“You know most of this isn’t actually your job, right?” he said after rifling through the stacks. 

Archie choked on his drink. Chuck made to rub his back, but the major raised a hand and turned away to put his glass down on his desk before coughing a few more times and wiping his mouth. 

“I’m alright,” he rasped. “Apologies. What were you saying?”

“Oh, huh. I just, I was looking through this stack and like, half of this stuff shouldn’t be handled by you. Look,” he said, pulling out a few pages. “See the symbols there? That’s how classified these documents are. This, and this, and oh definitely this at least should have been handled by General Brown. Like, I’m not even sure we’re allowed to take these out of the bunker, man.”

Archibald looked nervous. “Oh?”

Chuck rolled his eyes. “Did they push these reports on you?” He waved the papers. “Buddy! You can’t just let them do that! You’ve already got enough work as it is!”

The man twitched. He picked up his glass again and cleared his throat. “Ah,” he said. “Well. What’s done is done, I suppose. I’m not about to give the work back now that I have it. I’ve taken an engagement to have it done.” 

He took another sip of his drink, and he might have looked casual and unconcerned if it weren’t for the way his leg had started nervously jumping up and down. Of course, he should have expected that Archie would be too worried about his professionalism and reputation to stand up for himself. 

“Alright, fine, but you can’t let the other officers push you around, you hear me?” Chuck leaned in and allowed himself to be bold enough to touch his knee. “The next time they try to push more work on you, you tell me, okay? I’ll set them straight.”

“I… thank you, Chuck” he said. He made an aborted half-wave in the air, then hesitated and finally pressed his palm down on the back of his hand. “I appreciate it. But it won’t be necessary.”

He patted his hand and leaned back, his usual rigidness now sliding back in place over his expression. “Let’s just focus on handling the work that we have in front of us for now. We can discuss appropriate workloads on another day, if you don’t mind.”

Chuck rolled his eyes and squeezed his knee, because he already had his hand on it and knew how to take advantage of an opportunity. “Alright, if you say so.” Then he pulled away and leaned back, because he also knew when not to push his luck. 

They worked together late into the night. After an hour or so, the major had come to sit with him on the couch, and now they were leaning over papers, their legs warmly pressed together. Chuck held a page with one hand and was gesturing with the other as he explained the finer point of the D-45 hyperlane monitoring protocol, which was subtly but crucially different from the E-39B protocol, and thus necessitated an entirely different lot of forms, approvals, and data archival permits. Archibald was listening to him with rapt attention. At some point he’d pulled out a leather-bound notebook and was scribbling down in it. He used what looked like some sort of shorthand, and Chuck burned to ask where he’d learned it. In a fancy school somewhere in the core of the galaxy, maybe? 

But he didn’t ask, because as much as he wanted this evening to go from business-related to something that might result in a hook-up, Chuck didn’t feel comfortable talking about something else than work until the urgent files were dealt with. They really did need to be returned to the bunker sooner rather than later, stealth date or not. To be honest, the fact that they had even left the base in the first place was stressing him out a little. 

Plus, Archie was giving him confusing signals. He’d pulled out the paperwork, sure, and said that this was all this was about. But also there was alcohol, and the man had removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt a few hours ago, revealing several inches of sexy forearms. Flashing those babies in Chuck’s vicinity was pretty rude if the evening was not intended to be a steamy one, as now he had to devote at least forty percent of his attention on not looking at them. He was failing miserably, of course, but who could blame him? Bared arms in an expensive dress shirt was like, one of the top ten hottest things out there! Along with posh accents, confidence, and authority, all of which Archibald was serving. 

Fortunately, if there was one thing he excelled at, it was ogling his boss and working at the same time, so Chuck was reasonably sure that he had managed to hide how flustered all of this indecent undressing had gotten him. Maybe, with a little luck, the major might even feel comfortable enough to undo another button on his collar later. Wouldn’t that be nice… Slightly unbuttoned shirts were also pretty high on the hot stuff list, which now that he thought about it might have a few more than ten items. 

They’d drank half of the bottle of Bourbon between them, and his thoughts were starting to scatter. The heat of the drink was spreading to the tip of his fingers and making them itch to do something rash. Like touch Archie’s knee again, perhaps. And then slide higher up his leg, as far as the man would let him go. The major finished making a note in his book and brought the tip of his pen to his mouth. He rested it gently on the edge of his lips as he re-read what he’d written. His mouth parted, revealing a glimpse of pearl-white teeth. For a second, Chuck burned with the desire to replace that pen with his mouth and taste the Bourbon on the other man’s tongue.

