Chapter Text
Cronus rips open a fresh pack of cigarettes, puts one to his lips, and struggles with the lighter. It sparks once, twice, and dies. He bares all his teeth, his hands shaking like he might throttle it, and just before he explodes into curses you concentrate your psi briefly and set the tip smoldering. He looks at you, puffs once, and sighs smoke through his gills.
“Thanks, chief.”
You only wish it was the tip of his bulge you were setting on fire, but it's better than having him put a fist through your gaming console again. The last time that happened it took a whole perigee for him to get you a new one.
“I just, I don't get it,” he starts pacing again. His angry gesticulating leaves smoke trails that would sting your eyes if you weren't wearing your helmet. As it is, you can already feel your useless little airways shriveling up. “How blatant do I have to fucking be? We've been pale for how many sweeps now? I thought he knew me! All I know is I spent hours on that ballad and all he can say is 'Y9u sh9uld 6e very pr9ud' like it ain't the reddest goddamn sentiment I ever put to lyrics.”
You shift in your helming chair and roll your eyes. You're stuck there until he unlocks you, and until he does, it swallows your legs up to the knees and your arms up to the elbows in weirdly warm, fleshy cylinders, unseen biowires burrowing painlessly into your hands and legs and feet. Thicker cables growing from the back of the chair are docked to the back of your helmet, so you look like a villain from Stargate Alternia.
It all connects you to the ship in a way you can feel but can't articulate. If you let yourself sink far enough into it, you can almost escape your meat entirely and enjoy a half-life among the circuits and numbers, where everything is finally fast enough to keep up with your spazzed out pan.
Until Cronus calls you back, at least. There are overrides and subroutines that keep you from going full-on robot, and he can put you on manual if he thinks you're not behaving. But the more you convince him that you're a good battery, the more freedoms he allows you.
“I just can't believe it. What do I gotta do to get through to him?”
You don't answer. You know better by now. Never, ever discuss romance with Cronus; at best he'll laugh and call you an idiot and at worst he'll wrap his cold hands around your throat and shake you until your teeth rattle and you bite your tongue because just what the fuck are you even implying you nasty little shitblood, are you MAKING FUN OF ME?
“Well?” he prompts you incredulously. “I like to think I'm an all around nice guy, why doesn't he want me?”
His body language sets off alarms in your head—he's past the point where he'd fall into a depressed slump. If anything, his movements are sharper, his fangs more visible with each word, his fins flared and bristling. He's a walking time bomb, and you have a horrible feeling that you're going to be the one that has to defuse him.
He glares at you and sighs through his nose. “God. Why the hell am I even asking you anyway, it's not like you have the romantic intuition evolution gave a lumpsucker. Are you even listening in there? Hello?” You shrink back as he strides over and raps his knuckles against your helmet, and his lips twist into a smirk. “Oh, you were. You're so good. Tell you what, I know one way you can help a bro out.”
Your blood runs cold. “Uh--”
Cronus rests a hand on one of the cylinders encasing your arm and you cringe away from it as if he was touching your actual hand. It's the one holding the cigarette, and it's all you can do not to puke your guts all over his stupid designer jeans as the smoke invades your sinuses. You can taste it. Within moments your lungs are hitching in stifled little coughs.
“Aww, is this botherin' you, pal?” He taps ash into one of the many trays he keeps nearby and probably hasn't ever emptied. “I keep tellin' you if you'd just start up yourself you wouldn't turn into such a fuckin' sissy every time I light up. Might even give us more in common, did you ever think of that?”
“NO. No no no no no--”
Rolling his eyes, he tugs one of your horns back and forth until you twist away. “Fiiiine, you keep on bein' a complete downer in every respect, I dig, I dig. Hey, why don't you bring Kankri up on camera for me, Captor, let's see what he's up to.”
“Why don't you CHOKE ON YOUR OWN NASTY BLONEBUGE.”
The lazy smile drops away and he moves in even closer until he's practically in your lap. His eyes bore through your visor like it's nothing as he grips your chin hard enough to hurt, his sour breath falling on your lips.
“How's about you do what I tell you to do, helmsman?” he says softly.
You shut your eyes and grimace. Behind him, one of your screens flickers on. Kankri is sitting in his block, drinking tea and speaking into his husktop's microphone. Cronus releases your chin and settles in next to you, draping one heavy arm over your shoulders like you're two flushcrushes watching a movie.
