*

Walter released the myoflex cables and the heavy weights melted back into the wall.   The exercise bench squirmed under his naked back and assumed the next shape in the workout program.   Leg presses.   Walter grunted against the weight as he extended muscles he hadn't worked for a week.   He'd set a hard rhythm today -- pushing himself.   Sweat already streaming from his chest, arms, legs.  The room redolent.   He felt...good.

Still riding the triumph of Kronos.   The satisfaction of vengeance delivered.  The joy -- yes, joy -- at having kept both Alex *and* Jeffrey alive and whole.  //As whole as they get,// the dour inner voice reminded him.   But even the encroachment of the coming low couldn't dull the sense that right here and now, his life was a right and useful thing.

He even thought he knew why.

Two men under him.   He had a command again.   All he'd left, cast off with the Federation -- all he'd catalogued as lost, and he hadn't ever realized before the fundamental need he had for this. 

Not the power.   Or not so *much* the power, as the company.   The responsibility.   Well, something like that.   He was sure a Federation counselor would find some multi-syllable term for the *condition*.   All his conditions.   If they'd only known...   It made him laugh out loud.

"Share the joke?" a soft voice asked from beside the hatch.   He hadn't heard young Jeff come in and marveled once again at how quietly the boy could move.

Walter made a sound low in his throat that could have been dismissal, could have been the last of his laughter.

"I'm not a nice man," he said.

Spender blinked surprise at that.   Sputtered a laugh of his own.   Just a little one, but it reminded Walter just how far away from laughter Jeffrey had been since he'd crawled out from under the sedative's shade.   He'd looked...ill.   Greenish in the low ship's light.   So quiet he might have been erasing his presence as he went, leaving rooms emptier then if he'd never been there at all.

Sometimes, like now, he seemed to follow Walter around like a hesitant ghost, appearing a short while after Walter had settled himself somewhere and hovering just at the edges of his attention, willing to be drawn into conversation, but rarely initiating conversation of his own.   The rest of the time he apparently spent in the infirmary, not abusing the med-unit as Walter first had feared, but simply sitting in there, reading, playing vids.  or staring blankly at his comm bracelet as though he expecting an urgent message that was long overdue.

"You want to work out?" Walter asked.

Jeffrey didn't respond immediately, simply stared at him for several long moments.  The bench gave a low shudder, reminding him that it was past time to move on to the next set of exercises.

Long, shuddering breath.  "I'm used to running, swimming...  I haven't done much more than that."

"I can tell." 

It made Jeffrey blush, a brief flash of color over his sallow cheeks.  The boy abruptly looked made up for business.  Walter had a few ugly moments when he couldn't remember why he hadn't simply taken the boy once they'd been safely in deep space.

Something about time to acclimate, the need to be sure Alex wasn't feeling any residual effects from his Walter-induced identity crisis. 

No Starfleet captain would ever be in a situation quite like this one, the poor, sorry bastards.

"I...  I'd like to learn."

Ripped out of his thoughts again, and Jeffrey was just a few important millimeters closer.  The boy was a temptation in too many different ways.  Walter would have to be very careful not to fuck this up. 

"I think you should stay with something...  familiar for a while."

That earned him an entirely humorless snort.  Walter wondered, briefly, how much about Kronos Jeffrey hadn't said.  But Jeffrey didn't give him time to ask. 

"Computer, bike."

And there appeared Walter's own favorite.  Proper positioning was key on a stationary, and there were any number of programmable designs perfect for keeping everything at just the right angle, just the right flex.

This wasn't one of them.  It was simple, grey, and administered one to four low grade shocks if you began to slack off before the allotted time.  Far more of Walter's life than he cared to think about was explicitly designed for maximum stimulation.  The thought he might grow numb to this, everything else was never welcome.

Not that his lack of enthusiasm for it ever stopped it from coming, but it wouldn't do to let up about something like that --

"You spend a lot of time alone, don't you?"

The reflex to punish the boy for prying died hard, but quickly.  "I did."

A purely speculative look that Walter met equably, and then Jeffrey was climbing on and gingerly adjusting himself for the maximized workout.  He only missed his positioning once, but the four shocks he received probably made it feel like a bit more than that.

Walter could almost feel the hairs on the boy's nape rise, but Jeffrey only yelped once.  Walter couldn't keep from chuckling. 

"You're right.  You *aren't* a very nice man, are you?"

Which only made him laugh harder. 

"Bastard." But there was humor in Jeffrey's voice.  "Computer, level *one*, please." And then he paused.  "That wasn't level one, was it?"

"I could just let you find out..."

"Ah, a sadist, too.  It's good to know who I signed on with."

Just a little too serious that time.  Damn.  "It's level one."

Jeffrey looked back over his shoulder, was promptly shocked for it, but shuddered it off.  The scent of ozone mingled with Walter's own sweat.  Familiar, comforting, better with someone else in here...  Alex chose to do his own strange, brutalizing workouts alone.  Usually after Walter had fallen asleep... 

"I trust you, you know."

Jeffrey's tone had a lot more anger in it than the words perhaps warranted.  But it was better than invisibility.  "I know." 

He nodded, turned back into proper position.  Got one more shock for not listening to the other one fast enough.  Laughed shortly through his own yelp. 

And Walter went back to his workout.

They exercised in silence for a while.  Well, mostly silence.  After twenty minutes of a punishing pace Jeffrey's yelps came a little faster.  Walter could smell his sweat in the air, too, and let himself drift for a while in the shamelessly unsubtle atmosphere of suggestion for a while. 

Every breath made his own pain uniquely *worth* it, as though he was truly exerting himself just to make Jeffrey make those sounds.  He was going to have to decide just when he'd let himself have the boy, if only to be able to have a definite time period for ignore all that smooth, unscarred baby-skin. 

Teach Alex how to  enjoy it for himself, perhaps turn that vaguely cannibalistic look in his eyes when Jeffrey was around to something more healthy.

Or, at the very least, more entertaining.  And how had Jeffrey been entertaining himself...  hmm.

"Why the infirmary?"

The sudden question made the boy jerk a bit, just enough for another shock.  "I'm going to blame you if I start to get used to this, Skinner." Low, nearly breathless voice. 

"There are worse things."

Jeffrey turned slowly, deliberately.  The obviously conscious movement earned him at least three shocks.  The bike was an excitable disciplinarian sometimes.  And Walter could see every painful jolt in the boy's eyes.  And every tremble. 

Walter didn't even try to hide his growing erection.  But he also didn't let himself get too distracted, even by the discovery of Jeffrey's heretofore unknown streak of ruthless treachery.  Christos, he was a lucky man. 

"The longer you go without turning, the more shocks you get."

"True.  Computer, remove bike."

He landed on his toes and one hand, the move losing some of its grace in the boy's obvious fatigue, but none of its attraction.  And then Jeffrey stood, took off his shirt, and used it to wipe the sweat from his face and chest.  Too pale, lean almost to the point of incipient famine, but still muscled and male. 

Walter wanted those nipples between his teeth, and Jeffrey was making it abundantly clear that he was more than willing to oblige.  Walter shook himself internally. 

"The infirmary?"

Jeffrey smiled wryly.  "Clearly, I don't make a very good whore."

Yet another intriguing line of questioning that would almost certainly lead to the boy bent over his bench and moaning Walter's name.  He schooled his face to implacability, and, for perhaps the thousandth time, gave thanks that his face lent itself so well to such things. 

Jeffrey sighed then, showed signs of being tempted into a pout.  Walter was reasonably sure he'd never learn to do that here. 

"Well?"

"It's the only place on this ship your 'wraith isn't likely to go."

"I thought so.  He has a name, you know."

"All right, it's the only place *Alex* isn't likely to go.  What race is he, anyway? Assuming he's organic at all."

Walter chuckled.  "Silicon-based creatures rarely look at carbon-based creatures the way Alex looks at you." Jeffrey eyed him skeptically.  "Well, silicon creatures don't kill us for food, in any case.  The scanners insist he's human."

"Have you checked for viruses recently?"

"I can understand how Alex might be disturbing, but he's a member of this crew.  And so are you.  I expect you to...  get along."

Jeffrey snorted.  "I'll be sure to remind him of that when he's gnawing on my femur."

Walter cheerfully ignored that.  "I think he could teach you some useful moves..." 

"I think you could, too."

Blindsided.  Point to the boy.  Had to reward things like that, had to.  Walter sat up, snatched Jeffrey's shirt away and used it to wipe the worst of his own sweat away.  Handed it back to the boy.  The hungry look in his eyes certainly matched his physique. 

"Tonight, my quarters."

Jeffrey nodded, swallowed.  What had he ever done to deserve *two* boys he couldn't just let himself use, use up in just a few mindless thrusts on whatever surface was available.  Care, everything around him deserved care.  Walter's days hadn't felt so full in...  in a long time. 

