It's a slow day. Couple of big freight ships running kilotons of hotplug computational blades out of the New Vilnius silicon foundries, and tankerloads of medical gel. All really straightforward, all with sub-professional quantities of drugs stashed in nooks and crannies that would take a search team a week to ferret out. They present their paperwork to be rubber stamped; Caz, without another option, stamps it. Enough years of this really makes you cynical.
But the Pride of Io is in the afternoon's transit queue.
Caz strolls to the café across from the office, grabs a crispy tofu salad and juice; barely picks up her fork before the Io's pilot drops noisily into the chair opposite, beaming, in an oil-stained hoodie and bedraggled cat-ears headband, and starts jiffling restlessly in place.
Caz looks her over, utensil poised over her food. "How much caffeine have you had this morning, Emberlee?" she says mildly.
Em looks marginally abashed. "One Rainbow Go?" she hazards, looking angelically earnest.
Caz looks pointedly to the side, where a poster as tall as she is announces the seasonal return of the Glitter Starbow Go!! "You wouldn't be trying to slip a technicality past me, would you?" she says.
"And two of those," the pilot admits, knee bouncing, and shoves a wad of thin, crumpled newspapers across the table. "Saved you the crosswords, cutie."
"One day, your heart's going to pop like a balloon," Caz says.
"I know!" Emberlee pulls a shamed face, just for a second. "I'm — I don't remember to take care of myself when nobody's there." She gestures down at her own vegan wrap. "But look! I knew you'd be here, so I have healthy lunch!"
"Emberlee—" Caz sighs. "I just wish you'd take your health more seriously."
"You're actually literally too good to me," Em says. "So, hey, got time to do my paperwork after lunch? Nudge-wink?"
"Well," Caz says dryly, "I know clumsy puppies never manage a proper job left to themself..." and, dammit, despite how many years they've been trading the same jokey innuendos back and forth, it's still good for her ego when Emberlee nearly chokes on a mouthful of wrap, cheeks pink.
"Fancy meeting you here," the pilot says cheerily, after they walk back to the office together and settle on opposite sides of Caz's desk, and theatrically lowers her voice, as if Caz isn't the only one who's been stationed here in years. "Do I bribe you now, or after the paperwork?"
"I know what your profit margins are like," Caz says dryly. "What are you planning to bribe me with, Em, pocket lint and a quarter-off coupon for Rainbow Go?"
"Even better than that!" Em says, making a huge show of patting all her pockets. "I've got a — pen?" She holds it up to squint at the faded promotional label printed on the barrel. "From a dental conference! Exotic. And — no, those are receipts, I need those for my accountant. Uh. Hair tie!" She pings it triumphantly across the room.
"Emberlee."
"Sorry, sorry, I'll just find that—" Em jumps up and rounds the desk, headed for the corner of the office where it disappeared, probably forever behind a filing cabinet; and pauses. "Actually," she says, pulling a weird face and rummaging in the back pocket of her jeans. "Actually, Caz —"
"What the fuck," Caz says, lips moving voicelessly, finding herself looking at a plain white gold band held in shaky fingers.
"—I used to think about all my routes as a loop between the loading and unloading ports at the ends," Emberlee says, shakier even than the time she thought Caz was going to bust her for smuggling. "I don't know when, but now it's all — figure-eights, around you in the middle. Think if I slip you this, you can look the other way from my terrible shortcomings, officer?"
"Oh, god," Caz groans, and hooks her fingers through Emberlee's belt loops to stop her from backing away, looking panicky. "Other people get romance, I get you putting yourself down in my office, when I'm legitimately meant to be booking your ship through — no, don't you dare put that away, gimme, no takesy-backsies. Yes."
"Yeah?" Em says, smiling while actually shaking. "...Yeah?"
"Yeah, let's be wives." Caz reels her in, wraps her arms around the pilot's waist, and buries her face in her hoodie, breathing her in. "I'm lying to everyone and saying you asked romantically," she adds, muffled.
Em sputters a laugh. "You're the best wife already," she says. "Hey. Hey, does that mean I finally get the sexy office on your knees, scum roleplay?"
"Fuck that," Caz says, hooks her foot around the office computer's power cable, and yanks. "Oh no! IT failure! Gotta close for the afternoon and hold everyone up! Shame. Guess I'll just have to go home to bed—"
"Oh my god I'm marrying an actual lawbreaker," Emberlee says, pretending to swoon.
"Should have thought of that before bribing me with crosswords and coffee for ten years," Caz says, and drags her down for a kiss.
