The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH10

Jeremy stared at the ceiling, trying to work out how this had happened. There had been screaming, insults, and accusations. He didn’t

Jeremy stared at the ceiling, trying to work out how this had happened.

There had been screaming, insults, and accusations. He didn’t remember when he’d grabbed the Kelsirian by the vest, and then slammed him against the wall. He’d been shoved, had sent him on his back, straddled him intent on…he hadn’t been thinking, he’d just had to get something out of his system.

Sex wasn’t what he’d expected to happen.

The nose rubbed against his neck as Toomerimortoral let out a pleased sound. A finger made circles on Jeremy’s stomach.

He certainly hadn’t expected how much sex had happened. Kelsirian’s short refractory period had meant that once Toomerimortoral had fucked him, Jeremy had returned the favor, and then the guy had been ready and more than willing to go again.

As had he.

Fuck. What did it say about him that all it had taken was to be alone with someone who’d stalked him to cheat on his Heart?

“This….” What was he supposed to say?

The arm over him tightened. “Yeah,” Toomerimortoral whispered, then licked the lobe of his ear.

Jeremy shivered. He couldn’t want this again. It had been the heat of the moment, a way to let out his anger and frustration. It was over. He’d burned it off. He couldn’t want to have sex with him again. He was with Gralgiran. He was his Heart’s.

“This can’t—”

The nip made him gasp.

“It’s real,” Toomerimortoral whispered.

Jeremy laughed. He knew it was real. There was no denying what he’d done. He just hoped Gralgiran would believe him when he explained how it happened; that he hadn’t meant for it to happen.

“We can’t do—”

The door opened and Jeremy sat in surprised. He hadn’t expected anyone to come in now, if the screaming and…the rest hadn’t drawn anyone’s attention. He glanced for his pants or shirt or Toomerimortoral’s. Anything to cover himself, then saw who was advancing in his direction and he hurried to his feet, ready to explain this had been an accident.

Gralgiran hugged him tightly and Jeremy had no idea what to make of what his Heart said.

“I’m so happy.”

Did he think he’d gotten here in time to prevent what had happened? Kelsirian’s sense of smell was better than his, so there was no way he could miss what clung to him.

A furred body pressed against him, and Gralgiran’s arm shifted. Jeremy found himself held between the two of them and still couldn’t figure out what was happening.

When Gralgiran finally pulled away slightly, Jeremy thought he’d get to explain, to find something to convince his Heart this wasn’t what it looked like, but the joy in Gralgiran’s eyes stopped him.

“I’m so glad you two were able to work this out.”

Toomerimortoral nuzzled Jeremy’s neck. “I know why you never felt the need to have sex with anyone else now.”

“None of that,” Gralgiran said gently. “I was respecting Jer, not pushing you away.” He leaned in and rubbed muzzle with his friend.

Jeremy pushed away. “What’s going on? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on the station, that why—” Fuck that sounded like he’d counted on him being away. Wanted him to be away so he could cheat on him. “How did you know where we were?” had he planned this? Had they? Was this…? He didn’t know what it might be. But it couldn’t be good.

They looked at him, arm still around each other’s waist. Toomerimortoral was definitely enjoying it.

“It’s okay, Jer. I know, because the Earthers accused me of holding you against your will when they found out you weren’t in our assigned quarters on the station. The adjudicator board ordered me to broadcast your feed there so they could verify it wasn’t true. You were fucking Toom, and he was enjoying it.”

Toomerimortoral chuckled. “That must have gone over well with them.”

“I’m sure they’re going to make a big deal out of it when we’re called back.”

Jeremy stared at them. They’d been shown fucking, and they were talking like it meant nothing. The humans had seen him fuck another guy and…

Oh fuck, the humans had seen him fucking another guy.

He realized he was looking for an escape when he felt the arms around him.

“Jer, it’s okay. I’m not mad. You did nothing wrong.”

He fought to get out of the hold. “Let go of me! He saw!”

“Calm down, Jer. It’s okay, they don’t matter.”

Jeremy shoved. “Are you fucking crazy? My dad saw me fucking another guy!”

“Like what he thinks—”

“Not now, Toom.” Gralgiran kept looking at Jeremy. “He can’t hurt you. You know I won’t let them. Who you are, what you did, it’s normal.”

“Normal?” Jeremy thought he was heading toward hysteria. “I had sex with your friend, you best friend!”

He noticed Toomerimortoral’s confusion, but his attention was on Gralgiran, waiting for the signs of anger to appear now that he’d voiced his betrayal. Instead, he saw tenderness.

“You did nothing wrong, Jer.” He was before him, hands gently cupping his face. “You did nothing wrong.”