And then Jeffrey was moving, coming to a moderately shaky stand before turning to go.  Walter watched him walk away until the door shut behind him, idly wondered what Alex would make of such a muskily needful Jeffrey. 

* 

One quick, rough fuck against the wall of the engine room on the day the repair center had released him -- and he had learned from that that Skinner's cock could be as simple a thing as a thumb or his own hand and still be good -- but after that, nothing. 

And the smell of rut had begun to permeate the ship.

Alex tested the air cautiously, nostrils twitching -- letting the tip of his tongue rest quiet on his lower lip.   A strange thing scenting on the Rose of Sharon.

The air itself was flavorless, but the scents it carried seemed to pop out from it to graze his senses unblended.   Harsh, heady, dangerous scents.  Poisons and plastics and aldehydes so rich they sometimes made him gag.  Ozone and oxygen.   The juices and offgasses of subtle machinery.   Music.   Like Skinner had begun to teach him.   Like the sounds of space.   All of it came together like the fluid, winding strands of song.

Underlaying all was Skinner, a scent that was a world in itself.   A smell that made Alex ache to make a thing to show how right it felt.   What a thing that would be -- to make a song of Skinner's smell, to play it back for Skinner himself so he could know it, like he'd understood about the sounds.   The thought pulled at him.   To complex, too rich for a pup like himself to worry.  Someday maybe, when he was old and his legs were shattered and he could only bellycrawl from bed to shithole in his den he would turn inside and meditate on Skinner's smell.   Until then he would just breathe it, taste it, follow where it led.

Today it led to the gym.

He followed it down the long narrow corridor, nose wrinkling as he passed the infirmary.   The new thing -- this Jeffrey Spender thing that Skinner had brought on board -- was making a nest there.   Laying down its own scent strong and thick as if preparing to build a real den.

Alex stopped by the infirmary door, considered that.   The scent of the Jeffrey was not...unpleasing.   A male scent, not Skinner-rich, but -- Alex licked his lips, gathered tiny traces -- spicy.   Sharp. 

A little sweet.

It stirred him.   And what to make of that?  The thing was Skinner's.   But Skinner's, how? Like *he* was Skinner's and like the ship was Skinner's -- inviolate, not to be touched or changed by himself or anyone else without permission?  Or was the Jeffrey thing like the sonic shower or food from the replicator, something to be used with respect, but freely nonetheless?

He'd asked Skinner, but Skinner had only chuckled. 

"Ask him that yourself, boy," he'd said and gone back to repairing a patch of gently sparking circuitry under the recyc unit.

He hadn't yet.   If Skinner wouldn't order it one way or another, Alex was tempted to leave Jeffrey in the category of the curved knife.   A thing surely to be forbidden to his hand were it known to what uses he wanted to put it, but until that day perhaps a thing to goad him, to make him hard and even run featherlight across his cock and dream...

For a moment Alex allowed himself the pleasure of his thoughts.   Leaning back against the wall, fingers coaxing out the firming heat in his groin.   Too long without, but his own hand gave him nothing but release and release was the least part of what he sought.

It was the hunt itself he craved.   And what he did with his prey when he caught it -- well, he didn't have to plan that part. 

And if he did the wrong thing, Skinner's justice would scour him clean.

He gave himself a hard squeeze then, to quell the growing heat.   Jeffrey was no vicious burrowing skalak that  required razor sharp senses to pursue, but he had a knack, Alex had noted, for being hard to find.

And he moved as silent as heat rising off the sands.

Alex flared his nostrils again, closed his eyes to focus on the twisting strands of scent.   Old and new around the den and...changing...when it intersected Skinner's musk.   That stirred something else in Alex, some bone deep growl.   Because Skinner's scent changed too, became -- softer; the salt of sweat, not blood.

And it filled him with unease.   The Jeffrey thing was soft, and soft was dangerous.   Alex turned without pushing off the wall until his belly rested against the warm plastic of the inner hull.   He reached out one hand to claw the door.   A gesture only.   His clawless fingers left only harmless smudges that wouldn't scare a chiz'a.

But he would know the mark was there.   And soon, soon enough, the Jeffrey thing would know it too.    Alex straightened then, and sprang up to grasp the hatch that led to the access tubes above the ceiling.   It opened at his touch and one quick flick of his agile body  and he was up and out of sight.    And the tubes would take him anywhere on the ship, silently.   Invisibly as wind.  The Jeffery thing would never know what hit it until Alex compelled it to open its eyes and see.

*

Jeffrey walked out into the corridor on shaky legs.

He could put it down to exhaustion, he knew.   Or residual spasms from the shocks.  Or maybe leftover trauma from ki-- //don't please don't think don't...//  He managed to hold the rest of that thought back at least.   But he couldn't deny the real reason for his trembling limbs.   The screaming thing wouldn't let him.

He wondered when it had decided that Skinner's cock was to be his only salvation...

//yes, yes,// the screaming thing gibbered.   //tonight he's going to fuck you fuck you yes...//  And his balls pulled in like fists clenched tight between his legs.

Sharp breath in and he knew he wasn't going to make it 'til tonight.   Oh, gods, gods.   What a thing to have given himself to.   No, not a thing.   A man.  Skinner was a man -- charismatic as a star gone nova in his gruff and silent way -- and just as blinding, searing, maybe.   But he was a man.   Not a *nice* man...he chuckled again at that, but warm.   Powerful.   And when Skinner looked at him, Jeffrey felt uniquely *seen*.   Sometimes that alone was too much to bear.   Certainly too much for his poor aching cock, battering at the confines of his loose fatigues.

Definitely not going to make it until tonight.   A shower and some self-relief would do it, but the shower was in the head and the head was just off Skinner's quarters and the 'wraith -- *Alex* -- was more likely to be there than anywhere. 

And he had little real knowledge of the rest of the ship beyond the gym, the bridge, the tiny galley with its single replicator -- everything that came from which tasted curiously of the Tlosian spice, cerisine.   Which left the infirmary.   His hidey hole.   His home.   The atmosphere fell a little short of romance, though.   Perhaps Skinner would let him put up wall tapestries in there, drape the biobeds with burnished silks...light scented candles in the Petrie dishes...

At least move one comfortable chair in there.   Skinner could joke about his potential to end up on Alex's dinner tray, but Skinner hadn't been *looked* at with such feral hunger.   Oh, hell, maybe he had and liked the thought.   [And the cold thing, which seemed intent on driving him utterly fetal with his fears asked him, for the thousandth time what exactly he thought he was doing here with these two mad and homicidal creatures and whatever made him think he was meant to survive?]

At that thought, he stopped and looked around.   Something...   He could almost feel hot breath on the nape of his neck.   Skitters of fear icing his nerves and a definite rush of blood into his cock that left him panting.   But the corridor was empty.   Jeffrey frowned.   And what the hell corridor *was* it, anyway.   Rose of Sharon was not a huge ship, but she was large enough and compact enough to have a small maze of corridors and branchings.   And he hadn't really been watching where he was walking...

Closer to the engines, that was certain.   He could feel the heavy throb and draw of the warp core containment field through the walls and floor.   He'd gone down then.   Down and...aft, if that was the right word.

The narrow, rounded corridor stretched surprisingly far in either direction.  Distantly spaced lights shone through plastic tabs and long stretches of bundled pipe on ceiling and walls, casting odd, angular shadows on the catwalk grate that was the floor.

He had passed no hatchways, no doors.   There were indentations of shadow in the curved walls farther down that might be further branches, might be exits to the upper floors.   Another twinge of fear, something stuttering through his chest and he whirled this time.

Confronted only throbbing silence.   Shadows.   His mouth was dry, heart hammering.   Spooked.   Totally spooked and Jeffrey suddenly didn't care how foolish it would look: his hand went to his left wrist.   And remembered even as flesh touched flesh that he had left the comm bracelet on the floor of the gym. 

Damnation.   A hundred violent deaths to the imp of his vanity and the demon of his lust.   And this was *not* the wine cellar of his family's home on Kronos //gone don't think...// and this was *not* the mistghosts of his imagination.

He was breathing hard now, panting like a blethin run to ground.

"I know you're there," he called out.

Nothing.   Silence mocked him.   His own harsh breathing and the soft rustle of his clothes.   Dry throat and still-hard cock and anger rising, mingling with the fear.

"Well, come *on*," he snarled, pleased to hear at least a little bravado in his voice even if it was cracked along its spine.

A sound.   A heavy thud from somewhere in the engine room beyond the wall and Jeffrey jumped a foot into the air.   Landed poised for flight, for ambush, for whatever teeth and claws were about to descend.   And nothing still.  Nothing.  Oh gods, maybe this was imagination.   Maybe some huge joke.   Perhaps Skinner and the 'wraith were sitting together on the bridge laughing uproariously at the 'Dancing Jeffrey' show on the inboard monitors.   He straightened, pulled his shirt to order, ran a hand through his hair.

And turned.

