The elevator shuddered to a stop with a metallic death rattle. They poured out into the corridor, Chuck almost skipping next to her while he kept prattling on and on about his obnoxious man-crush. 

“So obviously then I offered to help him with the suit, you know? Like I’m gonna pass up on that opportunity! Like sure, helping Archie into clothes is kind of the opposite of what’s on my wish list, heh, but I can still work with that. I mean, I can definitely work with that.”

“Huh-huh.”

“And he was such a good sport, too.” He pivoted and stopped her with a hand, and she dutifully waited until he was done with his infatuated word-vomit. She got it, he needed to get it out of his system. She, for her part, mostly needed him to be done with it before they reached the cafeteria, where anyone could overhear them. 

“You’ll never guess what he told me,” he said, then continued without giving her time to respond: “He said that he wasn’t used to the bulky space suits that we have here, because he was used to more sleek ones. Sleek ones, Bee! I think he meant the ones they use in the special services! Because definitely there is no other branch of the military that uses suits any less bulky than the ones we’ve got here. And I would know, I probably saw all of them at some point back when I worked in recovery.”

She thought about it. Huh, that was actually some interesting information, for once. Major Montgomery, in the special services? She supposed that it made sense. It would certainly explain some of his… general disconnect with the behavior that she tended to take for granted from Castullan officers. Or the way that he gave the overall impression that he existed in a completely different time zone than the rest of them when it came to in-jokes and bunker culture. Or his painfully obvious anxiety disorder. She was surprised that Chuck had managed to glean some useful insight, for once, and that he had retained it in that puppy-dog brain of his instead of immediately replacing it with hot air and horny wishes. Then, of course, he went and opened his mouth and ruined it.

“Have you ever seen one of the special services suits though? I have, and they’re so sinfully tight they kinda make you want to peel them off with your teeth. Do you think that — ”

She slapped a hand over his mouth before he could go any further. No, no she did not think about Major Montgomery in a skin tight spacesuit, and he wasn’t going to make her, dammit. 

“Can you please have a little shame, man? Sometimes I wonder if you realize that people can hear the nonsense words that come out of your mouth when you say them out loud,” she growled, before taking her hand back. She’d learned from experience that slapping Chuck on the mouth never worked to keep him silent for very long. This disgusting mountain of a man was completely willing to lick her palm in retaliation, which, ew.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding very sorry at all. “But in my defense, I’ve been running on an average of three hours of sleep a day for way too many years, okay. Give me a break. My brain’s not really firing on all cylinders.”

“Obviously. And we have a house now, you can’t keep using that excuse.”

“What, you think that just because Bouchard’s not snorting at me anymore, that all of the insomnia cleared up? It’s a process, Bee. It takes time.”

She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes up at him. “Chuck.”

“Bee?” he answered, with some trepidation.

“Chuck. My man, my dude, my best bud. Light of my life. Are you telling me that I went through all the trouble of fake-marrying you, and it didn’t even fix your initial problem?”

He winced. “I’m not… saying that.”

“But you’re not not saying it.”

“Eh.” He made a so-so motion with his hands, and she had to close her eyes to take a long, deep breath. 

“I’m going to go insane, Chuck,” she informed him. “I swear to God I’m gonna lose what’s left of my marbles and it’s going to be your fault.”

“You don’t… have to?,” he squeaked.

“I don’t want to!”

“Then don’t?”

“Then stop making me!”

“What’s the problem?” he whined, sounding genuinely confused and hurt. “You like our sweet free house, don’t you?”

“I like not lying on governmental forms,” she hissed from between clenched teeth, “about stuff that could kill my career! Our careers! Which obviously you’re not giving one iota of thought about, considering you’re prancing around lusting after your own goddamn boss with zero subtlety!”

Okay, wow, so that was a tight little knot of anger that had obviously been waiting to come out for a while. Welp, there was no stopping it now, she guessed. Once you’d tugged on a piece of yarn, she knew, you had to go through with it and unravel the whole darn sweater otherwise it was going to be all lopsided and ugly. You could always knit another sweater later, if you had the time and patience for it. She wasn’t a fan of doing this in the middle of the corridor, but at least there was no one in sight. Thank you, Taco Tuesday.

Chuck looked stricken. “Huh? What do our careers have to do with it?”

“That’s — I — ”

Words could not possibly suffice to express the depth of all the feelings currently crowding in her chest. Bee grabbed up at the lapels of his jacket and yanked him down a full foot and a half so she could bring his face right down next to hers and hiss at him. “We committed fraud, you asshole!”

“We did?”

“Oh my god.”

She pushed him away with all of her strength, which of course had absolutely no effect on that big dumb lump of wall. Bee ended up leaning on him with one hand, the other rubbing at her brow, head hung low in shame. She felt light-headed. This could not possibly be happening to her. 

“You know what?” she muttered. “This is my fault. I should have known you had no idea what you were doing. I’ve been enabling your ludicrous plans for too long. I love you, Chuck, but I think we need to take a break. I can’t do this anymore.”

She didn’t even need to look up at him to know that he was turning the word ‘ludicrous’ over in his mouth. Unsurprisingly, it had little to no impact.

“Aw, don’t say that, Bee,” he replied in his usual, sing-song, ‘I know I piss you off but you love me’ tone of voice, as if they were just having a normal argument. As if she wasn’t being absolutely serious this time, yanking at the threads of their friendship-sweater with all of her might, hoping that it would make a dent. “One day I’ll have a brilliant ludicrous idea and you’ll regret saying that.”

She glared up at him through her bangs.

“If the idea is ludicrous then it can’t be a brilliant one,” she gritted out. “That’s an oxymoron.”

“Hey!” he protested, then after a minute: “is that like a moron with a lot of oxygen? You can’t call people morons, it’s in the sensitivity training.”

Bee snarled. He was winding her up on purpose, he had to be. She twitched her hands in front of his face in a choking motion then whirled away before she could murder him for real. She’d love to, but it would look bad for her career. What was left of it. And definitely not on military property. Maybe she could murder him at home and bury him in their backyard. Now that would be nice and efficient. Not to mention narratively satisfying.

“I’m leaving!” She threw her hands up in the air and marched back to the elevator before he dragged her into any more shenanigans. Screw Taco Tuesday. She could pick up a sandwich in the distributor in the break room, and eat it at her desk. The texture of tuna salad in the mass-produced sandwiches was discomfortingly squishy and not at all how she would make it at home, but she was sure she could power through just this once.

“Okay! Want me to bring your plate up to your desk?” Chuck called out brightly.

He was definitely doing it on purpose. Bee knew that he was capable of picking up a hint when he wanted to. The problem was that he was just as capable of completely ignoring one if it didn’t suit him. He was like a damned cat. She jabbed the buttons on the control panel repeatedly, urging the doors to close faster.

“Don’t talk to me anymore, we’ve broken up. I’m gone!”

“Okay! I’ll be right up!”

The elevator doors finally closed on the sight of Chuck waving at her, which was not a very cathartic image. Bee kind of wanted to find a door to slam.