When Edward woke up, it was to Elliot curled up against him in bed.

Last night was a bit of a blur, with the first part being filled with despair, and the second part… That was occupied with something fairly passionate but a little awkward. Especially since neither of them had done it before. But still, Edward didn’t think he could experience the euphoria he had experienced that night ever again.

Though, even as the sun streamed through the windows and his watch on the bedside table told him it was time to get up, he just wanted to stay, at least for just a bit longer. It just felt so warm under the sheets and the touch of his- And he only just realised he could say it, boyfriend, made his heart flutter and soothed his mind.

But still, he needed to get up to get on duty and he didn’t want to be caught like this by anyone.

Carefully, and gently with a little pain to his heart he then started to move Elliot arm away, only for him to stir, his eyes slowly opening.

“What is it..? I-Is it late?” he yawned.

“Not too late, its eight AM.”

“You’ve gotta work soon then..?”

“Yeah, but trust me, I don’t wanna get out.”

“Then could you-”

Edward leaned in and kissed Elliot on the head, cradling his cheek for a moment as they smiled before Edward started to finally slink out of bed.

On the floor in front of him was a messy pile of all of their clothes. Shifting through them and the small set of fresh ones he had on hand, he managed to sort out a full type 3A uniform. That type of uniform was simply a set of straight black trousers, a white shirt with shoulder board, a cap, and a black tie. Formal, but not too formal.

As he started to straighten everything and tried to make himself presentable, Elliot too started to get up. His slim, lightly tanned body was put on full display as they got out of the sheets and stretched, looking behind to see a rather flustered Edward, his mouth curling into a smile.

“Its rather nice to see how much you seem to admire me…”

“I- Uh-“

“Shush, its fine, I like it, and I’m wondering if we can have another private night where we can both- uh-“ A blush spread across Elliot’s face, breaking the look of confidence he had, “Enjoy each other a little more?”

Edward chuckled, “I’d love to.”

“Y-Yeah! S-sorry I lost it for a moment though, I’m not used to having a boyfriend and… You know! But I promise,” Elliot strode up to Edward, placing a finger on their lips, “I’ll get a lot better at making that flush come out at my will…”

Edward swallowed, “I-I think you’re already pretty good at that…”

Elliot laughed, giving Edward a quick kiss before going to shift through the pile of clothes.

----------------------------------------

Edward was getting through his work a lot easier today and had a much clearer mind than the day before. Draft after draft for various edicts, war plans, supply requests and forms for various other things were flying off of his keyboard with it’s thunderous sound filling the room.

Though, as usual, it was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in!”

The door creaked open, David showing himself in with a clump of papers under his arm. His face was far gentler this morning and he walked towards the table, “Morning, I hope you slept well. I know yesterday was hard on you…”

As he sat down, he stopped, his eyes squinting at Edward’s tie.

“David, what is it?”

David didn’t respond, instead looking over to the unmade bed, and then back to Edward, a smirk forming across his face as he muttered, “And the jackpot is all mine...”

“What did you just say?!”

David chuckled, “You and Elliot finally got together then and had a very adventurous night then?”

Edward flushed, his response curt, “Yes, we got together, and whenever or not anything happened is not something you should be probing into, Lieutenant Commander Andrews.”

David chuckled again, casually waving his hand, “Don’t worry, you know I have no interest in that stuff in any context. I was just wondering if you finally stopped skirting around your mutual attraction of each other and finally confessed. And now everyone can enjoy the cute display and not internally cringe when you two yet again get so close to actually saying it.”

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Edward’s eyes had narrowed, his glare piercing David, “And you’re not going to make fun of it at all? I know this is just the sort of thing you’d poke fun at me for.”

“Oh no! As a fellow enjoyer of men and women in romantic pursuits, it would be hypocritical of me to make fun of your cute, sugary sweet, and way too obvious affection for the dear diplomat, Rear Admiral Fletcher!”

Edward was now beet red, “Now are you actually here for business or are you just here to embarrass and toy with me!?”

“Oh no, I do have business to talk to you about before I go back up, but I couldn’t resist getting a jibe in. But uh, your tie isn’t your tie. It’s one of Elliot’s since it’s got those little grey threads in.”

“Oh shit!”

“Yeah, you might want to get that fixed before any official meetings…”

“And I can’t go running out to try and find him! Plus, I don’t have any fucking spares because I didn’t think I’d need one…”

David raised a finger, rummaging through his pockets and pulling out a curled up black tie.

"How did you know-"

"You must both be pretty good for first timers, since you’re louder than you both think. I burned through a LOT of whiskey trying to ignore you both last night…"

At that, Edwards face turned from a red, to a ghost white.