He felt it, barely:  strike, strike, strike and he was pinned against the wall -- no pain, no blood but paralyzed, not breathing.   Blinked.   There was a hand pressed hard into the center of his chest and hot sweet breath against his face.   And eyes like hot green nebulae, the 'wraith's eyes, on him, not a handswidth from his own. 

*

Easy to stalk, easy to be feared, easy to catch...  Alex pinned the Jeffrey thing to the wall with his body and breathed deep.  So much here.  Jeffrey's fear, its musk, its rage...

He hadn't even really touched it yet but it writhed against him, pushed and struggled and...

"You would fight me?"

"You think I'm going to roll over and let you kill me, *Alex*?"

Alex couldn't keep himself from leaning in to taste the anger.  "You don't believe me worthy of killing *you*?"

"Ah.  Your idea of a favor.  Suits you."

Calm, low voice.  But the Jeffrey thing's heart was beating faster, and there was new sweat on his throat.  Alex let his cock drive up against Jeffrey's, caught the moan with his mouth.  Everything, he was going to take everything it had within himself and crush it --

"Fuck.  *This* is what you want, Alex? Wanna fuck me?"

Use you, take you, kill you...  Alex caught himself heartbeats away from tearing the thing's throat out and just breathed.  "How do you belong to Skinner? What is your property status?"

"Belong? Wha --"

Alex bit down and thrust again, feeling the Jeffrey thing's yell fly past his ear this time.  The Jeffrey thing gave off echoes of his presence like wetplanet people sweated, only maddeningly vague.  A taste too thin for even Alex to catch sometimes if the distance was too far.

Alex had thought only his people could do that, and Jeffrey was certainly no kin to him.  "Why do you call me Alex?"

"That isn't your name?"

He could listen to the Jeffrey thing pant all day...  Alex pushed in a little closer, regretfully leaving the smooth, nearly unmarked expanse of its throat for the ear.  "It is how Skinner knows me."

"I could keep referring to you as 'it,' 'that thing,' and 'watchwraith' if you prefer."

Shocked moment of sameness -- unfair! Alex pulled back to stare, found himself frustrated by another pair of dark, mutie eyes.  If the Jeffrey thing's feelings didn't rise from its pores like a newthing's, Alex would have nothing to see, know. 

"Are you a newthing? What is this 'watchwraith'.  Not another species?"

"I think I liked you better when you were just hunting me for more interesting food."

Alex struck fast, biting at the tender flesh behind Jeffrey's ear until he tasted its blood.  Sharper, thinner than he was accustomed to.  Perhaps it was all the anger? Alex sucked until the blood stopped flowing, feeling the Jeffrey thing's wrists twist in his grip high above their heads.

The Jeffrey thing's cock was hard against his own, its breathing even harsher.  Alex wondered if it hurt yet, if it would surrender to Alex without more persuasion simply because each lungful of air burned more than the last.  "Answer me."

"I have 28 turns.  23 standard."

Older than Alex, yet still so soft and smooth...  He knew the Jeffrey thing would have no scars at all.  No one had owned him, never tried very hard, not even himself.  Alex squeezed the wristbones a little harder.  If the Jeffrey thing was so unworthy, why did Skinner wish to keep it? Touch it, leave his salt and scent all over its coverings...  "And the watchwraith?"

"A program.  A simulation designed to keep children and thieves away from your possessions.  Scare the children, stun the criminals --"

Alex pulled back again.  "It can tell the difference between a newthing and a thief?"

The Jeffrey thing smiled, not the airy thing Alex had seen him flash so many times, heedless of his own projections, but something sharper.  If Alex were to hold one of Skinner's blades against, both shines would share a quality of rightness.  Could dark eyes see more? 

"No, Alex.  There were dead children in every heavily populated 'port city in the galaxy, and putting the 'wraith programs on lower settings just made it easy for thousands of non-Fed ships to be looted.  Murderously unsafe or a useless expense, either way the programs are outlawed on most self-respecting planets.  No one uses them anymore but fools or criminals."

Alex felt something start to boil within him, saw the edges of his vision darken.  "You would speak of Skinner as such a thing?"

More sweat, acrid with fear, growing exhaustion.  Alex growled.

"Well, you're not really a watchwraith, are you? You're flesh and blood, you can make decisions..."

"You cannot *soothe* me."

"Would you really use up all your chances to hurt me, terrorize me in one shot?"

And Jeffrey rolled against him, little teasing movements that made Alex thrust several times.  Lust was beginning to override fear and anger again...  but what was it with these not-kin and *possibility*? They did not take everything they could get the first time.  They were all like the sandgazers, people who would sit unarmed and loose-limbed beside a pile of still-sealed rations, content with nothing but sun and cutting sand.

Honestly surprised to come out of the trance and find themselves with nothing.

Most sandgazers didn't live very long.  And yet, and yet...  Skinner was no sandgazer, and Skinner showed him with every touch why he was still alive.  Refused to let him regret it. 

And now the Jeffrey thing was offering even more of himself than Alex had rightfully taken, solely to be allowed to live.

"Why do you love this existence so much? Don't you want more?"

Alex was being studied again, more obviously and aggressively than the Jeffrey thing had done before.  "What more? I know what's here, and I want it.  I...  I haven't tasted Skinner enough."

"Skinner is fine, tastes like power my own blood --"

"I won't try to take him from you, Alex..."

"I have his promise." 

Jeffrey nodded slowly, still studying him.  "See? No need to kill and/or maim me."

Another disturbing thought.  "You would resist Skinner's will?" Not that he'd been very good himself, but the Jeffrey thing had no right no right --

"Do you have *any* idea how...  strange you are, Alex?"

"Hah!" Alex made the laughing sound he'd learned from Skinner meant: you think you know things, pup.   Laughter.   Now *that* was strangeness.   Skinner's laugh made him want to cover the man's mouth with his mouth to keep his selfness from puffing out with his breath.   And the Jeffrey-thing -- it spoke in laughter like a language, a high-harmonic to his words, saying exactly the opposite sometimes.

Not that it was laughing now.   A little desperation beginning to show in the sag of muscles.   It was losing strength rapidly, its energy bled away in fruitless struggles and anger and in talk.   And because all the while its cock had stayed hard.   Grown harder.   Its dark strange eyes were fluttering closed, springing open.   Intoxicated by too much adrenaline, burned to ash.  Almost time.

"Alex..." the Jeffrey-thing said.   Breathed.   Shaking its head, and then letting it fall forward softly to rest against Alex's own.   "Alex, please...one way or another.   Please.   Don't make me wait..."

The touch of damp, hot flesh against his forehead, wet spring of curls.   Alex breathed deep.   Rich, rich mix -- the sweetening tangs of dying anger, mortal fear; the hot iron of need from within; a new, sharper need that tasted like himself...   He turned his head against the sweatslick skin so he could run his nose along the smooth side of Jeffrey's face.

Breathed in again, the same and more: sweat, exertion, the acrid bite of the infirmary; the taste of Skinner's salt thick hand upon the flesh.   His nose grazed Jeffrey's ear and the body beneath his gave a soft, sobbing gasp and pressed against him.   Yes.

The head against his head nuzzled at him, tongue and lips tasting him.   Yes.  Good.   Yes.   Almost and soon.

"Do not move," he said into the Jeffrey's ear.

"Even if I could..." the Jeffrey breathed, but it wasn't argument.   All fight was gone.   Gone.  Unbelievable, that a creature that clung to life as hard as this one could at the same time give it up at just a touch.   A breath.   A word.   But there it was.   He let go of Jeffrey's wrists and the hands stayed raised and pressed against the wall.

And had to breathe again, inhale that scent.   Faint breath of yeast at the crease of neck and shoulder, and *number uncounted*, it bared its throat to him at just his touch.   Oh surely Skinner could not intend for this to be for him.   And yet he had not forbade...   Alex let his teeth graze the jumping artery below the skin.   But no, he knew, already he'd learned too much to simply take.   That *was* for Skinner to decide. 

Or Jeffrey.   And he breathed again, and used his tongue to find...maybe.  Was it there?  That rarest scent, the willing sacrifice...  Something.   Faint.  But maybe, maybe.   But not enough to *know*.   And with that understanding came certainty: he was too young to know this.   He had not learned enough.   This was not his gift to take today.   Not the Jeffrey thing's life.   But the rest?

He pulled his mouth away.   Soft whimper of complaint but he moved down fast then, pressed his nose into the soft, pungent moss of Jeffrey's armpit.  Breathed deeply and growled low because the gland there sent one message, strong and clear:  sex sex sex and *now* and he couldn't resist a bite of that tender, salty flesh.    The Jeffrey-thing cried out, arched into him.

"Please..."

And down again, folding to one knee, hands steadying the pliant creature's hips.

Soft, silky fabric under his fingers and his nose lingered at the indentation of the navel, reveled in the sharpness there, the hardness of narrow hips and the maddening scent rising under his chin.

