Chapter Text
Jeff sucked in a breath. The air was thin and the heat from the water rolling down their skin made him a little light headed. Usually onboard a ship, they had to take ultrasonic showers. Which were even more effective than the old-fashioned water kind, but deadly boring. Basically, you just stood there in the stall with your arms out at your side until you heard the beep that let you know that you were all clean. Once every two weeks, though, he got to take a real honest to God hot water shower for ten minutes. All other crew got one water shower a month.
He always shared his showers with Jensen, especially the water ones. The last almost always ended up like this. Jensen pressed against the shower wall with one leg lifted to hook over Jeff’s hip to give him ample room to bury his dick deep inside the younger man’s hot body.
He loved everything about this. The sounds Jensen made; the feel of smooth, hot, wet skin under his hands. The tight clinch of muscles around his cock. The look on Jensen’s face when he came. It was so easy to fool himself that he was the only man Jensen had ever looked at like that and usually he went with the delusion. Today, especially. Today might be the last day he got to see that look, hear those noises. To feel like this.
He was a selfish fuck. He never should have brought Jensen with him. He should have dropped him off at home on the way to the front. Let him spend his money on the house Jensen bought for them. Told him he wanted him to have everything ready for him when he returned. But there was no going back now.
Jensen stared at his reflection after Jeff left the bathroom. He was nearly thirty and there were lines starting to form around his mouth and near his eyes. Being a pleasure slave was for the young. He wasn’t young anymore. Some owners kept their pleasure slaves despite their aging, or granted them freedom, but a slave could never be sure. They could end up anywhere when they got too old. Maybe this was why his previous master had given him up so easily. It was cleaner then deciding for himself how to unload his aging pleasure slave. He’d never thought about that before and a brief frown flitted across his face before he banished it lest the lines cross the threshold to actually become wrinkles.
He’d have to get some better moisturizer and wear cream when Jeff was on the bridge. His current master didn’t seem like he was becoming displeased, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Then again, his current master was always doing things ass backwards. He gave an amused snort at the thought that Jeff just might not actually realize that he should be dissatisfied.
He sighed and dressed for dinner. When he came out into the main room of Jeff’s cabin, he found his master brooding over the star charts again. He paused in the doorway, watching him. He wanted Jeff to keep him. He didn’t even want freedom if it meant he had to leave Jeff. As if he’d heard his thoughts, the admiral looked over his shoulder and smiled at him.
“Hey,” Jeff said, his voice a rumbling purr that gave Jensen goosebumps.
“Hey,” he said with a slight smile as he crossed the room. Jeff kissed him. He wondered how much persuasion the older man would need to stay in the cabin while they waited for the Navy. His stomach was in knots and he knew it would only be worse once Jeff left for the bridge. He wanted him all to himself until that happened, but the Admiral needed to have dinner with his staff and crew tonight. It was important for moral.
“Did you ever get your package?”
“Yes, Admiral.” Jensen murmured. It had been on the special envoy ship that rendezvoused with them the day before, carrying sealed communiques and supplies.
“I opened it by mistake. I’m not used to you gettin’ things.”
“It’s okay. I don’t get anything that you can’t see.” He looked in the box. It was his auto fill prescription. He’d actually run out of the pills and found that he didn’t need them at all… at least not with Jeff. But he couldn’t stop taking them any more than he could take off his collar. The laws were clear.
“What’s the prescription for?”
“It’s… just something I have to take.”
The Admiral frowned, concern drawing his eye brows together. “Are you sick?”
“No… nothing like that. It’s not for illness. It’s required for pleasure slaves.”
Jeff blinked at him in undisguised curiosity. “What does it do?”
Jensen felt his face heat. He had to remind himself that Jeff was new to this, that he’d never had a pleasure slave before and had probably never even known anyone who had. “It… it increases libido, Admiral.”
“Libido?” Jeff looked like he was going to be ill. “You mean… Oh.”
