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Chapter
1: Black Out
The floor was freezing,
Noah thought.
He rolled over awkwardly, deliberately
resting the warm half of his body on the icy tiles. The
contact made his balls draw up and he shivered violently.
It
was almost worse than resting on a block of ice, just cold enough to
suck the heat from his skin without giving him the release numbness
would provide. He shivered again, trying to force his slim
body against the floor as fully as possible.
Gasping
at the renewed chill, he made the mistake of opening his eyes.
The
cold disappeared. For a moment he couldn’t even breathe and
then a pitiful, moaning whine seeped out. The high, muffled
sound echoed thinly in the pitch black and it brought back the cold,
the discomfort of bound limbs, and the small part of his mind that
wasn’t gibbering in fear.
Don’t lose it.
Keep it together. You’re an Ashfield; we aren’t afraid of the
dark!
Unfortunately, he knew very well
that this
Ashfield was terrified of the deep black as though it were a gang of
terrorists attaching a grenade to his privates. His breathing
was quick and shallow. His back twitched as though something
unseen were about to latch onto him with claws and fangs. His
courage seemed to be huddling in a small corner of his mind, holding a
pillow over its head.
He hated the dark.
He
hated being afraid
of the dark even more.
Dammit, he
should be over this by now, no matter what Granpa said about
it. A grown man was too old for this type of idiocy!
He
thought of the old man, kind eyed as his broad hands patted Noah’s
shoulders after a panic attack like this, but it only made it
worse. Granpa wasn’t here right now, was he? He
hadn’t been able to visit in over a year. Tomorrow, he
reminded himself, hoping the thought would make his pathetic, quivering
ass calm the hell down. The moment Noah walked off the base
tomorrow the old man would be there, shaking his hand in front of
reporters and hugging him like he’d never let go as soon as they got
inside the limo.
Noah just had to wait until
tomorrow.
With a soft whimper, he shifted
uncomfortably. The unexpected scuffle of his bare leg on the
floor jolted him and wiped the pleasant thought out like a coat of
black paint. If only he could see. Just a little
bit of light: a candle, a flashlight, a firefly, anything!
Some light…
Why wasn’t there light yet? He
tried to build up a little anger and ended up with another childish
whine instead. Mike should have the power up by now,
dammit! This Space Corps base was older than God, yeah, but
Mike was nearly a genius at getting the power turned back on with the
old equipment at this point. Damn outages happened almost
every week; Noah had kept track.
He’d rather ignore
every, single time his body froze up on him and had him shaking like
the virgin he was, but some masochistic part of himself kept tally
anyway. It gave him something to focus on when he was pushing
himself to run that extra hour, or take another punch so he could put
the other bastard down. He couldn’t control this, but
everything else…
A sniffle escaped, muffled though
it was, and hearing it humiliated him all over again because he was
still so damned scared he wanted to curl up and hide on someone’s lap.
It’s
just the dark, he yelled at himself. Man up, Ashfield!
Searching
for his inner man, Noah finally gave up and quivered. He
would have given all his fortune for a little light. At this
point, even that ass Vane could have come by and he’d welcome him with
open arms as long as he brought some illumination with him.
Maybe
later he’d be happy that he couldn’t scream for help. If no
one came, no one would ever see him like this. His reputation
as the toughest man on the base, despite his height and looks, would be
secure.
Except if his reputation and the terror it
usually inspired had done their damn jobs, he wouldn’t be in this
situation. He wouldn’t be lying naked, gagged, and tied up in
blackness darker than hell’s asshole. But he was.
He was trapped waiting for someone to win a damn game and come down to
claim their…‘prize.’
As his mind frantically
reminded him how many hours one of their poker games usually took, he
wanted to scream. Noah’s throat felt as though the dark were
seeping in and strangling him. Dammit, he didn’t care right
now if they saw the real him, as long as they came to get
him! He wanted damn well out!
And then
he’d worry about revenge on the dumb bastards who’d put him down
here. They’d done this to him. They’d put him
through this Hell.
His sex-obsessed bunkmates flashed through
his head, all twelve of them, and anger finally burned through his fear
with a faint spark.
He could still hear them in his
head.
Wanna
play some strip poker,
Ashfield? Last time you can win some money before you’re a
free man, right?
Noah hadn’t thought
the night would
involve his
being stripped and them
playing poker! He should
never have let slip that he was a virgin. If not for that,
and the false rumor that he was gayer than gem-studded bike shorts, he
knew they never would have offered his body up as part of the winning
pot.
