Cosmic Captain: Chapter 12

I woke up still snuggled into Lovath's side, his plush mattress comfortable beneath me. He was asleep, his xivpa spread around him on the pillow. My fingers traced over his green skin almost of their own accord, ghosting over the defined muscles of his chest. Lovath didn’t have nipples which was a little odd, and when I trailed my fingers down to his stomach I noticed he didn’t have a navel either.

Huh. Were Lovath's kind born from eggs?

It didn’t really matter. The ridges of his lean abs were mouthwatering regardless, and I found myself fascinated by the dark green patches that trailed between them. The scales were as leathery against my fingertips as they looked, akin to touching an alligator just like I’d thought. It seemed he had the scales in most places a human would have hair, though it wasn’t an exact comparison.

Those scales continued under the hem of his sweatpants and when I began to wonder what he looked like underneath I knew it was time to get up. I couldn’t have Lovath wrapped around my little finger if I was wrapped around his—not that he had a little finger. The three he had were the same size as each other and a decent bit longer and thicker than my own fingers, with one that was more thumb-like.

Climbing out of bed, careful not to wake him up, I crossed the room to where I thought the bathroom was. When I swiped the door open, I saw it wasn’t much bigger than mine, but Lovath did have a private shower. I’d always made sure to use the communal one by myself, but I idly wondered if Lovath would let me use his.

Which meant a much higher chance of him seeing me naked, and I wasn’t supposed to want that. But my mind kept drifting to how his hand had felt on my cock and how I’d had my first truly pleasurable experience in over a year.

I splashed water on my face to steer my thoughts back in the right direction, and when I exited the bathroom Lovath was awake. He was sitting up in bed, still shirtless, tattooed arms above his head as he tied back his xivpa to keep them from slipping over his shoulders.

“Guess you’re picking up on the coding.” His voice was a sleepy, sexy drawl as he flashed me a grin. “Seeing as you tried to kill me last night.”

“I didn’t—” At Lovath’s arched brow, I clamped my mouth shut. I did try to kill him, but it wasn’t like I’d had the guts to carry through.

“I’ll talk to Talisaar today and we’ll change course. Take you somewhere to get registered as a citizen of the Shukasi Federation.”

“So what, I can be your pet instead?” The bite in the words wasn’t entirely intentional, and Lovath flinched back at them.

“No, of course not.” His jaw worked, eyes hard. “I’m sorry, Gray. I should never have agreed to ship mystery goods and I should have backed out the moment I realized we had live cargo.” Standing, he threw a shirt on as he spoke, and I missed the sight of his body. His arms were still visible though; I’d never seen him wear anything other than a tank top or some sort of sleeveless turtleneck or vest. It was like he knew how hot I found his arms and wanted to taunt we with them always.

My comment had been unfair, even if I was still angry. “I’m sorry.” The words felt dry on my tongue. “I was just worried that after last night, you might expect—”

“A willing sex pet?” The mirth was back in his eyes and he gave me a once over. “Not from you, ksiva. You’ll come to me, I’m sure.”

I rolled my eyes at that, even if it had already proved to be true. “You’ll have to drug me like everyone else.” And honestly, how did I know that he wasn’t doing that anyway? Half the time, Lovath brought water down to the engine room for me; what if he was putting something in it?

Lovath tilted his head. “Like everyone else?”

I shifted from foot to foot, crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’m starving.”

Swiping my way out of Lovath’s room, I didn’t wait to see if he’d follow and headed straight to the kitchen. Most of their food were luuka bars because those stayed good for long periods of time, but there were also dried jerkies and quick-heat meals that Lovath threw in the space version of a microwave.

The large door to the flight deck was closed off, I noticed as I tossed a bowl in the heater and leaned against a counter to wait. Lovath had told me at one point that it was supposed to remain closed for safety purposes, but Talisaar left it open half the time anyway.

I was halfway through my bowl of—what was it? It was kind of like mac and cheese but not like it at all—by the time Lovath ambled into the communal and swiped his hand over the flight deck door control. “Change of plans, Tal.” He crowded into the flight deck and started pulling up what looked like star charts on one of the screens. It was nothing like any map or chart I’d ever seen, but I realized Earth’s perspective of space was painfully limited in comparison the extraterrestrial knowledge.

There was so much to discover out there that the thought made me dizzy.

“We’ve talked about you invading my space, Lo, I—”

“We’re not meeting Torvan.”

Talisaar blanched. “Lovath, we voted.”

“And you’ll recall I was the deciding vote. I changed my mind. We can’t go around letting people think we deal in exotics, no matter how many credits. I never should have entertained the idea.” Lovath’s words were making me swoon just a little. Which was completely bonkers. Was I getting turned on by basic decency?

Apparently.

“We haven’t shied away from immoral shtec in the past.” Talisaar combated, even as his eyes flicked to the charts Lovath was studying. “What do we do with him then?” Even Talisaar had started referring to me as him instead of it.

