and a double, and they sit at the head close but not touching. Fir can feel Tanner’s tension, and he doesn’t like it. It’s making him tense as well, and he pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs, feeling oddly vulnerable.

The opening scene already involves a car chase and explosions, and Fir can barely be arsed to pay attention at all. But gradually, in stages, Tanner relaxes, and Fir finds himself relaxing as well.

He’s hyper-aware of Tanner sitting next to him, and it should be uncomfortable but instead it’s sort of nice. The more he relaxes, the more he leans back against the headboard, and after a minute or two his eyelids start getting heavy. He jerks himself back awake, but he really hasn’t been sleeping enough and in the end it’s far too easy to lean back and fall asleep.

Chapter Text

When Fir was younger, he dreamt of being an astronaut.

He had grown up being bounced between foster homes and had never had an allowance or even many personal belongings. It was hard to have much when everything you owned had to be able to fit into a suitcase.

Still, he had saved up money from odd jobs and chores for nearly two years and when he was eleven he bought a small amateur telescope. It was the cheap plastic kind, little more than a magnifying glass in a tube, but he loved it anyway.

He grew up mostly on the outskirts of a major city and the light pollution was such that he could often barely even see any stars in the sky, but on quiet nights he was still able to see the moon, of course, and a smattering of the brighter stars, and sometimes even Mars and Jupiter, tiny orange and white pixels barely visible at all.

For many years, the sky had been the only consistent thing in his life.

Fir sleeps for fourteen hours and feels no more rested for it. When he wakes, somehow tucked neatly into his bed instead of lying on top of the blankets like he would have expected, he flies into an immediate panic because he absolutely cannot afford to waste fourteen hours on sleep. It’s not like he has set working hours, exactly, but he does have a mountain of work and a limited number of hours to do it all in. He doesn’t understand why his alarms didn’t go off—he set three of them before they even started the movie, he remembers doing it. He always sets three alarms, and they’ve never failed to wake him before.

He flails his way out of bed and nearly falls flat on his face when his legs turn out to be tangled in the sheets. He speeds through the fastest shower of his life and throws on whatever clothes are closest, and he’s on his way out the door when he finally remembers that Tanner had been there the night before.

He glances around the room for some reason, even though it’s small enough that he already knows Tanner isn’t there anymore—as if Tanner would still be there fourteen hours later anyway—and he wonders with growing mortification what the hell Tanner must have thought of him, nodding off five minutes into the movie he had agreed they would watch together.

Fir slinks down to his office and resolves not to leave until every task on his Urgent list is completed.

Thirty-five hours later he finally gives up on this impossible resolution and trudges back to his room to pass out ungracefully in his bed without even removing his shoes first. He spends five precious hours sleeping and then drags himself back out of bed to try harder.

He doesn’t quite realize he’s been avoiding Tanner until a few days later when Tanner finds him in his dank little office, hunched over his keyboard and an enormous mug of coffee.

“Hey,” Tanner says. He puts something on the desk next to Fir that, upon inspection, turns out to be a pudding cup. “I thought you might be hungry. I haven’t seen you in the mess at all. You haven’t been in the lab either.”

“I’ve been busy,” Fir says shortly. He doesn’t turn to face Tanner—he knows he looks like shit right now and for whatever reason he would prefer Tanner didn’t see.

“Oh,” Tanner says. “Did you get some good sleep at least?”

At first, Fir does not understand the question—he’s barely slept in days. Then something clicks, and his mind blanks. Slowly, he looks up at Tanner, who is looking back at him with something like concern.

“Tanner,” Fir says, low and dangerous. “Did you turn off my alarms?”

Tanner winces and looks down, not meeting Fir’s eyes, and mumbles, “I just.... You really looked like you could use the sleep. You work so much.”

White-hot fury courses through Fir’s veins. How dare he? He has no idea what Fir would do to stay here, to not be sent back. He had no right to put that at risk, no right to make that sort of decision for him. Fir doesn’t have all the qualifications and experience most of the other people here have; he has to work extra hard to make up for it.

Fir stands and says, “Get out.”

“No, wait,” Tanner says. He looks stricken, but Fir does not care.

Fir takes a forceful step into Tanner’s personal space, and Tanner stumbles back a little. “I am not some sad, stray puppy for you to adopt and take care of. Get out, Tanner,” Fir snarls.

“No, I know, I just, I’m sorry, but,” Tanner stammers, and Fir takes another step forward. Tanner stumbles back again, and the office is small enough that this brings him through the doorway. “Wait,” Tanner says desperately, and then Fir slams the door in his face.

He’s shaking with rage and he’s having trouble regulating his breathing. He cannot believe Tanner would do this to him.

When Fir sits back down his hand knocks against the stupid pudding cup Tanner had left there. He picks it up and looks at it, then hurls it violently into the trash can.

This is what he gets for trusting someone again.

Fir holes up in his office for three more days, but eventually he has to eat something more substantial than whatever he can scavenge from the dingy, poorly-stocked break room on his level.

He scans the mess hall briefly and doesn’t see Tanner, so he gets himself a tray and sits to eat, and as he does so he sees Katie sitting a couple tables over. She stares back at him for a moment, eyes wide, and then she pulls out her pager and presses a few buttons. It could very well have nothing to do with him, but Fir eats a little faster.

He’s half-expecting it but he still jumps when he hears Tanner say, “Hey,” from behind him. Fir shovels the last forkful in his mouth and stands to leave as Tanner circles the table, but Tanner says, “Wait, please,” and something in his voice brings Fir to a halt.

He chances a glance, and wow, Tanner looks almost as terrible as Fir knows he himself does right now. Fir doesn’t bother to wonder why; it’s none of his business what Tanner has been getting himself into.

“I’m sorry,” Tanner says quietly. “I won’t bother you, I just, I’m really, really sorry. I shouldn’t have messed with your alarms, it was wrong of me. I just... wanted to say that.”

Then he places something on the table and leaves.

Fir stares down at it. It’s some kind of rock, lumpy and brown on one side and smooth and black on the other, and Fir almost leaves it there. At the last second, for reasons he can’t explain, he picks it up and slips it into his pocket.

He doesn’t look at it again until nearly twenty-four hours later when he stumbles into his room for a few hours of unfortunately necessary rest. He feels it dig into his thigh when he falls on the bed, and he pulls it out of his pocket.

At first he thinks it’s just an ordinary if oddly-shaped rock, but then he notices the delicate lines etched onto the smooth side and realizes it’s a fossil. He can just about make out the bone structure of some sort of tiny amphibian with a long, thin skull and four spindly legs. He traces over the lines with his thumb and wonders where Tanner had found it.

All at once he feels every ounce of the exhaustion he’s been pushing back for the last week, and he cannot deal with this right now. He puts the rock on the table next to his bed, sets his alarms, and falls into a deep sleep.

Fir allows himself a full seven hours of sleep only because he genuinely feels he will not be able to function with less, and when he finally drags himself out of bed he takes his time in the shower for the first time in months. He also takes extra care making himself look presentable, though in the end he’s not sure why he bothered because it barely helps.

He doesn’t actually realize he’s made the decision to go to the lab until he’s already walking there.

He’s still mad. Just thinking about what Tanner did, what he could have cost him, still makes him livid. But if he’s honest with himself, he also misses Tanner, misses their easy companionship, misses listening to him talk. He feels like he thinks more clearly when Tanner is around, knows his work has suffered for the lack of Tanner’s presence. He doesn’t like it, but it’s true.

He winds up standing outside the door, wallowing in indecision for several long minutes that he doesn’t actually have to spare, and it’s only the fact that he’d have to waste another ten minutes walking to his office that ends up swaying his decision to enter.

Only Katie is there at the moment, which is actually a relief—or at least it is until she sees him and runs over and hugs him. He goes reflexively rigid and she lets go right away, saying, “Sorry, sorry, I’m just so glad to see you! Tanner will be so happy, he has been hopeless all week, he’s been moping, it’s ridiculous, he’s no fun at all anymore. Wait, this means you’ve forgiven him, right? I know he does stupid stuff sometimes but he means well, he really does.”

When she finally pauses for breath, Fir says, honestly, “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Katie says. “Okay, fair enough, but that’s something at least. I think he’ll probably be here soon. You’re staying, right? I promise I won’t bother you.”

Fir nods, a little jerkily, and she backs off with a big smile.

He settles himself at his desk and pulls his laptop out of his bag. Even with the ridiculous hours he’s been putting in recently his queue feels a mile long and it’s only getting longer, so he immediately gets to work.

He had almost forgotten how much easier it is to work in here, how much brighter and nicer the lab is, with its greenery and clutter and the enormous, west-facing window on the far wall, displaying a spectacular view of the sunset over the ocean. He quickly becomes absorbed in his task, but it would have been impossible for him to become so absorbed that he failed to notice when Tanner walks in.

Tanner is already looking in Fir’s direction when he walks through the door, as though it’s the first thing he does every single time he enters this room. From his peripheral vision Fir sees Tanner’s eyes widen, sees him instantly change direction, and he straightens his spine in worried anticipation.

Tanner stops a couple feet away, like he’s not sure he’s welcome any closer, and says, “Fir.”

Fir ducks his head, acutely aware of Katie watching them, and says, “Tanner.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tanner says quickly. “I just, I was worried. You fell asleep so fast, and you always look so tired. I shouldn’t have done anything though, it wasn’t my place.”

Fir is quiet for a while, not sure what to say. He can’t say “it’s okay,” because it’s not, but he doesn’t see the point in telling Tanner it’s not okay either; Tanner already knows that.

Instead he says, “The fossil?”

Tanner smiles, just a little. “Oh, yeah, I found it on M9X-486, er, I think that was it anyway. Like a month ago actually, but I had to turn it in to Paleontology first so they could assess it, see if it’s worthy of extraction. They decided it was too small, I guess, and I think they also already had a few that were really similar? Anyway, they let me have it back like a week ago. I thought maybe you’d think it was cool. I mean it’s basically an alien species, right?”

Fir hums in response, and Tanner moves to take a step forward and stops, looking unsure. Fir sighs and clears some papers off the corner of the desk where Tanner likes to sit sometimes. Tanner smiles so brightly it’s almost blinding and accepts the implicit invitation, perching himself there.

Tanner launches into one of his long-winded explanations: “They said it’s something like a newt, which made sense to me because that planet was covered in all these super colorful newts. They looked kind of like poison dart frogs, you know, practically neon, and in all sorts of different colors! I was all worried they were venomous, but the locals told me only their blood was poisonous, they couldn’t bite or sting, you just shouldn’t eat them. And of course I wasn’t looking to eat them anyway!” He laughs, happily and easily. “They were all a lot bigger than that little guy in the rock, though, like the smallest one I saw was at least the size of my hand. I don’t know if the little guy was a baby or a distant relative or what.”

Fir slowly relaxes and lets Tanner’s voice wash over him. He already feels leagues better, barely even tired anymore, and it annoys him a little that Tanner is able to have this effect on him.

Fir happens to be laying down some complicated wiring on the balcony in the Gateroom one day while Tanner and his team are preparing to go offworld. He tries not to be too obvious about staring, but it’s strange, seeing Tanner in military gear instead of a lab coat, holding a P-90 instead of a clipboard. He’s laughing together with one of his military attachés—a lieutenant, based on the insignia—and he looks so very confident, so at ease.

Tanner says something that Fir can’t hear from his position above, and he and the lieutenant both break into raucous laughter. The lieutenant throws his arm around Tanner’s shoulders and Tanner leans into it, and they don’t break apart until Major Lorne barks at them to pay attention.

Fir has never made Tanner laugh like that, not ever. He averts his gaze and tries to focus on his wires.

After a few minutes he hears Dr. Weir give the command to dial the Stargate, and he can’t help looking up again. To his surprise Tanner is already looking at him, and when he sees Fir looking back he gives a smile and a wave. Fir freezes, doesn’t know how to react, so he doesn’t, and then Tanner steps through the Gate and is gone.

