After The Storm

Rich is learning a lot of new things today.

One of those things is that second shift on the Arcadia has four Security guys on duty, so that's...great.

They can't all be there for Burton, either, because Burton is still on the deck making pitiful groaning, whimpering noises, playing it up for the new audience. Rich knows why all four of them would come down here, and he knows he doesn't look like the victim here—he never looks like the victim, he can see how they're looking at him, wary and uncertain. It makes every muscle in his body tense up, twitching painfully from the aftereffects of Burton's screwed up shock-baton.

Liam must see the way they're watching Rich too, because his thin shoulders tighten and he steps deliberately in front of Rich.

"When I got here, Burton had what looks like a modified Security baton and Technician Merrill was on the deck," he says coolly. "He fought back in self-defense and to defend me when the situation threatened to escalate. Are we going to have a problem here, gentlemen?"

"Cool down, Beaker," grumbles one of the Security guys—an older man, Chief of Security judging by the gold braid on his sleeve. "We're not gonna touch your buddies, we just need to look at what happened here. Okay? Now." He throws a look around at everyone, finally landing on Basil's drawn face and the black, truncated shape of the baton in his hands. "That it?"

"I-it looks like someone...cut the casing down shorter and reconnected the wires inside, or maybe doubled them over," Basil mumbles, and hands over the baton, scrubbing his hands on his pants, then wrapping his arms around himself. "Probably—limited output, or Rich wouldn't have gotten up in—in time. He was gonna hit Liam with it." He swallows hard, looking sort of sick, and glances over at Burton, who's still groaning dramatically and making no attempt to get up. "He said...if I told Security I'd wish I was dead," he says, wobbly and small. Opens his mouth like he wants to say something else and then swallows again and edges back in the direction of Rich and Liam, throwing the officer a distinctly pleading look.

"It's going to be okay, kid," sighs the guy, and gives Rich another long, thoughtful look. Rich flinches and drops his eyes away from that look, curling in on himself instinctively while keeping his hands up in plain view, and hears Liam make a soft noise somewhere overhead. The hand on his neck squeezes again and then rubs slowly, small cool fingers running back and forth over his nape, distracting.

"Officer Oberlin, take Mr Burton into custody," says the Security Chief. "Officer Miletti, interview our witnesses, Officer Marks, with me. Ship doesn't patrol itself."

Burton doesn't put up a fight as he's cuffed and helped upright, but the look he gives Rich could probably poison Lake Michigan. Rich meets that look head-on, refuses to look away until Burton is pushed up the stairs and out of sight.

"...Okay," says Officer Miletti, and settles down, kneeling in front of Rich. He's older than Rich and Basil, more like Ben's age, with the first dusting of silver in his ashy-blond hair. He reaches down to his belt—very slowly, not that it helps Rich's terror to see him go for his baton at any speed—but he just unhooks it and tosses it a few feet away, then opens his hands palm-up.

"Now, son, I'm not armed, alright? You can relax. None of you boys are in trouble, but I need one of you to take a couple deep breaths and tell me what happened. And if I could have your names, boats, and occupations for the record, that'd be good too."

"Well," starts Liam.

"Somebody who was there for the whole thing, Engineer Beaker," says Officer Miletti, gentle but firm, and Liam huffs and goes back to petting Rich's neck proprietarily. That touch probably shouldn't help as much as it does, but it steadies Rich as he finally lets his hands drop, reminds him that he's not alone, Liam and Basil won't be okay with the officer going for him if he tries.

He takes a deep breath, the shaking starting to die down. "He was—"

"And you are, for the record?" the officer says, and Rich snaps his jaw shut, shaking all over for a long, bad minute.

"Merrill," he gets out, in between short little gasps for breath. "I, uh, Richard Merrill, Sympatico—no. Uh. No, sorry, no, I got, reassigned, I'm—I don't, can't, um—" he looks helplessly up at Basil, thoughts shattered, suddenly terrified he'll get hit for lying.

"The Reliant," Basil says, holding his gaze, his own dark eyes wide and horrified. "Rich was assigned to the Reliant last week, he's an intelligent systems technician like me. Uh, I'm Basil Wright. For the record."

"Thanks," the officer says, and doesn't come and hit Rich at all. "Technician Merrill, in your own words, and in your own time, could you let me know what happened? You're not in trouble, son, I just want to know how things went."

"I, I, uh. Ff—uh. Okay. I, we." Rich drags in a full breath, finally, tries to collect himself. "What, what happened. Was. Burton was being a jerk, trying to get a rise out of me." He can't stand to keep looking at anyone, so he stares down at his knees instead, watching his own muscles twitch and spasm. He's a terrible liar, he's learned better than to try, but god, telling the truth isn't going to go well. "I was trying to be—cool, stay professional, but then he started in on Basil and grabbed him, and he wouldn't lay off, and I—punched him. I pulled it! He was fine, I didn't hurt him, break anything, I just wanted him to go away, but then he pulled the, the baton out." Oh, looks like the shakes aren't stopping after all. "And I thought it was a knife so, so I—couldn't—I got his wrist but he hh, hit me anyway, and then..." What did happen next? It's all mixed together in a terrified, furious muddle in his head.

"Rich went down and I tried to go help him," Basil says, and Rich blinks, startled. He forgot Basil was even there. Officer Miletti transfers his mild, patient stare to Basil instead, and Basil freezes up and then breathes out and goes on, "and Burton said…he wasn't dead, but if I called Security, I'd w-wish I was dead, so I didn't know what to do, if I'd make it worse. He hit Rich twice, with the, the thing, and he kicked him too, just t-to, to, hurt him, he was. Having fun, like, he was laughing. And then Liam showed up and started trying to stop him, and Burton started being an asshole to him too, and then he tried to hit Liam, and that's when Rich got up and punched him. Just, once, so he'd stop, and then we called you guys."

He stops, breathing hard, swallows roughly and looks at Liam and Rich, wide-eyed and uncertain. "That's...right? Everything?"

"Everything I saw," Liam says.

"Yeah, that's, I think you got it all," Rich says, pulling in a deep breath to try to calm down. He looks up at Basil and nods in attempted reassurance.

"I see," says Officer Miletti, and pushes himself up with a faint groan, retrieving his baton from the deck and securing it back at his belt. "Even altered, these things can pack a punch—you okay, kid? Can you stand up, or do you need a medical transport cot...?"

It takes Rich a second to realize that's addressed to him, fixated on the officer's baton as he is, and then terror floods him all over again. "No! I'm good, sir, I'm fine, I can, 'm okay." He tries to shove himself up without moving too fast and stumbles clumsily to his feet—when the officer starts towards him he shies back and almost trips over Liam, his knees twitching and loose underneath him.

"I can stand," he says, "no cots, m'fine, I'm okay!" His hands still have a pronounced tremor, and shake as he holds them up between himself and the officer. Liam, who Rich is coming to realize doesn't notice his own size at all, stolidly pushes himself under Rich's arm, like there's any way he could even slow Rich's fall if Rich happened to go over right now. Basil hesitates, then steps closer too, putting a comforting, careful hand on Rich's arm, standing in between him and Officer Miletti in a way that makes Rich feel helpless and proud and miserable all at once.