“There, that's more like it. Heh. Look at'im, ain't he cute?”
You might vomit.
“And so we see that the act of concealing one's bloodcaste is in and of itself an act of oppression, as it leaves those with cooler blood hues at the distinct disadvantage of being unable to atone for any transgressions, hypothetical or otherwise, that they might have perpetuated against the troll hiding their identity...”
Cronus sighs and tilts his head against yours. “God, that voice. I could listen to him read the hemo-directory and it would be an, an experience, you know? His voice is an experience.”
You squirm as his arm tightens around you, his other hand drifting up your thigh. He’s touched you like this many times before on nights when he was feeling particularly maudlin, and every time you always wonder if he’s going to do more than grope you.
“Hey. Quit fidgeting,” he mutters, but he's still too caught up in what's on the screen to sound seriously angry. You freeze up anyway, your eyes locked on that hand as he pets you idly, mindlessly, like someone stroking a purrbeast.
God, please let this be all that he does.
“Trapped this way, these so-called quote unquote highbloods are unable to enjoy the triumph of overcoming their own innate flaws and prejudices, whether they are consciously aware of them or not...”
Cronus's breathing has gone slow and heavy. His lips are parted, and leaned up against you as he is it feels obscene, like something you're not supposed to witness. He whispers something you can't make out and palms your inner thigh, kneading you with prickly sharp claws, and you feel him shudder.
Just pretend it's someone else.
“One could say that the privileged suffer in a unique way, trapped like flies in the sticky web of their own assumptions, bigotry, and misconceptions.”
“God, boy, you're so gorgeous,” he whispers against your neck.
You make a strangled whine of protest through clenched teeth, but you don’t say one word. Words don’t work anymore. Words have left you. It’s like the link between thinking and talking has been severed, leaving your pan awash in panicky static the more Cronus’s hand creeps upward--and then you go rigid, your breath coming in unsteady gasps as he starts kneading your nook. In spite of everything it’s only a matter of seconds before the fabric of your flight suit is treacherously wet.
“That good? Wanna get you off so bad...”
Pretend it's not him, it's not him, just look anywhere else but him, if you just don't piss him off it'll be over faster just get through this get it over with don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it--
“I propose that it is the responsibility of those who are exploited and abused to educate those who would mistreat them, for who else has the necessary experience and insight needed to persuade and inform an otherwise recalcitrant and headstrong aristocracy?”
Cronus removes his arm from around your shoulders and you're left feeling light and dizzy in its absence. For a moment he stops fondling you in favor of activating the ship’s autocruise and unlocking your chair. The bioware withdraws from your limbs and slithers back to wherever it lives when it's not in you. He takes your helmet off too, and oh god, you can't do this, you can't do this--
He maneuvers you like a doll, thoughtlessly, barely looking at you, and in a matter of moments you're stuck perched on his lap while he sprawls in your chair with his legs spread wide and his head tilted back, his hands roving greedily over you.
“C'mon, get my pants open, lovely--”
You duck your head, trying vainly to obscure your face in your hair, but he's not looking at you, not even when he guides your hands to his jeans. The button is easy, but the zipper has you flummoxed. You fumble with it with shaking fingers, terrified of his bulge but even more terrified of what he'll do if you refuse, and god damn it GOD MOTHER FUCKING ASS SMELLING SHUNTFUCKING THROBSTALK STRAIGHT UP YOUR OWN GROSS SHITTY NOOK you can’t make it fucking WORK, your hands might as well not even belong to you for all the good you’re doing--
““While it can be argued that well-meaning privileged individuals could offer their own thoughts on the literal subjugation of the downtrodden, it is not their place to assume that they are truly intimate with the specific hardships that warmer hued trolls face.”
Cronus frowns and his eyes flicker from the screen to you. You break out in a cold sweat all over and tug at the zipper wildly. It’s getting harder to grasp, stinging your fingers as you pull and pull, and oh god you have to fucking hurry, every second you don’t unzip him brings you closer to him flipping his shit--
Then the fucking thing finally rasps down. He relaxes again and turns his attention to the screen as the length of him comes arching up and out of his underwear. It's only when he grabs your wrist and clumsily guides your hand to his bulge that you realize he hasn't been talking to you, he's been talking to--
“Kankri--” he moans as he closes your fingers around him and starts moving your hand in swift, firm strokes, his eyes locked on the screen over your shoulder. “Oh, fuck, ooh, oooh--”
Oh shit he’s never done this before, he’s never made you--
Frantic, you stroke him faster and try not to look, just watching how your arm moves with a kind of detached intensity, hoping that if you get him off it’ll be over quicker. At this he throws his head back and keens, his hips moving faster, and there's a distinctly surprised note that makes you think he didn't expect you to do this--
“And so, to borrow a phrase from my favorite ancient poet Troll Justin Bieber, we as a whole must remember the uplifting and beautiful concept of amor omnibus idem, or, in baser layman’s terms, that love is the same for one and all.”