“I don’t understand,” he whispered. He’d betrayed his Heart. With his best friend on top of that.

“That makes two of us,” Toomerimortoral said.

Gralgiran nodded. “How about you get dressed, and the three of us go home so we can be comfortable while I explain it?”

“Home would be good,” Jeremy said.

*

“So,” Gralgiran said, the still of a movie on the wall showing three naked Kersosterans in a bedroom, an aroused male stretched on the bed, and with two females at the foot of it frozen at the start of what might be a physically violent argument. “That’s the situation Jer thinks we’re in.”

Jeremy held the bowl of ice cream to his chest at the mention of his part in all of this. Gralgiran hand handed it to him as soon as he’d been out of his sex smelling clothing, but before he could run to hide in the toilet. He’d guided him and an also naked Toomerimortoral to the couch before undressing and returning with two smaller tubs, handing one to his friend before sitting on Jeremy’s other side.

“Those aren’t humans,” he said.

“I thought it would be less triggering if I didn’t use Earther romances as part of my explanation.”

“Gral, I didn’t mean to—” the smile stopped him. The tenderness in the expression.

“You did nothing wrong, Jer.”

He wanted to scream he’d betrayed him, but instead Jeremy put a spoonful of vanilla ice cream in his mouth. He’d said he would listen, but it was difficult.

“How do you have Kersosteran romances, Gral?” Toomerimortoral asked.

“That’s not a romance. And the last time we were here, I bought a full catalog of movies from every species to see how they handle relationships.”

Toomerimortoral licked the iced, whatever that was, in his bowl. “Please tell me this isn’t going to be as long as the Earther one you tried to torture me with.” Jeremy had tried it, and the best description he could come up with was frozen pureed raw meat.

Utterly horrible.

“Turns out Ridoshis are the only one with ballads close to ours in length, but I’ve yet to make sense out of any of those I’ve tried watching. Look, the important thing is that this is a reasonably accurate analog of what Jer thinks is happening here.”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” he said, then hid behind eating more ice cream.

Gralgiran nuzzled him and continued. “Kersosterans don’t do monogamy the way Earthers do, but they have a contracted system that establishes who someone is mated to and what liberties they can take.”

“Sounds complex for nothing,” Toomerimortoral said.

“Different species, different society. Basically, the two females are mated, the male is the one on the left’s…. Okay, I’m not entirely sure of the exact nature of their bond. They aren’t mated, and they aren’t having sex, but they are close. So, as close to an analog of best friends as I can think of here. Their contract doesn’t allow her to have sex with him. Which is what they were doing as she walked in. Hence the anger.”

Toomerimortoral looked at Jeremy, who sunk into himself as much as he could, then to Gralgiran. “I don’t get it.”

“Toom, I explained about Earther’s monogamy.”

“You know he did,” Jeremy muttered, remembering the guy throwing the word as an insult.

“You forced me to watch Earthers not doing anything for half an hour, Gral, then I lost track of how long two of them courting, and then something like that. You said Monogamy in there as something Earthers do. I’d pretty much zoned out by then, to avoid inviting Gezbiliam in.”

“Then here I go again, without distractions this time. Monogamy is the Earther’s word for relationships. They only do it as a male and a female. I’m not going into how it can vary, Toom. That’s going to be a distraction. Just know that in the end, it’s one male and one female and only them.”

“When you say only them, you mean….”

“Sexually, yes.”

Toomerimortoral stared at Jeremy. “How can you do that?”

“I remember someone saying he understood how Gral didn’t need to go to you for sex anymore.” His ears burned.

“For Earthers, having sex outside of that relationship is wrong. If they do it with someone their partner knows, the better the know them, the more wrong it is.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. If we both know him, it’s better because then we can—”

“That’s our way of thinking about it, Toom. Earthers don’t see it that way.”

“So you think what the sex we had in the gym’s wrong?” Toomerimortoral asked in disbelief.

“Yes! No!” Jeremy closed his eyes. “I don’t know, okay?”

The hand on his leg squeezed tenderly. “You did nothing wrong, Jer.”

He glared. “You keep saying that, but that’s not how it feels to me. I’m your mate. I basically promised you I’d be faithful the same way you basically did the same. And before you claim otherwise, he basically said you haven’t had sex with anyone but me since we’ve been together. So you were faithful.”

Something else Toom had said resurfaced. An accusation that Jeremy had forced this on Gralgiran. He looked at Toomerimortoral, who winced.

“Gral, I think I’m going to head home.”

“You don’t have to, Toom. We can—”

“I’m tired. Believe it or not, I’m not used to this level of excitement. Contact me after my shift.” The looked he gave Jeremy was penitent as he put his pants on, then he left.