Fir is already long gone from the Gateroom by the time Tanner gets back many hours later, but Tanner seeks him out in the lab right away. It’s nearly five in the morning and Tanner has just gotten back from a fifteen-hour mission, he looks exhausted and he’s still wearing his military gear, and Fir doesn’t understand what he’s doing here.

“I thought you’d still be here,” Tanner says with a tired smile. “I’m totally bushed, I’m heading to bed, but I wanted to give you this first.”

He hands Fir a strange little object, and Fir does not immediately understand what it is. Tanner watches him expectantly as he turns it over in his hand. It’s about the length of his palm, cylindrical and ceramic, with some sort of slightly corroded metal on one end, and after a bit of thought he realizes exactly what he’s holding: a rudimentary battery.

“Huh,” he says, and even he can hear the barely-concealed wonder in his own voice.

Tanner beams at him. “The planet we went to was actually kind of technologically advanced,” he says. “Like less so than the Genii, but not too far behind them, I think? I mean I know it’s basically just a piece of trash, but it’s not like they were gonna let me take something important, and I thought it was really cool. It’s definitely a different sort of battery design from anything I’ve ever seen before, but it’s still totally recognizable, right? I thought that was interesting.”

“Yeah,” Fir says honestly. “It is.”

He knows that the Atlantis expedition has found a few other civilizations possessing something at least approaching “technology,” including the Genii and a handful of others, but something about holding the evidence right there in his hand is a little overwhelming. Most of the societies in the Pegasus galaxy are primitive because the Wraith intentionally keep them that way, and Fir has gotten used to thinking of them as such. Of course he knows there are other advanced races out there, many far more advanced than humans—for example, the Asgaard, the Ori, the Goa’uld, and of course the Ancients—but somehow in his mind all these sprang into existence fully formed, already so advanced they’re nearly incomprehensible. There’s something uniquely amazing about holding the evidence of a developing alien society right there in his hand.

“Well,” Tanner says, looking almost absurdly pleased, “I really need to go pass out now. Good night!”

“Good night,” Fir says back.

Tanner walks to the door and then pauses. “Oh, um, I also wanted to ask,” he says, turning back, “do you think we could try a movie night again?”

Fir hesitates. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, I know, but I promise I won’t do anything dumb again, really. And my TV is still broken, and you know, I think it would be fun to hang out a little? Outside of work, I mean.”

Tanner sounds incredibly nervous, and Fir doesn’t know that he’s comfortable with having Tanner in his room again, especially not so soon, but Tanner sounds so unsure, so timid in a way that is utterly unlike him, that Fir can’t bring himself to say no.

“When?” he says instead, after a long pause.

Tanner visibly relaxes. “Whenever works for you is fine with me. I’ll make time, don’t worry, just tell me when.”

Fir thinks about it. He really needs to get more work done—no matter how much time he puts into it, it feels like his queue is always growing—but he supposes it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he put aside a few hours for this. And he would rather get it over with sooner rather than later, because he worries that otherwise his nerves will destroy his ability to get anything done.

“Tomorrow?” he says.

“Yes!” Tanner says right away, and then: “No, wait, fuck, I have plans with CJ.”

“CJ?”

“Yeah, uh, he’s one of the guys on my team. I’m so sorry, I totally forgot, I promised him I’d come by for some games. Is there any other day? I can cancel if I have to.”

Fir frowns down at his keyboard and says, “I guess the day after is fine too.”

“Yes, yes, let’s do that,” Tanner agrees, sounding relieved, and Fir cannot understand why he seems to care so much. Fir is not an entertaining person; he knows himself very well, and he knows he is stiff and unfriendly and not at all personable. Not like Tanner, who is the opposite of all those things and more.

Fir only sleeps a couple hours the next two nights so he can be sure he has the hours to spend watching a movie with Tanner, and it may have been a mistake because by the time the evening arrives he’s practically falling asleep on his feet.

Just like before, Tanner is already waiting for him when he returns to his room, and Fir lets him in, buzzing with apprehension and anticipation.

Fir sits on the bed with his laptop, and Tanner gingerly joins him, sitting with the maximum possible distance between them. Fir frowns at his screen, but it’s not like there’s anything he can say. He’s not even sure what about the situation is bothering him, not really. Tanner directs him through the file system to a movie—not an action flick this time, but a thriller instead, and for the first time Fir wonders if Tanner had actually stayed and watched the entire movie the week before after he had fallen asleep. He had been sort of assuming that Tanner had left right away, because... why wouldn’t he? Surely it would have been awkward to just sit there while Fir snoozed away, right?

Fir is unaccountably embarrassed by the idea, and he attempts to put it out of his mind.

Either way he resolves to stay awake this time, but only a couple minutes into the film he’s already struggling to keep his eyes open, feels himself listing heavily to the side.

Just before he slips into unconsciousness, he could swear he feels a hand on the nape of his neck, gently guiding him down, and a warm shoulder beneath his head.

Chapter Text

It becomes a thing.

There must be a lot of movies Tanner has been wanting to see, because every week like clockwork he comes to Fir and asks to watch another one. So about once a week Fir carves out a few precious hours in the evening and Tanner comes to his room, where he selects a movie and Fir inevitably falls asleep within the first ten minutes of it.

Fir actually looks forward to those nights after a while, even though the lost hours stress him out, because it’s better sleep than he can ever remember getting any other way. Somehow the noise of a movie on in the background is extra soothing, and he sleeps deeply for several hours, feels more refreshed when he wakes up. Experimentally he tries putting something on while he sleeps on other nights too, but for some reason it doesn't work as well.

Tanner doesn’t touch his alarms again, and slowly Fir lets his guard back down.

Fir meets Colonel Sheppard for the first time at his six month performance review.

At first he has no idea what Colonel Sheppard is even doing there, sitting in on a routine performance review for a random low-level staff member, but Sheppard notices his confusion and smirks. “I like to meet everyone who’s going to be living in my city at least once,” he explains. “Call it professional paranoia, if you like.”

The other two people present are Dr. Elizabeth Weir, whom Fir met once before at his arrival orientation meeting, and Fir’s immediate supervisor, a stern but mostly hands-off man who goes only by Jackson. Fir has never been able to figure out if that’s his first or last name.

Jackson opens the meeting by thumbing through a stack of papers and saying, “Good work. No complaints,” and Fir lets out a breath.

There are a few minutes of pretty typical back-and-forth, and then Dr. Weir says, “It looks like you’ve never taken a personal day. Is that right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Fir says. It’s something of a point of pride for him.

“Well, we can’t force you to use all your days, but as I’m sure you know all support staff are required by contract to take at least one consecutive week of personal days per year. Do you know yet when you’re planning to take that time?”

Fir had not known that, actually. Now that she mentions it he vaguely remembers seeing something about it when he read through his employment contract, but there had been so many papers of so many different kinds to read and sign—consent forms and contracts and practically a whole novel worth of NDAs—that he had forgotten about that little clause.

“Er,” he says. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“I think you should consider taking that week soon,” says Colonel Sheppard. “No offense, but you look like shit.”

“John!” Dr. Weir says.

“Well, it’s true. Look at these logs, I think he works almost as much as McKay, and at least McKay gets to go outside sometimes. That can’t be healthy. When do you even sleep?”

Fir stares down at his lap and mumbles, “I have a schedule.”

“I don’t know if it’s working,” Colonel Sheppard says.

“John, really, have a bit of tact for once,” Dr. Weir says wearily. Then, more gently, “He’s not entirely wrong, though. You should take some time for yourself occasionally. We all have stressful jobs here, and we don’t want people getting burnt out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Fir mutters, feeling ashamed for reasons he doesn’t even understand, because it's not like he's done anything wrong. He just hates being condescended at.

“Your performance has been more than satisfactory,” Jackson concludes. “Please let me know when you plan to take your personal week as soon as possible. You may go.”

Fir does so, glad to be done with that perfectly awful experience. He knows he hasn’t been sleeping or eating enough. He’s gotten peaky and too thin, but he’s been doing fine. People need to stop fussing over him; he hates that, he can take care of himself. He knows his limits, and he hasn’t hit them yet.

He realizes his hands are clenched into fists and forces himself to unclench them.

He’s relieved to not find anyone else present when he enters the lab, tense and unhappy, but there’s a cookie in plastic wrapping sitting on his desk and he knows instantly that Tanner must have left it there as some kind of weird offering. It’s one of the ones the mess hall served as a dessert the previous day—Tanner must have saved his instead of eating it himself. Tanner does this sometimes, and usually Fir doesn’t think much of it. Usually he’s grateful to have a snack; it means he can go a little longer before he has to stop to find something to eat.

Today, the sight of it makes him angry. He tosses the stupid cookie to the side where he doesn’t have to look at it and gets to work.

A few hours later Tanner strolls in and immediately beelines towards Fir, like he usually does. “Hey, how’d it go?” he says cheerfully.

“Fine,” says Fir, voice tight and clipped.

“Well yeah, of course, I never had any doubt! You work so hard, I bet they were singing your praises.”

Irritated, Fir doesn’t bother to respond.

Tanner’s eyes fall on the rejected cookie and he frowns a little, but he only says, “Wanna do a movie night tonight to celebrate?”

“No,” Fir tells him. “I need to finish this.”

“Oh. Tomorrow night then?”

“I don’t think so.”

Tanner deflates a little. “Well, okay,” he says. “I won’t keep bothering you. I guess just let me know when you have some free time?”

Fir glares at his screen and types a few lines, his fingers hitting the keys with more force than strictly necessary.

“Right,” Tanner says, and retreats to the other side of the room.

After a few minutes, Fir starts to feel a little niggling guilt. This isn’t Tanner’s fault, and as much as he wishes Tanner would stop trying to mother him, he does appreciate most of the little gestures. It’s... nice, to know someone cares.

Fir’s chair makes a loud scraping noise when he pushes it back, and he winces. Across the room, Tanner looks up at the sound and they lock gazes. Fir shoves his hands in his pockets and looks away, but he makes himself walk over.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “We can do a movie tonight if you want.”

Tanner fidgets with his pen, twirling it over the back of his hand over and over. “It’s okay, we don’t have to,” he says. “I really wasn’t trying to be a bother.”

“You, um, you’re not bothering me. I was upset about something else and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

Tanner frowns. “What happened?”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not important.”

“Did something happen at your performance review? Is that it? That’s so stupid, you work constantly! They can’t possibly demand more!”

Tanner sounds so righteously earnest that Fir can’t stop the corners of his mouth from twitching ever so slightly upwards.

“No,” he says. “They said my performance was perfectly adequate. No complaints.”

“Then what? Did someone else say something? Who?”

Fir sighs. “No, nothing like that. It's just... they told me I should take more time off.”

“Oh,” Tanner says. “Well, I mean, you probably should. You could stand to relax a little more.”

The old irritation bubbles up again, and Fir snaps, “Don’t do that. I’m fine.”

Tanner flinches back a little. “Sorry, sorry, you’re right,” he says quickly, holding up his hands.

And just like that the irritation drains out of Fir, and instead he just feels empty. “It’s fine,” he says. “Do you want to watch a movie tonight or not?”

“Yes!” Tanner is quick to say.

“Okay.” Fir looks back at his desk consideringly, trying to gauge how much more he has that is absolutely critical to get done today. “Give me an hour,” he decides.

When he gets back to his desk he hesitates, then takes the cookie and unwraps it. He’s not even that hungry, really, but he supposes he might as well eat it.

“Sorry,” Tanner says as he sits next to Fir in the mess a few days later. “I didn’t get anything for you this time.”

“Um, that’s okay,” Fir tells him, and hopes he’s never accidentally given Tanner the impression that he expects any of the little gifts Tanner brings him.

Tanner pokes at his rehydrated vegetables. He’s unnaturally pale and taciturn, and Fir has to fight against his instincts, which are screaming at him to stay quiet and say nothing. But Tanner would have asked him if the circumstances were swapped, so eventually he forces himself to say, “Is something wrong?”

