He found Danyel on the bridge.

“Have you got a moment, Lieutenant? I’d like to run over a couple of things on tomorrow’s schedule with you. Come to my quarters when you’ve finished here.” He barely waited for his Lieutenant’s acknowledgement before striding off.

Bailey glanced at Danyel and raised his eyebrows. That had been uncharacteristically brusque. Danyel merely smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “I’d better go and see what the trouble is.”

Bailey nodded and took over what Danyel had been doing. Danyel walked briskly, trying hard not to wonder too much.

He flashed his ID outside the door and the Captain let him in. It was the first time they had been alone since that night they’d had sex together.

Danyel squared his shoulders, “Yes sir?” His face was polite, but closed.

Before then, the Captain had wanted nothing more than to walk up to Danyel and ask him if he would just hold him while he told him what had happened. But his cool formality changed his mind. He couldn’t ask him that, they didn’t have that kind of a relationship. He jumped in to his proposition with both feet.

“Would you be willing to keep coming to my bed, if I asked you?”

Danyel gave a surprised bark of laughter. That had to be absolutely the last thing he had expected to hear. But instead of looking happy about it, Simon was looking grimly tense. Danyel reined in his heart, which had leapt unaccountably. Just what was he proposing here?

“Why?”

“I want you. I can’t stop thinking about you... what we did.” He cleared his throat. “I spoke to Fiona just a while ago and told her that I think I’m an om. She still wants to go ahead with the marriage. But she knows I’ll have... relationships on the side...” His voiced trailed away. He still couldn’t quite believe it.

Danyel couldn’t quite believe it either. “So let me be clear about this. You’re asking me if I want to keep having sex with you? While you go ahead and get married to Fiona?”

“Yes, I guess I am.” It seemed a safe enough answer, after all, their personal relationship so far had been all about the physical. He didn’t want to embarrass them both by bringing emotion into it.

“And we’d have to keep this a secret, I suppose?”

“Of course. That would be the whole point.” The Captain was referring to the concept of a marriage of convenience, but Danyel didn’t hear it that way. He was so hurt and offended it was all he could do to get the words out.

“I don’t think so. I don’t want to be part of your experiment with sex, secret or otherwise. Go away, do whatever you have to, sleep with whoever you have to, and when or if you decide it’s me you want, me—not just a man to fuck—then come back and talk to me again. You told me you didn’t mean to disrespect me, but it seems to me you’ve done nothing but disrespect me from the day we met.” He turned and strode to the door, only pausing to say, “Don’t ask me to meet you here alone again,” over his shoulder as he went out.

The Captain felt as if he’d been punched in the heart. He wanted to call him back but there was enough truth in Danyel’s words to keep him silent. He hadn’t meant the offer to come out that way, but he wasn’t at all clear on what way he did mean it. He had wanted Danyel from the day he first saw him, when he first came aboard the ship. He had known full well he had been playing with fire when he followed him into the cave and then asked Danyel to kiss him. Now, standing there, he knew he wanted Danyel himself, not just his body, but how that was going to happen was still hazy in his mind. He had to sort out himself out urgently, before he lost everything he cared about. If that hadn’t happened already.

~~~

Danyel made his way unsteadily back to his cabin. He had to get a grip before he could go back on the bridge. He sat on his bed and stared blankly at the wall. Who was he kidding? There was no way he could keep working with the Captain after that. What did Hayes think he was? Some kind of rentboy who slept around with whoever asked him? He hadn’t had that many lovers. Only four actual relationships in fact. Five if you included Hayes. Not counting the casual pickups at the space station when they were on leave, of course, but everyone did that, oms and straights; it was hard not to when you were on a single-sex ship for weeks at a time. It was an accepted custom; everyone was a consenting adult who knew what the rules were.

He straightened his uniform, washed his face and went to find Medical Officer Kumar. He asked to speak to him privately. “This is completely confidential, right?” he asked, seeking confirmation once they were in Kumar’s office with the door shut.

Kumar nodded, “Of course.”

“You know I’m an om? Well, I need to apply for an urgent transfer under Rule 158.”

Kumar knew what Rule 158 was in general terms, but he looked it up now to get the specifics. He had never had to use it before.

(Author's Note - Point of interest, Rule 158 made its first appearance in my story, Dangerous Tension - also here on Tapas)