THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"I said you're a goddamn sadist," you gasp. "I said stop teasing and fuck me." His awful wonderful fingers press up just enough to remind you how empty you are, and you bite your lip in a failed attempt to keep from keening.

 

You can hardly refuse that kind of invitation, but standing up reminds you that your horntips barely clear his shoulders. There's no way you're going to let him pick you up like you let Murfey— that was fun but this is, is, is a whole different sort of thing.

"Down," you order him, shoving again, crowding him, then settle yourself up close and arrange his hips as you like. You get his heavy thighs up over yours and press forward, ease your way in with your fingers, go as slow as you can just for spite. He's good. It's so good. You rest your forehead to his chest, panting, struggling for control, then give up, grab his bulge, and push the last little distance in hard. You want to bruise him, paint yourself all over him, carve yourself into him. Colonize and conquer. You suck marks all across where his gills aren't.

 

All you can say is 'yes' and 'fuck' in various combinations. It's never been like this; it's never been this good, this intense, this personal. You curl into him and pull his hair, nip at his shoulders. Try to move to meet him, frustrated by the tight space and slick tiles. Then he slams in hard, and you howl and nearly lose it right there. Your mantra aquires another word: "More! Yes, fuck, fuck you, yes, more, god." You are pretty much losing your mind and if he stops you're going to pop his head off like a bottlecap.

 

You want to hold out till he can't even manage any amount of words but the way he pulls your hair— the way he muffles his desperate keening against your shoulder, digs his teeth in— you empty yourself into him all in a gasping rush, shaking apart in his arms. By the time you've collected your wits he's making little angry frustrated growls, rolling his hips after your slackening bulge, and you replace your thoroughly satisfied mating tackle with your fingers. They slip in so easily, he's so slick, and you growl, "We're going to have to get toys for you, Kadros," pumping him hard with both hands, his clenching nook, the frantic strength of his bulge, "see how, how, how much you can really take, you fucking mountain, stuff you, f-fill you up to your back teeth, god. You're beautiful, you monster, you magnificent— bastard, hff. Fuck."

 

"I can take -- anything you can -- keep talking oh god ohmygod --" Your body arches and writhes as you come like a volcano. Only as it lets you down do you hear, in afterimage as it were, the crackling of breaking tile.

You hug him tight and blow a raspberry on his neck. "I broke your shower but it's totally your fault," you laugh softly.

 

You squawk and thrash, but it's no good, you're both slippery again and you yourself are once more very tired. You settle for nibbling his ear. There's probably more things to do tonight— a lot more— but right now you can't think of any.

"You exist to make my life difficult, you great big destructive jackass," you accuse him happily. You give his ear a final savaging, then settle more comfortably against him and huff a sleepy, contented sigh.

 

"It's my Purpose," you agree blissfully.

There's a part of your mind that's trying to remind you how you don't do relationships, and why, all the myriad reasons this is really dumb and all the ways it could go wrong. You choose to ignore it. If you can't take a risk in this dead-end posting, where can you? And it's been a long time since you were as happy as you are now, snuggled under the shower spray with this infuriating beauty, combing the last of the random bath products out of his hair with your claws.

After a while, you get out your phone and send some messages, rescheduling a couple of things you'd planned to do after your cooking shift today. Then you turn off the water and gather Aspera up, concentrating very hard on transporting him to his 'cupe without slipping or bonking him into things. "My legs are still shaky," you snicker.

 

"I should bloody well hope so," you inform him, and press a sharp kiss to his throat. "If I hadn't fucked you properly the first time I'd have to do it all over again. It'd just be embarrassing for all parties concerned. We'd have to put our clothes back on, and, and everything. No good."

 

"Considering our clothes are wrecked, that'd be a lot of work," you agree solemnly as you sink into the sopor with him. "Fortunately, I've never been so well-fucked in my life. I'm not going to be the type of kismesis who pretends it wasn't good when it was, so I hope you weren't expecting that."

You hope he was expecting a kismesis, not just a quick hatefuck. If you weren't so very relaxed (and slightly throbbing around the nether regions) you would be sort of anxious about that.

 

"I don't think I've caught you lying yet," you mumble. "It'd be cute to watch you try. I bet you go all blue 'round the ears."