“Er, no, not really. Just a little shaken up,” Tanner tells him. “We were on M5C— uhhh, you know what, I don’t even remember the rest. Yesterday. The Wraith showed up while we were there.”

Something in Fir’s chest tightens painfully. He knows offworld missions can be dangerous, obviously, but Tanner is only supposed to be sent on peaceful scientific excursions to planets where other teams have already made prior contact, and since there hasn’t been an incident yet in all this time Fir had sort of stopped thinking about it.

“Are you serious?” he says. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’m fine, we got out just in time. It was really just a scouting party picking up a snack, I think, not more than a couple darts. But you know, there were people living there. Just a small settlement, but they had some really interesting customs, I think. I didn't get to learn about most of them." Tanner sighs. "Families and friends and neighbors living peacefully together, and I even spoke with a bunch of them, and then I watched them get scooped up right before my eyes and I couldn’t do anything to help.”

Fir struggles to think of something meaningful to say and comes up empty.

“They’ve scheduled me for a meeting with Dr. Keller tomorrow,” Tanner continues. “Apparently it’s standard procedure, but I don’t really feel like I need to talk to a shrink. I just wanted to talk to a friend. If that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay,” Fir says quietly, though he has no idea why Tanner came to him of all people. Surely Katie or Dr. Lycel or his lieutenant friend or literally anyone else would have been a better choice.

Tanner gives him a tired smile, and Fir takes a bite of his canned beans to cover up the way it makes his face warm. Then Tanner asks, “Do you want to hang out tonight?”

Fir does not have the time to spare for that. They just had a movie night two days ago, and yesterday there was a catastrophic virus in another department that Fir hasn’t been called on to help with but which has pulled a lot of hands off the queues Fir handles, leaving him to pick up the slack. But Tanner sounds so pathetically hopeful, and Fir is saying “Okay,” before he even realizes he’s doing it.

“Want to come to my place?”

“Okay,” Fir agrees again, though the idea makes him nervous. “Give me a few hours to wrap up some things and I’ll meet you there.”

Fir winds up being too anxious to focus properly on his work and doesn’t get nearly as much done as he needs to, so he brings his laptop with him when he walks to Tanner’s quarters, following the directions he had been given earlier.

Tanner’s quarters are much larger than Fir’s—instead of being little more than a desk, a bed, and a tiny bathroom, Tanner’s quarters additionally have a living area with a couch and a separate bedroom and even a small kitchenette. Tanner’s smile as he welcomes Fir in is bright enough to antagonize Polaris itself, and Fir has to turn away for fear of being burned.

“I’ve got something cool to show you,” Tanner says and ducks into his bedroom, leaving Fir standing awkwardly in the entryway, wondering whether he’s supposed to follow. Luckily Tanner doesn’t leave him idling long, and when he comes back he’s holding something that Fir instantly recognizes: a Nintendo Switch.

“No way,” he says, before he can stop himself.

Some of Fir’s happiest childhood memories—maybe his only happy childhood memories that aren’t related to space or shining stars—involve playing Mario games on a GameCube or N64 with some of the neighborhood kids. He had even owned a Switch for about a year before coming to Atlantis, though he very rarely had time to play on it. Like almost everything else, he had left it behind when he came here.

Tanner grins. “Obviously it can’t connect to Nintendo’s servers here, but I have a card with a ton of ROMs and a couple controllers. Wanna play?”

Tanner’s TV is still broken so they have to prop the Switch up on the coffee table and squint at the tiny screen from the couch, both leaning forward to see it better, their thighs just barely not touching. They play Overcooked! for three straight hours, which involves a lot of excited yelling from Tanner and a lot of exasperated smiles from Fir, before Fir really has to beg off because he can literally feel his work queue lengthening and he hasn't so much as touched his laptop this entire time.

“Thanks for hanging out with me,” Tanner tells him as he packs everything up. “I feel a lot better.”

“Hmm,” Fir says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Tanner doesn’t have to thank him.

“Before you go, um,” Tanner says, looking awkward in a way he usually never does, “do you think, maybe, I could get a hug?”

Fir bites his lip, conflicted, but he remembers Tanner’s face earlier and can’t say no. It seems like he’s having more and more trouble saying no to Tanner. He says, “Okay.”

Tanner takes a long step forward, wraps his arms around Fir, ducks his head, and buries his face in Fir’s neck. Fir, a little startled, hesitantly puts his arms around Tanner in return, and Tanner lets out a breath that tickles against the sensitive skin under Fir’s ear.

It’s... not unpleasant. Tanner is warm against him, and his breath is whuffling in Fir’s ear, and normally this would make Fir feel claustrophobic and itchy under his skin, but right now it’s almost... nice. When after a minute or so Tanner pulls back his eyes are a little wet, and somehow, somewhere deep inside, Fir is almost disappointed it’s over.

“Thanks,” Tanner says shakily.

“You don’t have to keep thanking me,” Fir tells him.

“Well,” says Tanner, “I know you don’t like to be touched so much.”

Fir stares at his feet. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, and it feels like a horrible, shameful confession when he adds, “if it’s you.”

He is a little stunned when Tanner immediately pulls him into another quick hug. He can feel Tanner’s smile against his neck for just a moment, and then Tanner lets go again and Fir is left reeling.

He leaves, and ten difficult hours of work later he finally returns to his own room for his minimum required rest, but even though he is utterly drained he has a hard time falling asleep. He tosses and turns in his bed and stares at the ceiling tiles, thinking about... oh, what even is there to think about?

He keeps looking over at his shelf of alien tchotchkes and remembering Tanner apologizing for not bringing him one this time. He thinks about how Tanner let him invade his lab, how Tanner worries about him and brings him snacks, how Tanner keeps seeking him out even though there are so many better people he could be hanging out with.

He keeps falling further and further into Tanner’s debt, and he has no idea how to repay it.

Fir has been on Atlantis for almost eight months before he first hears the city-wide emergency klaxons sound, which is actually pretty impressive. He’s working in his office for the first time in at least two weeks, and he nearly tumbles out of his chair when the first deep, ludicrously loud BONG! resonates through the room.

“Holy heck,” Fir says, his heart racing.

Jeremy—the moron with whom Fir tragically shares an office; unfortunately Fir had eventually learned his name—looks at him like he’s insane.

“Dude, relax,” says the moron. “It’s probably nothing.”

Fir ignores him. Standard procedure is to shelter in place and wait for further instructions in case of emergency, and there’s really nothing Fir would be able to do anyway if something truly disastrous is happening, but he hates being helpless. He grips his radio and tunes it to the proper frequency for emergencies, feeling jittery.

He wonders where Tanner is. Is he in the lab? In his quarters? Fir doesn’t think he’s offworld right now—he had just gone offworld the other day, and he usually doesn’t go more often than once a week.

Fir realizes he’s been bouncing his leg up and down and wills himself into stillness.

“Attention all personnel: Stay where you are and stand by for further instructions,” crackles a voice over the radio.

Not ten seconds later, there is a loud clang as the bulkhead doors down the hall slam shut, trapping them in this wing of the city.

Fir doesn’t even know what time it is. He’s been in his office for ten—maybe twelve? maybe more?—hours, and has not been keeping track of time at all. Is it dinnertime? Breakfast time? Could Tanner have been in the mess with a mass of other people? Would that be a good or bad thing? He doesn’t know.

“You’re really high-strung, you know that?” says the moron.

Annoyed, Fir gives him a mean look. Jeremy the moron appears unphased.

“This is at least my fourth lockdown,” Jeremy continues, and he sounds proud for some reason, which is stupid.

“I'm thrilled for you,” Fir snaps.

The outbreak of outright hostilities is averted by a voice over the radio that says, “Attention all personnel: Find an area without windows and shut off all artificial lights. Do not leave your spot unless absolutely necessary. Stand by for further instructions.”

Fir’s office already has no windows, but he powers off his laptop and flicks off his desk lamp. Across from him, Jeremy does the same.

Sitting in the complete darkness is even worse. Fir is left with nothing but his racing thoughts, doesn't know how long it's been. Jeremy doesn’t say anything else too stupid, and Fir doesn’t say anything else at all.

An interminably long time later, the klaxons finally cease and the bulkhead doors slide open again with a loud hiss. By that point Fir has a pounding headache and deepening well of paranoia, and when they’re finally given the all clear he practically runs out of the office to his quarters.

He collapses just inside his room, sliding down and breathing heavily. He still has no idea what just happened, but he knows he never wants it to happen again.

He needs to know that Tanner is okay, but he has no idea how to find out. He doesn’t know where Tanner was when the alarms sounded, doesn’t know how to find him now that they’ve ceased. He sits there, back against the door and head in his hands, and focuses on steadying his pulse.

Fir has no idea how long he has already been sitting there when he hears a loud knock. He tenses up, doesn’t know what to do, but then there’s a second, more urgent knock and he pulls himself up to answer it.

Tanner surges in and envelops him in a hug before the door is even fully open. Fir stiffens, unable to fully process what’s happening, but Tanner doesn’t let go.

“Hey Fir,” Tanner says softly into his ear. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Trembling, Fir puts his arms around Tanner and returns the embrace. It’s ridiculous how much calmer he is already, it’s absurd, it’s totally impractical that anyone can have this kind of effect on him. He doesn’t know when Tanner started to become necessary to him, and he doesn’t like it at all. He clings to Tanner and absolutely refuses to cry.

“I was so worried,” Tanner whispers into Fir’s shoulder. “There were all these soldiers running around in HAZMAT suits and people were dying, and I didn’t know where you were, and I think Dr. McKay did something really crazy because Colonel Sheppard was yelling at everyone really loudly and freaking out at his radio, and then it was over and I still didn’t know where you even were.”

“I was in my office,” Fir tells him. “What actually happened?”

“I, I’m not even entirely sure, I don’t know the details,” Tanner says shakily. “There was a plant specimen in one of the other biology labs, I think one of the other teams brought it back from somewhere, and it sat dormant for a couple weeks and then just sort of went nuts. Something about the quality of Atlantis’s lights was making it grow way out of control, I guess, and it was releasing all these spores, I don’t know, that’s just what I heard, I wasn’t that near ground zero or anything.”

“People died?”

“Well, I actually don’t know for sure, but I think so, probably? They looked really, really bad anyway, like there was something growing inside them and, eurgh, bursting out, oh god. Hard to imagine someone surviving that. I think they inhaled a lot of the spores and, I don’t know. It was no one I know especially well, at least as far as I saw, but still, what an awful way to go. There were people handing out gas masks after a bit and I got one pretty quick, I mean was cleared by Dr. Beckett almost right away after it was over, but I didn’t know how far the spores had spread or whether you were holed away in some godforsaken pit where no one would ever even find you, and you’re always so damn stubborn, I didn’t even know if you would accept a gas mask.”

That’s incredibly dumb; Fir is not suicidal. He really should be offended, but at the moment he’s too busy soaking in Tanner’s deep, soothing voice and being relieved.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I just had to sit in the dark for a while. I didn’t even know what was going on.” Tanner’s arms tighten around him and Fir breathes out. “Tanner,” he murmurs gently, “you’re crushing me. Let up a little, will you?”

After a moment Tanner loosens his grip minutely, but he doesn’t let go, and every time Fir tries to draw back a little Tanner tightens his grip again, so eventually Fir just submits and lets Tanner hold him.

He doesn’t even really mind, and that scares him.

Fir only has one idea for how to pay Tanner back for all his kindness, and it wouldn’t be anything even close to covering his debt, but at least it would be something.

The psycho killer plant incident had set everyone behind by a lot so Fir isn’t overly worried about the time lost there, but it still takes him several days before he feels like he can maybe spare an hour or two.

He waits until Tanner is in the lab, and then sneaks around to Tanner’s quarters when he knows for sure Tanner won’t be there.

Tanner has a moderately strong natural ATA gene, but Fir had to get the gene therapy when he arrived. It hadn’t taken the first time either, and he’d had to get it again. Luckily it took the second time, but the delay had represented several months of lost productivity in a number of important areas, which had been a big stressor at the time.

