THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"I'm one hundred percent certain, Kadros," you say, getting ahold of another tendril. "Let's hear them."

Coffee grounds, a moth's wing across your tongue, the smell of a desert storm. You refocus a trifle slowly. "...Wait, no. Wait. Nnn. Start over?"

 

You hadn't started yet, seeing that he was distracted. The pause was just enough time for you to rethink things. "On reflection, I'd rather not, sir. I would like us to pretend I didn't say anything, please."

 

"Right, yes," you say vaguely. You go after another bit: wind over dry grass, anemone tendrils between your toes, the taste of mud and pepper. Another: the chill frightening breeze of a hull puncture, a burning smell, something bitter and unpleasantly shrill dripping up your spine. You drop the two tendrils in the bowl and roll on your back a minute to collect yourself. Your breath sounds like green.

"They try and, and hook to. Your nervous system. But they're mad," you explain to the ceiling. "Mad little accidents. Pull 'em out and— 's weird. Is all. Garbage stimulus. Shouldn't be too much more...What about Wavebane?"

 

"If I had any ideas about Wavebane, they would undoubtedly be very military and... and... Alternian. So I think I will leave it to you to think of solutions, sir." You grimace at the bowl of still-wriggling tentacles. "How did that happen, though? Was it sabotage?"

 

"I... yeah. Yes, right." You tip your head over to look at him. "I... I, I lost my leg as a wiggler. Big shark took it off. Very bloody. Not the nicest night of my life. I got a prosthetic and it served well enough, but wasn't in good shape by the time I was brought 'Fleetside so there was an operation, a replacement. Didn't go so well. Got that cane..." A tremor goes through you, chewed metal foil and sour pudding, overwhelming. "...What? I. Right. Yes. Right. Alright. I demanded a better surgery, later, Lainey said... I thought... but, er, that didn't go well either. Went a lot worse, infection, miscalibrated hemotyping, poorly selected bacterial strains. And what's left down here is too much of a mess for me to want to risk a third go-round.

"But so—these little fellows are, hm, sort of buds? embryos? But after you get over how disgusting it all is, having a steady supply of impressionable bioware starters is pretty useful for the kind of work the helmstechs get up to."

You wave at your lower half, grinning just a bit mockingly— at Kadros and yourself, both. "Go on, Commander, tell me how unbefitting it is for a Captain to be incubating his own lovely little brood of baby horroroterrors. I'm all ears."

 

You shake your head slightly, grimacing. "Tell me the medic who botched the job isn't still aboard."

 

"Which...? Oh, right, no, no, I promoted Sal after the, the first hackjob, and the second mauling was done by a shipped in specialist. I was still throwing my rank around then. Early days, and all. Sal's not the smartest or the best—"

"Listening!" Sal calls from over by the sink.

"—but I can trust him."

"You can't. I despise you," Sal says. "I plot your ruin."

You blow him a kiss. He spits bad-temperedly into the sink and keeps gently cleaning and calibrating your prosthetic.

 

You snicker at Sal's snark. After an awkward pause, you venture, "So... would you like some help, sir? That's kind of an awkward angle for you to see what you're doing. I could borrow some of Sal's stylish stretchy gloves."

 

"If you're up for it," you say. The last few are always a devil to get out, the sensory disruption builds on itself. "I usually have Sal— and his beautiful flexible mittens— check me over when he's done with the prosthetic. But you might save us some time."

The thought of him putting his big, rough hands all over you is not a factor in this decision. Probably.

 

Sal provides purple nitrile gloves, which are a tight fit on your much larger hands, but better than bringing your scraped-up and scabbed-over robot-fighting knuckles into contact with whatever those tentacle fragments are secreting inside your captain's burrowed flesh -- eurgh. "If I hurt you," you tell him as you sink to one knee so as to be at stump level, "feel free to pop me one, sir, I'll take it as a friendly warning. Just don't grab my broken horn. It would probably come right off, and I would cry, and everyone would feel awkward."

And with that, you slide a couple of fingers into the horriffic mess to grasp the first wiggly bit you glimpse. If you weren't a veteran of many sweeps of carnage, you'd be puking. This is damn near peak body horror right here.

 

The sensation of stepping on burnt meat-- biting into a splintering bone-- hot water against your fins sour music in your guts blue against your fingers--

"What?" You ask blankly. You're breathing hard, the Commander's long hair clutched in your fists. One of his hands has hold of your hip. "I-- what? Where...?"

 

"You're okay," you tell him, in the same confident, sympathetic-but-not-pitying tone you use with injured soldiers. "It's out now, that was a long one. You want a breather before I go back in there?"

There are predatory urges roiling in your gut, seeing him undone like this, but you refuse to let it show on your face.

 

"We're not..." You struggle to parse. "Nnnh. Not done...?"

Evidently no.

"Out," you say. "Want--I wanna go out-- they--"

"Just finish," Sal says. "He goes nuts this part. Garbage in, garbage out."

You moan and struggle to get off the cot. You don't want to be here, but the hand holding you down-- clay between your fingers, a heartbeat that tastes like purple dawn in a maintenance closet full of screaming birds-- you growl weakly at the nearest warm and cinnamon-vibrating body. Show your bitter fangs.

 

Later, you can think about how you want to make him swirly-eyed and snarly like that from pleasure and fury, not pain and nerve damage. Right now you need to focus. "Right, understood. Try to hold still, sir."

Fortunately, focus is a thing you can do. Your attention narrows to the task at hand, and you don't react to his reactions, even though your back is clammy with sweat and the pheromone cloud around you is probably visible to the naked eye. Only when you can't find any more bioware fragments even with a magnifying lens do you let yourself look at his face.

"I believe that's everything."

 

You stare dazedly at what's in front of you. Kadros...? Yes. Kadros. God, he smells good.

You pull him close and kiss him hungrily.

 

Oh god yes. Whatever reasons you had for not doing this, they were probably not very good reasons or you wouldn't have forgotten them. Heart racketing like full auto fire, you throw yourself into kissing him with everything you've got.

 

You're whining with how much more you want from him, dragging your claws through his hair, across his shoulders--

He's wrenched off of you. Sal has him by the base of his injured horn and is tipping him back on to his cot. Absurdly, his paws are still bright purple.

You giggle breathlessly at him, even as Sal smacks you and delivers his personal version of a furious rant, which involves the word 'no!' exclusively and more slapping.

 

"SAL!" you bellow, loud enough that he stops ash-papping the captain and looks at you like he's going to have a go at you next. But you're calm, you just require his attention. "Never grab me by the horn again. Is that understood?"

 

"Sir," he says, but he looks unimpressed. He delivers a final smack upside yoir head, then turns and goes back to the counter with the prosthetic.

You curl on your side, away from Kadros, hands over your brightly-flushed fins. You're still giggling, soft and uncontrollable.

 

You sigh. If you got that kind of brushoff from a subordinate in the Marines, you would've -- well, not much, personally, actually, you would've turned him over to his sergeant, but they would've smoked him til he couldn't walk. They would've had him doing jumping jacks and bicycle kicks in the middle of the drill yard for four solid hours, and he would've been grateful because under another captain he'd just be dead.

Whereas Sal didn't even say yes sir, like he thinks it's cute to not really quite agree not to violate your personal boundaries like that again. "I mean it, Sal," you say sternly, "if you use my horn for a handle I will punch you in the junk."

Turning back to Aspera, you sigh again. You probably should've stopped him from kissing you, but you lacked the willpower. All this is pretty much your fault. "Sir, if we need an auspistice, it can't be Sal. He's obnoxious."