He could feel the brush of the creature's cock against the base of his throat.  Wet heat.   Slowly he lowered his head.   Sniffed...  delicately.

"Gods, Alex," hoarse voice crackled overhead.   "If all you're going to do is smell me, kill me now."

The words filled Alex's senses, but he recognized the tone as: no, I mean the opposite of what I say.   Or something like that.   And it didn't matter.   He was past the questions, past the worry.  The Jeffrey creature had shown himself to be worth...further study.   And the buzzing scent in his nose was making him quite mad.   He mouthed the soaked fabric, pressed his tongue against the firm, resistant line of heat.

The Jeffrey-creature made a sound, strained to press against his face.   He soaked up the sharp and musk and need upon his tongue, closed his teeth around the head and sucked.

"Oh gods and flying monsters...take it, take it, *please*..."  Harsh, insistent.   It sounded like himself in Skinner's mouth.

Was this how Skinner felt then?  Like a man who has swallowed a swelling bubble that stretches at his chest, his throat, his cock?  This powerful? He sucked again cruelly hard and felt the first glazed wetness gush strongly in his own groin.    The Jeffrey thing was shaking like a leaf, its hips jerking jerking against his palms.

And used his fingers to flip down the waistband, drawers, yank them down revealing a cock like a jut of stone, purpled and wet and so taut the skin must surely tear.   Oh and the smell, the rich and salty musk pulled a groan from his own lips.   His mouth watered, tongue lashed out to curl around that head.

And he could no longer wait or savor, his own need driving him to slide his mouth over it, swallow the fleshy shaft mouthful by mouthful.   Slippery salt around the inside of his mouth and Alex knew his was the weakness of a newthing suckling the nipple of its crèche but he could not stop.

And nor could Jeffrey.   Hands in his hair, coursing waves of heat across his scalp.   There would be punishment for that, there had to be, but oh he'd make it good.   And he let the creature move his head, opened himself to the impalement driven by those battering hips because the Jeffrey-thing was growling:  "take it...give you...every...fucking...take it take it take it..." and every word was like a sliding grasp upon his cock.

He could leave the Jeffrey-thing like this for hours, he thought.   Fucking his mouth like stormwind slamming a torn doorseal against a den but never able to break it off.   It was a thing he'd do someday, but not today.   His own needs had gotten their head and he was as caught up in their grasp as the other was in his and there had been so much he'd been denied these last three days.  And with that thought he slid his hands around the Jeffrey's hard and narrow ass, plunged two fingers hard and deep.

And Jeffrey howled and howled, thrusting hard and wild even as he shot, even as the warm ocean salt of him filled Alex's throat and he swallowed and felt the fire roaring through his veins.

Oh *this*.   He'd missed this, Alex had.   Forgotten how fine and plain it was.  Skinner was god and sand and light and love and end combined but *this*.  This salt and meat and the taste of a young man's thick surrender in his mouth and the simple blinding roar of his own pleasure, earned and without debt.

This was something that could bind a man to life. 

*

Walter tossed the engine specs aside when Alex walked in.  The boy was flushed, hard, vaguely confused-looking.  Walter thought it was probably a good sign for Jeffrey's ability to adapt. 

"Skinner."

"Mm-hmm?"

Alex frowned a little more than was his usual.  "I was with Jeffrey."

Walter made a note to check that there remained three living and reasonably healthy creatures on board, just to be sure.  "Did you ask him your questions?"

"Some of them..." Alex looked absent for a moment.  "He gave...  interesting answers."

"He's an interesting boy."

"He is older than me."

"You're an interesting boy, too."

"Will I be a boy for so long?"

Walter wondered when questions like that would start giving him headaches.  It seemed like they should, but at this point...  Well, hadn't he gone to space for the newness, the difference? All those years ago...  "I don't know, Alex."

Alex simply nodded.  Perhaps that was a hard question on his own world, or perhaps he was just accustomed to the ways of Walter's knowledge being...  different and new. 

"Are you bothered?"

"Why do you want him?"

Walter smiled.  "He's interesting *and* attractive."

"Do you find him...  beautiful?"

Walter took a moment to study the boy in the center of his quarters.  Alex was -- consciously or unconsciously -- mimicking the "at ease" position.  It simply wasn't possible that a position that left the chest so vulnerable would be familiar on his hellhole of a home planet. 

"I don't know him well enough to know if he's beautiful, yet."

"But you took him in anyway?"

"I took you."

"You...  didn't know me?"

The impulse to laugh at that, to ask how he could have known him was a difficult one to check.  Another side to the puzzle.  Alex was the sort of thing a Vulcan would build solely to torture himself into further heights of cognitive perfection.  Walter didn't have a clue as to why Alex would think Walter had had a real *reason* to pick him up....

Perhaps predestination was too cruel a belief to hold on Pax. 

In any case, when cunning failed with Alex, there was only honesty.  "I took a chance.  If I didn't care for you I could always have killed you later."

"Killing the unworthy...  this is something that comes up again and again with you, Skinner.  And the Jeffrey thing."

"Life isn't always the punishment."

"I am working on learning that."

"I know.  Come here."

Alex did so, slid himself up along Walter's body until his head shared the small, battered pillow.  He smelled like sex, presumably Jeffrey's.  Walter idly considered installing "security" cameras, or maybe just casually ordering Alex to bring Jeffrey into view whenever Alex felt like molesting him. 

He was never going to get anything done again. 

Walter kissed him softly, indulging himself a little.  To his surprise Alex opened his mouth and immediately relaxed into it.  It would, perhaps, be slightly more comforting if his new crew were just a *little* less zealous about adapting to his every whim, foible.

But Walter couldn't bring himself to object, either.  He ran his hand down and cupped the heavy heat waiting for him behind just one -- knowing Alex -- layer of fabric.  Already a little damp.  "You liked Jeffrey, didn't you?"

"I want more."

"You'll have it."

Alex shuddered, bucked into his hand and then simply ground himself mercilessly.  Walter's palm tingled.  It truly had been years since anyone had made him feel like more than simple cock and weapon.  He knew Alex would be scandalized and perhaps a little ashamed if he voiced the sentiment, though, so he simply pulled away a little.  Settled into the comfortable hollow of his throat and began a concentrated attack.

And then pushed the boy's hips down until he could unfasten his pants.  Walter gave Alex's cock a ruthless squeeze and nearly battened on his pale throat when he felt the moan on his tongue.  A beautiful boy, and very simply his.  Perhaps he should offer to brand him at some point....  But it would have to be a very precise design.

He would consider it sometime after he'd taken tonight's, this moment's fill of metal and hopeful violence, of the silken cock in his fist that seemed almost obscenely like his own.  Everything about the boy should be strange, or at least only like those parts of himself he'd never known. 

But he wasn't so strange in Walter's arms, in his fist, between his teeth...  perhaps the blood was Alex's way of justifying the connection? Though the boy didn't seem to need one.  Arching and writhing and crying so freely.  Was Jeffrey outside his door right now? Was he listening?

Perhaps he wouldn't know whose place to wish for.  Unlikely for today, tonight....  But someday.

Walter pulled back and knelt, looking down at his marvelous possession.  While he watched, Alex pulled one knee up and resettled into a new, dirtier sprawl.  Walter licked his lips, considered attacking the tight, dark pucker with his tongue.  Alex had probably never felt that before.

His mind reeled at the thought of his wilder, lost Alex.  But it wouldn't really be fair to subject the boy to such ruthless tenderness when Walter hadn't really planned to spend the time required to balance his indulgence with Alex's own. 

Maddeningly *logical* that resetting his compass to a morality he didn't much care for would be so difficult. 

He gave the boy's cock a solid backhand, watched seemingly every muscle flex and release in a small wave.  Dove in to take it deep, providing only wet heat and suction for several moments of desperation he could taste, then uncovered his lower teeth before pulling off. 

"Skinner--"

Oh he was close, so close.  What to do? Another bite? Vicious pinch? The knife he'd left on the bedside table? And when would Alex take it as his own? Something else to encourage...  sometime after Walter could be *sure* there'd be no more self-Patterning.  Or perhaps Alex was just waiting until he felt Walter trusted him or or --

He looked down to discover he'd been kneading the boy's lower chest and belly, occasionally skipping down to the sparsely haired thighs.  A three-knuckle sized splotch was making his already dark cock darker.  Encourage more blood to rush there, make the cock harder, the experience more intense...

There was a base logic to pain sometimes, a comforting state of existence he could gladly share with Alex.  A matching set...  Walter went for the other side, a forehand blow this time.  The sound of flesh on flesh -- too loud and brutal to be sex but sex just the same -- was something to be eagerly sought.  As was Alex's wail, and his thrust into empty air that presaged his orgasm. 

Heavy spurt onto his own belly and chest.  The boy could make three days look like two weeks.  Surely there hadn't been *that* much rutting on Pax? So much to learn still.  Walter felt wonderfully young.  Would Alex have such a fine gift for himself in fifteen years?

