Eli's Room

Disclaimer: Stargate Universe belongs to other people, MGM I think. Whoever it is, I'm not them. The only thing I can claim to is the fanfic idea and the strange places my mind sometimes goes.

Notes: This started out as a humour 'it's not like it looks/sounds' fic and kind of spiralled out a bit. I know some of the characters are off, but I blame the rabid plot bunnies for that. It's an infestation; they just won't leave me alone until they get what they want.

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"I'm just saying," Sgt. Greer said as he and Lt. Scott walked the ship's corridors. "You're developing a bad habit of being carried back through the 'Gate."

Matt stopped them by an alcove and, of course, denied it. "I am not!"

"You're two for two!"

"Alright," Matt confessed, a grin on his face. "Admittedly, that does look a little bad."

The two laughed for another minute before Greer suddenly nodded his head. "Check that out."

Matt turned where Greer was looking and saw something a little odd. Across from a small common area nobody used a brunette head poked through a door and nervously looked both ways. She seemed to miss them, their little alcove was a favourite of Matt's for catching Chloe in the halls; easy to see out, hard to see in. After a moment Dr. Lisa Park walked into the hall, nervously smoothing her hair and clothes before heading out of view with a forced casualness in her stride.

"Isn't that Eli's room?" Greer asked.

"I thought so… but-" Matt was cut off when the door opened again and the question got answered as Eli stepped out. "Huh… go Eli!"

Greer looked over at him with a grin and shook his head. "Who'd of thought?"

"Eli!" they heard a familiar voice call and saw Lt. Vanessa James jogging down the hall. She stopped next to Eli, but the two were too far away to hear what she said to him. Whatever it was, they saw Eli shake his head in the negative, only to gulp and take a step back at the look she sent him.

With a vigorous nod Eli opened his door and motioned her through. For a second Matt wondered if he imagined the extra sway in her hips as she walked into the room. His jaw dropped when he saw her pull her shirt over her head just before the door slid closed.

"What the hell!"

"Wow, didn't see that coming!"

Matt took a step forward only for Greer to stop him with a tight grip on his upper arm. "Don't go there, man. You're not with Lt. James anymore. Chloe, remember?"

For a moment it looked like Matt was going to ignore him and Greer wondered if he was going to have to tackle his friend. Not that he would be particularly bothered by Eli getting the crap kicked out of him, but Rush worked faster with his help. The faster Rush worked, the faster they all got home. Eli in traction wouldn't help anyone.

Besides, he knew they were friends. Matt would regret it later.

Then the moment passed and Matt relaxed, though he still kept his eyes on the door. "That's it, man. Let it go,' Greer told him before grinning. "Besides, did you see the look on his face?"

Finally Matt looked down and chuckled, the tense moment broken. "He did look pretty intimidated."

"Intimidated!" Greer laughed. "More like terrified."

"Lieutenant Scott," Colonel Young's voice barked over the radio. "Report to the Gate Room immediately."

"C'mon Lieutenant," Greer said, slapping Matt on the shoulder before he started walking off. Matt gave the door one more look before following.

A few hours later and Greer had pretty much put the incident out of his mind. That is, until he was walking the same hallway and saw Airman Julia Graves coming from the same direction as Eli's room. The pretty young blonde looked more relaxed than he could remember seeing her, a slight smile adorning her normally serious features.

For a moment he was brought back to a similar smile on Dr. Park's nervous face as she snuck out of Eli's room that morning. He quickly shook the thought away. There was just no way someone like Eli was getting that much action.

With that in mind he kept walking. As he rounded a bend in the corridor a sight brought him up short and he thought he may have to re-evaluate his opinion of the math geek. He had only caught her from the back, but there was no mistaking that the woman who had just entered Eli's room hand-in-hand with the man himself was Chloe.

He didn't know how long he stood in the common area staring at the door and trying to figure out what was going on. It must have been awhile because the last he had checked Matt was on the other side of the ship, or at least what they could access of it, not standing beside him waving a hand in front of his face.

"Matt?" Greer asked somewhat dumbly, not yet back to firing on all cylinders.

"Welcome back," Matt said with a chuckle. "Have you seen Chloe? I've been looking all over for her."

For his part, Greer really did try not to let Matt know the answer to that. Matt was normally pretty even tempered, but finding both of his girlfriends with Eli on the same day would be a little much. It's not like they even knew exactly what was going on behind closed doors anyway. For all they knew it could be completely innocent. Not likely, but it could.

And, though Greer only begrudgingly acknowledged it, he liked Eli. Sure he hadn't really given a damn either way at first. Just another science geek and one that spent far too much time and got on far too well with Dr. Rush for his taste, but he had proved he had balls when he held the Gate open for them like that. The kid kind of grew on you after awhile. His innocence and awe was a little refreshing.

So, yah, he really did try.

It was his eyes that gave it away in the end. A minute movement, barely a moment in time, but Matt had caught his unconscious glance at the door across the hall.

Matt was at the door in a few quick strides and it was all Greer could do to grab him he entered the code he knew Eli had given him for emergencies into the door lock.

"You really want to barge in there Lieutenant?" he asked, wondering when he became the voice of reason around here. That just wasn't right. "For all you know it could be completely innocent."

"Ohhh Eli," a decidedly female voice purred through the door. "That feels so good!"

