THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"Wonderful!" You praise him. "What should I do when I wear a boot, though? Do I have to wear two boots? I hate that, it always gums the joints up..."

 

"You'll be crooked if you don't," you point out reasonably. "Have you been going around in just one shoe? That's gonna put a vicious twist on your back." You stand up and go behind him again, run your hands over his back again, but this time you press experimentally at the anchor points of the bigger muscles. "Yeeeeah, you got some bad knots in here. Okay, here's what I wanna do: I'mma have you lie down on your front on your lounge platform thingy there, and see if I can't loosen your back up a little. Then I'll walk you through some stretches. Based on how that goes, I'll pick out some strength building exercises for you to try. Sound good?"

 

"You're the expert," you agree, and stretch out awkwardly on the platform. "Like this...?"

It is determined that yes, more or less like that. The first time he makes something sort of twang and re-align in your back you give a startled prp! By the fourth, you are a decadently happy puddle.

 

It's a uniquely good feeling, providing relief with your own hands to someone who's been aching for ages. Worryingly thin as he is, it's easy to trace the muscles and find where to press, where to knead. Finally, when his back's about as loose as you think you can get it without a heat pack, you have him turn on his side and guide him gently into a position that uses the weight of his legs hanging over the side of the platform to pull his spine back into the correct position. "Just stay relaxed," you remind him as you keep a hand under his calves to keep him from going too fast. "And press down into my hand -- and pause. And again --"

There's an incredibly satisfying series of little pops, and when you test his hip with your hand, the awkward tightness is gone. You guide his legs back onto the platform. "Good job," you praise him sincerely. "Rest a little while."

(yes i'm p much describing what my own physical therapist does, shush)

 

"Hmrmbl," you explain, and doze off.

When you wake up, some indeterminate time later, you sniff the air hopefully for more steak.

 

You look up from your tablet, where you were putting together a worksheet for him, and smile. "You conked out for ten-fifteen minutes there. I was just thinking on whether I oughtta wake you." Setting the tablet aside, you beckon for him to stand up. "Let's try some stretches, now you ain't one big cramp no more."

 

"Nurmp. Then steak," you mumble, and heave off the platform. You follow his instructions, hissing through your teeth when you can't quite do as he says, or for long enough, for all that he's very gentle about it. You get shaky and exhausted frustratingly quickly.

 

"It'll get easier," you keep telling him, and, "Don't force it!" You don't blame him for being frustrated, but you can't let him push too hard and hurt himself.

Once you've seen which stretches he can do and which ones are too hard, you edit your worksheet real quick and then send it to his phone so you can go over it together. "This here is the stretches I want you to do every night. Don't lean on yourself too hard, just go far enough to feel the stretch. For these here where you're standing up, you wanna have a chair back or something to hang onto, that's fine." You scroll down. "These are some exercises for building your strength back up. I put down five reps each, but if you might be able to do more on some of 'em."

His hand is trembling on his phone; you take pity on him (yikes, unfortunate word choice) and don't suggest actually doing any of the exercises now. "If you have any questions, I reckon we could discuss 'em over steak."

 

You nod seriously and follow him along into the nutrition block, and sit on the far end of the counter to read the workout sheet. The writing is succinct and doesn't use any new technical terms, which you appreciate, uncomfortably conscious that you're taking a lot longer with it than most (all) trolls your age, and that Jethro's certainly going to notice.

 

You notice he's taking a while to study the sheet, and approve. A lot of trolls would've just glanced over it and pretended it was all copacetic even if it wasn't.

The steaks in the thermal hull are so nice and fresh, your mouth starts watering just looking at them. You start the oil heating in the pan while you rub them down with the coarse salt he got out, and some cracked pepper, and nothing else -- no need for extra seasoning with meat this nice. When a flicked drop of water dances in the pan, you say, "Grab a couple plates? This is gonna go quick." You slap the steaks down in the hot pan, one-two, and as a great cloud of fragrant steam sizzles up, you add, "Might wanna turn off your smoke alarm for a minute too."

 

"Oh, I don't have one, if anything in here was on fire it'd be because of Lainey," you say, watching with interest. "I think if she got hosed with flame retardant in my hive I'd be out on my ear before the foam stopped dripping."

 

"So you're saying your girlfriend's hot," you deadpan.

 

That startles a laugh out of you. "Absolutely! Smoking hot, even!"

 

You flip the steaks, and make a pleased noise at how they've accumulated exactly the right touch of char at the edges. "And she's crazy about you too, it was so cute how her and your moirail were flipping their shit with joy at getting you back."

 

Your face heats, even as a fairly goofy smile breaks out over your face. "Yes, I couldn't believe Arguus was brave enough to come outside just for that, it usually takes an emergency or a lot of stiff drinks. He's tremendously private— oh, and he's Lainey's moirail, really, she just— we just, er, share, a bit. It's not exactly a formal arrangement."

Not that Arguus's nebulous position in and around your red quadrants makes hitting on Jethro any more ethical. You already treated the poor fellow like a comfort toy for long enough, even if he's sweet enough to let it slide.

 

"Oh! You. Oh? You don't have a...?" None of your damn business, Jethro! you remind yourself, and the steaks help you out by being done so you can focus on getting them plated.

You hand him both plates, hop up on the counter next to him, and take one plate back. Your first bite of fresh meat in sweeps makes your eyes roll up, and you bonk your head on the cabinets behind you in sheer protein bliss.

 

Jethro's unguarded expression of delight doesn't do anything to help your blush— he's lovely, though. And you're tremendously glad to be able to pay him back for his care in some small way.

Belatedly you remember there was a question. "Right, er, not... not as such, no, we're both Lainey's. She and Arguus were muddling along flushed before I came along, and it didn't suit either of them, but he'd been taken from this really awful situation with an exploitative shitheap of a moirail, and it was the best way for them to care for another, at the time. But then I came along, so now Lainey's pale with him, and flushed with me, and Arguus and I, er—" go at it like hedonistic weasels on the regular "—get along as seems appropriate for whatever situation we happen to find ourselves."

 

"He seems really sweet," you venture. And then, because you are absolutely not going to hit on a patient even if he doesn't quite have one whole moirail, you focus on the topic of food instead. "Thank you so much for sharing your steaks. I ain't had fresh meat in so long. Sigs is high caste enough to get the good stuff, except he's kinda in disgrace for not bein' a big enough asshole to the helmsmen, so nobody's gotta actually listen to him." Your wrinkled nose shows what you think of that.

 

You shrug uncomfortably. Helmsman politics always seem divided between people who see psionics as beasts rather than trolls, and people who want to do away with FTL engines altogether because god forbid a lowblood has to do something she doesn't like while her superiors get shot in the face by aliens all sweep long, and neither camp much likes your moderate views.

"I suppose assholes never like to see anyone be less cruel and more successful than they are," you say. "They lose all their excuses for being assholes. It's like that with captains too, and makes good steak just as hard to come across. I don't have the faintest notion where this lot came from. Hopefully it hasn't punched a hole in any important budgets."

 

"Somebody likes you?" you guess. "Anyhow, you seem to be doin' okay with your helmsman, I heard how he has hobbies and stuff, and how he gets to tell folks to screw off if they're bothering him." For honesty's sake, you add, "Even if they did have to be miserable to do their work, I don't s'pose Sigs woulda been able to bring himself to hurt 'em as much as the higher-ups want 'em hurt. He's just too good. So, you know, thanks for takin' us in."