Walter ran his fingers through the hot splatters of come, finding the subtly humped surface of the scar he'd left the boy by touch.  If he kept getting sentimental that way Alex would be a ridged thing in less than a year.  Walter knew he was far too shallow to want that.  He would have to find a way around the urge before too much more time had passed. 

"Skinner...  so good..."

He grunted at that, lacking anything else appropriate to vocalize.  Settled back against the tapestry covered metal footboard.  Watched Alex breathe.

He would stay here for a while.

*

It had taken a solid half-hour for Jeffrey to force himself off the floor.  One second he was shooting what felt like his soul down the throat of the prettiest animal he'd ever seen, the next he was on the floor, alone, with his cock out. 

Alex had gone without a single acknowledgment.  He knew it was ridiculous to expect sentimentality from either of the other members of his "crew," and he didn't, not really.  But it would've been appreciated if Alex had, perhaps, mentioned whether or not Jeffrey would still have to watch his back around him.

Hmm. 

Well, watch his back for weapons used solely to hurt.  Or something.

At present, Jeffrey had his back to the wall.  A position that was becoming familiar, if not precisely comfortable.  Maybe Skinner would fuck him against a wall tonight, help him build still more positive associations to erase the mental image of himself *offering* his own throat for Alex to assault.

The man had sharpened canines -- not savagely done, just a subtle honing.  You wouldn't notice if he wasn't smiling in your face.  Or gnawing on your throat.

But oh it felt so good...  Not just the sensations -- men and women alike had left their marks on his neck.  The pleasure of that was undeniable, rational and...  pure? 

Perhaps simply more pure than this, not that *that* task was particularly difficult....  Jeffrey couldn't lie to himself, not on this.  Yes, he'd loved the suction.  Yes, he'd loved the scrape of those teeth over his sensitized flesh.  Yes, Alex's lips were surprisingly, addictively soft. 

But to be so far toward the edge, to grind against a man you could not wholly convince yourself was not truly an animal...  Perverse, thrilling.  And when he had surrendered, laid his head against Alex's own like a baby seeking contact and intimacy beyond the nipple....  He had meant it, through every part of him.

Jeffrey did not consider himself suicidal, per se.  He had, after all, spent a large amount of time and energy struggling to save his soul. 

But then, most of *that* had involved risking his body far beyond prior acceptable levels. 

Perhaps, far beneath where his consciousness could reach, there lurked some strange morality.  Near-Guaranteed Suicide is better than Doing Wrong -- a concept he had often sneered at during many, many children's holos -- or perhaps just something along the lines of Everything Can Be OK So Long As You're Still Yourself In The Morning. 

But what happens after enough mornings have passed that you can no longer remember who you were supposed to be? Not that he'd known before.  There should be some sort of mandatory course about figuring out your own identity and learning how to stick with it. 

That thought died quickly in the sudden flash of billions of children growing up to be the petulant brats they decided they were when they were nine or so.  Still, though...  Jeffrey was reasonably sure he'd never been a brat.  It just hadn't been an option, what with not having parents around to act up in front of.  And with the servants that all seemed to know him.

What he wanted.  What he needed.  What he deserved.

Jeffrey shivered, felt the stirrings of new arousal.  No, old arousal.  Old and dirty and...  and it hadn't stopped it from feeling good, making him moan, making him come.  Nothing stopped anything about Jeffrey's willing abuse until that unfortunate accident in Barn 8 when he was sixteen. 

Accident.  Well, in light of recent events and discoveries, the use of that word would be somewhat disingenuous, now wouldn't it?

Had his father known? If so, how long had he known? Had Jeffrey been...  watched? 

Jeffrey pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and *pushed*.  The images were replaced by the nova bursts of stars close and far, the imprint on trillions of hominids, the order to search the skies...

Or maybe he was just punishing himself for getting harder. 

He didn't know how long he'd spent in this place, but he did know the hum of the engines wasn't doing anything to improve his thought processes.  He was rank.  He needed a shower. 

Maybe Alex wouldn't be there....

Whether Alex was there or not turned out to be a moot point.   The door to Skinner's quarters was closed and wouldn't open to his touch. 

Disappointed, a faint sickly exhaustion dragging at his heels, alternately heavy and light like a mistuned gravity generator, Jeffrey turned away and trudged back down the corridor to his erstwhile quarters.

Not even enough energy to towel himself off and he ordered off the lights, threw himself into the cushioned coffin of the med-unit.   He checked the shim he'd stuck in between the hinges so the lid couldn't close on him accidentally, pulled a corner of the coverlet he dragged in there the night before over his shoulders and fell so quickly into sleep he hardly had time to let go of waking.

The strangeness of his days followed him into his dreams and gave them a weirdly linear feel.   He was chased or chasing, knowing himself to be part animal, springing, leaping.  Pursuing some terrified creature through the house, pursued by servants, by nameless dreads and coming to rest, shivering and panting, in his father's study.   His father was in there talking with another man, whose broad feet were set wide apart.   Their words were meaningless sounds to him, and although the man was familiar, low to the ground as Jeffrey was in his animal form, he could not see his face.  Jeffrey dragged himself across the floor, came to rest at his father's feet.   Soon found himself being stroked by hands -- his father's hands -- and thinking, sadly:  "Father I am not this beast."

But his father set a bowl of cream before him and he plunged his face in hungrily, lapping and lapping like a cat and when he looked up, cream dripping off his lips and chin, all the curtains were on fire, and flames licked hungrily around the cuffs and collar of his father's coat.

He woke abruptly in the dark with such a deep sense of dread and guilt weighing in his belly that for a long while he thought he would be sick.

He sat up, shaky limbed, light-headed, still feeling his limbs contracted into an animal crouch.

Sick, not just in his body but in his mind, his soul.   He ached.   His stupid cock was half-hard.   Dreaming of his father's murder -- //my murder I killed him killed them all..// and his body shed no tears, only slutted after nothing but the touch of a man's hand.

He ran his hands through his sweat-stiff hair, curls fisted in his grasp: "What is *wrong* with me...?" he snarled through gritted teeth.

"Serum blood sugar has fallen below optimum levels," said a calm, female voice.

Jeffrey blinked.   Blinked again.   Not more than a second for the sense of it to come.   He was sitting in the med-unit after all.   But still...

"Are you telling me..." he hiccuped, a short voiceless, stutter that bubbled up atop wild laughter.   "Are you telling me I'm h-hungry?"

"That if I..." laughter rising.   "I'll f-feel better if I...if I *eat* something?"  Laughter squeezed his empty gut, shook him hard.

"You are also hysterical," said the computer.   "A sedative is available."

Jeffrey was laughing so hard now he couldn't answer at all, but did manage to drag himself out of the coffin, one hand clutched around his aching middle, staggering across the floor.

"You require further assistance," the med-unit chimed at him as he staggered to the door.   Oh, definitely, he thought.   You know your stuff.    He was still howling as the door whooshed open at his careless slap.   As he stepped into the quiet hallway.   The sight of Walter Skinner and his pet Alex, faces turned in his direction with identical blank, surprised expressions nearly killed him.

"S'a--s'all right," he managed to wheeze, backing away from the both of them.  "Just out to lu- to lunch..." and he turned and whoop-staggered hilarity down the corridor to the galley without waiting for reply.

He sobered a little in the galley, the hysterics shuddering down to the occasional snort and giggle at the bowl of ceresine-flavored hava soup in front of him.  The med-unit had been right about that anyway.   Well, right about all of it, really.   He was hysterical.   He did need help, whatever help there was for...whatever the hell he'd turned out to be.   But here and now, on this ship, in this company, it was crazy to think he could be anything but...well...crazy. 

And so what if his body wanted no part of what he'd done?  How to expect it to resist the pull of these two men who offered it release from guilt, from shame, from want.   That was how they lived, wasn't it?  They'd honed the skill of living in the flesh.   Of acting and forgetting and paying no price for what was done.   What he'd done was right in their universe.   Or no, it wasn't right or wrong, it simply was.   The consequence of action that had to be taken.  But then that implied a value on the action after all...ah hell...   He didn't know.   He no longer wanted to possess a mind at all.   Maybe he'd get Alex to do him a head injury, render him insensible to anything but the constant ache in his groin and its release.

And a slow sweet rush burled outward from his very center to tingle warmth through all his limbs.

Skinner's quarters.   Tonight.

Oh, he could lose himself in Skinner, no question there.   Enough man there to wipe all of Kronos from his skies.   If only he could stay within the blinding circle of Skinner's light he would be fine.   He wouldn't have to know about anything else at all.

*

It had only taken a few minutes to heal Alex's bruises, but it really shouldn't have taken even that long.  Walter was distracted.  Jeffrey's scent was all over the room, something he'd been forced to notice when Alex attempted to use the excuse of breaking the seal of another's den to keep himself out of the infirmary.