You roll over a few times in the slime, getting cozy, then scoot properly up against his chest and nudge him sharply until he puts his arms around you.

"Bring me more soup," you tell him. "I demand lengthy courtship. Lengthy soups."

 

"I can lie!" you say indignantly, but then add, for the sake of accuracy -- thus validating his assessment -- "In a tactical situation, when necessary. Mostly by having no expression and saying as little as possible. Okay, I can stonewall."

He snuggles up and demands hugs, and your cardiovascular system suddenly feels too large for your ribcage. Courtship? Lengthy courtship! That means this isn't just a fling. You can't stop smiling. "Lengthy is my specialty. Some soups may be girthy as well."

 

You burble into the slime. "What about, hm— spirited? Vigorous? Can you manage that, Commander? I am having doubts."

 

"Spirited, vigorous, strong, and meaty, Captain," you promise. "I will spoil you for any other soup."

 

It's hard to stop giggling, even as you're falling asleep on him. "Promises!" you scoff at him. "Believe it when I see it. Taste it... whatever." You bop his face with a slimy hand.

 

"Pbth. I give you soup, you give me sopor. For shame." You kiss his horn. "Go to sleep, Erskin. I've got my tablet alarm set for our next shift, Lainey's got the conn, and the refit bays are empty. Nothing will go wrong."

Maybe that's a little pale for a blackrom, but what the hell, you're friends. Friends look out for each other, no matter how much they enjoy biting each other's necks.

 

DAYS IN THE FUTURE, ETC.

You're in Docking Bay 3, one of the smallish ones, set to receive a puzzlingly overdue Captain Eyesharp and her little Blockade Runner, the Zero-Sum Sex Game. They haven't been answering hails, though the Runner's been maneuvering smoothly enough through closing procedures.

"Captain," Galley says urgently, and you look inquiringly over at Kadros, who pulls his phone out. "Captain, something's wrong. Their helmsman—" then static.

You frown.

"Galley? I say, old thing, what's the matter?"

Nothing.

"Galley, we can refuse them if you've got some sort of suspicion—"

Too late. The ship's settling into its berth and the maintenance crews's trotting over, readying their diagnostics and manifests. The aft transportation portal irises open... and a wave of ragged, howling, black-blooded madtrolls come charging out. Your blood goes cold and you bolt for them— stumble, nearly fall— fuck, of all nights for this to happen, and you're useless—

"Kadros," you scream, frantic, waving your cane in idiot panic. The blackbloods, the ghouls, are tearing through your unprepared crew. "What do we DO?"

 

Your reaction is to break the glass cover on the nearest wall-mounted panic button with the butt of your rifle. As the emergency blast doors start to slam down, you grab Aspera by the waist and swing him around, so he's off balance and unable to resist when you plant your foot on his butt and shove him out into the corridor. The door slams between you.

You've got a hands-free earpiece hooked to your ear most of the time you're on duty these days, mainly so Galley won't keep running down your phone batteries by leaving speaker on. "We can't both get infected," you explain flatly as you begin picking off the ghouls, trying to save your own crew. "My immune system's stronger. I'll last longer."

 

Awfully nice of him not to say you're an inexperienced, unprepared cripple. You snarl into the receiver, hop up and down, then get just a little control of yourself.

"The Zero-Sum's a plague ship," you report over the intercom, trying to keep the shakes wracking you out of your voice. "Blackbloods, and we don't know how many lucid trolls are left aboard. Long-range fighters please standby for further instructions. Trolls in cargo, docking, helm, medical, and making areas please evacuate in, in a-an orderly fashion to the recreation and residential areas, then lock down for the night."

You snap back to Kadros's phone. Awful noises are coming from it, screams and roars, the deafening crack of rifles.

"How do I support you from here?" you demand. "I forbid you from, from dying, you're not allowed! What do you need, what can I get?"

 

While he was busy ordering evac and lockdown, you covered a couple of brave mechanics who dragged a (probably dead, to be honest) crewman away from the ghouls despite having been badly bitten themselves; during that time, those who weren't overwhelmed by the initial rush have armed themselves and rallied to you, and you're staging a tactical retreat to the cargo storage area. It takes a minute to reply, because there's a fair bit going on, which makes it hard to think ahead, but that's what you've been trained to do, and you're not going to let the side down.

