For kaneko: "JC comes to Chris for refuge in a futuristic (not sad) AU."

Chris laid out the tray of fruit from Delta Vega, real fruit and not synthesized ones, and checked the time on the chronometer with the same nervous habit he displayed every seventy-eight days. He was saved by the door-chime, and it slid open a second later to reveal JC, face tanned and laughing, jump bag slung over his shoulder. He looked exactly the same as he had the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.

"Hey, babe," JC said, and crossed the room to claim a kiss. "Mmm. Vegan? You're spoiling me."

"Missed you while you were gone," Chris said, and slid an arm around JC's waist.

JC nuzzled Chris's neck. "Mmm. You're looking kinda old this month. We in another timeslip? Last time I saw you, you were early twenties."

"I did the run to Eshtidál last week," Chris lied. "Got stuck in a future storm. I'll be back to in-stream sooner or later, next time I go out or something." He stroked JC's hair. JC had started noticing it a few years ago, but then again, one of the times they'd managed to meet up at Station 481, Chris had been seventeen and JC had been sixty-three. Relativity scouts learned quickly to take things like that in stride.

"Hazards of the trade," JC said, cheerfully. He was the best relativity scout that the Fleet had. Or was, since Chris had stepped down. "You'll have to tell me about it later. I had a quiet run. The most gorgeous irregularity stream I've ever seen. I could have sat there and stared at it for hours." He slid his fingertips under the waistband of Chris's pants. "Still spent most of it thinking about getting back to you again."

"Feeling's mutual, babe," Chris said, and buried his face in JC's hair. They would have four days, and then JC would pick up his jump bag and sling it back over his shoulder and take himself back down to his jump-ship and take off for the Rigel run, and sixty-one hours into the irregularity stream JC's converter would malfunction and he'd jump stream again. A rewind of seventy-eight days, fourteen hours, and thirty-one minutes. Back at the beginning. Ready for it all to happen again.

JC was twenty-seven. JC would be twenty-seven forever, quarter after quarter, run after run, forever and always, world without end amen, and no matter how many times Chris told him to replace the converter, no matter how many times Chris checked the ship, no matter how many times Chris tried to change it, relativity always won in the end.

"Hey," Chris said, against JC's neck. "Why don't I come with you this time?"

JC pulled back, and his eyes crinkled in a smile. "Can you take the time? I'd like that."

"Yeah," Chris said. "So would I."

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