The kinds of dreams Paolo had usually fell into two categories: pleasantly sexual and unpleasantly sexual. There were probably other boring dreams but he rarely remembered those. The pleasantly sexual ones were enjoyable while they were happening and left him grumpy after waking up; the best gave him a good chuckle afterwards because the cast of people featured in the dream was ridiculous (young and old versions Hoffman at the same time, seriously?!).The unpleasantly sexual dreams also had two variants. The majority were disturbing while they were happening, but once Paolo woke up, he could find the thrill in remembering them and enjoy himself that way. The rest were about Avishek.

It was more of a memory than a dream, just artistically remixed into a single event as opposed to things happening over the years. In the dream, Paolo would meet Avishek for the first time and hate him immediately. Avishek would already know all of Paolo’s failures in the simulator and loudly announce them to the crowd. And Paolo would be fed up with it right away and get into a fight with him in the middle of a busy mess hall. And there, straddling Avishek and ready to punch him again, Paolo would realise what he really wanted is not to hurt him. Well, to hurt him differently. To lean in and bite into his neck. To pull at his hair while their faces were close as to see every second of his reaction. To…

And it would be a very scary realisation. And even scarier, he would see that Avishek could read this in his expression. And want the same. And Paolo’s life would start cracking at the seams at that very moment, because, in the dream, everyone would see it too. And they would gather around Paolo and Avishek, entangled on the floor and naked, and stare down. Silent, faceless, and judging.

Waking up from this dream didn’t bring any relief because Paolo was still living in the outcome. He couldn’t say “thank the stars, that’s over” because nothing was over about it. Him and Avishek managed to keep this obsession with each other secret for three years. Three years of sex in storage spaces, hangars, and spaceship sanitary units. What was meant to be once a quarter meetings turned into once a month, then once a week, and then every other day. They were stupid but they couldn’t stop. And eventually, someone saw them and reported it up the command chain. So they got stripped of rank, court-martialed in a mockery of a public trial, and stamped. In their last conversation, Avishek blamed Paolo for breaking his life, as if Paolo’s life didn’t get destroyed at the same time. And they haven’t met since.

So yes, Paolo didn’t have a great morning. At least, no one bothered him through his shift. He didn’t even listen to Richard reporting despite all the delicious spiteful vibes coming off of him. He was not ready to enjoy them today. He spent most of his time at the station switching between playing txint and leher on the public board, depending on which had available opponents. It wasn’t as fun as playing in person, because bluffing and cheating was impossible, making them games of pure chance with no skill required. He didn’t win as often as he would prefer.

Currently, Paolo was laying on Miguel’s bed, a tablet under his tongue, blissful numbness spreading through his brain. Ha-neul was leaning back on his folded legs, the same blank expression on her face; she was scrolling through something on her interface but probably couldn’t read anything. Text recognition was always the first thing to go, in Paolo’s experience, and he loved that: so many of his problems went away if he couldn’t read shit on the inner boards. Miguel was the only sober person in the room; they never drank or took chems and kept saying that they can get enough joy from their imagination without extra help. They were sprawled in the soft chair with a can of sugar pop in one hand and complained loudly about the Engineer First Class.

“I’m telling you, if I didn’t know better, I would presume she is horny about me or something. This kind of obsession is just unhealthy at this point.”

Paolo knew this was an exaggeration, but he didn’t care right that moment. Not caring felt amazing.

“And I had to cancel a delivery for the next hop in a hurry before we entered subspace. If this bitch doesn’t follow through on her threat to watch me, I’m not responsible for what I’m gonna do!”

Ha-neul looked up from the interface, her face bored. “Are you gonna fight her in the corridor or something?”

Miguel rolled their eyes and took a sip from the can. Paolo found this proposition hilarious and started giggling. “Imagine that. Hoffman won’t stop it just because he’ll be so surprised.”

Ha-neul joined him in laughter. Miguel sighed and glared at the two of them, unimpressed. “You guys are the worst when you are high. Why am I even friends with you?”

“Well, I am a delight, but I don’t know about Paolo. He is never sober.”

Paolo flipped them an obscene gesture. “If they wanted me sober, they should not have kicked me out of the military.”

Ha-neul whooped and repeated the gesture, joyfully. Miguel watched them sprawled on their bed and their grumpy expression slowly gave way to an amused smirk. “Bad dream again then?”

If not for the tablet, Paolo would have said something rude. Maybe, redirected it to them and brought back the chat about Koulibaly, only siding with her this time. But he didn’t care, truly didn’t, and so wasn’t even annoyed. “Eh, my brain wanted to torment me, but now I switched it off, so who’s the winner?”

The other two didn’t offer any objections. After a silent minute, Miguel smirked again. “So there is some juicy gossip spreading through the boards…”

Ha-neul groaned. “Don’t tell me! Someone fucked someone and now they are enemies. Is one of them Paolo?”

Paolo nudged her with his knee so she slid sideways to now lay properly on her back. She tried to kick him but was so sluggish, he could easily dodge, despite being slow himself. Honestly, it wasn’t that wild of a guess. He wasn’t even angry at her. “Not this week.” 

Miguel giggled, the thin nasty giggle they made only when they were sure they were about to piss someone off. “But you are not completely wrong! One of the people is indeed Paolo.”