"You came over with a supervisor?" says Officer Miletti, and when Rich and Basil nod, "...Can one of you come with me to brief him? You, Technician Wright, if you can. He needs to know this happened. Beaker, why don't you escort Technician Merrill to Medical?"

"No," Rich repeats again, wretched and weak and desperate with fear. "I'm fine."

"Son, you got hit twice with some kind of compromised baton, you need a checkup, that's just standard procedure," Officer Miletti says. His voice is pitched low and reassuring, but it doesn't help. Rich stares at him in frozen misery as he's told, point-blank, "Engineer Beaker here will take you to Medical—he can sit with you the whole time, can't he? If you've got any concerns."

"Of course I can," Liam—Engineer Beaker says staunchly, and peers up into Rich's face, patting his arm. "I'll be right beside you the whole way through, hon, you can breathe."

"Yessir," Rich says helplessly.

"Good," the officer says. "You'll feel much better afterwards. Go along, now. Engineer Beaker, let me know how it goes."

"It'll be fine," Beaker says, "Everything's gonna be fine." And leads Rich off.

Rich manages to hold it together, but his arm moves without him even meaning to when Beaker leads him through the door to the Arcadia's bright, spacious medical berthing: the smell of plastics and antiseptics hits Rich right in the hindbrain, and he braces himself in the doorway, setting his heels.

"Rich?" Beaker asks, turning back. His face is set with concern—for good reason, probably, if Rich digs in here there's nothing someone Beaker's size can do about it until he calls Security in again. "Rich, c'mon, hon, you need treatment."

Rich forces himself to breathe in and out a few times, then manages, "You're gonna sit with me, right? Sir? The officer told you to. Right? So you've got to, you've gotta stick with me for this."

"Yes, Rich," Beaker says. He takes a few steps forward, and reaches slowly out to take Rich's hand, threading his astonishingly small, slim fingers through Rich's and squeezing firmly. "I'll be right here the whole time. You don't have to be scared, I promise."

Rich takes another breath in, out, in. It's absurd to be freaking out like this, anyway, no one beside Burton on the Arcadia even knows him, will even be looking to get a shot in while he's cuffed down to a cot and helpless to stop them. It's ridiculous to think that even if anyone did, Engineer Beaker would be any deterrent: the guy's so small, shorter and lighter and even more pretty than Trimmer, with none of the fourhands' wiry athleticism to his delicate limbs.

Then again, Beaker knew the officer, and the officer knew him. So maybe he would be a deterrent, if he's got Security on his side.

Rich takes a shaking step forward when Engineer Beaker tugs on his hand, and gives the little guy a sickly smile when Beaker beams up at him approvingly.

"That's right, hon, c'mon, we'll get you all fixed up, you'll feel so much better afterwards—" he chatters, pulling Rich one step and then another and then a few more into Medical. There's a row of threadbare padded folding chairs, and Beaker gets him sitting down in one, hops up to sit in the other, practically wrapping himself around Rich's arm. It feels shockingly good, even though he's not Trimmer, to have the light warm pressure of a small body pressed up against his arm, and it's all Rich can do not to pull the guy up onto his shoulder for comfort.

He's almost got ahold of himself, breathing steadily and holding still, when the on-shift medic walks into the room in pale blue scrubs, and Rich finds himself pressing up against the bulkhead, miserable and afraid all over again. His nerves are already in shreds from the fight and the interview with Security, he can't do this, he can't tolerate them strapping him down for any amount of time, he's gonna start swinging if they try and then he'll get demerits again and that'll be it for his second chance—

"—Hit twice with a modified stun baton," Beaker is telling the medic, and Rich realizes distantly, through the roaring in his ears, that there's already been some amount of conversation going on. That's good, though. Maybe he can just—stay like this, and everything else can happen around him, and he won't have to fight anymore. He can hold on and endure and not break anyone or anything and they'll all get through it and it'll be fine. He can do this. He's going to do this.

Engineer Beaker pulls up one of his hands and applies a plastic monitoring tab to the inside of his wrist, and Rich lets him. The medic runs a few scanning screens, then gestures towards the further rooms of the medical station, deeper in, where the cots are, and Rich makes a helpless, uncontrollable noise of denial. No, he can't do this after all, he's done, he won't. He's not going. He gets up, almost lifting Beaker off his feet as the little guy tries to hang on to him, and strides quickly out of Medical, head down, shoulders set. The medic gets the hell out of his way.

Rich finds himself at the deck-hopper charging station before his head clears of the driving need to get out of there. He drops heavily onto the driver's seat of the nearest hopper and links his hands over the back of his neck and just—pants for breath, shaking all over, trying to scrape himself back together again.

A few minutes later, a small figure in an engineer's white coat eases onto the seat beside him, and puts a delicate palm on his arm.

"I'm still here," the guy says gently. "Breathe, hon, I'm here. You're safe. You're fine."

Rich nods, and breathes, and slowly winds down from freaking out. It's a beautiful morning, the wind sweet-smelling as it blows across all the gorgeous fruit trees growing on the Arcadia's top deck, the sun gentle through the leaves. The sky is a beautiful jewel blue, smooth and soft where it touches the darker, rougher blue of the lake at the horizon, gulls circling against it like little flecks of silver; the clouds are soft and sparse and white, throwing rippling shadows as they roll slowly by overhead. A leggy black and gold gull-catching cat saunters by and gives Rich a casually fearless once-over before going back to her patrol; in the distance Rich can see a few more of the breed lazing around in ones and twos. This boat is nothing like anywhere he's ever been hurt. He can calm down already, he can.

Finally, he sighs, and straightens up to sit back in the hopper's seat, unlinking his fingers from the back of his neck and tugging his sweat-tacky shirt away from his skin.

"Sorry, sir," he says. "Thanks for—thanks for being patient with me. We can go back down now."

"We don't have to," Beaker says. He holds out a hand, and there's a thumb-sized paper envelope in it. Puzzled, Rich takes it, and tips the pills out into his palm.

Beaker explains, "I talked with Tom—he's the medic you just saw—about your case, and he sent your meds with me. Muscle relaxer, a double dose of painkiller, eat it with at least one nutrition block, skip caffeinated tea for today, and you should be alright in an hour."

"Wow," Rich says, staring at the three pills. Something lost and astonished and angry turns over in his chest. Three pills, that's all it takes to get over a clubbing in an hour, and—he never got anything, no one ever gave him anything for it before. "I always just slept it off for a day or two, on the Sympatico."

"That's entirely against regulations," Engineer Beaker says, voice suddenly hard and cold. "Like most things were there, from what I've been hearing."

Rich nods. "I didn't want to go to Medical anyway," he says. "No one went more than they had to, even if they had someone to sit with them."

"Did they really use tie-down restraints, there?" Beaker asks. "That's what Tom said. There's been—he says all the medics who've gotten reassigned crew from the Sympatico have been telling horror stories about that. You're all terrified of Medical."

"I don't think it was routine for everyone," Rich says. "But, uh. For guys like me, yeah. The…high risk, dangerous patients."

"You don't look like a high risk to me," Beaker says. Rich looks down at him incredulously, but Beaker just looks back up at him, steady and serious. It's not the look most people give him when they meet him, but it's...thorough, and unnervingly thoughtful. Calculating, but at this point Rich has no idea what calculations are being run, much less what the results would be.