“Is there a problem, Admiral?” Jensen moved towards him, but Jeff took a step back. That could not be a good sign. The last time Jeff had avoided physical contact with him was before they’d left Terra. Well, there was the space sickness incident, but this felt different. Jensen thought they were beyond this.
“I just thought…” he trailed off and laughed softly. “You know what? I’m an idiot. I got no idea what I’m doin’ runnin’ a goddamn space ship, let alone an entire invasion.”
Jensen frowned. Something had just gone really, horribly wrong with this conversation and he had no idea what the hell it was. “Did I do something wrong?” Normally he wouldn’t be so blunt, but Jeff was scaring him.
Jeff cupped his cheek and kissed him gently. But there was still something really, really wrong with his behavior. Something off about the way he was touching him. “Never. You’re prefect. Com’ on. Let’s go eat.”
In the months since they left Terra behind, Jeff’s fleet had gone the long way around to slip behind the Crimson Empire’s line of defense and punched through their space at lightning speed. They’d had a few skirmishes, but they had been able to skate by most opposition and let the slower moving but more heavily armed Navy boys bringing up their rear mop up any resistance they left behind. Now they were just outside of scanning distance from the capital planet of the Empire, waiting for the Navy ships of the line to catch up.
Jeff didn’t believe that there were no defenses around the planet and he wasn’t about to attack without heavy ships. A dog fight was one thing, but attacking an entire planet required heavier ships with big guns and Marines one the ground. All of which were on the Navy ships.
The word from the Navy Admiral was that they would be arriving at their location in less than four hours. Jeff had no doubt that the planet knew there was a Federation presence in Crimson space, even if they were still clueless about the invasion, and he was prepared for the possibility of a nasty dog fight in the meantime even if he wasn’t about to start it himself. He hoped the Navy wasn’t late because if this was going to work, they would have to start the invasion with the next five hours. He estimated that was the head start they had on the Crim fleet they’d bypassed. Crim ships were also considerably slower, giving them hopefully the better part of a day for their attack. If they weren’t in control of at least ninety percent of the planet by that time, the entire plan was sunk. They’d have to resort to Plan B. Jeff didn’t like Plan B.
He needed to focus on tactics instead of thinking about the fact that Jensen was taking pills to increase his libido. What kind of idiot was he to believe that Jensen actually wanted him for him? If he weren’t a slave, the kid would be completely out of his league. Even as a slave he had Jeff outclassed. Having sex with Jeff wasn’t something he wanted, it was his fucking job. Actually it wasn’t even his job, because he wasn’t getting paid for it and he couldn’t just quit and do something else. It was his… what? Duty? Obligation?
Jeff huffed out a breath, nails biting into the palms of his hand, and forced his mind away from the subject. This was how he’d started to spiral out of control when his last relationship had fallen apart. He needed to focus on his damn job before he got his people killed. There’d be plenty of time to deal with this later. Jensen was already giving him sideways glances. The boy was also quieter than he’d been in months, like he was afraid to say anything. Jeff’s sudden distress was probably scaring him. He couldn’t help it though. This whole situation made him sick when he really thought about it.
He’d kept Jensen because at the time it seemed like the only sensible thing to do. Keeping his ship and his command had been all that mattered to him at the time, and the way to ensure that was to avoid offending the President. He was going to let Jensen do whatever he wanted. He wasn’t even going to touch him. Until he did. And he had already been in over his head with the kid before then. Now that Jensen was the most important thing to him, up to and including his ship, the idea of giving him up terrified him.
But he had to give him up, right? Keeping him was wrong because no one should own another human being. Especially one you were supposed to love. Jensen had to take pills to get it up. If nothing else pointed to an underlying problem with this situation, that should. Jensen could walk around in a paper sack and Jeff would want him. But Jensen needed chemicals. His stomach heaved.
“Shit,” he hissed softly.
“What’s wrong?” Jensen asked from his spot by his side as they made their way to the officer’s mess, looking like he was afraid of the answer. The younger man’s hands were clinched together, white knuckled.
“Just somethin’ I need to work out.”