“Look, I didn’t want to hear it when I was going for a shit last night, but I did.”

“Are you-“

“No, I’m not making a joke about that, I know you’re already at your limit and I don’t want to end up being court marshalled for disrespecting a superior officer.”

“I’m glad you have some respect then…” Edward grunted as he swapped his tie, making sure to curl Elliot’s up nicely.

“Again, this isn’t new to you. Its just so infrequent that I suppose people can forget it.”

“Yeah, that means it too infrequent, especially for an officer.”

“I don’t think so, I’m a maverick!”

Edward let out a single chuckle, “And what was it that Alex said? “You’re not a maverick, you’re a dickhead!” I think it was?”

“I think it was, yeah. Well, in my heart I am one.”

“Which one, a maverick or a dickhead?”

David looked at Edward for a moment, “A maverick.”

Edward laughed, enjoying his opportunity to finally get back at him, if only in a small way. Which was probably just handed to him by David out of this rare moment of respect and kindness he had out of character now.

“So, David, business. We have delayed long enough, so what do you have?”

“Well. Sir. I was wondering what you’d be doing about the church in the country.”

Edward’s smile faded a little, “And why would you ask about that?”

“Because what you might do may be your biggest mistake yet.”

He swallowed, “And what decision would that be?”

“I know you want to disband the church at the first opportunity, or at least reveal the truth about it. And if you do so, you will be pissing a few people off and losing a great tool to keep all of the soon to be citizens loyal to the commonwealth.”

Edward’s mouth was left agape, “Are you suggesting we use this hateful, constructed religion, to control people like it has been for the last hundred years, all to keep people down in the gutters!?”

“I know you hate it Edward, I really do. But these people are not the well-educated citizens of the modern era. They have been viewing the world through the narrow set of lenses provided to them, and you can’t just snatch them all away within a few days of their home being occupied! We need to take this slow and take advantage of this while we can, to calm the public.”

“And I am not going to become to tyrant in my time in this position! I do agree that we can’t just speed ahead with every reform on the table, but we can’t use the hoodwinking of the populous by their previous rulers to justify our own actions. We have come here to be better than them. Far better than them! And I intend to smack a load of those motherfuckers with everything we can!”

David shook his head, “I know you have very strong principles mate. But I am your voice of pragmatism and the devil on your shoulder, so it is my job to point out the flaws in your idealism. And right now, there are some fairly large ones to do with the practicality of trying to rule what is effectively, a conquered populous. Some form of control other than the police is needed, and the people need a reason to be loyal to their new country other than some promises of investment that these peasants probably have no idea about, as they have no fucking clue what an economy is!”

“And while I will most certainly take quite a fair bit of your advice, I will not use the church as a stick or a carrot in any way. I won’t break the promises I have made to the people that this is a war of liberation and not one of imperialism.”

“And I won’t criticize you if you need to change your decision, but there is one thing I must ask of you.”

“And whats that?”

“That you at least start small with the deconstruction of the church? Post up a few posters on some billboards pointing out we are actually Ifcan and then moving onto why the religion was constructed in some posters. And after that, then making a proper speech to the masses once the word has spread a little and some people’s convictions are shaken.”

Edward slowly nodded, “Yes, I’ll do that. I’m not going to rush into it, don’t worry about that.”

“Good.”

Edward let out a sigh, “And did you have anything else you wanted to discuss with me other than a massive debate over this religion?”

David sniffed, hauling his files over to the other side of the desk, “I have an awful lot of paperwork for you to look through and rubber stamp for me. You’ve been away from the fleet for just a few days and the paperwork has already piled up. Again…”

“I thought I put all the stuff I needed to do on my laptop…”

“Mhm. And a load of the freight ship captains then threw a bunch of stuff at us when you left. Then the info probe came through, and, well… I probably should have mentioned this before…”

Edward’s eyes narrowed, “What is it?”

“Command has said that you’ll be the military governor for the kingdom for a week longer. Then our fleet will rotate back home, and we’ll finally get some shore leave as some other person becomes the operations commander and governor.”

He sat back in his chair, leaning backwards as he let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Somehow David, this brings me great relief, but also a little bit of sadness at the same time…”

“And whys that?”

“I wanted to wander around these familiar, but alien fields for a bit longer and I was ready for being the governor for at least a month to get some programs rolling. But I suppose…” Edward sighed, “I guess I’m going to have to start pulling some strings for those discount Concorde tickets…”

“You’re thinking about going to meet out buddies in Canada. Or…”

“I’m going to ask Elliot if he wanted that European trip, I promised him.”

David snorted, a little smile coming across his lips, “I guess you’re already planning a lot of dates then…”