His brain tried to perk up at this. Did someone see him and Petra? Will this upset her? Anger her? Will it get her in trouble? Then, the chems lulled the brain back into blissful numbness. Why should he care? She knew what she was getting into: Paolo’s reputation was not a secret to anyone, especially the Chief Steward. “I literally did nothing.”

“Oh yeah? So it was some other tall handsome man seen with the Third Pilot around the port shops?” There was Miguel’s trademark smug smirk. It was so punchable but luckily for them Paolo didn’t care right now.

Ha-neul raised her head to look at him. “Seriously? Are you giving fashion advice now?”

Paolo didn’t feel annoyed and so provided an honest answer without wriggling: “Richard walked into his Flight Academy reunion party wearing a Hopestar jacket. Because they don’t teach Care System kids to buy personal stuff, or something. I decided to be a good chief and help him acquire something new.”

Both Ha-neul and Miguel stared at him, she ‒  blankly, they ‒ sceptically.

“You expect me to believe you can do something out of the kindness of your heart?” Miguel raised their eyebrows.

“Of course not. I’m gonna fuck him.”

This made them let out a loud ‘ha!’ which they followed by downing the remaining pop from their tin can.

Ha-neul’s gaze trailed up to the ceiling and she pondered something for a moment. “I can’t see it. Isn’t he, like, small? He doesn’t look your type.”

“I slept with you, haven’t I?”

She tried to kick him again without any success. “I am literally twice his size and not just in width!”

“Don’t exaggerate, you are hardly a head taller than him.”

“That’s not the point, is it?!” She waved her hand in the air vaguely. “You are into… these superstar looking guys with wide shoulders and huge smiles… Or women with all the nice curves you can hold on to…” The last sentence was said in such a dreamy tone, he felt pity for Ha-neul. She really needed to get laid soon.

Paolo considered her words, thoughts rolling in his mind lazily. Was he into those things? Well, yeah, sure. But then, Petra didn’t really have much in terms of curves. She had amazing wide shoulders though. And Richard had none of the above, but it wasn’t the looks that mattered in that particular situation. The fun would come from turning his animosity into lust.

Fuck. That’s what he loved. The kinds of emotions that overshadowed everything else in his brain. Where both yelling and kissing may happen with equal probability, leaving you at the edge through the whole interaction. Yeah, he absolutely loved the thrill. Nobody else seemed to share it though. Nobody yet.

Miguel was tapping their now empty can to their lips, thinking about something with a smirk. “I remember very clearly that you swore to never hook up with anyone from the cockpit after what happened with Ndaw.”

They were really testing Paolo’s limits today. “That was because we had a normal relationship before we hooked up, and then she hated me. Richard already hates me, so there’s nothing to lose.”

“Stars, you are so messed up.” Ha-neul mumbled.

It was his time to kick her, and he didn’t miss. He needed another tab, one was never enough.

Having nothing to prolong his wonderful brain-off time, half an hour later, Paolo sat up on the bed and sighed. He felt annoyed at the unpleasant twitch in his calves, at the easy snoring of Ha-neul who was still blissfully high, at Miguel’s smug grin as they texted with someone on their interface. His brain was slowly returning to its earlier state of being sick of the world.

“Who are you sexting with?” Paolo asked, hoping he didn’t sound angry. He wasn’t angry. Not angrier than usual.

Miguel looked up with an amused rise of their eyebrows. “Not all of us are obsessed with sex so much we have to partake in it in all shapes and forms.”

He glared at them, hoping for their untimely demise. He imagined pulling out a rifle, shoving it in their mouth, breaking a couple of teeth, and shooting. Just once, no need to waste ammo. Or even better, no ammo would be wasted if he simply mashed their head into a pulp with the butt of the rifle, hitting them repeatedly. The rifles were sturdy enough to handle this stuff.

Miguel noticed something in his eyes because their smirk soured. “Dude, you are doing that thing again. Take a breath or something.”

Paolo fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling blankly. He held his breath. He focused on the anger and the sudden desire for violence and let it burn his insides for another second. Only then a rational part of him stirred and he inhaled sharply. He didn’t want to kill Miguel. He didn’t even want to hurt them, not really. Miguel was a friendly presence. None of what Miguel has said or done was the cause of Paolo feeling shitty.

Seemingly satisfied with his reaction, Miguel softly replied to the initial question: “Not sexting but I am definitely distracting a grav engineer from his shift. A cute guy, kinda new.”

Paolo turned his head to look at them. Miguel was smiling again, but it wasn’t as sincere as before. They eyed Paolo with wariness, ready to protect themselves or bite back if he dared to act on any of his dark thoughts. His brain started buzzing inside his skull.

“Grav engineer? How do you even stumble on one of those?” Paolo asked neutrally.

They chuckled. “I’m just good at attracting all the nice people. It’s not my fault you only meet all the other ones.”

And just like that, all his goodwill was gone. Paolo sat up with a sharp inhale, dropped his feet to the floor with a loud thud, waking Ha-neul and causing her to bleat something incomprehensible. Miguel kicked their soft chair away from the bed, pressing themself into the far corner and looking at him like he was dangerous.

He wasn’t. He didn’t have anything to really hurt anyone with.

He was just trying to fucking leave!

“I will be going.” Paolo hissed through his teeth and got up, stumbled due to a calf cramp but remained standing. Without looking at either of them, he went through the door, almost ran into a group of stewards, elbowed someone, and finally aimed himself towards his cabin. 

He had 12 hours before his shift. It was enough time for three more tabs.