Since then Fir has had many months to practice and get used to activating the gene, though, and that combined with his previous experience with Ancient technology mean that with a bit of work he is able to create a subtle little hook into the security on the door to Tanner’s quarters. It works like a charm, and Fir is able to break and enter with relative ease.

He examines Tanner’s television and is able to diagnose the problem pretty quickly: it’s just a loose connection on the motherboard, probably a factory defect, nothing he can’t easily fix. He unscrews the casing, carefully removes the offending component, and brings it down to his office.

He has a soldering iron in a small kit in the corner, and it only takes a minute before he has the offending wire firmly adhered back into place. He lets it cool and set, and then takes it back up to Tanner’s quarters.

He’s just snapping the board back into place when Tanner opens the door and steps in.

“Fir,” Tanner says, sounding surprised but also weirdly pleased considering Fir is blatantly trespassing in his personal space. “What’re you doing here?”

Fir had been hoping to sneak out again without getting caught, but it is what it is.

“Er,” he says, “I fixed your TV for you.”

Tanner frowns. “You did?”

“Well, I think so. Let’s find out.” Fir presses the power button and sure enough, the TV jumps to life. “Yeah,” Fir says, pleased with himself. “Now you don’t have to come all the way to my place to watch all your movies. You can watch them whenever you want. You can connect your Switch to it now too.”

He looks over at Tanner with a self-satisfied grin, but Tanner isn’t looking nearly as thrilled as Fir had hoped. “Oh,” Tanner says quietly. “Thanks.”

Fir’s face falls. “Sorry,” he says. “Should I not have done it? I thought you’d be happy.”

“No!” Tanner is quick to assure him. “No, I am happy. It’s been a pain, I’m glad to have it fixed.”

There’s something empty behind it that Fir doesn’t understand. “Okay, well,” he says carefully, “I have to get back to work. Um.”

Tanner steps aside for him, and he shuffles out. He has the distinct feeling he did something wrong but he doesn’t understand what or why, and it bothers him.

He kind of feels like he’s somehow lost control of his own life, and that bothers him even more.

Chapter Text

Fir is eating by himself in the mess when someone sits down across from him.

“Hey,” he says without looking up, assuming it’s Tanner because it’s always Tanner.

“Hello,” says a soft, elegant voice, and Fir almost drops his fork. “My name is Teyla. And you are?”

As if Fir could possibly fail to recognize her, now that he is actually looking at her. She’s an Athosian, a member of Colonel Sheppard’s team, and one of the most important people in Atlantis.

“Uh, Fir,” Fir says. He looks around and realizes she’s sitting with him because the other tables are all full.

“It is very nice to meet you, Fir,” Teyla says politely. “What do you do here in Atlantis?”

Fir hates small talk, but he has also never had a chance to speak with a literal, actual alien, even one who is genetically mostly human.

“I’m a tech engineer,” he says slowly, “and you’re from Athos.”

Teyla brightens noticeably. “Yes,” she says. “I am.”

Fir bites at his lip, but in the end this decision is an easy one. “Can you tell me about it?”

She seems pleased by the question, and she talks freely for a while about all sorts of things: their traditions, their people, their relations with neighboring planets. Fir soaks it all in happily, asking questions here and there but mostly just listening. He finishes his food fairly quickly and he really needs to get back to work, but he can’t tear himself away from the conversation, eager to learn as much as he can.

He startles quite badly when a tray clatters down beside him, but settles when he sees it’s just Tanner.

“Heyo,” Tanner says, and he sounds genial but his eyes are narrowed.

Fir blinks at him and says, “Uh, hi.”

“Hello Dr. Ant,” Teyla says evenly. Then she looks up at the large clock on the wall and adds, “Oh my, it has gotten late. It’s been lovely talking with you, Fir. I apologize for taking up so much of your time.”

“It was my pleasure,” Fir says sincerely, and then Teyla is gone and it’s just him and Tanner.

“That was Teyla Emmagan,” Tanner says, stating the obvious.

“I know,” Fir tells him.

Tanner frowns. “She’s really pretty, huh?”

That’s not really something Fir had expected Tanner to say at all. He says, “Uh, I guess.”

So Teyla is Tanner’s type then. It makes sense; she’s fit and graceful and sharp as a knife. Why wouldn’t she be his type? But it still bothers him for some reason.

Fir looks down at his empty tray and stands abruptly. “I have to go,” he says.

He feels Tanner’s eyes on him until he’s through the door and out of sight.

Somehow, Fir had totally failed to consider that an obvious side effect of fixing Tanner’s TV would be no more movie nights. Or maybe he had thought Tanner would keep asking him anyway, he’s not sure, but obviously that’s not what happens.

It’s affecting his work because he’s been sleeping restlessly for a while now, and those nights were the only really good sleep he was getting each week, but it’s not like there’s anything he can do about it now. After all, how weird would it be for him to ask Tanner to come by and watch a movie while he slept?

It is a problem, though. He was already getting close to the minimum amount of sleep he needs to function, and now he’s getting less than that.

Fir puts off thinking about the forced week of vacation until Jackson sends him a fifth irritated email asking when he’s taking it, and then he puts it in the shared calendar for the second to last possible week. That’s the week of his birthday anyway, so if anyone accuses him of stalling he has a good excuse.

He just needs to work extra hard until then, so the week off doesn’t put him too far behind. And considering that, perhaps the lack of movie nights is a blessing in disguise, because it means he gets those hours back every week. He’ll need them, he supposes. He can sleep during his week off.

They no longer hang out outside of work, but Tanner has gotten downright clingy ever since Fir essentially gave him permission to touch. He started off slowly, like he was testing the waters: a hand on Fir’s arm here, a nudge of the shoulder there, letting their knees touch lightly under the table in the mess, but when Fir didn’t stop him he started escalating the touches quickly, and now....

Fir is sitting backwards on his chair in the lab, trying to convince a haphazardly-written script to interface properly with a unique little Ancient device one of the city exploration teams found, and he startles a bit when Tanner suddenly plasters himself against his back, puts his arms around Fir’s waist and his chin on Fir’s shoulder, and whines, “Fiiiiiiiiiir I’m boooooored.”

“Maybe you should work on your revised proposal,” Fir suggests.

“Ugh, I don’t wanna right now. It’s haaaard.”

Fir is glad Tanner can’t see his face right now, because he’s pretty sure the look he’s making is stupidly fond. “Well, I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”

“I don’t know, talk to me?”

Every time Tanner speaks, Fir feels his breath in the hairs on the side of his neck, and with anyone else that would make him cringe, would make him feel gross and on edge. With Tanner, he only barely stops himself from leaning back into it.

“What about?” Fir asks.

“Anything,” Tanner says. “What kinds of things do you like?”

Fir considers the question. What kinds of things does he like? “Hmm,” he says eventually. “Stars. Planets. Quiet nights. The smell of the ocean. Peaches. Impressionist paintings. Um, aquariums.”

“You like aquariums?”

“Sure, when they’re not too crowded. There’s something peaceful about them, all the blue light and the salt water smell, colorful fish swimming in patterns.”

“I’d take you to an aquarium if I could,” Tanner tells him.

Fir doesn’t really know what that’s supposed to mean; he’s perfectly capable of going places himself, but he doesn’t want to rehash that old argument. Instead he says, “We’re kind of surrounded by one giant aquarium, when you think about it.”

Tanner chuckles softly, and it tickles against Fir’s neck. “Yeah, I guess so. What else do you like?”

“I don’t know,” Fir says. “What do you like?”

“Ahh, let’s see. Video games. Cool rocks. Cats. Peaches.” That pulls another smile out of Fir. “Roller coasters. Mashed potatoes with lots of butter. Perfectly prepared bacterial cultures,” Tanner continues. “Mushrooms with funny shapes. Pepperoni on pizza. You.”

Fir ducks his head and is a little worried he may spontaneously combust. He thinks Tanner can probably hear it in his voice when he says, “Uh huh.”

“And what about you?” Tanner asks. “Do you like me?”

Fir doesn’t understand how Tanner could possibly need to ask at this point, but somehow it feels too big to say out loud. Like doing so would permanently change things between them in some fundamental way, and he... he’s not ready for that.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Dr. Lycel chooses that moment to enter the lab. She looks at them with alarm and says, “Oh my god, please don’t have sex in here. It’s not sanitary.”

Fir immediately straightens up and jabs his elbow backwards into Tanner’s side. “Off,” he says. “I’m trying to work.”

“Ouch!” Tanner yelps. “Fir, you wound me! Your elbow is so pointy!”

“Off!”

“Awwww,” Tanner says, but he complies and detaches himself. He tries for a moment to catch Fir’s eye, but Fir, mortified and red-faced, keeps his eyes locked on his screen.

The thing is, Fir is not entirely clueless. Tanner is the sort of person who is free and easy with his affection, the kind of person who likes to touch and hug and show that affection physically, but he’s not like this with his other friends, at least not so far as Fir can tell.

The problem is that Fir doesn’t understand why. And even though he doesn’t understand why Tanner has chosen to focus his attention in this way, he does know that one day Tanner will grow bored with him, that one day Tanner will find someone more worthy. He should be protecting himself, should be trying to turn Tanner away, but he’s too weak.

He already messed up a long time ago, when he accidentally let Tanner become necessary to him.

Tanner had been offworld earlier in the day, Fir knows, but he should have gotten back several hours ago. It is still early evening rather than some absurd hour in the morning like sometimes happens, so Fir had been expecting Tanner to come find him by now, but it’s not like he’s worried. Unexpected things often happened on offworld missions that could cause delays, and it is always possible that debriefing is taking longer than usual as well.

Fir returns to the lab from the mess hall, and when he enters Katie looks up in surprise.

“Oh, hey,” she says. “You’re here?”

“Should I not be?” Fir asks, wondering if they’ve finally had enough of him.

“Well, no, I mean, I guess I just assumed you’d be with Tanner in the hospital wing.”

Fir’s blood turns to ice. “What?”

“Well, you know—” Katie begins, but Fir doesn’t hear the rest because he’s already out the door.

He runs all the way to the hospital wing and then stops to catch his breath, which takes him way longer than it should. He sticks his hands in his pockets as he goes to the front desk, trying to look casual. “I need to see Dr. Ant,” he says. The nurse manning the desk barely looks at him. She points down the hall, and Fir follows her finger, a little confused.

It turns out to be pretty easy to find Tanner, who is sitting up in a hospital bed, casually flirting with another nurse.

“That color of scrubs is so lovely on you,” he’s saying when Fir enters the room, but the moment Fir passes the threshold Tanner’s gaze snaps to him and he grins and says, “Hey Fir.”

“What happened?” Fir says, feeling a little misled because Tanner looks perfectly fine. “Katie told me you were here. Are you hurt?”

“Just a minor wound in the heroic line of duty. Nothing I can’t handle,” Tanner says grandly, waving a hand around. Then he adds, more softly, “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Fir looks at the nurse and receives no assistance from that quarter because she’s busy writing something down on a chart and not paying him any attention. He turns back to Tanner instead. “What happened?” he presses.

“Awww, were you worried about me?”

“I’m leaving,” Fir says, and turns on his heel.

“No, wait,” Tanner says quickly. “Don’t go.”

Fir sighs and stops because he truly doesn’t know how to say no to Tanner anymore. He turns back around and looks at Tanner expectantly.

“We got attacked by some kind of huge bird thing,” Tanner explains. “Looked kind of like a pterodactyl. Enormous talons. It wasn’t a big deal or anything, it just got off a lucky swipe on me before we took it down. It was nothing, honestly, only fifteen stitches, it barely even hit muscle.”

The nurse finally leaves as Tanner lifts the shirt sleeve of his right arm, revealing the large piece of gauze stuck there on his bicep with medical tape.

Fir moves towards him, somewhat automatically. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be sent anywhere dangerous,” he says. “It wasn’t even two months ago you were attacked by the Wraith, and now this?”