But whatever's going on behind Beaker's sharp, pretty grey eyes, the little guy just leans forward and pats his arm again. He says, gently, "You look like you need that food block, is what you look like. C'mon, hon, let's get to lunch so you can take your meds already."

Rich is never going to argue with anyone who wants him to eat. He takes a final breath, gets to his feet, and lets Engineer Beaker lead him off to the mess, more than ready for the painful little shivers of leftover terror and adrenaline to stop shocking up and down his spine.

The mess on the Arcadia is a little bigger than on the Reliant, and mostly empty right now. Beaker leads the way there, sticking close by Rich's side; he has the shift-managing app open in one screen and some kind of calendar app up in the other, pruning appointments out of a schedule which seems to be booked solid. Rich realizes, with a guilty, confused jolt, that not only is an engineer apparently taking Rich to lunch, he's cancelling things off his calendar and calling off his shift early to take Rich to lunch.

Rich trails along behind him, trying to figure out how to say something without sounding ungrateful. He doesn't want to interrupt anything, though, and Beaker is making one call after the next, saying things in that light voice of his like "I don't think I'll be able to make it over today," and "If you need someone to talk it over with, I know somebody in the department," and "I'll get the samples to you by courier instead, they should be there sometime this afternoon," all of it perfectly confident and authoritative. He barely comes up to Rich's chest and the sleeves of his engineer's lab coat are doubled up around his narrow little wrists and he walks like no one in the Fleet could ever hurt him.

"Um," Rich finally manages, when they're approaching the door of the mess, and Beaker closes the screen he's typing into and slows down, giving Rich a bright, waiting smile. "So, uh. Engineer Beaker—"

"You can call me Liam, hon," says Beaker, and pats Rich's arm. "We don't need to bother with formalities. Welcome to the Arcadia! I promise we're usually much more welcoming than this—it might not be as award-winningly friendly as the Reliant, but today's definitely out of the ordinary."

Rich nods and shrugs. "Right. Um, I'm kind of used to it, so. Don't worry about it," he says, immediately regretting it when he realizes how goddamn sad that sounds.

Beaker gives him a brief, tight, worried look, but he doesn't comment on it any further, thank god. Just covers that worry over with another of those dazzlingly beautiful smiles, and runs his pretty little hand up and down Rich's forearm.

"Well," he says gently, "I'll make sure your second welcome goes better than your first one, at least. Now come on, babe, let's get some food in you already! Your calorie requirements must be through the roof."

Startled at getting called 'babe' by a guy roughly a third his size, Rich gives a huff of a laugh. "Oh, they really are," he says fervently, and steps forward to get his allotment of food blocks and a big cup of mint tea.

"You're a hybrid of soldier types, aren't you?" Beaker—or, Liam says, and gestures casually up at Rich's size. "Two, maybe three strains over about four generations, and a recent outcrossing with a baseline parent? You've got that classic Hastings coloration but that's the breed's most dominant trait, and your frame looks pure Synergy Solutions, though since I've never heard that either package presents with green eyes, you probably got those courtesy of your baseline parent, didn't you. And you're—what, you're twenty? Twenty-five years old? Not even done growing yet. So you should be getting...four blocks per meal, six thousand calories a day—" he cuts himself off as the dispenser drops down Rich's two blocks. "Unless you're not that hungry, which is fine too!"

Rich has been staring over his shoulder since Liam said 'four blocks', because yes, that's right, but he's never met someone who realized it before. He's never met someone who knew more about his mod than he does, either.

"Man, no, I'm—I'm definitely hungry, I'd love four, I just—I filled out the forms, but either they're processing them really slow or I should've bribed someone to make it happen, I dunno who yet—but this is all I get for now."

"What?" says Liam. "No. What—no! Oh, hon, absolutely fucking not." He ducks past Rich, slaps a palm on the reader and gets his own single food block, pushes it at Rich and takes his arm again, heading off toward the tables and pulling up screens as he goes. Rich follows, confused, and by the time he gets there Liam has about a billion screens open and is scrolling through submission forms.

"Which one did you send in?" he says, and throws a few screens in Rich's direction. "Was it this one? Did you talk to Lifestyle Management, or did you submit a form to the local medical crew on your ship?"

"I, no?" Rich blinks at the form on the screen, then hastily swallows his mouthful of nutrition block and tries to sort through the screens for any form that looks familiar. "I sent in the one that says you…want more food? Like I filled out back when I was a teenager, when I started needing more than a kid usually should, and—and again, when I was on the Sympatico. And I just sent it in like the instructions said, I didn't talk to anyone…I didn't know who to get to help me yet, on the Reliant..."

"Ah, yeah," Liam groans, and shakes his head, pulling the screens back again. "There's an important point there, which is: you don't want more food, I mean, you do, but hon you need more food. How did this not get fixed in Reassessment?"

Rich opens his mouth, then pauses and slowly closes it again. The officers and administrators at Reassessment hadn't been cruel, but they'd had an entire crew of men to sort out, most of whom were high, wounded, furious, terrified, or all of the above. They hadn't asked if the two blocks Rich got were enough for him, and there was no way Rich was going to try to get more. It was enough of a miracle that he was still alive, and wasn't getting immediately dumped on shore and left there.

"...There was a lot of stuff to sort out," Rich says carefully, instead of any of that. "I guess they thought it'd just...work itself out?"

Liam tsks and shakes his head. "Well," he says, "No wonder you look so skinny and pale. I mean the pale part is normal for someone with Hastings code anywhere in there, but you don't have a lick of padding on you anywhere, and the SS mod is designed to be a lot more solid and durable than the Hastings…can I see your fingerprints?"

"Oh, uh," Rich says, and shows Liam his hands, feeling oddly shy. Liam takes them and examines his fingertips briefly, then nods with satisfaction.

"Eight whorls," he says. "Your one parent was baseline and the other was three-fourths SS."

Rich blinks. "You can tell that from fingerprints?" he asks. "What the fuck, do my palm lines say Made In The USA, too?"

Liam laughs. "No, hon, that sort of thing would be coded into your retinas, and your eyes are stunning but they're entirely baseline, unless I'm wrong?" He pauses, and Rich shakes his head hastily. Liam looks pleased with himself, and goes on, "So! SS mods were the first mod to employ the Dupont-Lagrange mechanism—I'm sure you don't care about the exact science, no one but us genetic engineers cares about the exact science. But there's a sophisticated little program encoded in some tweaks' DNA that recreate exact copies of things that would usually develop by random chance during gestation, like fingerprints. Synergy Solutions soldier tweaks have a full set of whorled fingerprints, and the mechanism breaks down in different ways for different outcrossings. It's part trademark, part tracking mechanism."

Rich shivers involuntarily. He's been run through way too many bad shocks today—finding out his fingerprints are pre-programmed is one more bit of bullshit he doesn't need.

Liam pats his hand sympathetically, and says, "So, hon, it's easy to conclude you must be literally starving on three thousand calories a day, and if you were any more Hastings than cosmetically you'd probably have self-destructed by now. The SS mod was designed to survive some brutal conditions, but this is the Fleet, not some godforsaken Southwest warzone, it's unconscionable that you had to. Gimme two seconds and I'll have this fixed for you."