“Sir! Admiral!” Misha’s voice called out to them from the corridor just outside the officer’s mess, the heavy thump of his combat boots echoing behind them. The sergeant was running towards them from the direction of the bridge.
“Sergeant?” Jeff replied with a raised eyebrow.
“We got bogies, sir,” as he spoke the alarms came on, signaling all hands to battle stations. “Looks like several companies approaching from in front of us and on both flanks. We’re outnumbered and outgunned.”
“Damn it. What’s the Navy’s ETA?”
“They’ll be another twenty to thirty minutes, sir.”
That was better than their original ETA, and Jensen wondered if it would be fast enough. He felt a rush of fear as Jeff turned to face him. He shivered at the intensity in the older man’s eyes. Without a word, Jeff cupped his face and kissed him. When Jeff finally pulled away, Jensen was breathless.
“Get to the nearest escape pod now, Jen. You hear the evac sirens, you hit the eject button. Am I clear?”
Jensen swallowed hard and nodded. “What about you?”
Jeff gave him an easy smile. “I’m just goin’ to work sweetheart. Don’t look at me like that. I’ll get off if it comes to that. You’re not gettin’ rid of me that easy.”
With that he walked away as Jensen stood watching him and feeling like his world just might be coming to an end. Somehow this was worse than first contact had been, the first battle in Crim space. Then he’d sat in Jeff’s cabin listening to horrific sounds that he somehow instinctively knew were the screams of dying ships. But they’d been expecting it then. This was an ambush, and they were outnumbered, and the Navy might be too late to save Jeff.
He did as he was told, found an escape pod and sat inside. He could hear the ordered chaos of the crew inside the ship. He prayed that there would be no evacuation siren, that there would be no hit to Jeff’s ship at all. He felt the vibrations from the heavy guns firing repeatedly. He’d spent time on the bridge with Jeff, but never during a firefight before. He wondered what it looked like, what it felt like, to be there now. His mind wondered as he thought of how magnificent Jeff must be, decisive and in command. That was how he liked Jeff best and he wished he could watch just once.
Suddenly, the hatch opened on the pod and Jensen frowned at the unfamiliar face that appeared. He didn’t recognize the man and he was pretty sure he knew all the crew by now.
“You still are a pretty one,” the man said, his voice a thick mucus-filled rasp.
Something about this scared him. The man had a plain, average face but something about it was hard, unfriendly. His eyes glinted with a cold light. And that voice sent anxiety crawling in his stomach “Who are you?”
“I’m just here to set you free, boy.” The man reached in to push the eject button and withdrew before the heavy doors closed.
“Admiral, an escape pod was just released.”
An escape pod? Why the hell would anyone do that? Their position was precarious, but it was unlikely to find any raptor crewman who would abandon ship before an evac was ordered even if they believed they were going down with the ship. “Can you identify who was on it?”
“I’m trying to now, sir…” the crewman uttered a curse under her breath. “It’s… Jensen?” She looked up at him from her workstation, confused.
“Jensen?” His confusion echoed hers. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who thought it was more likely for a crew member to desert then for Jensen.
A soft metallic ping drew her attention back to her console. “A second escape pod is away, sir! The person aboard is unidentified.”
This didn’t feel right. Jensen wouldn’t run away… would he? And what about this other guy? The computer couldn’t identify him, so that must mean he wasn’t a member of the crew, or he was skilled enough with computers to erase his own records before escaping. This could just be a coincidence. But Jeff didn’t believe in coincidences. “Where are the pods headed?”
“Jensen’s is on course for Utopia. The other is headed in the opposite direction.”
“Track them both, but make sure you don’t lose Jensen’s. Pull the footage from the corridors before the launches and review it. I wanna know what the hell happened.”
“Admiral,” Jared interrupted. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but we’re in the middle of a situation here.”
Jeff clenched his teeth and nodded. Jared was right. Before he could do anything to help Jensen he had to save his own bacon. “Duly noted, Commander. The lieutenant can work on that separately.”