Tanner shrugs. “They can’t foresee everything. Two different teams had been to this planet before, and they never saw any giant killer birds. We thought it was totally uninhabited and had no type of fauna larger than a housecat. Honestly at the time I thought it was kind of silly we were still being made to go in full military kit, but I’m sure glad we did now.”

Fir runs his fingers over the edges of the gauze, mind filling with what ifs, and Tanner shivers under his touch.

“Hey,” Tanner says. “Come on, sit up here with me.”

He scoots aside and Fir hesitates, but, ugh, he already knows he’s going to give in. He circles the bed and hoists himself up to sit gingerly on the side. Tanner reaches out with his good arm and wraps it around Fir’s waist, pulling him backwards until his back is pressed up against Tanner’s side. Tanner nuzzles his face against the back of Fir’s head and Fir lets out an exasperated breath, resigning himself to the situation, at least for the time being.

“You’re such a brat,” he mumbles. Tanner tightens his arm around Fir, pulling them even more snugly together, and Fir rolls his eyes.

They sit together on the uncomfortable bed, and Fir is forcibly reminded of their movie nights. He thinks about just how many hours of sleep he has missed lately and kind of wants to fall asleep now too, but they’re in the hospital ward, not his own personal space, and this is a place where he is physically incapable of fully relaxing. And anyway, he doesn’t have time for that; he really needs to be getting back.

“I’m bored,” Tanner murmurs. “Talk to me.”

“What, again?” Fir laughs despite himself. “Didn’t we just do this the other day?”

“Fir, I’m convalescing!” Tanner protests. “I’m an invalid, a fallen soldier. You’re honor-bound to entertain me during my difficult recovery.”

“Don’t be stupider than you can help,” Fir says, but for some reason he still leans back into Tanner’s hold, just a little.

“Anyway,” Tanner continues, “I believe we were interrupted the other day.”

Fir tenses, because this is not something he is actually ready to return to just yet.

“What other games do you have for your Switch?” he asks, because he needs to change the subject and it’s the first thing he thinks of, and either Tanner is perfectly fooled—unlikely—or he willingly gives up the line of conversation, because he hums a bit and considers Fir’s question.

“I have Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom,” he says. “Also Super Mario Odyssey and Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and I have ports for SM64, Sunshine, and Galaxy also, but I don’t actually know how well they work because I haven’t tried them yet. Uh, I think I have Stardew Valley too. And a bunch of little two-player games like, you know, we already played Overcooked!, actually we should finish that soon. There’s also, hmm, It Takes Two and Wilmot’s Warehouse, and a few others along those lines. I don’t really remember the whole lot, I think there are nearly a hundred. I basically just made it a point to grab anything I thought looked at all interesting before I left, since who knows when I’ll be back Earthside?”

The notion that Tanner plans to ever go back to Earth at all makes something ache awfully deep in Fir’s chest, but he supposes it’s a good thing. He could use the reminder that this isn’t a permanent arrangement between them.

Fir unintentionally loses track of time as they sit together. The room is fairly chilly, but Fir never feels cold for even a second with his back pressed up against Tanner and Tanner’s warm breath against the nape of his neck. He knows it’s temporary, he does, so what’s the harm, he figures in a weak moment of abject idiocy, in enjoying it while it lasts?

At one point Tanner sleepily murmurs, “You smell nice,” and Fir jerks a little, suddenly self-conscious, and tries not nearly hard enough to get away, but Tanner tightens his grip and pulls Fir even closer instead.

Fir wonders what the hell Tanner is even playing at, saying something stupid like that. The last time Fir found time for a shower was more than twenty hours ago now and he’s self-aware enough to know it shows.

Then Dr. Beckett enters the room and blinks at them in mild surprise. “Dr. Ant,” he says. “What are you still doing here? You’re free to go lad, your discharge paperwork was filled out hours ago.”

Fir rips himself out of Tanner’s grip, practically leaps off the bed, and turns to stare at Tanner, who looks sheepish.

“Oh, uh, right,” Tanner says guiltily. “Guess I forgot.”

Fir is gripped with a sudden panic: he doesn’t know how much time has passed, doesn’t know how many hours he has just let slip away forever. He is meant to be working extra hard right now, he only has a few weeks and every single hour until then is so vital. He feels himself begin to hyperventilate and closes his eyes, focusing on his breathing and regulating his heart rate, and when he opens them again Dr. Beckett is gone and Tanner is looking at him with a furrowed brow.

“Are you okay?” Tanner asks.

“I'm fine,” Fir tells him. “I have to go.”

With that, he flees the room.

When Fir finally gets back to the lab he discovers he has lost almost five full hours of productivity, and he is angry, so incredibly furious, because Tanner has done it again. A different method, sure, but Tanner has once again tricked him into wasting time that he doesn’t have.

He takes his things from the lab, ignoring Katie’s curious look, and goes down to his office. He makes himself a quick cup of coffee in the break room and then sits and stares at his queues.

There are literally hundreds of items, and at least a third of them are marked as Very Urgent. His plan had been to cut the number down significantly before his forced leave to try to minimize the damage when he came back, but more pour in every day and he hasn’t been focusing well and there are barely fewer now than there were when he put his leave in the calendar a month ago.

What the hell is wrong with him? He knew the deal when he came here: work himself to the bone in exchange for the right to live in the most spectacular place in the universe and, almost more importantly, to get to leave Earth behind. It’s what he wanted, what he still wants. Why has he allowed himself to become so distracted?

Because Fir has to be honest with himself: Tanner may have been a bit underhanded, leading him to believe he was stuck in the hospital wing when he’d really been cleared to leave already, but Fir had allowed it to happen. He could have still left at any time, and he hadn’t.

It had just been so nice, feeling Tanner’s heartbeat against his back, Tanner’s arm around him. Hearing Tanner’s voice in his ear and knowing that any number of people in this city would have loved to be in his place but it was Fir who, for whatever reason, was getting so much of Tanner’s attention. He just hadn’t been able to pull himself away because he— because he—

And that’s the moment Fir finally figures out he’s in love.

It hits him like a truck.

He stares in horror down into his coffee cup and knows he absolutely has to put a stop to this.

He can’t bring himself to do it right away. Instead he buries himself in work, turning his eighteen-hour workdays into twenty or more, avoids the lab as much as possible, and pretends not to see the subtle hurt on Tanner’s face when he ducks Tanner’s touches and attempts to talk.

He’ll deal with it during his week off, he decides.

Of course, it doesn't work out that way.

Fir is alone in the lab—because no one was there when he checked and it really is so much easier to work here than in his office—when the door slides open. He looks up automatically, expecting Tanner or at least one of the ladies, but instead it’s a man in military fatigues who Fir recognizes, after a second, as Tanner’s lieutenant friend, the one who had made him laugh so hard.

“Yo,” the lieutenant greets him, walking over. “Is Tanner here?”

Stupid question. Fir looks pointedly around the empty lab and says, “No.”

The lieutenant laughs. “Fair enough, I suppose it’s pretty obvious he’s not.” Then his gaze sharpens. “I’m CJ. And you’re Fir, right?”

Somehow he sounds weirdly confrontational. Fir tucks his legs up against his chest and says, “Yes.”

“Ah ha,” says CJ. “Which means you’re the one who has been leading Tanner on all this time. It’s just awesome to finally meet you.”

The way he says it is intensely sarcastic, and Fir doesn’t know what to make of any part of that. “I’m not, um,” he says, and: “What?”

CJ eyes him critically. “Why the hell is he so infatuated with you anyway? You look like dogshit. Do you even sleep?”

Fir really wishes people would stop saying that to him. He gets it already, Jesus Christ.

He’s saved from having to answer by the sudden advent of Tanner, who takes one look in their direction, storms over, and plants himself between them.

“CJ, I told you not to do this,” he snaps.

CJ raises his hands up defensively. “Woah bro, I’m not doing anything! I’m just saying hi. Right, Fir?”

Fir does not need Tanner to protect him. He unfolds himself and stands, saying, “It’s fine, Tanner. I’m leaving anyway.”

“No, wait, please don’t go,” Tanner says. “I think CJ was just leaving. Weren’t you, CJ?”

“I said it’s fine,” Fir bites out, maybe a little more viciously than he had intended, and Tanner falls quiet.

As he closes the door behind him he hears Tanner yell, “What the hell is your problem!” More raised voices follow, but Fir doesn’t hear the words. There’s something buzzing in his ears and he’s having a hard time concentrating. He drops his things in his office and goes to the break room to make himself a sorely needed cup of coffee.

Fir doesn’t know why Tanner seems to like him so much. He can’t figure it out either, it doesn’t make any sense, but it still hurts, to have someone else confirm what he already knows.

He has been taking advantage of Tanner’s kindness and pity for far too long. He should never have let it get this far. He has been so incredibly selfish; Tanner is a brilliant sun, emitting light and warmth wherever he goes, and Fir is a black hole, sucking it all in and crushing it into nothing at all.

More importantly, his work has been suffering. If he gets himself kicked off Atlantis just because he has no self-control around Tanner, he will never forgive himself.

Tanner finds him again less than an hour later, and Fir has never been so unhappy to see him.

“I’m sorry about CJ,” Tanner says. “He was just being an ass. What did he say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Fir tells him, not looking up from his screen. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Tanner says. He reaches out and wraps his hand around Fir’s wrist, his grip firm but gentle. Fir stops typing and stares down at it. “Please come back to the lab?”

The buzzing in Fir’s ears grows louder. “I’d rather work here right now,” he says.

Tanner sighs. “Okay. Okay. Look, um, I got you something.” With his free hand he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little carved wooden figurine of something that looks halfway between a cat and a dinosaur. “I got it on M6C-633. There were—”

Fir cuts him off, saying, “I don’t want it.”

Tanner’s grip on his wrist tightens momentarily, but that’s the only outward evidence of the callous hurt Fir has just inflicted on him. “Oh,” he says quietly. “Um. Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Is it because of something CJ said?”

“The lieutenant didn’t say anything,” Fir lies. “He was just saying hi.”

“Did I do something wrong, then?” Tanner asks, and god, he can’t just let it go, can he?

“I just don’t want it, okay?” Fir says savagely. “Stop bringing me things. Stop following me around. Stop touching me. Just... just leave me alone. You’re bothering me.” Fir yanks his arm away, breaking Tanner’s grip on him, and he knows he’s a coward because he can’t even look at Tanner, can’t face what he’s doing. Tanner will never forgive him after this, and that’s exactly what he needs to happen.

“Oh,” Tanner says again, and he sounds so small that Fir almost takes it all back right then and there. “Sorry. I didn’t realize... I thought....”

“Can you just go?” Fir says, and he can barely hear himself anymore over that infernal buzzing noise.

It takes him a minute before he realizes that Tanner has done what he asked, and he’s alone now.

And that’s fine. He was always supposed to be alone.

Fir swipes a bankers box from a supply closet on his way back to his room, some hours later. His plan is to sweep everything off his shelf into the box with one careless motion and then find an incinerator to chuck it all into, but when he’s actually standing in front of the shelf the idea kind of makes him want to throw up. Instead he places everything into the box carefully, one at a time, and then hides it under his bed.

He sets his alarms for three hours and falls into bed, but even though he feels incredibly weak he can’t sleep. He drags himself back up three hours later, having not gotten even one minute of rest, and stumbles back out of his room.

He goes to his office and works for he doesn’t even know how long, and only stops when he notices his stomach is hurting him pretty badly.

He goes to the mess hall because he can’t actually remember the last time he ate something, but it’s closed, and he realizes his sense of time has somehow become so screwed up he doesn’t even know if it’s day or night.

He tries to walk back to his office, but his brain is fuzzy and he can’t think, and he’s barely paying attention to where he’s going. He runs headfirst into a wall, which says, “Watch where you’re going.”

“Sorry,” Fir says, and passes out.

Chapter Text

When Fir comes to he's laying on a bed in the hospital wing, and his first thought is: “Oh no, not this again.”

There’s a nurse fussing with an IV next to the bed, and when she sees he’s awake she says, “Oh good, you’re up. I’ll get Dr. Beckett.”