He lets Rich's hand go—to Rich's momentary and extremely stupid disappointment—and then buries himself in a flurry of different forms, sorting out documents and filling out fields too fast for Rich to track; he eventually maximizes something and grins in satisfaction.

"There we go. Nice quick form—I can fill out the 'expert examination' part, I'm more than qualified when it comes to the biological requirements of genetically modified organisms, even if my usual field isn't half as sweet as you. Just fill out the part in this box, the one that says 'applicant'."

It's a simple enough form. Liam hangs out over Rich's shoulder as he fills it out, chattering vaguely, occasionally taking a break from talking about different forms and little-known networking tricks to say things like "I've never gotten to see Hastings coloration in person, and it really is gorgeous," and "By the way, your hands are beautifully done, I should have said so earlier when I was looking at your prints," and "Keep eating, hon, you need to grow up big and strong!" this last in a distractingly wicked purr.

Rich eventually hands the screen over, thoroughly flustered, and Liam starts into the rest of the form as Rich inhales his food. He settles onto the bench beside Rich and with brisk, professional ease starts filling out the questions Rich has no idea how to answer, things about genomes and phenotypes and metabolic rates and request urgency.

By the time Rich has finished his three blocks and washed down his meds with the last of the mint tea, feeling a whole lot better even if he's still a little hungry, Liam is reading through the form one last time. Rich looks over in time to see Liam nod, satisfied, then press a thumbprint to the screen and tap 'send'.

"That should go through a lot faster than the one you sent," he says. "The form you found is for the kids who want to...y'know, go into Security or manufacturing, and want to start getting ripped." He flexes a slim arm demonstratively. "That's not your situation at all. It's much more urgent to stop you from continuing to starve than it is to start somebody on their high-protein regimen before strength training." He huffs, then looks at Rich and smiles that sudden, dazzling smile again. "...Do you want some more food?"

"Yes?" Rich smiles hopefully back. "Can I, already? I mean, they can't have gotten the forms processed yet, it's been five seconds!"

"Well, I mean, it wouldn't necessarily be nutrition blocks," says Liam, and bounces up, shaking his bright blue-green curls back out of his face. The dark brown hair on the back and sides of his head is cropped to a selkie-short, tempting velvet, and he's got silver earrings in both ears that match the shining grey of his eyes, which are framed by really long dark eyelashes, goddamn. He's ridiculously beautiful. Rich is suddenly, achingly reminded of Trimmer again, although the delicate build and pretty face are about all they have in common. Considering how much Liam knows about mods, though...huh. Maybe Rich has found another fourhands.

"I'm sure you'd have to eat a lot more fruits and vegetables to get the calories you need," Liam is saying, thoughtful now—he shrugs and turns that amazing smile back on Rich. "I do botanicals though, babe, so you can have all the fruit you can stomach. If you don't mind them looking a little weird, there's plenty right here on the Arcadia!"

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He cocks his head on one side, and his smile takes on an edge, the hint of a quirk at one corner. "...Or, I have some very nice specimens back on my boat, saved up to share with friends," he goes on, softer and lower, and puts a gentle hand on the curve of Rich's bicep, just below the sleeve of his T-shirt. "If you like things sweet."

Rich swallows hard, and he knows his eyes are widening a ridiculous amount, but that's—yes, wow, okay. He wasn't expecting such a smooth approach, although after everything Liam's done for him this morning he owes Liam anything he could ask for, but the guy's so pretty, and he's been really nice, Rich is fine with this. More than fine, he's thrilled.

"Yeah," he says eagerly, "I do, definitely, I'll take whatever you wanna give me. Uh—you don't have any blackberries, do you?"

"I will get you every kind of berry you could possibly want," says Liam, who looks an exciting combination of delighted and amused. "Absolutely. Do you like oranges? We just figured out these huge oranges that grow right on foam substrate. I'll show you, come on!"

He pulls on Rich's arm and Rich lets himself be pulled upright and towed along out of the mess and along the passageways, to the outer deck on the opposite side from where he landed a few hours ago. There's a sleek and lovely two-seat cherry-red hoverbike moored by the railing, a hell of a lot nicer than the standard-issue Fleet deck-hoppers even with the chunky cargo crate lashed onto the back. Liam swings easily into the front seat and starts the bike up in one practiced movement.

"Climb on," he says, and pats the seat behind him. "I'm on the Genesis, she's moored down there."

"Genesis?" Rich repeats, and climbs cautiously onto the bike.

"Y'know," Liam says, and lifts up off the deck, starting over the railing. In the water below, Rich can make out a sleek three-deck superyacht that can't be more than a 5-crew, hitched to the side of the Arcadia like a minnow tagging alongside a steelhead. On the side, in peeling neon-green paint, somebody has written, "The Frankenstem!" over the black stencil letters of her official name.

"I don't, actually," Rich says, staring at the boat. "...Wait. The Frankenstem? I heard a story about giant mutant pumpkin plants that almost sank a 5-crew—was that you guys?"

"Ah, yes," Liam says, and raises his voice as the bike starts the long drop from the Arcadia's top deck to the water below. "You mean Frankenstem's Monster!" He lands the bike smoothly on the smaller boat's landing deck, right next to a Fleet-standard deck-hopper, and hops out.

"Last Halloween did get a little out of hand," he admits with a bright laugh. "We cleaned it up though. There's almost completely barely any chance at all the relevant gene pops up in next year's crop."

"Oh good," Rich says distractedly, staring around. This boat's crammed with plants, like her crew couldn't decide to go in for an agriboat's ranked crops or a houseboat's decorative garden deck and just tried for both at once. He automatically glances around for any notifications that they might need water or less sun or whatever, but they must be carefully cared for, because he doesn't see any.

"They're beautiful, huh?" says Liam smugly.

"Oh!" says Rich. "Uh...yeah, they're gorgeous, man, everything here looks amazing." He smiles at Liam, probably looking too unsure for it to come across right, but at least he's trying. Some of his intended meaning must come through, because Liam smiles back at him, soft and thoughtful, those intense silver-grey eyes going hooded and hot.

"Yeah, well," he says, and reaches out to deftly hook a finger through one of Rich's belt-loops, tugging him a little closer. "I like beautiful things." He gives a quick, darting look up and down Rich's body, then hums and detaches himself, letting his hand trail past Rich's thigh as he turns away. Rich stares dumbly after him; Liam glances back over his shoulder, smiles and beckons.

"Come on!" he says. "Let me show you around!"

"Right," Rich says, and shakes himself. "I mean—yeah, cool!" He follows Liam, and doesn't ask if he needs his eyes checked. Liam could be called beautiful with complete accuracy. Rich might score 'kind of handsome, if you like your men big and scary', and that'd be on a good day with zero light.

The lower level of the ship is nearly as full of plants as the top deck, pots clustered thickly on every available surface between and on top of the big, imposing pieces of genetic engineering equipment, and the passageways are a tight squeeze. Rich has to carefully edge through narrow channels full of hanging fronds and long, graceful strands of vines as Liam strolls ahead of him, pointing out a sterile airlock to the genetics lab, the growery, the broom cupboard, the compact galley with bowls of strangely-shaped produce that Rich doesn't recognize heaped on the counters.

