THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"Right back at you," you say. You rub his hornbeds happily. "Who's this, then?" you ask, indicating the lusus.

 

"Half moon... green moon... animal. Home animal." That's not quite right.

The animal diggy-paw-burrows at your armpit, making a snuffle-babble sort of noise that sounds almost trollish. You don't understand it and yet you do. She wants in on the hug. She wants ear scritches. You try to provide, but your hand gets tired very fast.

"My Pancho's lusus!" you remember suddenly, triumphant.

 

"Oh, so you remember Sergeant Pancho, then?" You reach carefully around Kadros— Bel's— shoulder and essay a pat. After some snuffling you're cleared for more pats. The lusus puts her chin on Bel's chest and studies you while you attend to her nubbin ears.

 

"She's my Pancho." This seems self-evident. You attempt to chain some ideas together. "You're my Erskin," you hypothesize.

 

"Well done," you say, and rest your cheek on his damp hair. "And I'm quite happy to be so. We'll have you up and scrapping again in no time, I'm sure, and even if it does take awhile I doubt your Pancho will mind, you're awfully cuddly like this. Am I taking advantage?"

That was apparently too much to think about, which you rather sympathize with. You simplify, "Is this alright?" and squeeze him a bit.

 

"Mhm." You kiss his cheek. It seems like the thing to do.

The tube attached to your arm is super annoying, but you're pretty sure it's there for a good reason, and in fact, didn't you fight for it? Didn't you fight to be here? You fought for something important, anyway. "I know I'm confused," you admit. "Was I fighting for you? Did I win?"

 

If things get any more darling you don't know how you will stand it.

"Yes, I suppose you were. But you're done fighting now, so it's time to rest up, what? You're going to need a lot of sleep, I'll bet. You were fighting for— for a very long time."

 

"Feels like it," you agree. You pat him again. "You're okay. Pancho's okay?" You address this more to the lusus than Erskin, and get an affirmative whuff. There are others you want to ask after, but names are terribly hard to hang onto, and you're kind of full up on them right now. You struggle to describe the people in your mind, blurry in vision and time, events all missing, but emotions sharp and urgent. "Red arm. And the golden voice. And the little volcano goddess."

 

"The volcano goddess is going to be very pleased to hear that you've called her that!" you laugh. "She's fine, she's giving Mr. Whitey the run-around. I don't... I don't want to see him." This last bit is said uncertainly. "Gold— hmm. Galley? Goodness, you two are absolute saps. He's alright. You can go see him tomorrow, I bet, if you're feeling better. I don't know about Sergeant— er, red arm, we had to take it off him, he was hurting himself. Er. In the fight. But he'll be here soon."

 

"He still has feet?" you query. Getting an affirmative, you nod satisfaction. "Then he can wear boots."

 

"He won't need to for awhile, I hope," you comment. You hesitate, thinking it over, but you've wanted to since— and he did it first— you lean forward a bit and kiss him on the side of the mouth. Then you survey him apprehensively.

"Er, was that alright?"

 

A mere affirmative is insufficient, but you can't put something more appropriate into words. Instead, you mimic the kiss, then pull back enough to look at his eyes, and smile brilliantly. Kissing him feels right in a way hardly anything else in your world does right now, and you like it very much.

 

"Oh," you say softly, astonished at his smile, and you have to kiss him again— and then again, and not stop, and just enjoy the way his mouth's gone cool and a little sweet from the ice, how he kisses you back unhurried, as if there isn't anything else in the universe you have to care about besides learning one another all over again—

—a large sickle-clawed paw is laid aside your face. You break apart from Bel as the lusus leans in and gives you a good hard stare.

"Ma'am," you say breathlessly. You're prepared to respect her but you have eaten significantly larger beasts for breakfast. Respect only goes so far.

((is she chaperoning this date, or tired of people not paying attention to her, or disapproving of girlfriend-smelling troll having non-girlfriend-being makeouts, or some combination of the above?))

