Title: Cabin Fever

Summary: When in warp, things can happen. Slash. Arumat/Edge

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean; The Last Hope.

The crew of the Calnus was friendly and cheerful and extremely close-knit, almost like a family. Arumat didn't mind that, it was how a crew, who spent so much time in warp with no company but their own, should be. He just wished they would stop trying to drag him into it. He was only here until the lad that Crowe had taken returned.

So he retreated to the battle simulator. He was willing to admit that it was something of a masterpiece. No Eldarian ship had anything similar. The simulator computer could produce holographs of the monsters they had found along the journey, recreated from the data that Edge and Reimi had painstakingly collected along the way, or of the crew of the Calnus itself, complete with symbology and special skills. He could even fight himself. At first, the holographic Arumat had been insultingly easy to defeat, but the more time he spent in the simulator, the more data the computer collected on him, and the more 'real-to-life' the holograph became.

He had fought the holographic Edge several times, but found it an inferior opponent to the real thing. It had his attacks, true, and made a passable effort at his reaction time, but lacked his instinctive strategy. The others called it recklessness but on the battle field it was sheer genius, and it had caused Arumat to admit defeat to the young captain the once they had fought. Truthfully, he still could have continued, and though Edge had been tired he had been nowhere near exhausted, but fighting inside a spaceship was always somewhat risky and Arumat had no desire to push his bad luck.

He was contemplating what setting to put the simulator on when the door 'whooshed' open. He sighed. It was undoubtedly Edge. Every time they were on the ship, the young Captain made certain to talk to everyone. It was good leadership, yes, but it was also damned annoying.

"Oh, hey, Arumat!" came the cheerful call. Arumat suppressed the desire to punch him in the face that had been rising ever since the incident in the storage room. He knew enough now to realise that the Lesser Fellpool meant no harm but the captain had definitely been mocking him. Possibly offering himself as a target to spare the cat-girl, but mocking him all the same.

"What?" he asked curtly, hoping that the conversation would be short.

It seemed he was out of luck, though, as Edge sauntered over. "Just came to see how you were, I guess." He shrugged.

"I'm fine. You can leave now." Even sheer, outright rudeness didn't seem to deter him. It wasn't that Arumat didn't like or respect him, because he did, he would just rather that the captain go away right now.

"Did you want to spar?" Edge asked instead of leaving. Arumat growled, patience worn thin, and two quick steps brought him close to the young captain.

"Would you just leave?" He bit out.

Edge opened his mouth to argue, but Arumat had had enough. He had the blond slammed up against the wall of the simulator before the first word had formed, an arm braced on either side and using his extra mass to crowd the smaller man. At this distance the height difference between them was thrown into stark relief. Arumat towered over him, glaring down with every drop of the irritation that had been building all day.

Edge stared back, eyes wide with surprise. He made no move to shove Arumat away. He had no leverage, and Arumat was both stronger and heavier than him, but the silver-haired man would have moved because his objective was merely to intimidate the captain into leaving.

But Edge didn't even try. "What-?"

Which was just irritating, Arumat decided. Couldn't he even try to be a little afraid with the bad position he found himself in? Clearly he had no survival instinct.

With a growl, he ducked his head and forced their lips together, prepared to back off at any moment, when the situation sunk in. Edge tensed in panic against him, muscles going rigid, and Arumat waited for the shove but it still didn't come. After a heartbeat, Edge went slightly limp, pressed up against the wall, mouth slightly parted. Not quite kissing back, but yielding.

Bluff called, Arumat had two choices, back off and let him know it, or keep going. It wasn't really a choice at all.

He forced his tongue forward, through those parted lips. For a kiss, it was demanding and aggressive and conquering. For a half second, Edge didn't react at all, but then he was kissing back, tentative and unsure. It wasn't the tentativeness of the unexperienced, which Arumat might have expected if he'd thought about it at all, but of confusion, as if he'd joined a fight halfway through and didn't know what the rules were.

The tentativeness faded quickly even as Arumat kept him like that, uncomfortably crowded up against the wall with his chin forced up at an extreme angle so their lips could meet. His hands crept up from their loosely held position at his side and ran along Arumat's braced arms, skimming along the fabric of his gloves and jacket. The touch was light and filled with something like fascination, or wonder. One hand traced along his collarbone before dipping down his chest, following the planes of muscle and ropey scar tissue. The other curled up the back of his neck and threaded through his hair.