There's a gangly teenager in an oversized, pale green lab coat sitting on the galley counter, gloomily eating an apple that looks like two apples had a strange and horrific fusion accident. She—oh, wait, no. Rich squints at a patch pinned onto the shoulder of the lab coat, a stylized winged fish, and does a hasty mental reshuffle—they glance up and brighten when they see Liam standing in the doorway. Then they see Rich looming in the doorway behind him and do a visible double-take, blinking and leaning back in their chair.

"Uh, hey?" they say cautiously.

"You're relieved of your post for an hour or two, Alexis," says Liam grandly. "Go have fun doing...whatever kids do these days."

"Uh-huh," says Alexis, and looks from Liam to Rich before visibly deciding not to say whatever they were thinking. "Cool. Uh, have...fun?"

"Thanks, babe," says Liam, and hooks Rich's arm again to lead him off down the passageway again. "I'll ping you when I need to head out again."

"Sure," says Alexis, who's already picked up a bag and looks more than ready to ditch as soon as Liam stops talking. "I'm gonna go off to the Arcadia and get a shower, uh...see you."

"What," says Liam, as Alexis heads past him and ducks through the plants toward the light from outside. "Is our wash-bucket not good enough for you?! Interns," he sighs to Rich, and shakes his head, continuing on down the passageway. "When I was an intern our shower was a bucket and a pump on the main deck where the whole Fleet could see us and we were grateful, dammit!" He waves a fist in the air, flashes a smile at Rich and keeps going, brushing aside leaves long enough to make a makeshift curtain across the passageway. "Aaaand, this is me!"

Liam's berth has got to be even smaller than Rich's was back on the Sympatico. Rich can wedge himself inside, but moving once he's in puts everything at elbow height in serious danger. Liam strolls in ahead of him, perches himself on the bed and starts grabbing stasis bags of what must be fruit samples, humming happily to himself and apparently not noticing the difficulty with which Rich is attempting to fit himself into the room.

"You're going to love this," he says brightly, and then turns back and catches sight of Rich painstakingly trying to step over a potted plant without climbing up onto Liam's bed or kicking a shelf off the wall. His bright expression falters, replaced by an intent, frowning thoughtfulness.

"Ah," he says, and looks from his tiny, narrow bed to Rich's not-tiny, not-narrow self and back again. "Mm. You don't happen to have any of those double-jointed traits, do you? No I know, most of those gene packs are incompatible with the ones you got, that was a joke, sorry. Uh...Well...no, this is fine. I have an idea." He picks up a large, heavy-looking bag, piles several of his sealed bags of fruit into it, and then springs up off the bed and heads for the door—then stops in front of Rich and waits patiently as Rich struggles to repeat the climbing-in process in reverse. He steps backwards and then turns as carefully as he can, but one arm still brushes the trailing leaves of a vigorous little potted vine of some kind, and he barely manages to catch the pot before it goes flying.

"Sorry! Shit, um," Rich puts the pot down and carefully frees his arm from the vine. "Sorry."

"Nice save," says Liam, who briefly looked more alarmed than he did the entire time he was being menaced by an asshole with a weapon. He pats the little plant as he goes by, and then Rich is backing out into the relatively clear space of the passageway and he's finally free.

"Alright," Liam says resolutely, and swings the bag onto his shoulder. "Back outside!"

He leads the way out onto the landing deck, and then up the stairs that bridge the decks and onto the very top of the ship, where a patchwork of polarized glass awnings turn the afternoon sun into a rainbow-edged kaleidoscope of light and shade. The ranks of pots and raised garden beds hold crops of every variety Rich could imagine, fruit trees and melon vines and tall stalks of corn in a living rainbow every bit as vibrant and beautiful as the splintered sunlight. Everything smells strange and sweet and beautiful, and there's a warm breeze coming in off the water, and Rich is still staring around in a wondering daze when Liam rests a hand softly on the small of his back.

"What do you think, babe?" he says, and deftly slips a couple of fingers under the hem of Rich's shirt, stroking along the waistline of his jeans so lightly Rich shivers all over. "Better than cramming yourself in downstairs?"

"Hell yes," Rich says, grinning like an idiot. He waves a hand around at the plants and the sparkle of the sun across the water, looks back at Liam in admiration and leans closer. "It's gorgeous out here, man. I love it."

Liam's so damn tiny, Rich is gonna have to get down on his knees before he's even in range. Maybe Liam's thinking the same thing, because a second later he pulls away again, dropping his bag on the deck and heading deeper into the green maze, towards a sealed, weather-proof storage unit half-hidden by tall trellises covered in…grapes? probably grapes, thick heavy clusters of round fruits in every color of red and green and purple and gold that almost distracts Rich from the fact this beautiful little guy is getting ready to let Rich at his dick.

"Let's make this a little more comfortable…" Liam mutters, and drops a tight roll on the deck. When he reaches down and snaps the buckles on it, it immediately unfolds and starts to puff up, going from a bundle the size of Rich's head to a futon the size of Rich's mattress. Liam dusts his hands off, takes off his scuffed, muddy ag-worker boots and drops down in a graceful sprawl on the futon, grinning invitingly at Rich and wiggling his eyebrows.

"Nice," Rich says, and crouches down, tugging his boots off too. He pauses as he gets down on his knees, glancing over—Liam's feet are as small as the rest of him, fragile ankles with colorful lake-glass bracelets glinting around them...but they're baseline. Short, normal human toes, with no sign of the familiar monkey-paw dexterity Rich was half expecting, half hoping for.

Liam probably doesn't notice the brief, conflicted flash of disappointment Rich feels; he's leaning back on his hands, watching, looking Rich lazily up and down like he's as much a part of the gorgeous view as the lush plants or the distant sparkle of afternoon sun on the water.

Rich cautiously reaches for the hem of his shirt, since Liam seems to enjoy looking at him. "Should I…?"

"Oh, fucking, yes," says Liam, like that's the best idea he's ever heard. "Absolutely, hon, yes."

Rich has to grin as he strips the shirt off. He has no idea what Liam likes so much about him when he's basically a meat rectangle, but he's not complaining. He folds his t-shirt, drops it beside the futon, and crawls up next to Liam.

"So," he says. "You wanna lose some clothes, or like, get them open or something, or you wanna go slow?"

"I want to get my hands all over you, is what I want," Liam says. He reaches out to lay a hand on Rich's side as Rich edges carefully onto the futon; strokes it over to rest on a bicep and gives it a brief squeeze, looking frankly delighted. "God—fucking—damn. Hon."

Rich tenses his arm slightly to flex the muscle, amused. "Oh yeah? You like big guys, huh?"

"I like hot guys," Liam says, and glances up at Rich, flashing him that bright, dimpled smile again. "Handsome young men who can pick me up with one hand without trying? Definitely on that list."

Rich refrains from looking at him funny or arguing about the applicability of the term 'handsome', because he's being grateful right now and arguing isn't sexy. It's not like he hasn't seen somebody flat-out lie for the sake of dirty-talk or flattery before, even if Liam makes it sound a lot more sincere than most guys do.

Liam traces his hand up Rich's arm, along his collarbone—strokes up his throat, along his jaw, across one of his cheeks, then sits back while Rich is still shivering. "You want my clothes off, babe? You can take off whatever the fuck you want."

Rich blinks. "So—you'll let me know if I go for something you don't want off, right?"