They’d regret it, as soon as he got out of
here. He wasn’t going to wait for them to all gang up on him
again. The first one he saw was going to get kicked so hard
they’d be squealing louder than Denton had when Noah’d tagged his balls
during the struggle. He growled, remembering how the weenie
had insisted on putting him down here in the storeroom after that.
The
feral sound echoed louder than his whining had and he froze.
Th—they’d put him down here, he reminded himself, trying to strengthen
his flagging rage. They’d dumped him here…in the storeroom…in
the dark. He tried to growl again but could only pull off a
half-strangled bleating. As the sound died, a strangely
hollow shwup seemed to echo beneath it, and the angry spark snuffed out
completely. He was suddenly, absolutely positive his gagged
whine had hidden something he should have heard. Was
something outside the door? Or in the room with
him?! Shivering, he listened in silence until his ears ached,
stopping only because panic was creeping in quicker than the icy cold
of the tiled floor could soak into his skin.
There’s
nothing there. Nothing there, only the room and eight boxes
and two battered shelves and the forty-two ceiling tiles he’d counted
nineteen times before the lights had flickered and died.
Nothing’s there! He cringed at the fact that even his
thoughts were whimpering now and closed his eyes. Think about
something else, anything else! His granpa, Mike, his
bunkmates, even Vane and his constant stalking – if it distracted him
from this gut-clenching, overwhelming need to escape, he didn’t care
what it was. He opened his eyes at the thought, confronted
darkness so thick it should have smothered him, and his entire body
reacted with another trembling case of the shakes.
Why
the hell wasn’t Mike getting the lights back on?
Doing
his best to hold back an infantile cry against the gag, he quickly
closed his eyes again, scrunching them down tight.
Somebody
please come and make all this damn well go away!
*
*
*
The shuffle of
Jovi’s soft, knee-high boots was mimicked by Amon’s steps ghosting over
the floor behind him. He didn’t think it was loud enough to
be heard more than a foot away. Above them both, the lights
flickered unhealthily with a dissonant hum. The slick,
skin-tight fabric of his jumpsuit swished softly in time to his
steps. Patting the pockets of his bulky coat, he reassured
himself that he had all the items he might yet need: stunner,
nightorch, knife, backup Caller, restraints.
Lube.
One
could never be too prepared, in Jovi’s opinion.
All
were present and accounted for, and they’d completed their mission with
time to spare. They could both be done with this
incomprehensible planet and its recalcitrant inhabitants. It
would be up to the politicians now. All he and Amon had to do
was go back to the ship, find a couple of eager fellow soldiers, and
celebrate.
And then he heard the sound. A
delicate mewl, it trickled down the corridor in a whisper so faint he
almost missed it. Even if he’d heard the whimper clearly,
however, he would have wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him.
This
was no place to encounter the worried keening of a shoree cub.
An
immature shoree,
on the completely wrong planet, in the bowels of this
old base, in the middle of the night—a curious thing, but not his
concern. Irrelevant, as his mother would say. He
should ignore it. This was the last base they had to hit
tonight, and they were already on their way back to the
shuttle. Tempting the gods to satisfy his curiosity over one,
insignificant sound would be foolish beyond belief, even if it happened
to resemble the cry of his niece’s favorite pet.
Ignoring
his mind’s superior decision-making abilities, his feet stopped and
held him fast to the floor as his ears worked to hear something
again. It would only take a moment to satisfy his curiosity,
he thought. The risk wasn’t that
great.
The
reassurance rang hollow. He was well aware he was lying to
himself.
Not that he couldn’t conjure up very
practical reasons to investigate, reasons that would satisfy both his
conscience and his partner. Something unexplained often
yielded the most important information, in his experience.
And anything from their planet on a military base on Earth, at this
juncture, was likely something they should know about. But
none of that truly held any sway over his rebellious body and its
insistence on standing perfectly still in the middle of the corridor.
The
sound worming its way under his skin and, disturbingly, making his cock
a little hard, was purely a personal matter. He rather
desperately wanted to know what had made that delicious, entrancing
call. He needed to know.
And it seemed his
hands agreed. They were beginning to sting badly.
He could already tell the reaction was going to be stronger than
normal. It was building rapidly to a heavy burn and it had
only been a few seconds. Clenching his fingers tight to his
palms to try and alleviate the sensation, he swore silently as the heat
simply built. Before it completely overwhelmed him, he
followed his gut response and turned back the way he’d come.
Everything dampened down to a tolerable tingle again.