It wasn't the most *comforting* thought that Alex was willing and able to adapt and use new brands of reasoning so easily, but it was...  good.  Sometimes it was too easy to forget the innate challenge of the boy.  It wasn't one he ever wanted to solve, after all. 

Walter had hazarded a few guesses about Alex's culture, and demanded to know whether or not Jeffrey had brought his first kill back to the den, or even fought for it in the first place.  It earned him a brief scowl, but it also made Alex proffer his arm willingly for hauling. 

It occurred to Walter that he'd been doing a lot of hauling lately, and he briefly entertained the thought of attaching wheels to Jeffrey's and Alex's feet to make it easier on himself.  Which explained why he'd been so surprised by Jeffrey's shambling, giggling exit from the infirmary.

Perhaps he was getting too accustomed to relaxing.  In any case, the computer was still speaking rather insistently at Jeffrey's retreating back, and Walter knew it would start yelling, sealing off corridors if it wasn't interrupted.  He'd programmed it himself, after all.  Anything to make it easier to get himself healthy should he ever return to the ship wounded and delirious.

He spoke in the "shut up" code and reflected, not for the first time, that he sincerely hoped he'd be able to forget the code should he ever need the computer's Mama function himself.  Walter then asked what Jeffrey's symptoms were, and was given a long list of technobabble that eventually added up to "exhaustion, low blood sugar, and incipient mental breakdown."

None of which was truly surprising, but it did give Walter pause.  How much of Jeffrey's obvious desire to make himself fit into all aspects of ship life -- including Walter's own bed -- was the boy's simple scrabbling for solidity of any sort? 

Just because Walter didn't intend to use him, then drop him in the nearest 'port city didn't make it any less wrong for him to take advantage of a Jeffrey in this state.  Did it?

At which point he caught sight of Alex on what was, apparently, Jeffrey's chosen biobed.  He was rubbing himself, practically *grinding* himself into the thin mattress, tongue occasionally darting out to lap. 

"What...?"

Alex ignored him for several more moments, and Walter found himself easing his stance to watch more comfortably.  Alex was a beautiful boy, there was no way around that.  Walter resolved to find out just who had taught him to move like water.  And then Alex was flipping over, settling himself in that grimly expectant pose Walter had come to know as "ready to be repaired."

"What was that about, Alex?"

"You said this was an unclaimed den."

Walter couldn't hold back a small chuckle.  "Please try not to challenge Jeffrey to a death-match for it."

"You stopped me from killing him."

It was spoken like an accusation, and Walter raised his eyebrow.

"I would not go against your wishes, Skinner."

And there was anger there, and real hurt.  Apparently, the idea of whim just didn't exist on Pax.  Walter resisted the urge to rub the back of his own neck and simply walked close to Alex.  "I did not understand."

"You do now?"

"I think so."

And the brief storm passed to return to Walter Alex's strange brand of sunshine.  It seemed off the edge of the visible spectrum somehow, the sort that would light on bone and tooth and miss the subtleties of curve and flesh.  It was beautiful, just the same. 

Walter wondered if Alex had set some time limit for Walter to correct/explain his flaws as they came up.  Before forty-five seconds and all was well.  After that would be a whole separate issue.  Or something.  He ran his thumb over Alex's cheek and stayed there for a moment, drinking the boy in.

A full shot of Tyrellian "water" would, if survived, make a human numb to most other liquors, and could make taste buds require several reconstructive operations to make them function properly again.  Drinking it was considered the first step to a truly spectacular suicide in some circles, and Walter had avoided it.  With Alex, though... 

Perhaps the best reason to have and keep Jeffrey was to provide those intermittent doses of normality.  It would be far too easy to lose all of himself in Alex, perhaps killing them both in a fit of exultant lust. 

Too easy.  He could see the *Rose of Sharon* now, adrift for Christos knew how many years, inhabited by nothing but their own carved corpses.  He laughed darkly to himself.  Maybe for Alex's birthday.

And then he'd finally gotten out the regenerator and ran it over the boy's as- close-to-flaccid-as-it-was-ever-likely-to-get cock, checked for other bruising, fingered the tooth/knife marks on Alex's neck, caught the boy's purr in a brief kiss, continued to check for other bruising, and found none.

The boy would remain unmarked until the next time Walter took him.  At which point Alex nuzzled his chest and then faded out of the room.  Walter wondered when he'd find out where, precisely, *Alex's* den was. 

Alex would remain unmarked if that instapromise thing was valid for Pattern- driven self-mutilation as well.  It probably was.  It would almost have to be.  Walter had met very few people who actively considered themselves to be complex on more than one or two points. 

And most of them had needed killing even more than Alex wanted it.  No, he could trust Alex on whatever promises he'd sworn the boy to, and he could trust him to avoid clinginess, too. 

Though he wasn't *altogether* happy about that, it did leave him the time and energy for Jeffrey.  Alex's brand of jealousy was the most livable sort Walter had ever seen.  Not even jealousy, really.  More like a sort of *directed* curiosity.  It had been a good decision to leave Jeffrey open for the sharing. 

Walter knew Alex would go against all natural inclination until he understood -- or thought he understood -- what Jeffrey's appeal was to Skinner.  And then he would mold his own needs and wishes to match, and Jeffrey wouldn't stand a chance.  Jeffrey would be another T'losian spice on Alex's palate, something new and strange to acquire. 

It probably wasn't precisely right to look forward to the day Alex found Jeffrey as beautiful as Walter himself did, knowing that Alex's beliefs about how to treat beauty were so different than his own, but... 

But Jeffrey needed to have more people prove to him that he was beautiful.  Yes.  That would help to make him...  feel better. 

He barely resisted the urge to throw the tricorder against the wall.  There was no possible way to rationalize the use of rationalizations.  He's *killed* people for less.  No, he *wanted* the boy, and, sometimes even more than that, he wanted *Alex* to have the boy.

Just to see how and whether Jeffrey would change, lose the stiffness, laugh more naturally...  It disturbed Walter that he hadn't really recognized the jagged edge in the boy's laugh for what it was sooner, that the sound of *any* laughter had been so intoxicating as to render Walter as blind to the subtleties as Alex. 

He needed them both here, and relatively healthy and happy.  If only so they could both remind him of all the violence, all the care, all the personal interaction Walter's brain seemed programmed to forget at the slightest provocation.  He was still a young man, hardly into his prime, he would not let himself become old and confused by the novelty and marvel of having other organic creatures onboard his ship.

In his home. 

He would grow stronger from his association with both of them, and he would not let either of them break, no matter what the temptation.

*

The rest of the daycycle passed in relative peace.   Alex and Jeffrey both having evidently gone to ground, Walter's resolution to acclimate himself to company seemed ironic at best.   The ship felt unnaturally quiet, empty.  More like his old home than it had in months.   Not an unpleasant situation, particularly since it was a temporary one.

Left to his own devices Walter settled back into an easy, well-practiced rhythm of fiddling with the ships' systems, studying reports of Federation activity and scanning the void for the sound of corruption growing.

Nothing came of it, but he was used to that.   Space was big and he was very, very small.   Always had been, didn't pay to sweat it.   Something would come, it always did.   Later he repped himself a meal of prote and root vegetables and ate it in front of the viewscreen on the bridge, with a bottle of real Romulan ale.

The ale warmed him and buzzed away some of the sharper edges of his thoughts.  No matter what its drawbacks, this was the life he had chosen for himself and he knew better than most how many worse ways there were to live.   By the time he had showered and ordered his quarters to his liking he was in a fine mood, relaxed without being sleepy; satisfied with the days work.   Looking forward, he realized, as the doorchime sounded at the appointed hour, to spending time alone with this 'Jeffrey-creature' -- to becoming better acquainted with this boy/man both so unlike himself and so familiar at the same time.

"Come," he said and as the door slid open he felt a smile already tugging at his mouth.   Anticipation, just for its own sake and there was Jeffrey, looking...well.   Smelling clean, curls combed and a little damp, dressed in what Walter recognized to be one of his own discarded tunics, but altered somehow to fit the smaller, slenderer frame.

"I hope you don't mind," Jeffrey said.   "I ran it through the material replicator.   I kept the pattern in the buffer though, I can put it back the way it was."

"Keep it," Skinner said.   "It suits you."

Jeffrey's pleased, relieved grin reminded Skinner that it had not been just a lie.   The boy did need a little...encouragement.

"Drink?" Skinner asked. 

"Definitely," Jeffrey answered.   Skinner was already pouring the spirits into two small, stone cups which he held in the fingers of one hand.

He held them out to the boy who took one of the cups, let his hand brush warmly against Skinner's hand.   Yes.   Definitely something sparking there. 

Let it spark, Walter thought.   He was enjoying the sheer novelty of an encounter with...preamble.   Been so long since he'd seduced.   Not that Alex's constant furnace blaze was any less whelming for simply being *there* at any given moment. 