"We'll need a medical team at North Cargo 6, have them wait til I let them in. We've got a few bad casualties already and I want to get them seen to as soon as it's safe to open that one door. I assume Sal's guys are researching this bug already? We can carry wounded out without spreading it as long as the medics wear gloves and nobody touches the blood or whatever?" Your hands are too busy for messing with your earpiece, so when you pause to give orders to your crewmen, Erskin gets it full-volume: "Stack those. No, just get in the forklift and shove it. I'll pay out of pocket, I don't care, get your thumb out of your ass and make it happen!" The rest is underlain by the splintering sounds of barricade-building in addition to the rest of the cacaphony. "Sorry, sir. Fortifying. There may be cargo damage. Anyway, once we stop their advance and evac the wounded, I'm going to need -- hmm -- six guys. Volunteers, combat vets if we've got them, no gung-ho rookies, I want steady nerves for close quarters work. We can't just push them back to the Zero-Sum, sir, there might be survivors on there. We have to secure the ship and search it."

It's not strictly necessary for your own immediate work, but you still have to ask -- "Is Helmsman Galgal okay? Why'd he cut out like that?"

 

You've looped Lainey and Arguus into the conversation— they'll get it done. Talk to Sal, get someone to arrange corridors for a straight shot to medical, look through personnel files for active combat experience. You already hear typing in the background—the other background.

You limp back and forth going "Yes," and "Right," and "Got it", feeling useless, until he asks about Galley. In all the mess, you'd forgotten— and he'll cut out if he wants to sit back and laugh at a disaster but that's— petty things, electrical malfunctions, something rancid dropped in the vents. prickly weeds getting planted instead of carrots. He might have let a plague ship aboard back in your first sweep together but surely not now— and he warned you. He tried to warn you.

He warned you too late, some uncertain part of you says.

"I'll go see," you tell Kadros. "It— it wasn't like him. Isn't. He couldn't have engineered this."

You trot off fast as you can to his helm, rousting the stragglers and the skeptics as you go. It seems to take forever to get to his door, with all the yelling and moaning and crashing about in your ear. When you arrive you pound on the door for access.

"Galley!" you shout. "Galley what's going on? Enkidi, please! Talk to me, what's happening?"

No answer for ages, until you're nearly ready to rip his door off his hinges, break your solemn oath, anything, until the door lurches, slowly, open.

Galley's on his feet, straining at the very edge of his rig to reach the door with his clawtips. He's covered in sweat and shaking— sparking. Once the door is open he drops down and curls into a ball, convulsing, crying with pain.

"Authorized," you yell, "Captain's override, suspend the punishment routines— fuck, Captain Erskin Aspera, countermand all, all, a-all orders, Helmsman Galgal is to act according to his own discretion, starting— starting— an hour ago. Fuck, oh, fuck." You've knees beside him, your hands hovering awkwardly over his body.

"Can I get you back in your sling?" you ask, and he nods jerkily. You heave him up, check the wires for tangles.

"The other— the Zero-Sum's infected," he says, slurring thickly. He's bitten his tongue, the ports that were under strain have inflamed yellow rings.

"Yes, we gathered that," you say. You want to pet his hair. You want him to pet your hair. You would probably be pale for a rock right now, though.

"No. No. The, the, the, the, the— fuck. The. Helmsman. The Zero-Sum, her. She's got it, she attacked, she dragged her whole crew here to attack and then she went after me. I'm blind in here, I couldn't even open my own damn door. Fucking blind."

You realize that the atmosphere in the block is thicker than you've ever felt, breathlessly dense, static prickling across every bit of skin. The biowires don't spark, where they cross, they don't pulse. Galley's still plugged into the system, but—

"You're uncoupled? Off— offline?"

"We're dead in the water, Captain," Galley says, and giggles hysterically. He's trembling hard enough to set his hammock swinging.

"Kadros," you say into your phone. "Galley's suffered some sort of attack from the Zero-Sum's infected helmsman, he's— offline. What do you make of it?"

"Is that Bel?" Galley asks. "Give— give him—" he grabs your phone.

"Bel," he says, sounding horribly scared and small. "Bel, I can't SEE."