“Ah, fuck, fuck, honey please, oh fuck--” Abruptly, he wrenches your hand away and pulls you flush against him, grinding hard and fast against your hips. He holds you too firmly for you to even think of getting away, and then his chapped lips are on yours. He tastes like cigarettes. A panicking part of you desperately wants to squirm away, but you don’t dare risk messing up again. He presses a hand to the back of your head and kisses harder, bucking against you, and you think at least this way you don't have to listen to him talk anymore, at least this way he's too greedy for sensation to get angry with you--
You squeeze your eyes shut against the unwanted feeling of his breath against your face. His moans sound disgusting and kind of hilarious coming through his nose. You hang on tight and try not to bite him as they escalate, growing faster and sharper and oh thank god it's almost over--
“In the long run, comparing the slights and injustices endured by the downtrodden to the small, if stinging guilty wounds suffered by the more advantaged does no one any good. It is better to cease dwelling on these progress-halting narratives entirely and focus instead on a brighter, happier future for us all.”
It's alarming when he peaks. He parts from your lips with a garbled cry and shakes violently like someone in a seizure, his face contorting. He doesn't let you move until his hips stop twitching, and even when his hands slide down your back and rest lightly on your hips, you're hesitant to draw away, lest he pull you close again.
“End recording,” says Kankri.
Cronus is a sweaty, grinning mess, his pants and tanktop sloppy with his genetic material and his bulge limp and sticky and half sheathed.
You're going to have to double sanitize your helming chair. Twice.
Your flight suit is ruined, and your own mating parts are aching with a mixture of reluctant arousal and the worst friction burn you've ever had, but you don't dare mention it.
You watch him nervously while he tucks himself back into his pants. Chuckling, dreamy, he cracks his eyes open and grins wider at you, the light from the screens glinting off his teeth.
“Heh, woooow. Look at you, what a fuckin' mess. You're a good friend, though. Really.” Cronus pulls you into an unpleasantly damp hug. You grimace and pat his shoulder briskly until he lets you up and rolls his hips against yours meaningfully. “You need a little assistance, champ?”
“N-no! No. I'm. I good.”
“You sure, bro?” He's looking at you all bleary like you're the funniest, stupidest riddle, and you realize there's no malice in him, no secret motive to let him touch you again; riding high on afterglow he’s downright amiable. Your ears are ringing and your skin feels numb all over, and nothing in the room looks real, no matter how hard you stare.
You risk climbing off him and stand on wobbly legs. “Yeah. I'm gonna. Go. Clean off.”
“Right on,” he says, unmoving, and salutes you as you leave.
You throw up in the ablution trap when climax takes you, scalding water pounding your oversensitive hide, one hand wringing your raw bulge and two fingers plunged up your nook. You barely even feel it, and what you do feel is a stinging, unpleasant spasm, but at least you're not hard anymore.
The water washes your mess away. Fighting vertigo, you stagger to your feet and point the spray directly into your mouth, washing out the taste and memory of his tongue. Your grip falters and you end up spraying the back of your throat instead, and then you're on your knees again, your bilesac clenching with violent dry heaves as the showerhead flops and wiggles.
Your helmsblock is empty when you return to it, but there's a fresh flight suit draped across the back of your chair. He has boxes of them in storage; you've seen the inventory. On one of your consoles sits a steaming noodle pod and a can of lemon flavored Purge.
You watch yourself pick up the chilly can and read the label:
Made with only the freshest tropical ambrosia leech fluids, guaranteed to give you the boost you need to get through your night. Contains: carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup, ambrosia leech fluid concentrate, ascorbic acid, natural flavor, beta carotene, potassium benzoate, yellowblood 5.
You put the drink down and climb into your cupe.
This is your life. You are a level four helmsman with a mostly-fried think pan, chronic headaches, words that don't come out right, and Cronus fucking Ampora as your Captain and designated culler.
You can deal with your life in the evening.