 

Once the lovely drifting journey of a kiss ends, you realize you're dizzy with more than emotion. Green moon lusus is shove-patting at you and Erskin, and you can't tell if she's pushing you apart or together -- oh, she's pushing you down, making you put your heads down, and gets a wad of blanket in her sharp wolf-murdering teeth and yoink emphatically tucks you both in. Finally, she puts a snowshoe paw over one of your eyes.

"I think she wants us to sleep," you venture. The sound she makes is both affirmative and exasperated.

 

"Nice to see you're as sharp as ever, Commander," you say dryly, and receive a big white paw over your mouth for it. You look her dead in the eyes and lick sloppily across her paw-pads. You don't take this sort of disrespect from Lainey and you won't from an ambulatory dust mop, either. When she pulls her paw back you get your arms more comfortably around Bel, snuggle properly against the pillows on your own agency, and rest your cheek against the top of his head, so your fins don't press against anything. Bel seems to be asleep even before you finish settling in.

Well, you could stand a bit more dozing. Especially somewhere this perfectly cozy.

 

==> Be the green moon half moon animal.

You are now Loggan, a beaver-wolverine of unusual size. Bel, who is very sick, and the troll that smells inexplicably like your wife, who is very tired, have gone obediently to sleep. You have licked their sticky fingers clean and cleaned out the juice cube bowl. Your daughter is still out doing her duty, and it is time to do yours.

There are many sick trolls here. This is unusual. More commonly, you deal with injured trolls, who are ornery. These sick trolls are all exhausted and pukey. The medics are exhausted, just as Bel's caretaking kissing troll is.

You, however, are not exhausted. You've been cooped up on a saltwatery ship with the stingray's obnoxious kid for a week and you are ready for some action!

The medics are a bit confused at first by your help. You ignore them and get on with it, and they figure it out eventually. You're very strong, strong enough to shoulder a full-grown troll from a gurney onto a cot, strong enough to pin them if they confusedly try to wander off. You're tough enough not to worry about blows or bites from any troll warmer than about teal, although that doesn't come into play here, as they are all blubbering weaklings right now. The one thing you can't do much about is the vomit, but at least you can roll them onto their sides so they can spit it out instead of choking. And your clever claws can pluck a juice cube from a bowl and put it to a troll's lips, if you don't mind occasionally dropping one down their necks.

By nature, you're more protector than caretaker, but all in all this ss a good kind of work, and you're good at it. You just wish your wife were here so she could explain to you why Bel's friend smells so much like her.

 

After some delicious, interminable time of drifting along all wrapped up around Bel, you make the mistake of nuzzling his hair from the wrong angle and grind your raw fin into his damp hair. You jolt back from him, yowling involuntarily, and manage to alert nearly every troll in the room— plus that damn mop lusus— that you are awake and in medical distress. Attempting to get off the cot produces an overwhelming surge of useless, scrambled-up perceptions. You are forced to nauseously huddle into yourself, panting with the effort of not crying, while the greenblood lusus ambles over to check you out.

You bare your teeth. If she tries to lick your burns you are going to throw her across the fucking block.

 

Adrenaline-jolted out of a deep sleep, you automatically try to get some space to fight and assume a combat posture; you very nearly achieve this objective before your legs give out and dump you on the floor. Then you get to lie around naked and confused while your green lusus friend lopes around sniffing at containers until she locates what she's looking for, dumps the container out, delicately picks out an object with her teeth, and trots back to deposit it pointedly on the cot at Erskin's knee.



"Okay," you say. "I can do that." If you can get back onto the cot, that is. Which is a project you're not sure how to start on.

 

You laugh shakily and haul Kadros back on the cot, then wrap the blanket around his bare ass. You pat his side— then flinch back and hiss when he makes as if to reach for you. He hasn't the sense of a dead sandflea right now, you're damned if you'll let him fumble around jamming his big rough fingers everywhere.

"I'm alright," you say tightly, attempting to retrieve the little medicine whatsit he's got without letting him at you. God, you think you're bleeding. Or— oozing or something. This is the worst.

 

"Burn spray," you read, and hand it to him. "Can you see to put it on, though?"