It wouldn't have been so bad except that the hand in his hair brushed against his ear and he groaned involuntarily, pressing his body forward into Edge. He suddenly realised that it had been far too long since he had been this close to another living person and that this was going to go much further than he'd ever intended.

Plans never survive first contact with the enemy. Which was completely unfair, because he'd never had a plan at all.

The hand in his hair paused, then backtracked, until the thin leather of the captain's glove was brushing over his ear again. He swallowed the groan that wanted to rise in his throat, having half expected it. Edge never knew when to leave well enough alone.

They were already pressed chest to chest against each other, so he shoved a knee forward, slotting it between Edge's thighs. The captain could probably feel the hardness forming in his groin pressed up against his hip, but he didn't react. So Arumat pulled his mouth away, and bit at the skin of the blonds exposed neck. Edge yelped softly.

"Keep that up," Arumat warned, because he hadn't intended it to come to this, "and this won't stop."

Edge breathed unevenly, air puffing in and out against Arumat's cheek. "Okay," he agreed unsteadily, but his hand didn't stop, thumb still running along the shell of Arumat's ear.

Arumat blinked down at him and wondered what the hell was going through his head. However, it was extremely unlikely that he was ever going to understand, and there were far more interesting things to be doing right now.

He stripped off his gloves and carelessly dropped them to the floor. He took the chance to run his hands up and down Edge's body. There wasn't a lot of bare skin between them, which, Arumat thought, needed to be fixed immediately. Except, the bulky SRF armour was unfamiliar to him, and he had no idea of the location of it's clasps.

He pulled back. "Strip," he ordered, taking the chance to shed his own jacket. He didn't bother with his pants, beyond loosening them for some momentary relief. The location alone told him that this wasn't going to be a long drawn out encounter, without even considering the people involved.

Edge looked somewhat dazed and ruffled, and his cheeks were distinctively flushed, but he fumbled with the buckles and catches on his SRF armour. The top clanked to the floor and he had to divest himself of his boots before he could take off his pants, but soon all he was wearing was his gloves and arm guard. It was a surprisingly pleasing picture and Arumat shoved him back up against the wall with another forceful kiss. Edge went willingly and shivered as his back hit the cold metal of the wall. One of his hands dragged across Arumat's abdomen and traced across the scars while the other threaded through his hair to return to playing with his ears.

The sensation was so intense that it was just short of painful. He groaned again, hips jerking forward and pulled away slightly to kiss wet and open mouthed along a chin free of stubble and down a trembling throat. His hands wandered across naked skin, one ending up curled around a pale hip, the other splayed across a muscular chest. Edge shivered as fingers rubbed across his nipple, so Arumat flicked his thumb back across it, the ragged edge of his nail making Edge gasp.

He kept teasing them, finger and thumb rolling around, as he kissed and bit and licked at smooth skin, his other hand skimming back up to press two fingers against gasping lips. Edge took them in, sucking slightly, tongue coating them liberally in saliva.

It was… distracting and he wondered for a fleeting second what it would be like… but no. There was no use in 'what ifs'. No use at all.

He nudged his thigh forward again, slipping it easily between Edges'. It pressed them together in a whole new way, and Edge gasped, hips stuttering forward.

He smirked and trailed his hand down to hoist one leg over his hip before sliding his fingers from Edge's mouth with a wet 'pop'. Saliva wasn't the best lubrication ever, but it was good enough. Edge breathed deeply and his muscles trembled as he consciously relaxed. His head rolled back to rest against the wall, and Arumat stroked his hip reassuringly as his fingers pressed and stretched.

Arumat didn't rush - he might be rough, but he wasn't careless - just shifted forward until he could press their lips together again, distracting him with demanding tongue and scraping teeth. The hand on Edge's hip moved inward, over the crease of thigh, to wrap around his cock and stroked slowly upwards. The sound he made was … interesting, and definitely something that Arumat was going to remember when the captain annoyed him next.