He jumped to his feet. There was no way that he could stay in this room and remain in control of himself. Aside from plying him with whiskey, Archie hadn’t actually given any signal yet that he would welcome any of the things that were running through his mind. Chuck needed to find a way to get his brain back on track, and fast.

“Sergeant?” asked Archibald, glancing up. 

“Huh… I need to pee,” he blurted. He thrust the page he was holding to Archie and then practically ran from the room.

He went to the tiny loo at the back of the house. The air wasn’t quite as burningly warm here, although that might only be the result of not being in close physical contact with the man of his dreams any longer. Chuck splashed cold water on his face and stared himself down in the mirror. He sternly told himself to cut it out. He was here for paperwork. What kind of weirdo was seized with the urge to kiss somebody over paperwork? 

He took a minute to gather himself then went about his business as well he could in the closet-size bathroom. Well, the upside was that if there was one place in the galaxy that could make a man feel unsexy, it was definitely right here. Chuck banged his elbow into the shower stall door when he unfastened his pants. He sat on the toilet and realized that he could lean his arms on the edge of the sink from there. Archie owned a wicker laundry basket and he had to move it out of the way so he could open the door and let himself out. 

Chuck had used the last of the toilet paper and he didn’t see any storage space in the bathroom where more could be stashed, so he went into the kitchen and started opening cupboards, as he didn’t want to have to ask Archie. (Oh, the embarrassment!)

He did eventually find the extra rolls, although he also found a partially-disassembled device in one of the kitchen drawers. Chuck had seen the innards of enough radios to recognize one, but he was unfamiliar with that model. It was very small, portable, and looked set into a sort of slim bag with straps attached to it. A type of harness, perhaps?

He finally realized what he was looking at, like the feeling of a lightbulb going off in his head. Of course he knew what it was! Evans had told him all about that sort of things. Without thinking, he walked back into the living room and grinned at Archibald. 

“Hey boss, I didn’t know you were into remote sports!”

The man blinked at him. “... Am I into what?”

“So what is it? Zero-G Hiking? Air surf? Oh! I bet you’re a cloud diver! In and out of the eye of the storm, eh?”

Major Montgomery frowned and set his notebook aside. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“Oh I just saw your sport radio in there,” he explained casually, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. 

Archibald jolted, his eyes widening. 

“Nice little compact model! You know, Evans was telling me he wanted to buy something like that in case something happened to him when he base jumps down on planet. What sort of range are we looking at?”

The major’s face went through several expressions in quick succession. “... Not much,” he finally said slowly. “It’s a horrible model. More trouble than its worth.”

He got up and walked right up to Chuck, making another one of his hesitant, abbreviated gesture before finally laying his hands on his shoulders. “There’s no need to mention it to Evans. In fact, I’d like you to forget about that thing altogether. The... cloud diving... was nothing but a passing fancy and a failed endeavour.”

Chuck brought a hand up to cover Archie’s on his shoulder, because he was a weak, weak man and his trip to the bathroom hadn’t been as successful at calming him down as he’d hoped. It was warm and soft to the touch, and the skin contact made little bubbles fizzle in his brain like it was filled with champagne. Which might explain why he then went and said the absolutely, totally, extremely dumb thing that came out of his mouth next. 

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, buddy. I can see that the thing gave you problems, it looks broken as fuck. But you know what? My wife’s a big DIY radio gal. If you let her take a look at it I bet she could fix it right up for you.”

All the colour seemed to drain out of Archie’s face. He yanked his hands away and took a step back. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and then he rasped in a low voice: “Get out.”

“What?”

“Get. Out. I don’t want to hear anymore about this, or your wife, or you, ever again.”

“Oh shit,” said Chuck, whose brain had finally caught up to his mouth. “No, Archie, I didn’t mean that, it’s not what it sounds like —”

The major was vibrating with rage. “OUT!” he snapped, then grabbed Chuck by the arm and marched him forcefully out of the house.

He tried to defend himself the entire way to the door, but between his panic and the alcohol, none of the words came out right. He’d been tossed out before he knew it, the front door slamming shut behind him with painful finality.