That shouldn’t soften me to his surly attitude, but it was well established at this point that my sense of who to like was royally fucked up.

“I didn’t grow a conscience overnight. We just don’t do slave trade. The Shukasi Federation will take care of him anywhere we take him, but I’m not trying to get arrested either.” Lovath was scrolling through charts, zooming in on certain pinpoints then zooming back out.

“Take care of me?” I questioned.

Without glancing back, Lovath explained, “Can’t put you back, right? So they do their best to integrate you. You probably have an illegal chip right now so they’ll give you a legal one, get an idea of your skillset—if any—and dump you on a planet or station they think you’ll thrive on.”

That…sounded nice of them. At least, I thought so? I didn’t love the implication that some humans may not have any sort of useful skills to contribute to an alien society, but it was also possibly true.

My fingers drifted to the scarring where I’d tried to dig out my microchip behind my right ear. “What are the legal chips supposed to do?” That was something I really hated about this seemingly advanced society. Working so much with tech had taught me I never wanted that tech to be in my head. I was bothered that they wouldn’t remove it entirely. And when I returned to Earth I knew it was undetectable, so any chip, illegal or legal, would be in there forever.

“Translator purposes mostly.” Talisaar was now fully invested in plotting a course with Lovath, and neither were looking at me. “All your identification is on it for travel or if they dredge your dead body out of a ditch somewhere. Ours, of course, are untraceable.” He tapped behind his fin-like ear where I was sure he had an implant too.

“So, they’re not supposed to be able to do other things? Like paralyze you?”

Lovath stiffened, then turned to me. “Yours can paralyze you?”

“Among other things.” I rasped, choking up a bit at the thought. For the first time in the short span I’d known him, Lovath’s eyes blazed with fury. My heart stuttered in my chest at the sour look on his face, his lip curled in disgust.

Was he really so angry on my account? Even Talisaar, I realized, was gazing at me with large, owlish eyes. Then he and Lovath exchanged a glance. A glance that said a million things with no words, and I was helpless to translate.

“Not delivering to Torvan. Right call. Lo, I’m gonna need you to take a deep breath.” Talisaar’s tone shifted to damage control, while Lovath looked downright vicious. Talisaar pulled his arm up to his face, that hologram flickering around his entire forearm. “Zen, can you come to the flight deck?”

“Be right there.” Her voiced chirped through.

“Who the drek did Torvan buy him from?” Lovath growled.

“Anonymous drop point, you know that—Zen! Do you know where Grishe is hiding out now?” Talisaar turned to his wife as she entered the communal. I’d noticed that sometimes she and Talisaar were in regular clothing and other times they wore those skintight suits with water packs. It probably had something to do with the fact that they were nu’jaro—or fish people, as I’d dubbed them in my head.

When I’d inquired if they were all so brightly and diversely colored, Zenkara had gone into a long, detailed explanation of all the different nu’jaro sub-species that I did not remember at all. A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed, but Zen was chatty.

“Grishe?” She tilted her head to the side in thought. Out of the corner of my eye I was aware that Lovath was still seething, and it was…really fucking sexy. “She’s been on Pretia for a while now. Someone need a new chip?”

“Fantastic.” Talisaar clapped his hands together and turned back to Lovath. “Grishe can put a new chip in Gray and that’s a great place to drop him off. Low chance of Federation officers nosing around, too.”

“Zen, can you figure out what krexxians Gray was purchased from?” Lovath’s voice was low, and it sent a shiver down my spine. A good shiver. Did I owe him a blowjob or something now? I reminded myself that I was waiting for him to come to me. Because as much as I didn’t want to get delivered to Torvan, I also didn’t want to live out the rest of my days on some other planet.

I wanted to go home.

Zen looked a bit surprised. “What good does it do to know who Torvan bought him from?” She hadn’t even questioned why I was getting a new chip or anything, I realized, and somehow I was grateful for that. Zen rolled with the punches and I had a feeling she’d voted for taking me to Torvan more out of solidarity with her husband than anything else.

“I’m going to kill them.” Lovath spoke so deadpan that I gasped. I needed to stop swooning over how hot he was and do something to help. But knowing that someone was so dead set on protecting me, on avenging what had been done to me? That was almost all I’d ever wanted. For someone to believe me, for someone to be angry for me, for…

Did I want someone to take care of me?

I swallowed hard and sidled up to Lovath. His hands were clenched into fists and I reached out to run my fingers up his bicep, tracing his tattoos. “Lovath, it’s okay.” It definitely wasn’t okay, but Talisaar and Zen weren’t doing great damage control. “Stopping them won’t stop the entire trade. Can we just work on getting rid of the shit they put in me?”

“I don’t give a drek about the entire trade. I want to tear apart the krexxians that took you.” Lovath’s eyes blazed, and that pleasant shiver was back. If he fucked me this angry, would he mark me all over?