But having two spices to choose from did nothing but enhance the prospect of the meal.

He watched as Jeffrey turned the liquid in the cup, sniffed like a connoisseur.

Tasted.

Watched the flush suffuse the soft features of the boy's face.

The sparkle in his eyes as he glanced up.   "Dangerous stuff..." Jeffrey said. 

"Very," said Skinner.   He downed his own shot.   Smiled as it burned a diamond line down to his belly, spread.

There was a pause, comfortable, slowly gaining weight.  "I went to your quarters..."

"Yes...?" Skinner asked, intrigued.

"Well, it was rather uneventful.  Your door was locked.  The Computer mentioned you were here...  it sounded vaguely...  smug."

Skinner cocked his head at the boy, wondering.   Jeffrey presented himself at times as this innocent.   Not a pretense exactly, but it clearly meant something.   To be so coy when he was already hard, his eyes dark with lust that wasn't innocent at all. 

"What do you want to know?" he asked, bluntly.   Not unfriendly.

Walter watched the boy swallow, flush a little more.  If he asked something along the lines of "what are you going to do to me," Walter was just going to have to take him right here.  "Alex.  Tell me about Alex."

Walter couldn't help but laugh at that.   And god he knew in his gut what a *right* thing it had been to bring the 'Jeffrey-creature' on board. 

"Come here," he said, extending his hand.

Jeffrey looked up from under lashes, not quite so lush as Alex's but charming enough, and laid his fingers across Skinner's upturned palm.   Warm, soft fingers.   Bitten nails newly evened.   So much newness to explore.   He led Jeffrey to the viewport in the outhull wall.

Centered him before the screen, himself standing close enough to Jeffrey's back to feel their mingled heat and reached across the boy's shoulder to the keypad control.   Stars blurred and shimmered, reconfigured themselves into new constellations.

"There," Skinner said, pointing to one tiny cluster of diamond pinpricks in the velvet field. 

"That's...where he comes from?"  Jeffrey ventured.   Their cheeks were only inches apart  and Skinner felt the boy turning in toward him, heard him breathe deep as if to capture Skinner's scent.

"Where I found him," Skinner said, he touched the control pad again and the screen jumped to a planetary scale.   Round curve of planet hung against the black, striated bands of dried-blood red.

Still leaning close, Skinner felt Jeffrey's body brush against him, pull away.  Heard the dryness in the boy's mouth as he swallowed.   "A desert world..." Jeffrey said.

"Now," said Skinner.   "Colonization on Pax wasn't quite so smooth as it was on Kronos."

"You're telling me the Federation did this?"  Jeffrey's voice was so low it was almost a whisper.

"They called it a miscalculation," Skinner said.

"I know why you're telling me this," said Jeffrey, leaning farther away.  "You want me to think that what I did was right."

"That's not my business," Skinner said, giving him his distance.   "And you asked.   Or was there something else about Alex you wanted to know?"

Skinner felt Jeffrey stiffen slightly.   Then relax.   He could almost feel the rueful smile spread across the boy's mobile face.

"You're very good at this," Jeffrey said.   He felt the boy lean back into him, mold himself to Skinner's body from shoulder to heel.   He responded by taking Jeffrey's weight, wrapping his arms around him in a low and loose embrace.

"I am," Skinner buzzed in Jeffrey's ear.

He felt the boy's hips buck reflexively against him and the pressure sent a warming surge through him again. 

His lips were still by the boy's ear and he took the opportunity to mouth the tender cartilage,  nip sharply at the lobe and then swipe slow and wet around the delicately carved whorls.   The press of his tongue against the deeper channel evoked a shuddering gasp from the boy.   A voiceless cry:

"Skinner..."

"I've got you boy," Skinner said, gently.   "I won't let you fall."

He turned the boy around without breaking the circle of his embrace.   That flushed face looking up at him, still traces of that smile that would not be smothered, but the eyes so vulnerable.   Dark eyes that held no secrets, lips barely parted.   Walter lowered his mouth upon that mouth.   Met softness with softness of his own.

Oh, Jeffrey tasted sweet, all right.   His eyes fluttering closed fanned Walter's cheek but then his hands came up under Walter's to clasp his back, pull him close and Jeffrey was kissing him, hungrier than anything he'd expected or imagined from the boy.

It pulled a low groan from somewhere deep inside him and he cupped the boy's ass, pulled him in to grind their hips together.

Firm and hot.   And Jeffrey's mouth was innocent and not innocent at the same time.   Plunder me, it begged with lips and tongue and nipping teeth and Walter willingly plundered.

Took what he wanted, gave what he gave -- the hot, thick sweep of his tongue in Jeffrey's mouth made the boy moan hungrily; wet, open-mouthed kisses along the boy's jaw and down the taut curve of his neck brought a hiss.   Brief copper taste -- Walter pulled back long enough to look, found  bruises there and he recognized the spacing of Alex's teethmarks scratched into the bite -- and Jeffrey pressed insistently against him, hand riding up his back to try to push Walter's head back down.

And Walter might have counseled patience, teased a little longer, but something about Jeffrey's hunger was resonating through him like the long, slow tolling of a bell.   It called up hungers of his own, not for blood or mastery but for something which he had no name for anymore.   He wanted...*this*.   Now.   Took the boy's mouth with his own again, one hand sliding up the boy's back to unfasten the tunic's simple catch.   It parted at his touch.

The boy said: "Ohh..." into his mouth and Walter swallowed the sound and breath as he slipped the tunic off the boy's shoulders.   Such silk under Walter's hands -- Jeffrey's skin was petal soft over firm, lean muscle and Skinner wished vainly for a second mouth to never break the kiss, but he had to taste that fine, fine skin.

Walter bent to press his lips to the exquisite curve of shoulder and felt warm lips fasten on his own neck, fingers trace the shape of muscles of his flexing back. 

Walter hummed his pleasure, arched a little into the touch.   And felt the boy's cock twitch against his own.   Innocent and not innocent.   Somewhere young Jeffrey had learned to enjoy giving pleasure as much as taking it.

//But you'll have to just *take* it, for now, boy," Walter thought.   //I'm of a mind to pleasure you without restraint tonight.//

He pushed the hanging tunic down Jeffrey's body, taking in the firm pecs; small pink peaks of nipples; soft curls of chest hair arrowing to straightness down the belly.   The definition of a casual athlete's musculature -- neither whipcord and sinew like Alex's, nor heavy and defined as his own.   Jeffrey's angles were rounded, smoothed like hand-shaped clay. 

Walter ran his palms across the flesh, gently catching at the boy's nipples with his thumbs.

And then slid one hand around Jeffrey's naked back again, pulled him close to bring a nipple to his mouth for a brief experimental suck.

Took the boy's weight on his arm as Jeffrey's knees wobbled.   Jeffrey's head falling back and the boy laughed again.   Not wild.   A light, rolling laugh.  Just...pleased, maybe.   Pleasured.

And Walter couldn't resist, had to have that honey on his lips again and brought his head up to take Jeffrey's mouth again.   So good.   His free hand still roaming caught the catch of Jeffrey's pants, flipped that open too.  Pants and tunic falling, puddling at their feet.   Jeffrey slipped the deckslips off of his own accord and the boy was abruptly, wonderfully naked in Walter's arms.

Walter pulled back again to look at what he'd wrought.   Jeffrey's mobile face was rouged with his arousal, bright eyes heavy lidded, that generous mouth moist and curving up at the corners.   His long, lean body angled away from Walter, loose and hipshot, cock rampant. 

Nice cock, Walter thought.   Of a size.   Firm and sweet looking, dusky pink and glistening at the slit.

Nestled in -- Walter's hand roamed down to tangle gently -- soft black curls.

"See anything you like?"  Jeffrey's voice, brimming with the wry humor Walter was beginning to expect and breathless with unconcealed desire at the same time, gave him another surge of pleasure.   He looked up, caught the bright, brown gaze with his own.

"Yes."

Lust scorched the edges of Jeffrey's careless smile and he swallowed.

"Let me undress you?" he asked.   Walter nodded.

And was rewarded for his forbearance.   Jeffrey was thorough but efficient -- satisfying only the sharp edges of his curiosity, never lingering too long.  Well, almost never.

"You've seen one before..?"  Walter asked dryly.

Jeffrey looked up, almost startled from the kneeling pose he'd held for almost a full minute.

"I *thought* I had," he said, blinking, wide-eyed.   And Skinner threw back his head and roared with honest laughter. 

"Come here," he said and pulled Jeffrey to his feet.   He caught him up in both arms, kissed him, turned them both to bring Jeffrey up against the flickering flame wall.   Edged weapons framed them, but the wall itself was only soft and warm.

Kissing and consuming like the slow flickering flames themselves.  And still his hunger grew, slow and rolling warm like a wave as Jeffrey's mouth laid claims on him, as Jeffrey's hands mapped out the territory of his body, as Jeffrey's cock painted his belly with short, blunt strokes.