"Oh, you beautiful boy," says Liam fondly, and leans up to kiss Rich slow and warm, sliding a hand through his hair, licking into his mouth, wow. He pulls back with a final nip to Rich's lower lip and smiles at Rich, licking his lips. "...Everything is gonna be off by the time I'm done with you."

"Oh," Rich says, breathless and stunned from the kiss. No one's ever kissed him before, especially not like that, and it's really, really nice. "...Okay." So Liam wants a lot more than a blowjob, it sounds like, and Rich is so okay with that. Liam is small and pretty and sweet and he's gonna keep Rich from starving, Rich will let him do whatever he wants.

He pushes the white coat off Liam's shoulders, leaning in cautiously to see if more kisses might happen. It turns out kisses are easier to obtain than expected, and Rich gets significantly distracted before he remembers he's got a prior assignment. Clothes, right. He gets the white coat off, peels the tight black t-shirt off over Liam's head, and is briefly frozen because: there are little silver glints at either nipple, and a third one at Liam's navel. He's got piercings.

Rich stares and half-reaches towards one pierced nipple before catching himself, but Liam arches encouragingly, smiling at him, and hums when Rich dares to brush a thumb past the stud. Rich gets distracted playing with both of them as he runs his hands across all that tan skin.

Liam's a shade or two paler under his shirt than his face and arms, but still a nice shade of gold; Rich is more tan than he has been in years, after lying on the sundeck every chance he gets and going out hoverboarding a couple times, but his hands still look ghostly pale against Liam's skin. They're also huge. Rich briefly stretches both hands thumbtip to thumbtip and finds that they span Liam's torso from the base of his neck to well below the waist.

"God, you're so tiny," Rich breathes, and then winces. "I mean, sorry, you're really fucking hot, I didn't mean, um—"

"Aw, hon," says Liam, half-laughing, and wriggles happily under Rich's hands, stretching out luxuriously on the futon and arching up into the touch. "I know I'm small, it's not like you're being an asshole about it. You're good, babe." He relaxes, eyes falling shut, sun glancing off gleaming bright-blue curls of hair, and then flutters his eyes back open again like a sexy cartoon and looks up at Rich again. "You wanted my pants open? You have something in mind, or are you just excited to get things moving?"

"Oh," Rich says, "I was just—I was gonna blow you?" It was standard back on the Sympatico, but after the mess of misunderstandings he got into with Basil he doesn't know what's normal anymore. Maybe Liam wants something else.

But Liam just smiles up at him, like it's fine, like he's pleased. "Oh! Well then! You're so sweet." He lies back again, hooks one delicate leg over Rich's thigh and bats his pretty eyelashes again. "Like this, babe?" he says, wicked and inviting, "or should I move? I don't want you to hurt your back."

"Uh." Rich pauses, then tilts his head, considering. "You could scoot up a little?"

"You could scoot me up a little," Liam says without missing a beat, and does that ludicrously cute eyelash-flutter again.

Rich laughs, startled, and very carefully picks Liam up, hands around his ribs, and shifts him to where Rich wants him. Liam isn't at all unhappy about this—he goes mostly limp and lets Rich hoist him around, then gives a moaning, happy sigh when Rich sets him down, and rolls his hips slowly against nothing.

"God," he says, and opens his eyes, gives Rich a bright little crooked smile. "You're so huge. It's really fucking hot."

Rich shakes his head, smiling back. "Whatever you say, man," he says, and gets Liam's pants open, peeled off with a brief stop to unclasp the chunky, well-worn knee-pads, then bundles all of it off to the side of the mattress as fast as he can, because he wants to get his hands back on those slim, beautiful legs, lean-muscled and a little fuzzy.

He has to laugh at the way Liam wriggles happily the more Rich squeezes and pets him, the closer he lets his hands get to the rising line of Liam's dick in his glossy black satin briefs. A dick that's flatteringly hard and ready, once Rich finally hooks a finger in the waistband of those briefs and tugs them down. Liam's dick is just like the rest of him: small against the size of Rich's hand, a dainty miniature, but so damn pretty, nicely proportioned to the rest of him and already flushing a sweet ruddy shade at the head.

No one who saw him naked could mistake Liam for a kid, no matter how delicately he's built. Not with the sharp angle of his jaw as he throws his head back, or the glint of his pierced nipples as he gasps, or the neatly trimmed trail of hair down from his pierced navel to the base of his beautiful little dick. Rich runs his thumb along the soft hair a few times, enjoying the way Liam squirms and moans encouragingly at him, then obediently folds down into a comfortable position, wrapping a hand around the entire shaft of Liam's dick.

Liam catches his breath and goes, "Oh wow fuck, wow," staring at Rich's hand like he's amazed.

"Shit, you're so big," he says, and hitches his hips up, watching himself slip back and forth a bit in Rich's grip—Rich grins at him, pleased that he's not even a bit insecure about their relative sizes so far. He sets his thumb to rub a gentle circle against the reddening crown of Liam's dick, spreading a bead of precome, and Liam makes an incredibly sexy little moaning noise and shivers, eyes closing and head tilting back, shameless.

"Can, I think you mentioned—blowing me? Maybe?" Liam asks, after a minute more of squirming against Rich's hand.

"I did," Rich says, enjoying the teasing probably more than he should be.

"Are you going to?" Liam presses.

"Yeah, sure," Rich says, and ducks his head down. "I'm clean, by the way," he adds, and maybe he's still defensive after the whole thing with Basil, because it's not like Liam needs to worry much about Rich carrying anything when he's not even touching Rich's dick. Still, there's stuff out there that can spread by mouth, Rich of all people knows that, so it's only polite to let Liam know, and if he's cagey about giving Rich an answer in return, at least Rich knows he'll want to go get checked out after this.

Except he's not shy at all, because Liam goes, "Oh, fuck, hold on! I might not be!"

Rich freezes. "Sorry! What?"

"I forgot, I did Amir raw this morning on the Arcadia, and afterwards he sprang it on me that he'd done Dave the other day and Dave is completely irresponsible about check-ups, so who knows—I haven't had time to run my own work-ups, yet. Lemme grab a condom."

Rich sits back, startled at both Liam's unabashed honesty and the fact that he wriggles out from under Rich, crawls over to his bag, and pulls out a small tackle box covered in sparkly stickers of eggplants and smiley faces and iridescent fish and—wow, chock-full of condoms.

"Yeah, it's a bit of a collection," Liam laughs, when he sees Rich staring. "I get a lot of play, and it's important to be responsible for your local environment, you know." This last little piece of civic conscientiousness is said with a wickedly sexy purr that sends a shiver up Rich's spine, makes him lick his lips. He watches Liam pick out a foil packet with practiced ease, tear it open, and roll the condom onto his dick.

Rich dimly remembers from his sexual education courses that condoms are supposed to be a nondescript, translucent tan color. No one on the Sympatico used them, of course, not when everyone was just out to get whatever they could from whoever they could extract it from: swapping infections along with sexual favors was part of the cost of doing business. But still, Rich at least knew what a condom was supposed to look like and be like and be used like, and what Liam's rolled onto his dick isn't anything like that. Instead of a standard-looking length of polymer, the material is glossy-clear over a second layer of shining silver lacework that swirls all up and down the length of Liam's cute, ruddy shaft. It matches his piercings, and it looks gorgeous.