What the hell, I needed to rein it in.

“And if all I want is to be as far away from them as possible?” It wasn’t a lie. The thought of Lovath ripping my captors to shreds was unnervingly hot, but I didn’t know if I could handle ever being near them again. They’d broken something inside me that I didn’t think I’d ever get back.

Lovath’s eyes softened a little. “Fine.” He gritted out. “We go to Pretia and get you a new chip.”

“Pretia? Are we taking Gray to Grishe?” Qwexil’s playful voice cut all the tension, and I didn’t realize how tight my shoulders were until they relaxed. He immediately came up and clapped Lovath on the shoulder, and I took a quick step back. “Knew you weren’t totally heartless.”

When I looked over, I saw Kryn was standing farther away, and I gave him a small wave. I was still skittish around the krexxian, but Kryn was a good dude. Quiet, but not overbearing, and I’d overheard him try to convince Lovath not to take me to Torvan a few days ago.

“Yeah, Gray isn’t going to Torvan.” Lovath visibly relaxed his body, but his eyes didn’t leave mine just yet. Then the rage bled away, and he shot an amiable grin at Qwexil. “Mostly heartless, though. I have a reputation to keep up.”

And just like that the switch had flipped. Was Lovath just that good at schooling his emotions? That good an actor? I supposed he had to be to thrive in his line of work. He transported illegal goods and swindled people for a living.

I wondered when I stopped being so bothered by that.

“How long will it take to get to Pretia?”

Talisaar moved a few things around on one of his screens. “We’ve been traveling away from it so…two and a half weeks? Slower if we have to go dark.”

“Go dark?”

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Talisaar turned to face me. “Yeah. We have a few days until Torvan realizes we’re not going to deliver, then he might chase us. If he does, we’ll have to lay low and travel slower.”

“Plot the course. I’ll handle Torvan.” Lovath sounded all authoritative and my thoughts about that would definitely scar a priest for life.

Reality rushed in with sudden clarity, and the moment was broken. I didn’t remember a lot of my childhood, but I did remember going to Mass every Sunday. And I remembered my entire goal here was to get back home. When I made it back to Earth, I would attend just one Mass, to honor the things I never thought I’d miss. I was sure my mother would be thrilled, and the thought made me pause, memories of church soured. Sure, there was some nostalgia there, but there was also pain.

Mom had dragged me, kicking and screaming, every single Sunday, trying to make me devout. She’d crossed herself and slapped me when I came out as gay in high school, then forced me to confess my sins to our priest at every given opportunity.

More concerning was I couldn’t remember my dad’s reaction at all. I dug in my mind for it and came up blank. But I must’ve told him too, right? My dad was arrogant and desperately cared what others thought of him. Surely finding out he had a gay son would have garnered some sort of memorable response?

It would have ruined his reputation among his religious peers.

“Gray?” Lovath’s light touch on my arm jolted me from my thoughts.

“S-sorry, I think…” The room was spinning a little, and I put my hand to my head. “I think I need to lay down.”

Kryn started towards me, probably just to fucking help because he was a medic. Of course he wanted to help. But I flinched away, swaying on my feet into Lovath, who draped an arm around my shoulders. He motioned to Kryn that it was okay, then began to steer me down the hall.

I was worried for a moment that he would take me to his room, that he would expect that now that I’d spent last night there. But he just swiped into my room and guided me to my bed to sit down. My fingers gripped the edge of the bed frame—more of a bed shelf really—knuckles white as I tried to get myself under control.

“What’s wrong, Gray?” He slid a soothing hand up and down my arm as he crouched in front of me.

“I…” The stars in my vision were fading, and I felt a little more stable. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, I’m okay.”

“Okay.” Lovath stood, and I craned my head back to look up at him. “You rest, I—”

“Lovath?” I grabbed his hand before he could back away, and I was hyper aware of the callouses on the soft skin on his palm, in contrast to the leathery scales on the back of his hand. I really didn’t mind the claws tipping his fingers; they weren’t claws exactly, but pointed, slightly domed fingernails that were a bit thicker than a human’s. The two missing fingers weren’t that weird either.

“Yes?” His voice wasn’t impatient, simply questioning, and I realized I’d just been looking at his hand in mine for a long moment.

“Is two men being together a problem here?” I’d never even thought to ask. Would I receive the same treatment in space that I had received on Earth? Was the idea that homosexuality wasn’t natural as pervasive in this supposedly advanced society as it was on my planet?

Lovath’s lips crept into a small smile. “Depends on who you ask, ksiva. Not for my culture, or Kryn’s. Not for the Shukasi Federation at large. And never on my ship. Okay?”

I squeezed his hand, hard. “Okay.” Gritting my teeth, I pried my own fingers off his hand. I was supposed to be playing hard to get. Lovath was meant to want me so bad he’d be falling all over me. Instead, I kept letting him take care of me, letting myself rely on him.

The only person I could rely on was myself.