"Ok, that didn't sound so innocent," Greer commented as he watched Matt spin and jab buttons so hard he briefly wondered if the panel would spark its protest. A part of him wanted to head either direction down the corridor as fast as his boots could take him. Eli getting down with it was not something he particularly wanted to witness.

Instead he resolved himself to stay. He didn't think the Lieutenant would actually hurt Eli, not really. Matt was a good guy, normally calm and easy going and not a particularly violent person. Oh, he could do violent as well as the next soldier, better than most really, but he certainly didn't resort to it when there were other options. Still, even good people did things they regretted later when they weren't thinking straight, and Matt definitely wasn't thinking straight right now.

So he stayed in case things got out of hand. As the door started to open he prayed to God that they were under a sheet in there. There were some things of Eli's he never wanted to see. What he actually saw when the door opened was something he hadn't been expecting though.

Eli and Chloe were both fully clothed, minus some shoes and socks on Chloe's part. Eli's head snapped quickly to them startled, but Chloe's lazily turned in their direction when Eli paused in what looked like a very thorough foot rub.

"Uhhh, hi guys?" Eli said awkwardly as they stared dumbfounded at the scene.

"What's going on here?" Matt asked eventually, thrown off from a finding something considerably more innocent then he thought.

Chloe smiled over at him and said, "Eli's a masseuse."

"Masseur," Eli corrected automatically before adding, "After I dropped out of MIT I took some massage courses. I thought it would be fun until I had to work on my first four hundred pound man and decided it wasn't the job for me."

"He's good at it though," Chloe added.

Eli smiled at her for a moment before he looked over at them and frowned. "I'm still not sure how people are finding out about it though. I haven't got a moments peace all day. Maybe I should start making appointments?"

"I though a massage was a shoulders and back thing?" Matt blurted out suddenly, still a little thrown by this new information about his friend.

Chloe shrugged. "I like foot rubs."

Matt made a mental note of that for next time they were alone before Eli added, "It's more of an all over thing, but we'll get the knots up there later."

"Wait a minute," Chloe said as the foot rub induced haze seemed to lift and she shot a glare Matt's way. "What exactly did you think was going on before you barged in here?"

Greer took a noticeable step away from Matt. On the battlefield he would die for the man, but there was a difference between being a good soldier and friend and just being plain suicidal. Given the artic glare coming from the pissed off girlfriend, he decided he didn't want to be in the line of fire.

For his part, Matt sputtered trying to come up with something to say. There was no good way for him to answer this and he knew it. Still he had to say something and prayed that when he opened his mouth something would come out that wouldn't get him hit. Or, would at least get that look pointed somewhere else. "I-"

"Shut up!" Chloe bellowed, startling him as she pointed behind him. "Out!"

"Chloe-" he tried only to be cut off again.

"Get out!" Matt took an involuntary step back when Chloe stood looking absolutely livid. For a moment he thought she actually was going to hit him. Instead he was actually glad when the door slid shut in his face because the force she had hit the close button with definitely would have left him with an ugly bruise. When he regained consciousness.

He stood there staring at the door for several long minutes wondering how he was going to make it up to Chloe, and Eli too he supposed, for thinking the worst. Then Greer gave him a slight shove to get him walking down the corridor again. "C'mon, it's almost chow time. Let's get our daily gruel. Maybe she'll be in a better mood when magic-fingers in there gets through with her."

Inside Chloe sat back down, her posture tense and angry as she glared at the door. Then she sighed and her eyes fluttered closed as hands gently worked the knots in her neck and shoulders.

"You shouldn't be so angry you know," Eli told her as kissed that spot behind her ear he knew she liked. "We both know that if he had barged in a few minutes later…"

Chloe sighed and tried to keep her train of thought through the double assault of massage and kiss. "I know, it's just…"

"The fact that he barged in at all and automatically assumed the worst. Of both of us," Eli finished for her, dropping his hands from her shoulder and sliding back on the bed. She missed the contact, but turned to face him. "It's not like he was really wrong though. We have to tell him eventually."

"I know. It's just, Vanessa and I didn't find out about each other until she caught us making out," and god, she hated how petty that made her sound. She had just been so hurt and angry. Matt hadn't even noticed how much she had distanced herself from him after that. They hadn't even kissed or touched since.

It's not like she ran straight to Eli after that. He wasn't some rebound guy. She just started to notice all the little things that had been there all along and she had somehow overlooked. He was a great guy and she had been surprised how much it bothered her when others started to take notice of it too. So she did something about it and never looked back. She had never been in a relationship with someone who made her feel this happy.

The full body massages he gave that left her a moaning puddle of flesh were just a really good bonus.

"I know it's a total cliché," Eli said. "But two wrongs really don't make a right."

Chloe laughed. He had a point; it was definitely clichéd, but no less true. "You're right," she admitted.

"So we tell him. Soon," he told her, a half smile on his lips. "Though, I'm all for waiting for a time he doesn't look like he'll pull his gun on me."

She laughed again before she crawled over and straddled his lap. "So, these other women," Chloe said changing the subject with a smirk on her lips and playfulness in eyes. "How many of them got a happy ending?"

"Well, I'm not one to kiss and tell," Eli said as he captured her lips in a brief but smouldering kiss. "But you're the only one I'm inclined to give a happy ending."