Fir tries to sit up, but it makes his head spin wildly so he falls back down. He tries to put his arm over his eyes, but oh, apparently that’s what the IV is there for. He does it with his other arm instead and wonders how much time he has lost.

“You’ve been pushing yourself way too hard,” says Dr. Beckett as he walks in. Fir uncovers his face and stares up at the ceiling. “You’re severely dehydrated and malnourished.”

“Where’s my laptop?” Fir asks.

Dr. Beckett makes a few quick marks on the chart. “You need to focus on getting your strength back and not worry about that right now.”

“I’m fine.”

“Son, you are not fine,” Dr. Beckett says. “You’re lucky Ronon was there when you fainted or you would have cracked your head.”

Fir groans a little at the word “fainted.” He’s not a sad Victorian novel heroine with wasting disease, goddamnit. He just lost track of himself a little.

“You’re being put on medical leave for at least a few days,” Dr. Beckett continues. “If you violate it, I’ll be recommending a full week instead.”

“I’m fine,” Fir insists.

For some reason Dr. Beckett does not look convinced. “Regardless, you’ll be kept here overnight tonight and then you’ll be on enforced medical leave. If you’re caught logging in to any of your work accounts at any point during the next four days, your leave will be extended. You are to sleep as much as possible, eat regularly, and drink lots of water. Is that understood?”

Fir puts his arm back over his face.

“Now,” says Dr. Beckett, “I understand that Dr. Ant is waiting outside and wants to see you. Shall I let him in?”

Fir presses his inner elbow against his eyelids more forcefully and says, “No.”

“Are you sure? He seemed pretty insistent. I’d hate to have to turn him away.”

“Please don’t let him in,” Fir mumbles.

“Okay,” Dr. Beckett says gently. “I’ll tell him you’re not up for visitors. Try to get some rest. Someone will be in to check on you in a couple hours, but there’s a button here you can hit if you need assistance sooner.” Then he leaves.

Fir, deeply miserable, curls onto his side and buries his face in the pillow. After a bit there’s some distant shouting from down the hall and for a moment he thinks maybe it sounds a little like Tanner, wonders if it’s him, but he’s just so tired, he’s so damned tired.

An hour or so later someone wakes him and forces him to eat some kind of tepid soup, and then they leave and he’s asleep again before he knows it.

When Fir next stirs, he’s incredibly warm, almost too warm. He’s groggy and his head feels like it’s stuffed with gauze, and he tries to roll over but there’s something pinning him in place. The something tugs him closer and with a start Fir realizes it’s Tanner, pressed up behind him with an arm around his waist. Fir squirms a little, trying to get away, but the movement pulls at his IV uncomfortably and Tanner just tightens his grip anyway so, vexed, Fir gives up.

“I could have sworn I told Dr. Beckett not to let you in,” Fir mutters.

“Yeah,” says Tanner, voice muffled. “I snuck in.”

“I could just press the button and someone would come to take you away.”

“I know,” Tanner says. “Please don’t.”

Because he’s hopelessly weak, Fir doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Tanner says after a little while, and jeez he sounds rough, like he’s had a sore throat for a week. “I know you’re not interested and you don’t want me around and I’m just bothering you again. But someone told me you’d collapsed in a hallway and I just, I just really needed to know you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” Fir says automatically.

Tanner makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “You always say that,” he says, “but you’re not fine. You work way too hard and you never sleep and you don’t eat enough and you never let me say or do anything about it. And I don’t even know why you’re doing this to yourself. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Of course Tanner doesn’t get it. He’s a superstar in his field, he’s already made a name for himself here on Atlantis, he has already ingratiated himself with everyone important, was chosen for an offworld team, and he’s somehow made himself critical to the expedition with seemingly no effort at all. He deserves to be here. Fir just got preposterously lucky.

Fir doesn’t say any of that. Instead he turns his face into the pillow and concentrates on the feel of Tanner’s heartbeat against his back.

“I brought you things to eat,” Tanner goes on after a minute. “I didn’t know what you’d want so I bribed everyone I knew for bits of their dinner and brought it all, you can have whatever you like.” He curls more tightly around Fir, nuzzles his face further into Fir’s hair, and adds, “God, no wonder you’re sick of me, just listen to me, I’m pathetic.”

Fir hates hearing Tanner say things like that, but he can’t think of anything he can say that wouldn’t give him away completely, so he says nothing. He’s a coward, but he already knew that.

He has no idea how many hours it’s been, but the IV has been dripping saline into his veins for a while now and his bladder is uncomfortably full.

“Let me up,” he says, and Tanner makes another awful little sound. Fir lets out an exasperated breath. “I have to pee.”

“Okay,” Tanner agrees, and doesn’t move.

“Tanner, let me up,” Fir says again, and Tanner slowly unwraps himself and stands.

Sitting up makes Fir a little dizzy, but he pushes through it because he doesn’t want to show more weakness than necessary.

“Do you need help?” Tanner asks, and he makes another noise of discontent when Fir says, “No.”

Fir, rolling the IV stand along with him, somehow manages to get to the little attached bathroom and back, and all but collapses into the bed again when he’s done.

Tanner appears immediately by the side of the bed with a bag of wrapped food items and says, “Please eat something?”

Fir really isn’t hungry, but he takes some kind of protein bar at random, unwraps it, and takes a bite. Tanner hovers anxiously, looking wretched and unsure, and Fir sighs and covers his eyes with his arm and says, “Oh, come on then.”

He feels Tanner climb back on the bed and pull him back into an embrace, feels Tanner’s warm breath on his shoulder, and drops back into a dreamless sleep.

“Huh,” says Dr. Beckett, and Fir opens his eyes.

Tanner is still wrapped around him like a big, warm limpet, but he’s glaring up at Dr. Beckett, as if daring him to say anything.

Fir groans and says, “Yeah, I know. It’s fine.”

“Okay then,” Dr. Beckett says. “I’m letting you go, but remember that you’re on enforced leave for at least three more days, and I’m going to need you to come back after those three days are up so I can look you over. Do you have anyone who can stay with you and make sure you eat and drink enough?” he adds, looking pointedly at Tanner.

“No,” Fir says at the same time Tanner says, “I’ll do it.”

Fir kicks him in the shin, and Tanner says: “Ow.”

“I’m fine on my own,” Fir says.

“I think you’ve demonstrably proven that isn’t true,” Dr. Beckett says, to Fir’s extreme annoyance. “But if you insist, I can assign a nurse to check on you every couple hours instead.”

“I’ll do it,” Tanner says again and good grief, he talks about Fir being stubborn?

“Tell you what,” Dr. Beckett says, “I’ll let you two figure this out, just let me know what you decide. Someone will be by shortly with your discharge paperwork.”

“Please let me do this,” Tanner says as soon as Dr. Beckett leaves. “I promise as soon as the three days are up I’ll go and I won’t ever bother you again.”

Fir really needs to say no. It’s not just that it would be hard on him, but it doesn’t feel fair to Tanner either. It would be better if Tanner just forgot about him, moved on with his other friends, and found someone else to grace with his attention.

At length, he says, “Okay.”

Fir manages to choke down some of the food Tanner brought before leaving, and by the time he’s walking out of the hospital wing his head feels a lot better, but he’s still fatigued. His limbs feel unnaturally heavy, and he can’t understand why he feels worse now than he did two days ago. He absolutely refuses to show any undue weakness, though, so he shakes Tanner’s hand off his elbow and walks all the way to the transporter entirely under his own power. From there it’s only a short walk to his quarters, but he has to lean against the doorjamb for a moment before he can make the final ten feet to the bed. He collapses face down, miffed with himself. He knows he’s being abnormally tetchy, but he thinks the circumstances allow for it.

After a minute he looks over and sees Tanner regarding the empty shelf above the desk with something like sorrow, but then he blinks and Tanner is sitting at the end of the bed, gently removing Fir’s shoes for him, and Fir does not have the bandwidth to deal with these kinds of emotions.

Tanner finds a cup in a cabinet and fills it using the bathroom sink, then brings it over and nudges Fir in the side. “Drink this,” he says, and Fir rolls over and sits up with some effort because he also doesn’t have the bandwidth to argue right now. He takes a few sips, then hands it back and allows himself to fall back down.

“Where’s my laptop?” Fir asks.

Tanner shakes his head and says, “You heard the doctor.”

“I just want to check on the queue. I won’t do anything else.”

“Dr. Beckett said you’re not even allowed to log in.”

Fir groans in frustration and rolls back over onto his stomach, shoving his face in the pillow.

When he next wakes up Tanner is wrapped back around him, there’s a fresh cup of water by the bed, it’s just past noon, and he’s not sure if he’s ever slept so much in such a short period of time before. He also desperately wants a shower and fresh clothes, so he pulls himself away, ignoring the soft sound of protest Tanner makes, and locks himself in the bathroom.

The scalding water does his muscles some good, and when he opens the bathroom door again, wearing only a towel around his waist, Tanner is standing right there, looking worried.

“Christ, you startled me,” Fir says, and pushes around him.

Tanner is looking at him intently, and when he murmurs, “You’re so thin,” Fir feels a fresh wave of annoyance. He pulls on a clean sweatshirt and sweatpants and then stands there, unsure of what to do with himself now. Usually he’s practically running out of the room; he hasn’t had anything like free time in years.

Tanner wraps him in a hug from behind and Fir sighs in exasperation, which is something he’s been doing a lot of today.

“You need to eat something,” Tanner says in his ear.

“You’re going to be incredibly annoying this entire time, aren’t you?” Fir asks.

“Yup,” Tanner says.

“Fine,” Fir says. “Can you get me something warm from the mess then?”

It’s lunchtime and the mess hall is open, so Tanner agrees easily and leaves at a brisk pace. Fir immediately starts digging through cabinets, because he thinks maybe Tanner hid his laptop somewhere. The room isn’t that big, and after a minute or two Fir comes up empty and annoyed. He’s looking around morosely when he remembers: he left his laptop in his office. He’s an idiot; it has probably been there the whole time.

It’s been about four minutes since Tanner left and the mess hall isn’t that far, but it’s usually pretty crowded at this time so if Fir hurries he can probably make it. He’s pretty out of breath by the time he gets to his office, which is mildly concerning, and unfortunately Jeremy the tool is there.

“What the hell happened to you?” Jeremy says when he walks in. “Someone told me you had a heart attack and died on top of Ronon Dex.”

Everyone in Fir’s life is hellbent on being as obnoxious as possible today. “I’m fine,” he says crossly, grabs his laptop, and leaves.

Unfortunately luck is not with him and Tanner is already there, holding a tray with way too much food on it, when he returns to his room.

Tanner takes one look at him, puts the tray on the desk, and gently pries the laptop out of Fir’s hands. “You’re ridiculous,” he says. “Beckett said he’d extend your leave if you were caught working, remember?”

“Yeah, but that was obviously an empty threat. There’s no way they’ll actually have someone monitoring my logins.”

“I’m monitoring your logins,” Tanner tells him, and Fir huffs. “Now eat.”

Fir sits and picks up the fork, but he’s really not that hungry. He watches Tanner put the laptop up on the empty shelf and only starts eating the mashed potatoes when Tanner gives him a look. He manages to finish more of the tray than he expected, and then Tanner hands him a glass of water and makes him drink it.

Somehow he’s already worn out again, but he doesn’t really feel like sleeping anymore. Tanner seems to sense this and says, “Movie?”

“Fine,” Fir says, so they sit on the bed together and Tanner chooses a movie, and Fir’s chest aches a little at the familiarity of it.

Last time they did this they didn’t touch at all, but this time Tanner pulls Fir close and Fir, somewhat reluctantly, rests his head on Tanner’s shoulder.

Tanner is gone when Fir wakes up again, and Fir immediately looks to the shelf where the laptop isn’t anymore.

“Goddamnit,” he mutters to himself, but then he had expected as much. There’s a fresh glass of water next to him, and he sips it absently while he tries to figure out what to do. It’s late in the evening now and he basically slept the entire last day and a half, and he feels completely useless about it.