So long since such simple contact had made him want like this that when Jeffrey wrapped a long, lean leg around his hip, Walter knew he couldn't wait any longer than he had, had to take the boy now and completely.   Reached for the oil he'd set on the low table nearby -- not bannet oil, but *sklaer* -- slick and fragrant and fine as liquid pearl.

Just the thought of sliding into that firm, sweet flesh -- flesh that he ached to taste, to savor, to plumb with mouth and thumbs and cock at once -- brought his breath hard and fast, and he tipped the bottle into his palm, brought his dripping hand to slick himself.

Slick the willing heat against which he writhed.

"I have to take you, boy," he said harshly and Jeffrey whimpered, head slammed back against the wall, turned to the side and nodded, fiercely.

Then cried out, an unmistakable bleat of need, as Skinner pressed a blunt finger into him and up...

Fucked him slowly like that, Jeffrey opening to his finger like a flower, head rolling against the wall and crying out to the rhythm of his strokes.

Walter, shaking from his need, knowing he would hurt the boy some and that would be all right but wanting to make the hurt *easy*, kind.   Sweet.   And there were words now, or bits of words breathed into Jeffrey's cries.

"Now..." and "please" and "Now..." and Walter could wait not a second longer.  He positioned himself at the boy's entrance, oil running down his thighs and scooped Jeffrey's other leg up, bracing him against the wall, sliding a hand around to take the remainder of his weight.

Jeffrey locked his ankles around Walter's waist and reached out to steady himself on Walter's shoulders.   Their eyes met.

"Don't look away," Walter said.

Jeffrey's eyelids furled a bit but he didn't break the contact, neither of them moved, so Walter got to see it all as gravity and oil worked the boy down onto his ready cock.

So slow -- neither of them thrusting yet for just this one long glide and Walter drank in the pleasure/pain/pleasure/pain flickering across Jeffrey's open face.   And the sensation, that hot slick ring of heat descending, enfolding him, the boy's weight a satisfying strain to the muscles of his back and legs -- a heat so gentle it was hard to understand how it was searing all the flesh off Walter's bones...

Then the last stretch cable of resistance gave and Jeffrey sank down, seated -- sheathing him in molten pressure to the hilt.   Walter  rolled his head against his neck to stop himself from going over right then and there.

He felt soft strong fingers grasping at his shoulder, sliding up to clasp behind his neck.   Jeffrey's eyes at closed.   Lips parted.   Skinner felt like a dreamer running through air thick as syrup.   He needed-- *needed*-- to get to those lips, needed to thrust and roll his hips, pull Jeffrey up and to him.  Did it, feeling the stretch of the other man's tendons, hearing his deeply guttural moan.   But, ohhh...  Mouth on mouth and the join was like the closing of a circuit.

Meat and muscle sparked to motion and Walter angled out and thrust, thrust...  seeing sparks behind his eyes, sweat and oil lubricating all his moving parts...

And the hot, burn of pleasure sizzling up and down his back from heels to crown, like the pulse and surge of a warp core unbound by fields of force.  He was moving, moving in toward something, each piston stroke driving forth a muffled cry from Jeffrey's mouth into his own; each swallowed cry tripping over another thrust.    Jeffrey in his arms like a babe but his cries were a young man's cries and he need was like a small sun, drawing Skinner in and in and--

the burn ignited somewhere deep inside his core, spread up and out to all his limbs.   He was pounding into Jeffrey now, pounding him against the wall with the force of his thrusts and somewhere the burn must have caught the boy up too because there was a sudden twist and spasm in the legs wrapped 'round his waist, a brief explosion of slick wet heat between them and a voiceless scream that could have been his name... 

And then he came. 

*

Alex, nestled in the ventilation shaft, watched Skinner and Jeffrey slide awkwardly down to the floor.  Jeffrey still had his neck thrown back...  the strange...  boy...  seemed to exist in a constant state of invitation, and yet Skinner had not marked him much at all.  His own mark stood out in stark relief even though Jeffrey was still flushed. 

Did that mean Skinner intended Jeffrey to be his? Of course Alex would share -- Alex was rather pleased to see Skinner spend some of his gentleness on Jeffrey -- but if Jeffrey was truly *his*, did that mean his dreams of eventually leading him to a willing slaughter would eventually come true?

He felt a surge shoot to his cock and settle there, abruptly making him aware that he was hard, aching for touch.  He could slip out, scratch at Skinner's door.  But was this time supposed to be private?  Were his forays through the guts of Skinner's ship wrong somehow?

There were times when Skinner's body clearly said: "I will be alone," and that was that.  Alex would fade back elsewhere.  Press himself to the walls of the engine room, feel the thrum throughout his body.  Listen to some of the audios Skinner had given to him and look for the patterns.  Alex didn't know how he'd spent his whole life up until Skinner had taken him unaware of how....  *everywhere* patterns were.

Within the body and without, mechanical or organic.  It was some strange kinship of flesh to metal that Skinner might understand better than himself.  Perhaps the sands of his home had simply been too large and obliterating for other patterns to be supported.  Or perhaps if he had not failed so young, he might have lived long enough to understand. 

No matter how freely the blood ran in his veins, he knew he was dead to all who had known him back home.  The borya would've made sure of it.  He would never be called a man there, he would never be given to a mother, he would never have the honor of fathering a child.  Perhaps he might have sired a healthy daughter, and added glory and wealth to all Pax. 

Never now.  And it was his own fault, to be sure, but sometimes each breath felt like a mockery to all he had been.  Skinner was...  so much, but Skinner would probably never truly understand.

The blasphemy made him burn, but his thoughts would not stop. 

Skinner wished him to be someone else -- no he wished to add onto Alex's core, complicate his very being with things he never would've seen, never would've known.  Scandalized his flesh with tongue instead of teeth.  Skinner would still have been a man on Pax, there was no question of that in Alex's mind, but...

Would he even want to be? 

Skinner didn't seem to appreciate the parity of bone as much as other men Alex had known.  He always wanted *more*, in a way that seemed decadent and dangerous to Alex's mind.  Even now he was leaning over to kiss and caress Jeffrey so softly...  and Jeffrey was moaning into his touch.  No lashing writhe of need, this, just...  Just something Alex did not think he could ever feel.

Would Skinner decide he liked Jeffrey's brand of surrender better? Would Alex grow sick of this...  *softening* change and slit his own throat? A shameful death, to be sure, but his life was criminal in so many ways from what he'd known.  Perhaps he didn't deserve better.

But he'd be going against Skinner's wishes, and Skinner was the closest thing he was likely to know the truly sandborne...

Still, though, what if Skinner wasn't close *enough*? 

Alex spared one more look at the people sprawled below, marveled at how *brown* Skinner's flesh was against Jeffrey's own pale pink.  Had Jeffrey's world been dark? 

And then he was shimmying silently back through the shaft, a little desperate to return to the small, cool space he called his own.  It was a small juncture between curving tubes, and Skinner had casually provided several items of old clothing when Alex had asked.  It made for a hard, yet pleasing nest.  Small and as closed off as anything on the ship seemed to be. 

Though perhaps it wasn't a good idea to surround himself with Skinner's scent while he thought.  Alex froze momentarily, tried to think of another place to go, but everything else seemed so *exposed*...  He did not want to give either man the opportunity to read his treacherous thoughts. 

His "den," it would be, then, and perhaps the steadying, intoxicating smell of Skinner would not harm him.

*

Jeffrey lay on his back on Walter Skinner's bed and listened.

He felt more peaceful than he had for...months, really.     Maybe ever.   Not the numb and jagged peace of total exhaustion that he'd managed here and there, either.   This was something different.     A slow and steady calm, requiring neither questions nor answers, as though after his long wild flight across the void he had somehow come to rest with his ear next to the pumping heart of the entire universe.

He smiled at that -- more likely was just the diastolic throb of post-coital bliss, but still.   Just lying where he lay, on the firm, warm bed; wedged comfortably against Skinner's naked heat he felt connected to some larger rhythm.   He could *hear* it, feel it -- the subsonic thrum of the warp drive fields, the low steady rumble of Skinner's snores all seemed to resonate within a web of invisible force lines drawn in the immense emptiness between the stars. 

It seemed reassuring in itself, somehow, a pattern that wasn't fixed, that only existed in the relationships between its points and formed itself anew whenever a point moved, or changed or--

Jeffrey frowned.   The thought had turned vaguely disturbing and his pulped and satiated brain refused to follow it.   He didn't want to follow it, didn't really want to know or think.   All that would come back soon enough, along with questions he didn't want answered, like where were they heading now and what had frantically scrabbled across the ceiling while he and Skinner lay entwined.

He wanted nothing more right now than this.   Lying, listening, letting the universe turn around him as it would.   And though no-one was there to record it, the gentle smile he wore stayed with him, even as he drifted down into sleep. 

END

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