“I’m not sure what that’s about, Jer,” Gralgiran said. “I thought we’d—”

“Without asking me.”

“What?”

He had difficulty keeping his tone even. “You did this without asking me.”

“I didn’t exactly have time to plan showing…. You aren’t talking about the ballad.”

“All this, Gral. You fucking did all of this without asking me if I was okay with it!”

He saw the realization sink in.

“I was trying to make things easier for you.”

“And you didn’t think to ask if that was what I wanted?”

Gral stared. “Would you have been okay with me having sex with my friends?”

“I don’t know! I can’t know if I would have, or if it would have been something we needed to work through, because you didn’t give me the option. You did the same thing Omar did with me on Einstein! You took away my choice!”

Gralgiran’s ears folded back, accentuating the look of horror. “I didn’t mean to. I just thought it would be easier on you. I was the only one you could go to then and I was terrified you be scared off if you knew we saw sex differently.”

“You had that little faith in me?”

“No, but you were alone and I….” He looked away. “It was all I could think to do to keep you safe.”

The shame in the tone dampened most of Jeremy’s anger. “Okay. I was something of a wreck back then. But you could have said something later. When I got comfortable being naked in public would have been a good time to bring it up.”

“I wasn’t thinking about it anymore at that point.” Gralgiran shook his head. “No, that’s not right. I wasn’t thinking about it being my responsibility. I was waiting for you to do something…well like this. I figured that as you saw how we are, that you’d realize there’s nothing wrong with enjoying sex with others you care about.”

“And my complete discomfort when I mentioned Thuruk sneaking off with someone else?”

“I figured it meant you were ready yet.”

Jeremy let out a breath and dropped the nearly empty bowl on the low table.

“This can’t happen again, Gral.”

His Heart nodded without looking at him.

“I’m serious. My entire life, other people have been making decisions about how I was going to live without me realizing it. Just not too long ago, I had a program put in my head telling me how much I was supposed to hate you. You decided I need to be hunter without checking in with me.”

“I told you—”

“It was do it or be locked on the ship even when I can help on a hunt.” He raised a hand to stop the reply. “And I’m not actually angry about that one. Your points had validity, but it’s part of a pattern, Gral. You might be well intentioned, but you’re making decisions about how I’m going to live my life instead of letting me make those decisions.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m just saying that this can’t happen again. I can’t be someone you order around because you think you know best. Yes, you’re the captain and Alpha. Yes, you have so many more years of experience living this kind of life than I do. But I need to be able to make those decisions even if I end up screwing up. I’d rather you be there to catch me falling than prevent me from climbing.”

“I will. I’ll always be there for you, Jer.”

“And I’ll be there whenever you need me.”

“I always need you.”

Jeremy kissed his Heart.

“Jer,” Gralgiran whispered when they broke apart. “About Toom.”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

“He’s not you. I don’t love him the way I love you, but yes, I miss him. I’ve known him for so long. He’s been at my side through so much.”

“You said you weren’t his for me to steal.”

“And I’m not. Jer, we aren’t like that. We don’t do monogamy. We don’t even have a word for being that exclusive. We share ourself with those we care about. But if you tell me not to—”

“I won’t.”

“Jer, I don’t want you to—”

“Gral, you asked me if I’d be okay with it, if you’d given me the choice. I can’t tell you what I would have said back then. But you’re giving me the choice now. And I’m tell you that I’m okay with it.”

He pushed the fear down. That was a human thing. Decades of indoctrination by human society. He trusted Gralgiran; he trusted his love.

He’d be there no matter what.

“Thank you.” Gralgiran kissed him.

Outline section 

After the transmission, it didn’t take long for the court to be dismissed. The humans tried to twist things in their favor, but the representatives weren’t seeing the problem. Some weren’t of sexual species to conceive the problem, some where only upset they were too old for such stimulation, and at least one wanted to check if the video was to be filed in the public log or classified for kelsirian security... as they wanted to take it home and ‘review’ it with their mate.

So, yes. That day’s session was concluded and a brief recess was called before the court would see further cases. Gral, for his part, was glad things worked out... though since Toom suggested this, he wonders if he also planned this as well... unlikely. Gral and Jeremy have kept their sparring sessions secret, so there is little way he’d know it was a turn on for Jeremy as much as it was for them.

With that said, while protocol would demand he return to his room on the station, Gral instead heads to ship to check on Jeremy and Toom. Once the afterglow ends, Gral very highly expects Jeremy to panic, and the very fact he trusts Toom to not have set this up means he’ll be panicicing as well as it dawns on him he might have ruined things between Gral and his heart.