The door opens and Tanner enters, looking freshly showered and not carrying Fir’s laptop.

“Hey,” Tanner says softly. He immediately climbs on the bed and drags Fir down with him as he lays down.

“You’re so clingy,” Fir tells him.

“Sorry,” Tanner says. “I only have two more days to do this, so I’m going to make the most of it as long as you’ll let me.”

Fir ignores this. “Where’s my laptop?”

“Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. You’ll get it back as soon as you’re cleared by Beckett.”

Fir is quiet for a long time, thinking, and then he turns and curls into Tanner’s chest and says, “Stop saying sorry.”

“Sorry,” Tanner says, and Fir pokes him roughly in the side. Tanner laughs, and Fir is pathetically happy to hear it. It has been far too long since he heard Tanner laugh. “I do need to keep saying it, though,” Tanner adds. “I’m being selfish and invading your space and, yeah, being really clingy, even though I know you don’t want me.”

And Fir is so very weary, so incredibly weary and weak and stupid and sick of Tanner acting like a kicked puppy that he says, “You’ve got it all wrong.”

“How so?”

Fir lets out a long, deep breath, and pushes his face into Tanner’s shoulder because he really can’t bear for Tanner to see him right now. “You’ve never bothered me. I know I said so, but I lied.”

There’s a long, strange quiet, and then Tanner says: “Why?”

“Because,” Fir explains, “I need to be here. In Atlantis. And you’re very distracting.”

Tanner sounds absolutely lost when he says, “You already are in Atlantis.”

“Yeah, and now that I’m here I need to stay here. I won’t be sent back.”

“Sent back?” Tanner says. “Why the hell would they send you back?”

Fir doesn’t even know how to answer that.

Tanner pulls back a bit and looks Fir in the eyes. “Fir, do you have any idea how much money the US government spent just getting you here?” he says. “How much money it would cost them to send you back? They’re definitely not going to send you back against your will without a very good reason.”

When Tanner puts it that way it makes an absurd amount of sense, but.... “I was told my employment would be on a probationary basis to start,” Fir says. No one had said anything about his probationary period being over at his review, either.

“Well yeah,” Tanner says, “but that’s just standard corporate bullshit. They have to put that in their Atlantis contracts because it’s in all government contracts, but you’d have to be pretty awful for them to end your tenure on Atlantis of all places under the probationary clause.”

“Well then I’d better work hard to not be pretty awful, right?”

Tanner gives him a deeply stupid look, as though Fir’s natural preservation instincts are deserving of that sort of patient, exasperated affection, and says, “Do you have any idea how many people you beat out for your position? Tens of thousands, at least. It’s not so hard when you’ve spent ten years in university and got lucky with some influential papers so you happen to meet the exacting qualifications for a post like mine—the candidate pool is a lot smaller—but you had to be the very best of the best of the best because you were up against anyone who could feasibly obtain a security clearance. Fir, the President of the United States himself had to sign off on your contract. And not just that, leaders from multiple countries around the world had to look over your resume and agree that you were the one for the job. How can you not know this?”

Fir doesn’t really have an answer to that. From the moment he had discovered Atlantis existed he’d been laser-focused on getting here, but that focus had been on learning as much as he could and proving himself through hard work. He hadn’t paid much attention to the bureaucracy.

“You know Jeremy, the one you think is an idiot?” Tanner continues. “I asked around once because I was alarmed by how much time you were putting in, I wanted to know if that was normal. He gets done less than a tenth of what you do, and he’s been here for four years already. No one else even comes close to being as productive as you.”

Jeremy, for all that he is a colossal twerp, had a PhD and twenty years of experience working on classified government projects before he was chosen for Atlantis.

“You have plenty of room to wiggle here, I promise,” Tanner finishes.

Fir considers this. Tanner definitely has a point, but he can’t say he’s fully convinced. Tanner is looking intently at him, searching his face, and Fir feels so exposed, so vulnerable, but he can’t look away just yet.

“Why do you even care so much?” he whispers.

“Because I love you,” Tanner says simply, like it’s obvious.

Fir frowns at him and says, “What.”

Tanner’s cheeks color a little. “Uh, yeah. I mean I think I’ve made that pretty clear. It’s not like I’ve been trying to be subtle.”

He doesn’t break eye contact, and Fir flinches away a little, torn between shocked elation and shocked horror.

“Come on,” Tanner murmurs. “This cannot possibly be news to you. I’ve been, ugh, courting you for, what, ten months now?”

Fir has to admit, as he thinks back, that Tanner is right. Tanner hasn’t been subtle at all about his affections; Fir just hasn’t wanted to see it because seeing it would have meant he’d have to push Tanner away. In the end it would have been better if he had, though, because then Tanner could have moved on long ago.

He still doesn’t get why though. It doesn’t make sense, when Atlantis is filled with intelligent and attractive people, that Tanner would choose him.

“But why?” he asks, though he’s afraid of the answer. Afraid that by asking he’ll lead Tanner to ask the same question and realize there are no good reasons.

Tanner does not hesitate. “Well, at first I just thought you were really cute. And I still think that, but—”

“You do not,” Fir interrupts him, irritated by the blatant lie. “I look like shit.” He’s certainly heard it enough that he would know it’s true, even if he didn’t own a mirror.

“Well, uh, yeah, I mean, you look like you haven’t slept in a year and you really need to gain some weight, but that’s just circumstances. Those things will get better, and you’re still really, really attractive. But that’s just how it started, anyway.” Tanner smiles, just a little, small and sad. “I also like you because you’re smart, and you’re diligent. You have a crazy work ethic, which I do admire even though I really wish you’d let up some. You have the sort of dry wit that really gets to me, and you’re not afraid to put me in my place.”

“Well,” Fir begins, but Tanner keeps going.

“You put up with all my rambling, and not just that, you’re actually a good listener. You can’t imagine how rare that is, seriously, I love talking and most people just tune me out after a minute or two. You’re passionate about being here and what you do, and you love learning about other cultures and planets. You make me feel good about myself—well, usually. Not so much lately, I guess, but that’s my fault.”

Fir can’t think of how to express just how incorrect that is, so he defaults to kneeing Tanner in the shin again.

“Ow,” Tanner says fondly. “You’re so violent.”

Fir fists his hands in Tanner’s shirt and buries his face back into Tanner’s chest. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s not used to this sort of praise, doesn’t know what to do with it; worse, he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Tanner rests his chin on the top of Fir’s head and says, “I thought maybe you loved me too. I really thought I was making progress. But then I got impatient, I pushed too far too fast, and you started pulling away. I’m such an idiot.”

That’s not right either, but the words to say so die in Fir’s throat. He’s so conflicted, he can’t think of what to say, he hates this.

“Please say something,” Tanner pleads. “Tell me you hate me, ask me to leave, but please, just don’t leave me hanging like this.”

Fir wars with himself. He clenches his fists tighter in Tanner’s shirt and puts his leg over Tanner’s hip and moves, using his weight to flip Tanner onto his back so he’s sitting on top, straddling Tanner’s waist. Tanner looks up at him with wide eyes, and yeah, Fir should have known it would turn out this way because when it comes down to it there’s only one thing he can say here.

“I like you,” he admits. “I like you a lot. I’ve liked you since the first day I—well, no, that’s a lie—since, I guess, the second day I talked to you. I’m just... scared. I can’t let this affect my position here, I can’t let this distract me, so I wanted to drive you away. I should have done it long ago, but I let it go on and on because... because I love you.”

Tanner’s smile is ridiculous. It's like it fills his whole face, and it’s brighter and more fantastic than anything Fir has ever seen before. “Well,” Tanner says, “I hope I’ve proven by now that you can’t drive me away, so it’s useless to try.”

Fir ducks his head and mutters, “Yeah, pretty much.”

“I guess I’m even more stubborn than you,” Tanner says happily. “Though it’s difficult to imagine how that’s possible.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, you have always been the stubborn one,” Fir tells him.

Tanner wraps his arms around Fir and pulls him down and places little, soft kisses all over his neck and jaw. “Shhh,” he says. “You’re so wrong. God, I love you.”

At the sound of the door opening, Fir looks up from where he’s sitting on the bed, trying to get a couple last tickets done before bed, to see Tanner looking like he’s just been dunked in a river.

“Christ, that was miserable,” Tanner grouses, peeling off layers of sopping military gear.

“You’re dripping on the floor,” Fir tells him. “What happened?”

“It was torrential rain the entire fourteen hours we were there! And I guess that’s pretty normal because the local population didn’t seem bothered at all. Most of them were just casually walking around in the rain, buck naked! Oh, I got you something.”

Fir can’t hold back a little smile as Tanner fishes something out of one of the utility pockets on his belt and hands it to him. It’s a bead, deep blue with swirls of cerulean, and it looks like the ocean. “The first thing you brought me was a bead too,” Fir muses.

“You remember that?” Tanner says, sounding pleased.

“Of course.”

He hands the bead back to Tanner so he can place it on the shelf with the other trinkets, and then Tanner climbs on the bed behind Fir and pulls Fir into his arms. He has dry clothes on now but his hair is still damp, and the wet strands tickle the side of Fir’s neck when he rests his chin on Fir’s shoulder. “C’mon,” Tanner says, “that’s enough work for today. You’ve been at it since I left this morning. Have you even eaten?”

“I had some granola bars for breakfast, and CJ brought me dinner from the mess earlier,” Fir tells him.

That had been a surprise. CJ still routinely puts on an act like he hates Fir, but he also keeps doing things like that which strongly indicate it’s all a strange affectation. Fir doesn’t love having even more people fussing over him, but it seems to ease Tanner’s mind so he puts up with it.

“Good old CJ. I knew he’d come around,” Tanner says.

“Just give me one minute to finish up,” Fir says, and Tanner hums in his ear.

Fir fires off a final query, watches the output carefully to make sure it does what he wants, then closes the laptop, puts it aside, and leans back into Tanner’s embrace.

“Hey Fir,” Tanner murmurs, deep and low and soft, and a shiver runs up Fir’s spine. “I love you.”

Fir’s face heats up. He’d have thought he’d be used to it by now, but it still happens every time.

“Yeah,” he says. “Same.”

Tanner nudges his nose against Fir’s jaw and prompts him with, “Same what?”

Fir rolls his eyes and relents. “Yeah, yeah, I love you too.”

Tanner smiles against his neck and pulls them both down.

Fir knows it’s not perfect—old habits are hard to kick and his, hah, professional paranoia runs pretty deep—but in moments like these it feels perfect. And he’s getting better all the time; he no longer looks like he’s about to waste away and he routinely gets six or seven hours of sleep per night now. He even takes personal days occasionally, mostly when Tanner cajoles him into it with promises of a quiet, lazy day spent together.

“By the way,” Tanner says, “I’m taking you to the shooting range tomorrow, so make sure you set aside a few hours. Your first offworld mission is less than a week away, and I’m not taking any chances. You’re going to be prepared.”

Fir can’t wipe the dumb smile off his face.

They have a ways to go, but they’re making steady progress, and Fir can’t regret his choices at all.

Chapter Text

Tanner wakes before Fir—a rare occurrence, but one he quite enjoys. His arm is numb from where Fir’s head is resting on it, there’s a small wet patch of drool on his sleeve, he has to spit some of Fir's hair out of his mouth, and he has never been happier. He can still barely believe he gets to have this, after wanting it for so long.

He rubs gentle circles on Fir’s shoulder with his thumb and admires his sleeping face for a while, so peaceful without all the tension and worry he carries around while awake.

The first of Fir’s infernal alarms goes off, and Fir groans sleepily and reaches an arm out. As soon as the noise cuts off Tanner gathers him back in close and slings his leg over Fir’s.

“I can feel that, you know,” Fir mumbles when Tanner’s, er, morning situation pokes him in the hip.

“Shh,” Tanner says happily. “It’s just a physiological response, I can’t help it.”

Fir curls closer to him. “Uh huh.”