Why
his damn hands thought burning him like that was going to help him
function was a mystery. Not that they’d ever made sense, but
usually the tingling stayed to a reasonable level. He needed
to be able to think or he couldn’t do what they were urging, after all.
Still
listening intently, shaking his hands out, he forgot to warn
Amon. The man came around the corner in a fluid glide and
almost ran into him. There was a nearly silent hiss of
surprise before Amon caught himself, his face so close that his breath
pushed at the pulse in Jovi’s throat. Jovi shoved him back
casually, keeping his hand relaxed to let the man know not to worry.
A
childhood’s worth of sneaking cold treats from his father’s cook served
them both in good stead on a mission like this.
Amon
shifted to the side automatically so he could keep an eye on the dim
corridor behind Jovi. It was a strange sensation, in a way,
being able to stand so openly rather than keeping hidden. Not
what he was used to at all from the Hall’s practice sessions, but these
humans were practically night blind. Dimming the power in the
immediate area was all they’d needed to keep from being spotted by the
weak Terran eyes.
Although that advantage didn’t
preclude a certain amount of caution. If the alarm was raised
too soon, they could be in real trouble. They had to have at
least enough time to get back to the entry point or they couldn’t use
the Caller to transport back to the shuttle.
Running
for their lives and trying to find an actual physical exit from the
base was something they’d both prefer to avoid.
Jovi
stood perfectly still, trusting Amon to keep watch as he tried to
figure out what he’d heard. Where had it been from?
It wasn’t in the hallway, so where was it? His eyes saw a
weak, still-illuminated keypad against the wall down the corridor and
he considered it. Possible, he decided.
Amon
finally ventured a word.
“Care to tell me why we’re
poised on the corner like Grunge Dancers?” he whispered as he glanced
over.
“Heard something. I would swear it
sounded like a shoree.”
Jovi kept his voice just as quiet.
Hand signals might have been more appropriate, but trying to interpret
barely familiar signs was a distraction they didn’t need. He
and Amon had abandoned them at the first base.
Although
that might have had something to do with Amon’s signals devolving into
creative, obscene gestures every few minutes. One would never
know the irreverent Jeneran had been seasoned in the Hall of Servants
with Jovi.
Jovi realized he’d been standing for a
number of minutes without moving as Amon finally stirred.
Watching as the man looked up and down both ends of the corridor in an
exaggerated fashion before raising a disbelieving eyebrow, Jovi felt
his mouth quirk. He tried to look stern, then promptly gave
up as Amon took the opportunity to waggle both eyebrows in a sinuous
line. Merely a parody of one of the signals they were
supposed to have memorized during their laughably brief training, it
still managed to seem sexual.
“Are you certain you
weren’t hearing one of those rats instead?” Amon finally asked after
his eyebrows calmed. “Disgusting things seem to be everywhere
on this planet.”
“You know that based on your
night’s worth of experience in a handful of bases, eh?” Jovi asked, and
Amon raised a finger to acknowledge the point. “And you out
of anyone should know that I can recognize the sound of a shoree when I
hear it.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Nor
do I, any more.” They stood there for another few minutes.
“You
know I love listening for fluffy, pink herbivores more than anything,
but do you suppose we could leave now?” The barest hint of impatience
twisted Amon’s voice. Their timetable hadn’t been extremely
tight for this last, rather quaint, base, but it wasn’t loose either.
Jovi
didn’t say anything. His hands still tingled from his palms
to his fingertips and he knew he wasn’t going to leave until he found
out what it meant, even if he had to make Amon go without
him. Damned hands could be as pushy as a blood-scented scat
sometimes.
“I believe we need to cut your meditation
time short, Jovi my friend.” Amon said after another few minutes passed
in silence. “I don’t want us to be stuck here when –”
Hearing
a small thud and another muffled whimper, they both turned their heads
quickly to look back at the door behind Amon.
“All
right. You win. That does sound exactly like a
shoree.”
Amon poked him in the shoulder. “And now that we’ve
both heard it, time to go.”
Jovi took a step around
him as he ignored the gesture and began creeping back towards the door.
Amon
grabbed his arm. “Jovi, our appointment with the ship is
really one I’d like to keep.”
“I know.”
With
a sigh, Amon relaxed his grip and followed. The doorway was a
dark rectangle along the wall, easy to see even without the flickering
keypad next to it. A little technological magic with some
funneled power and Amon’s code snake and he had the door
unlocked. He eased it open a crack and listened
intently. The room’s power was completely off, leaving it
blacker than even Jeneran eyes could compensate for. It
smelled of dust and disuse.