###

Being Jeremy’s heart and the captain of the ship, it was very easy for Gral to get access to the private training room. When Gral finds them, they are still in the afterglow. That ends VERY quickly, and as expected Jeremy goes into straight panic mode. Gral is there in a few steps, and both shuts him up and calms him down with a kiss; a surprisingly effective maneuver he picked up from all those romcoms.

Gral will have nothing but sweet words for his heart, though when he explains how he knew he’ll shoot Toom a brief jibe. This puts Toom on the defensive, to which Gral pulls a similar maneuver as he did with Jeremy, only going for the neck and any other of Toom’s erogenous zones that only a long time lover would know about. After which he says that since apparently him doing sweet little gestures for his mate without talking about them first has all but resulted in one of those overly complex situations from the human romance cinema, he should probably consider taking up some old habits.

And they almost do it right then and there... only Jeremy is panicking again. They both stop, and try to reassure him everything is OK. But Jeremy isn’t hearing any of it, but not for the reasons Gral and Toom are worried about. After all, and Jeremy will all but shout this too them, Gral just told them that Jeremy’s father watched him having sex. How is he supposed to not be panicking over this.

This is actually a moment of confusion for Gral and Toom, but the fact that it’s bothering Jeremy is certainly killing the mood at least. First thing first, they should probably leave the room and pay any cleaning fees. Second... well Toom isn’t sure and Jeremy is trying to pull it together, so it’s left for Gral to come up with an idea. And he has one.

Chapter 9

###

PoV Jeremy

Jeremy didn’t know what was stranger, the fact he was watching a movie half naked pressed between equally near naked kelsirians and eating ice cream, or the fact that doing all of the above mentioned actually seemed to calm him down. The ice cream was a surprise, but not an unexplainable one; they’re on a station with other humans at the moment, getting ice cream wouldn’t even require a hundredth of Xenial’s talents. After a few bites, the ice cream is mostly for Jeremy, which is good since they don’t know what an adult kelsirian’s lactose tolerance is.

The bigger surprise was the movie. This one wasn’t even human or kelsirian, instead being some Garan romance about a famous star crossed couple from their ancient past. As the movie ends, Jeremy has to ask just how many movies romantic movies has Gral been watching, and Gral admits it’s been a large enough number he’s had to catch himself from just sweeping up everything and instead reading reviews for the best of the best least it impacts the household budget. Still, they’ve all been very educational.

This draws shared glance of worry between Toom and Jeremy, followed up with them trying to explain to Gral that those are most romances are either comedies, dramas, or tragedies. Everything is taken up to eleven for either laughs, tension, or tears. Gral doesn’t really see it that way, after all, just look at his relationship with Jeremy... and yeah, hard to argue against that one, but having to rescue one’s heart from the brig isn’t a normal relationship starter.

Eventually, they settle in for another movie, this time a Taournian spy drama chosen from Toom’s collection. Say what you will about their pirate problem, their movie studios know how to put together a good thriller filled with intrigue.

###

Wake up call in the morning doesn’t come from the system clock but from a call from the bridge. The court has called with complaints from the humans that Gral has broken protocol by not only returning to his ship but staying there overnight. Even the ridoshi find it petty under the circumstances, but they need Gral to at least put in a verbal rebuttal to their complaints over the secure channels.

Gral kisses his way out of whatever huddle they were all sleeping in to get dressed and handle that. Toom also excuses himself; even docked they still need to have a pilot on bridge, and his turn is coming up soon and all his clean clothes are in his room. Jeremy kisses Gral goodbye, and after slight hesitation hugs Toom. Then the two kelsirian’s are off, leaving Jeremy to make himself breakfast and try not to drift into panicking about the court case again.

Things go pedestrian for awhile, and Jeremy almost gets to have a cup of coffee before stuff hits the fan...

...but then the door opens, and instead of Gral coming back from the bridge for breakfast, it’s humans in combat armor. Jeremy fights, but he’s mostly barehanded against fully armed commandos; even with the kitchen utilities he’s not going to win this. But he does well enough to realize he’s going to loose, and he’s in a kitchen. Meaning he comes up with a way to trigger the fire alarm before getting knocked out.

Addition 

Write this from Jeremy’s pov

the second part has been moved to a future chapter.

the resolution of the chapter doesn't follow the outline because, since I'm allowing the story the space to breath, I didn't want thing to be unrealistically easy to fix. Jeremy has decades of intentional and unintentional indoctrination about how a relationship is and what is allowed in one. it won't go away just because he had sex outside his and Gral's relationship, no matter what him and Toom think.

this didn't devolve into melodrama, because I don't do that, and it still won't. these two are adults, mature adults, so when there are bumps on the road, they will talk through the problems.