"That's beautiful," Rich says, and reaches out hesitantly, to touch it. "Wow, that's really fancy, you look amazing."

"I try," Liam says, looking like he knows exactly how well he's succeeded. He tilts his hips up, pressing the tip of his dick eagerly against Rich's reaching fingers, and hums when Rich carefully starts to trace the swirling silver filigree.

"Sorry, for the interruption, hon—I should've said, I forgot, you're so—I got a little too excited, ha. I get, I, haha, I—pretty regular checkups, though, you can look my, my records up if you, fuck, c'mon! If you ever, if..." And then before Rich can process all the implications of this, Liam gives another one of those beautiful arching, writhing motions, pressing up into Rich's careful hand, and moans again sharp and low.

"Come on, hon," he says, soft and breathless, and glances down at Rich, pins his lip in his teeth and breathes out slow through his nose, obviously struggling to collect himself, god that's hot. "Watching you is so, so good, don't, nnh, don't make me wait anymore, c'mon and take me?"

Rich nods and pulls Liam closer by his hips, licks the shining silver-swirled head of Liam's gorgeous dick a few times, testing the taste: instead of latex or neopolymer like he'd expected, it's faintly sweet, which is a weird new experience for a blowjob, but not unpleasant. He can feel the silver swirls on his tongue, somehow, the lines raised up and slightly glittery feeling, as if they're the tiniest bit electrified. He sucks a few times, testingly, running his tongue over and around as he adjusts to the new sensations. Then he braces himself, relaxes his throat, and goes all the way down in one shot, because Liam's earned the best Rich can give him. Liam has obviously done this—had this done—before, because his hips twitch but not enough to make Rich gag, and he waits for Rich to pull back for a breath before rolls his hips against Rich's grip and arches his back, moaning.

"Can I…?" he breathes, and his hands come down and frame Rich's head, stroke his hair back, trace the line of one eyebrow and across his temple and back to playing with his hair. "Do you want…?"

Man, his hands feel nice. Eyes half-lidding, Rich enjoys the gentle touch, then gathers himself enough to realize he doesn't have a clue what Liam's asking. He pulls off and licks his lips.

"Whatever you want, man," he tells Liam, "just lemme know."

"Hhnh," says Liam, and squirms against Rich's grip again, flushed and panting. "I meant, do you—like, mmm! Having your hair pulled?" he says, out of breath, and licks his lips, strokes Rich's hair again. "Do you like getting pulled around, or—just held onto, or not touched, I can—mmh, do whatever, whatever you like."

Rich barely keeps from frowning, because—that's not what this is about. "Don't worry about me, man, just enjoy yourself," he says with a game smile, rather than try to figure out what if any of that Liam wants to do.

"Mm," says Liam, brow furrowing briefly, but he doesn't address that. He threads his hands through Rich's hair and tugs slightly—it stings, but Rich makes himself stay still, doesn't grimace or wince, although he can't control the way he tenses. Granted, he's used to being yanked around by the hair a lot more roughly than Liam's doing, but that doesn't mean he likes it.

After a second Liam lets go and pets the place he pulled. "Okay," he says, and just...rests a hand gently on Rich's head, barely pulling, coaxing him back in.

He isn't shy about enjoying himself, once Rich starts back in on him, but he also doesn't pull Rich's hair again. Just strokes it back from Rich's face over and over again, trailing his nails over Rich's scalp and letting strands of blood-red hair slip through his fingers. It's so nice, Rich could purr after a while of that.

"I'm really—" Liam murmurs eventually, and loses the words on a long, shuddering gasp as Rich hums inquiringly around his dick. "Ahh, fuck, babe—I'm so close, do you want me to stop—oh god you're so good, hon, fuck."

Rich isn't sure why Liam's even asking, but he answers by sucking hard and humming again, sliding all the way down and staying there a minute before coming back up. The entire point of this is to get Liam off, and besides, he's so sweetly adorable, so gorgeous when he enjoys himself, and Rich wants to impress. He swallows around Liam's dick, and pointedly doesn't pull off, and Liam goes "...Oh, babe, ah! Fuck!" Rich hums with smug satisfaction and goes back to giving his absolute best effort.

Liam lasts another minute or two, and then doubles up around Rich's head, buries his hands in Rich's hair and makes a gorgeous, trembling noise, muffled through his teeth. Shudders there as Rich keeps working at him, swallowing around him even though there's no come on his tongue, just that faint sweetness and Liam shaking and moaning and enjoying himself so beautifully. Then Liam drops back all in one shaking slump, chest heaving, hips twitching weakly.

"Ahh, fuck," he sighs, and combs a hand through his blue curls, shuddering as Rich carefully, tentatively pulls off of him. "So—so good. That was great, hon."

Rich smiles, pleased. He is proud of his skill, even if he hasn't necessarily always enjoyed using it. "Glad you liked it," he says, and sprawls out next to Liam. He's not sure what to do with the condom, now: it's so fancy, is it reusable or something? No, that would be gross. Or would it? The clear polymer has gone milky-white with Liam's come, each silver swirl lined in cream, and it's fascinatingly pretty, for a part of the proceedings Rich has always associated with dirtiness. No need to wipe his face off, change his shirt, fumble for some wipes, find a drink. Just those artful silver and white lines, shimmering under polymer, as Liam lies there and pants and smiles at him.

"Here, I can—it's fine," Liam says, and reaches down with a shaky hand to run fingers over his softening dick. "I got this."

Rich watches intently as Liam tugs the condom off, knots it with practiced ease, and tosses it somewhere off the mattress without bothering to look where it goes.

"Wipes are in the bag, front pocket," Liam says, and waves his hand vaguely. There's a shining streak of come on the side of his palm, and then he licks at it, and Rich feels his own dick pulse hotly at that, reminding him how much it wants some attention already. He forgot to surreptitiously get his pants open while Liam was distracted, and hasn't been sure enough of his welcome to dare unzip while the guy's watching. Hopefully Liam gets up again fast, or maybe he won't mind if Rich lets his dick loose at some point, because it's definitely going to strangle itself otherwise.

Rich pushes the discomfort aside, then goes and gets the wipes from the bag—soon enough Liam's throwing a balled-up wipe off the mattress, to drape across the used condom because apparently there aren't any wastebaskets around here or anything. Rich is abruptly distracted from wondering if he should go get one when Liam plants a small, damp hand firmly on his chest and pushes him over backwards.

"Relax, hon," Liam says, and hikes himself up onto Rich's chest as boldly as a kitten, snuggling into his neck and nuzzling at his jaw and up behind his ear.

Rich twitches, hissing soft and startled at the touch brushing by his ear. He's sure that shouldn't be so sensitive, but man it feels good. He turns his head to give Liam free access to his neck, hands coming to rest on that small, tapered span of back. The guy is so light his weight on Rich's chest barely registers when he breathes, and a second later Rich isn't even thinking about it, because Liam laughs soft and breathless against his ear and then catches the lobe in his teeth and sucks on it, and Rich's hips jerk up hard enough he almost shakes Liam entirely off him.

"Oh!" says Liam, and pulls back, looking startled and smug. "Yeah?"