“I mean, here I am, waking up with my adorable boyfriend in my arms. Can you really blame me?”

“Yes,” Fir says, and Tanner tries to commit the lovely little blush gracing his boyfriend’s cheeks to memory.

His boyfriend. Tanner’s heart feels as though it might burst from his chest with joy.

“Go back to sleep.” Tanner brushes some of Fir’s hair out of his face. “You still have some time.”

He needn’t have bothered saying anything, because Fir has already drifted off. Tanner looks at him, at his high cheekbones and the sharp line of his nose and the dark circles under his eyes—lightening a little every day now—and loves him absurdly.

The second alarm goes off far too soon, and Fir flails an arm out again and sits up. Tanner makes a pathetic sound of protest, and Fir gives him a sleepily amused look. Tanner loves that look so much that he can’t help sitting up too and pulling Fir into a kiss. It’s chaste and sweet, just a light press of lips, because they had agreed to take things slow, but a thrill still shoots through him.

Then Fir hesitantly runs his tongue over Tanner’s bottom lip and “thrill” cannot begin to describe what Tanner is feeling now. He opens up for Fir immediately, half sure Fir is going to pull away, but he doesn’t. Tanner lets Fir take the lead, responding eagerly to everything he does, and after a minute he pulls Fir onto his lap. Fir easily lets him, and Tanner is thrilled all over again.

It’s slow and tender and Tanner settles his hands on Fir’s hips, slipping his thumb under the hem of Fir’s shirt to rub little circles on the skin there. He doesn’t try to take it any further, doesn’t want to put pressure on them, not when this simple intimacy is more than enough for him right now. Fir sighs into Tanner’s mouth and runs his hands up Tanner’s shirt, brushing them against Tanner’s sides in a way that brings goosebumps, and he is so happy, so ridiculously, deliriously happy that he barely recognizes himself.

The goddamned third alarm goes off, and Fir jerks back a little and looks at Tanner with wide eyes. His hair is mussed from sleep and his lips are reddened, and god, he’s so beautiful. Tanner loves this look even more than the last one, so he pulls Fir in again, heedless of the awful blaring noise.

Fir acquiesces to the kiss for a few more seconds and then pulls away and turns off the alarm, ignoring Tanner’s pout. He steps out of bed and stretches, and Tanner admires the long lines of his body, which is really nice now that it’s finally filling out a little. He’s still too thin, but he no longer looks skeletal and unhealthy, and that’s good progress.

Fir heads into the bathroom, and Tanner uses the opportunity to locate his radio. He tunes it to the right frequency and says, “Mario Ya, this is Cool Waluigi, come in, over.”

There’s a pause, and then a voice crackles over the radio and says, in long-suffering tones, “What do you want, Tanner?”

“Just making sure we’re still a go for Operation Deep Blue, over.”

He can practically hear CJ roll his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, it’s all in order. I had to call in some serious favors for this, so you’d better appreciate it.”

“Roger that, it is very much appreciated,” Tanner tells him. “Over.”

“Seeya tonight then. Don’t be late, we only have it for an hour.”

That settled, Tanner slips his glasses on and pulls out the paper he’s been reading, some influential new research just in from Earth. He thinks there’s something not quite right in a few of the diagrams but he can’t put his finger on what, and it’s been bothering him.

Fir emerges from the bathroom like he’s in a hurry, grabbing his things and pulling his shoes on, and Tanner puts the paper aside and goes to wrap him in a hug from behind, nearly automatically. Fir huffs at him and says, “Come on, Tanner, I really need to get going.”

“I know, I know,” Tanner says, burying his face in Fir’s neck and breathing deeply. “Don’t forget we have a date tonight. I’ll be picking you up at six.”

Fir laughs. “Picking me up from where?”

“Wherever you are, I guess. Are you working in the lab today?”

“I suppose I can do that,” Fir agrees, “but you have to let me go now.”

“Aww,” Tanner says, but he does as he’s told.

Tanner arrives at the lab an hour later, and of course Fir is already there. Fir doesn’t look up from his computer, but Tanner sees the little smile that graces his face when he enters the room, and his heart swells again.

It’s difficult for Tanner to focus on his bacterial cultures when all he wants is to go and drape himself all over Fir, but he holds himself back because he knows how important work is to Fir and he really wants to respect that. Around noon he goes to the mess and brings back a tray with a few prepackaged sandwiches, because he knows Fir is too likely to forget to eat otherwise.

“Have lunch with me?” he asks, plopping the tray down on Fir’s desk.

Fir doesn’t respond but he does hold out a hand, still typing away with the other, and Tanner unwraps a sandwich at random and gives it to him, pleased when Fir takes a few bites.

After a minute, Fir makes a face and looks down at the sandwich. “What the heck is this?”

Tanner shrugs. “Dunno. Some kind of jam the Athosians make on the mainland, I think. I like it.”

“Yeurgh,” Fir says, but he dutifully eats the rest anyway.

Satisfied, Tanner resolves to leave Fir alone until it’s time to go. It wouldn’t do for him to be all anxious tonight because he thought he didn’t get enough work done, after all. He doesn’t quite manage it of course, he winds up crossing the room a few times to wrap Fir in a quick hug or give him a little kiss on the cheek, but Fir doesn’t seem bothered so he figures it’s okay.

Around five he trots out of the lab and back to his quarters, where he puts extra effort into his appearance. He hadn’t brought any particularly nice clothes with him to Atlantis—impressing a future date had been the last thing on his mind at the time—but he pulls on a pair of jeans and a dark red sweater that people always say looks good on him. He’s back at the lab by fifteen til, and of course Fir hasn’t moved.

“Hello my love,” Tanner says in his smoothest, most sultry voice.

Fir frowns and says, “What the heck?” which isn’t exactly the response Tanner had been hoping for, but that’s okay because it’s pretty much the response he expected.

He puts his arms around Fir’s shoulders, which is a bit of a stretch because it means he has to bend over quite a lot, but that’s all right because then he gets to lean in close and feel Fir shudder when he murmurs, “It’s time for our date,” in his ear.

He feels rather than sees Fir purse his lips and look at the clock, but all Fir says is, “Okay, give me one minute.”

Tanner contents himself with mouthing gently along the line of Fir’s neck, and Fir shudders again but doesn’t stop him, and Tanner is so very, very lucky. It ends up being more like three minutes before Fir pushes his chair and Tanner back and breaks the embrace, but Tanner doesn’t mind. Fir stretches and his shirt rides up a little, and Tanner can’t help but stare.

“You’re ridiculous,” Fir tells him when he sees.

“Yup,” Tanner agrees happily.

“What’s the plan? Movie?”

“Not quite,” Tanner says.

He takes Fir’s hand and laces their fingers together, and Fir looks down at them with that slightly bewildered look he often has, like he doesn’t quite know why Tanner is doing this. Tanner has been working hard to make that look unnecessary, even though it’s cute.

“You guys are giving me cavities,” Katie calls from across the lab. Fir ducks his head and flushes, and Tanner quickly pulls him through the door.

“Where are we going?” Fir asks when they veer off from their usual paths.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tanner tells him.

It’s not a long walk, and Tanner hears Fir’s sharp intake of breath when the last door whooshes open and they step into the jumper bay.

“About time,” CJ grouses when he sees them.

“We’re not even late,” Tanner says.

“You’re almost late. Come on, we have to be back here inside of an hour.”

CJ ushers them both into a nearby puddlejumper and sits in the pilot’s seat. Tanner wishes CJ wasn’t necessary here, but unfortunately he is not a trained pilot and has no authority or ability to fly one of these things.

“I don’t get it,” Fir says, looking around in wonder. He’s never flown in a jumper before, Tanner knows. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Tanner tells him cheerily, and Fir’s eyes narrow in annoyance. Tanner loves that look too. He loves kissing it off Fir’s face, but he manfully holds back this time for CJ’s sake.

They get themselves seated and buckled in, and CJ flies them up through the hatch and over the great expanse of ocean. It’s about a fifteen-minute flight to the spot Tanner had scouted out in advance, by way of cornering Teyla and firing off a series of questions until she agreed to find out the answers for him. Tanner listens to Fir and CJ bicker lightly about not very much, content to watch Fir’s face as he tries to hide his excitement.

Fir stops speaking at all when they come up on the mainland and hug its coast for a while, and he looks utterly beyond words when CJ lets the jumper down and gently submerges it in shallow water. This is one of Tanner’s favorite looks so far, he decides with satisfaction.

The jumper powers down and CJ stands. “Welp, I’ll be in the back,” he says, brandishing a book. “You have about thirty minutes. Don’t do anything weird.” The dividing door hisses shut behind him.

Fir is standing now, wordlessly watching the colorful reef in front of them, eyes following the little fishes as they dart around the vibrant coral. Tanner comes up behind him and pulls him into an embrace. Fir is shorter than him but not by that much, and his ear is at the perfect height for Tanner to whisper sweet nothings into.

“I thought I’d take you to an aquarium,” Tanner explains, speaking in low tones because he can tell that sort of thing has an effect on Fir and he likes that, “since you said you like them. Unfortunately there’s a strange dearth of aquariums around here, but I think I found a suitable alternative.”

“Uh huh,” Fir says. Soft blue light filters though the glass, casting shadows and reflections of waves over everything. A couple feet away, a large piece of red coral brightly phosphoresces in slow pulses, and it turns some of the shadows almost purple. Tanner watches what he can see of Fir’s face from this angle, loving the awed look on his face, entirely content to let Fir take everything in. His heart is full to bursting.

He contents himself with nuzzling at Fir’s neck, captivated by the scent and feel of his boyfriend against him. He presses a long kiss on the exposed skin, then mouths at the spot a bit, unable to get enough of this.

He nips gently at the sensitive join of Fir’s neck and shoulder, because he can’t really help himself, and Fir yelps a tiny bit and reaches back to smack Tanner on the side of the head without any force. “Stop that,” Fir says, and Tanner chuckles.

He nuzzles along Fir’s hairline instead, feels Fir shiver at the sensation, and sighs happily against his neck.

A largish fish with brilliant yellow and orange stripes swims up to the jumper and begins sucking, open-mouthed, on the glass. Fir laughs, light and easy, and Tanner greedily drinks in the sound of it.

Fir brings his hands up to rest on Tanner’s arms and leans back against him, saying, “Okay, this is pretty cool.”

“Mmm. Hey Fir,” Tanner says, smiling against him. “I love you.”

“Yeah,” says Fir. “Me too.”

“You what too?” Tanner asks, delighted by this little game they play sometimes now.

He knows Fir is rolling his eyes even though he can’t see it, but Fir doesn’t hesitate with his response: “I love you too.”

They don’t have much longer and Tanner really should let Fir keep watching the fish, but instead he pulls Fir around and leans down for a kiss. Fir responds eagerly, but Tanner intentionally keeps the kiss slow and sweet. CJ will be back any minute, and if he doesn’t want to deal with the weeks of suggestive teasing if he lets himself get riled up right now.

He can’t help but remember how it wasn’t that long ago that he thought he’d lost his chance at this forever, and he’s so grateful to have it now.

The dividing door whooshes open and CJ emerges, holding his book dramatically over his eyes. “Time’s up! You guys better not be naked!”

“Shut up, CJ,” Fir says, but he’s smiling brightly.

CJ lowers the book and yelps. “What the fuck is that fish doing to my ship!”

Coda to an Epilogue:

Della meets them in the jumper bay and sweeps CJ away, saying, “How come you never do anything romantic like this for me? Just saying.”

“What!” CJ says in mock surprise, slapping his hand over his chest. “You want romance? Babe, why didn’t you say so! I am Mister Romantic! I will spirit you away to a sweet sugar princess palace of poetry and moonlit walks on the beach and carnality, all you have to do is say the word! Only you might have to wait a bit because I just called in all my favors for that lovesick loser back there....”

His voice trails off as they round a corner, and Tanner laughs. He takes Fir’s hand and laces their fingers together and swings their hands as they walk and has never been more content.