He kept it up, kissing, stroking, stretching, until he thought it was enough and he pulled back - ignoring the sound of muffled protest that Edge made - to finally fumble with his own pants. He didn't bother to remove them, just let them slide down his thighs and took a deep steadying breath. He ran his tongue around his mouth to collect saliva for lubrication when Edge sunk to his knees, grasped his hips for balance, and ran a wet tongue up the underside of his cock. It felt so damn good that Arumat groaned and braced both arms against the wall for balance.

Edge drew him into his mouth, tongue lathing away, spreading saliva everywhere. The feeling was wet and hot and Arumat luxuriated in the sensation for a while, breath coming in uneven pants, before grabbing the captain's shoulders and pulling him up.

Edge followed willingly, using Arumat and the wall to support his weight until he could wrap both legs around the older man's waist, hooking his ankles together. Arumat grunted slightly, using one hand to support Edge and the other to guide his cock forward to nudge against Edge's entrance. He moved slowly, despite the impatience that was fast building beneath his skin. He almost managed, distracting himself with mouthing patterns onto Edge's collarbone when there was a jolt of pleasure arching down his spine and he realised that Edge was licking his ear.

It shouldn't have affected him as badly as it did, but his hips jerked forward, slamming his full length into Edge roughly, coaxing another of those intoxicating whimpers from the blond. Arumat let out a helpless low hum of pleasure that wasn't helped when the tongue kept moving and a hand is crept through his hair to reach his free ear. Which meant, Arumat decided, that the time for patience was long since over.

He rocked his hips backwards, drawing nearly all the way out before slamming back in. The motion shuddered up the blond's body, moving them chest against chest and dragging the trapped cock between them across the scarred skin of Arumat's abdomen. Edge whimpered again, and Arumat reached between them, circling it with his hand, dragging slowly as a counterpoint to the fast movement of his hips.

It forced him to change the angle of his thrusts, and the next few were choppy and short until he found an angle that made Edge gasp in surprise and shiver all over. Arumat smirked into his shoulder and bit down lightly before soothing it with his tongue. He set a pace that was fast and almost rough, hitting that same spot over and over again. Edge moaned breathlessly and his hands dropped to Arumat's shoulders, scratching and clawing at his back.

"Yes, yes," Edge panted and when Arumat glanced up at his face, he was flushed and his pupils were dilated so badly they covered the entire green iris. He looked… tempting. Arumat leant in and kissed him hard, just as Edge whined, the sound long and stretched out, as he came all over Arumat's hand. The orgasm shuddered through his entire body, tensing everywhere then going limp and boneless in Arumat's hold.

Arumat groaned and upped his pace, thrusting forward ruthlessly, breath coming in uneven gasps. He was dammed close, the pressure building and building until it simply had to be let off. He choked off a sound, buried to the hilt within his captain, and came.

Edge blinked lazily, resting his chin on Arumat's shoulder, trying to work out what just happened. The specifics were clear enough, given that he was still wedged between Arumat and the wall, still had his legs wrapped around Arumat's waist and was still impaled hilt deep on his cock. And, god, the way Edge felt right now, he wasn't sure how Arumat was standing, let alone holding them both up.

The problem lay with trying to work out how they came to that situation. Edge always liked to check on his people while they are in warp, because the isolation, the lack of space and privacy, could get to people. And it was better to deal with arguments amongst the crew immediately, before they could fester. So when he'd noticed that Arumat was being snappy and had retreated to the battle simulator, he'd followed him to talk. It would probably have devolved into an argument, but if Arumat was going to yell at anyone on board, Edge would have preferred it to be himself. And he was pretty sure that Arumat would have rather yelled at Edge than anyone else.

Except that hadn't happened. He'd come in, and Arumat had shoved him against the wall. Edge had been pretty sure that Arumat wasn't going to hurt him. He looked mean and nasty, but he wasn't really the type for unprovoked acts of violence. So he hadn't fought back and…

Well, he hadn't expected that.

"I warned you," Arumat muttered into his neck.

Edge blinked again, wondering what he was talking about. He vaguely remembered something about don't touch the ears. Which meant he couldn't help but reach up and give one a tweak. "I think I'm pretty happy with how this turned out."