"Fuck," Rich gasps, and carefully loosens up the way he's clutching at Liam before he gives the guy bruises. "I—yeah? Looks like, I guess, I, sorry, that's kinda weird, uh."

"No it's not!" Liam says, grinning so broadly it looks like it should hurt. He leans in, kisses his way up Rich's jaw to the other ear instead—breathes against it, close enough his lips touch when he murmurs, "...Nobody ever did this for you before, babe?"

That's—a lot. There's probably a right answer, but Rich has no idea what he's supposed to say except the truth.

"No," he gets out, smaller and shakier than he means to. "No, I—nnh, no."

"...Their loss," Liam says, soft and self-satisfied, and settles in to work on driving Rich absolutely insane.

It's never taken Rich long to get going, on the rare occasions he's actually been into the sex he's trading, but wow. Even the leftover, tingly-sore oversensitivity from a stun-baton can't explain how Rich's ears apparently hardwire straight to his dick. Liam is more than pleased to lie there and keep playing, too, apparently disinterested in moving along to, for example, unzipping Rich's pants. And probably Rich should let him do whatever he wants, since this is payback for a serious favor and everything, but—

"Fuck," Rich gasps, as Liam drags his teeth gently along the shell of one ear. "Please man, can I just—?"

"Mm?" says Liam, and detaches. "What? You okay, hon?" He's breathing hard too: he never actually let himself settle down after coming, and when he props himself up on his elbows on Rich's chest, his pupils are blown wide and dark in the grey of his eyes. Rich can't tell if he's hard again yet, but he's definitely still interested.

"Can I open my pants?" Rich says, and drops his head back, trying not to gasp for breath too pathetically. It feels so good but it aches. "Please, fuck."

"Oh!" says Liam, blinking, and then brightens and slides a hand down Rich's stomach, petting one of his hip-bones, looking positively thrilled. "Yes, absolutely! Do you mind if I…?"

"Mm!" says Rich, and huffs roughly as Liam's fingers trace feather-light down the line of one of his hips, plucking at the waistband of his pants. "Yeah, no, of course I don't mind, what do you fucking think, come on!"

That's not how you're supposed to talk to somebody who's done you a favor, but instead of getting pissed Liam laughs and scoots down, cupping a hand over the taut line of Rich's erection and rubbing gently along it through his pants. His eyebrows go abruptly up toward his hairline. "Oh," he says, and gropes some more, apparently with great enjoyment, while Rich shudders and tries not to tear up Liam's mattress with how hard he's grasping at it. "Hon."

"Fuck," says Rich again, and drags his hands over his face, back through his hair, feeling the blush burn all the way down his chest and his pulse thunder in his ears. "Liam, come on, please…"

"Oh—yeah, yes, sorry," Liam says, and gives Rich's dick a comforting little pat before going eagerly for the zip of his pants.

It's usually a gamble, how people are going to react when they see his dick. Sometimes guys get smug about it, gloating—they've already got him underneath them and his size just makes their petty victory even better. Or sometimes it makes them get meaner, out of jealousy or something, who knows. Even during the occasional congenial mutual handjobs Rich had gotten into with the less unpleasant crewmembers of the Sympatico, there was always a chance his partner would get somehow offended that Rich managed to have a dick proportional to the rest of him. At the very least he's had a lot of guys side-eyeing him like they're not sure what the hell they're supposed to do with that much meat, and are wondering if it's too late to back out without making him mad.

Liam stares at the whole stupid, ridiculous span of his dick for an agonizing couple seconds, obviously shocked, then collapses forward and buries his face against Rich's stomach, feet kicking briefly on the futon.

"Oh my god," he says, when he pries his face back up a second later, and his eyes are sparkling. "Where have you been all my life, fuck yes!" He reaches out, trails a few fingertips up the underside of Rich's dick, and beams when that makes Rich shudder. "I'm gonna ride that so hard," he says, and glances up at Rich, grinning. "Yeah?"

"Uh," Rich says, brain completely stalled out, and stares at him. "You—you wanna—uh. What? That's not—can you?!"

"It'll take a while," Liam allows, amused, and traces his fingers up the inside of one of Rich's thighs, following the worn seam of his jeans as it strains against the bunching, twitching muscle of his thigh. "And I'll need to borrow your fingers, and I'll need you to be careful, but I'm not gonna lie, some things I do like…" he licks his fingers, glides his slick fingertips up and down Rich's dick again, a soft, teasing touch. "Big," he finishes, low and hungry, and shivers like the thought alone is enough to get him going. "You think you'd like that, sweetheart?"

Rich can't keep himself from groaning. "Fuck," he pants, "yeah, um, shit, I just—I haven't—I might not, uh. Last that long, that's really…wow." He sounds like an idiot, but god, how is he supposed to use words with this possibility in front of him?

"I can get you off first, if that would help," says Liam brightly, and smiles down at Rich's dick with a weirdly soft, proprietary fondness, like it's something cute he's enjoying petting. "I've made you wait a while, huh? I can get a bit, mm...distracted. But it's certainly time for you to enjoy yourself."

"Oh," Rich says, breathless and disbelieving. "You don't have to do that, man, I can—but yeah, that might help, I can take care of it."

"You could, but you're not going to," says Liam, and pats Rich's chest. "This is the best day of my life and both of us are going to enjoy it to the fullest, so you just lie back and let me get acquainted with this big, beautiful dick I just found."

Rich nods in stunned obedience, goes back on his elbow. Liam delicately tugs the open fly of his jeans down further, palming happily at what that exposes of his hips and thighs, and Rich blurts out, on some stupid impulse: "Uh, should I—I can take my pants all the way off, or...?"

"Yes!" says Liam enthusiastically, and sits back on his heels, beaming. He's still looking at Rich with that breathtaking attitude of total enjoyment, like there's nowhere else he'd rather be, or anyone else he'd rather be doing this with.

Already regretting the offer, Rich wriggles around awkwardly on the mattress to strip his boxers and jeans off, freeing his dick from the dangerous proximity to metal zippers, then dumping them over by his shirt and boots. He has to take a couple slow, shaking breaths before he rolls back over and spreads himself out for Liam, because: he's naked now, completely exposed.

He can't remember the last time he was naked with anyone, he can't remember ever even wanting to be, but…in the warm, clean sunlight, surrounded by green leaves and bright fruit, with the breeze off the lake and with a sweet little guy watching him appreciatively, it feels like it might be all right. It feels like it could be appropriate. It's crazy the way Liam honestly likes watching him, but…it's really nice. Flattering, in a way nothing's ever felt before, not the teasing way other men like to call him 'big guy,' and slap his side like he's a joke, or the way the So Long's women had taken video of him like he was a spectacle.

Here and now, he gives Liam a nervous, embarrassed smile and gestures down at the whole too-big, too-pale, too-weird bulk of his body, like 'well, this is me, here you go,' and Liam actually sighs, beaming like this really is the best day of his life. As soon as he gets a hold of Rich's shoulder he's leaning in to kiss him some more, not leisurely this time but hungry and passionate, nipping at Rich's lips and moaning into his mouth.

Rich is only too happy to yield. This isn't going any of the directions he's familiar with, and honestly he's fine with that. Liam has to get what he wants, and it seems like he wants startlingly fun things, like Rich's dick, which Rich is absolutely not going to complain about. This is the nicest time he's ever had paying off a debt.