There was a flurry of
sound from inside and their stunners were instantly out and
aimed. He and Amon both stared, tense as something thumped
and scrabbled deeper in the darkness. When nothing charged
them after a few moments, Amon turned to watch the hallway instead.
Heart
racing, Jovi calmed himself as he noticed the sound wasn’t
advancing. Stationary but frantic, it sounded as though
something were trying to escape a trap. Had the humans
somehow managed to capture a shoree from one of the Jeneran ships at
some time? He hadn’t thought any had been boarded.
Or
did they have an animal equivalent of their own?
He’d
find out soon enough. He didn’t have a choice; his hands were
growing hotter the longer he waited. Taking a steadying
breath, Jovi was about to step inside when Amon put a hand on his arm
again to whisper into his ear.
“It’s damn dark in
there, my friend. Be a shame to trip over something with
claws and fangs just when we’re about to leave.” Amon’s face was far
grimmer than the light tone to his voice. His eyes continued
to scan the hallway. “The last base we dallied at, we were so
close to being captured I’m surprised my hair didn’t die and fall off.”
He
flicked his heavy mass of green, knee-length hair as though
illustrating what a tragedy that would be and got Jovi to smile
slightly again. He smiled back as he continued.
“While
I admit to a certain level of curiosity over your sound, I’d rather not
tempt the gods to denude my head again on our last space port of the
night.”
Jovi considered it for only a
second. The likelihood that something might go wrong was
growing higher the longer they were on base. And the sound
clearly wasn’t something vital. This entire side trek was an
unnecessary risk.
But he couldn’t ignore his hands
or his gut. The need to see what was making the sound had
grown to a gnawing ache since the small, muffled whimper had first
fluttered against his ears. His hands were on fire.
He had to find out what was in this room.
“My hands
burn,
Amon,” he finally whispered fiercely. Amon’s fingers
rubbed against his arm in a consoling gesture as he drew them
away. Amon was one of the few who knew how his need
manifested. More a quirk than a gift, it was nothing like the
ability to read the paths of the future that Seers possessed.
But they’d both learned to pay attention when it manifested.
He
had to go in, even if neither of them knew why.
Already
crouching down to watch the corridor better, Amon offered one last
whispered bit of advice as Jovi took his first step into the dark.
“There’s
only fifteen minutes left before the perimeter patrol finds the
ship. Don’t flirt with it too long, eh?”
Jovi
grabbed his crotch with his free hand obscenely, aiming it at Amon and
getting a low chuckle in response. He grunted as his body
objected to the pause and urged him forward with a particularly
vicious, manual hot flash. His green braid swayed against his
calves as he shivered over the nearly sexual pain. He hadn’t
felt the need to act this strongly in almost a decade.
Shifting
to the side as he entered to avoid being outlined against the dim light
from the hallway, he moved as softly as he could manage.
Something scuffled in the dark again. An uncoordinated
thumping against some piece of furniture combined with a soft keening,
the sound made his head swell with sympathy. And his cock as
well, which he could only attribute to being too long denied the
opportunity to indulge it in what it really enjoyed.
Otherwise it had suddenly developed an interest in bestiality, and he
knew he wasn’t that desperate yet.
Another loud thud
brought his mind back to the creature in the room with him.
The thing had to be trapped, he thought again. That much
noise, with no movement in any direction? Trapped or trying
to get into a food store of some kind.
It was to be
hoped that this part of the planet didn’t have any deadly scavengers or
this could be ugly.
Amon guessed what his next
request would be and closed the door before he could even
ask. Visible light disappeared, but at least now he could
turn on his own nightorch without fear of it being seen by someone
walking down the hallway. There was a muffled wail as the
light went out. He aimed his stunner and torch at the
heartrending noise and flicked the light on.
His
hands quieted the instant he could see what he was facing.
The burn faded to a pleasant glow. He barely noticed; he was
too concerned with trying to breathe. It was a young human
male, naked and bound, lying on his side. The body was small,
but the nicely developed muscles along his slim frame were instantly
recognizable as adult.
The boy was tied up.
He
was delicate and petite and beautiful and absolutely perfect.
And
he was tied up.
Jovi’s
cock used the opportunity to
shove rational thought into a small, locked box. He managed
one heaving gulp of air and stared at the squinting face. He
blinked rapidly, tempted to rub his eyes. It was a mirage, or
a trap. A being that fulfilled every fantasy he’d ever
concocted, and a few he’d never even realized he’d had, was not
physically possible. Gods be praised, but no one had ever
warned him that humans could look like this.
The rest of the story at yaoifix
*****