Chapter 1: Shot Out of the Sky
Summary:
While en route to follow up on a series of distress calls from merchants being attacked on Luthea, the RLS Victory is shot out of the sky by illegal anti-etheriumcraft cannons. While most of the crew escape the ship before crash landing in the ocean, Jim and Onyx are still trapped on board and have to fight for their lives against the ocean itself.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Only four days of space travel and Jim was already homesick.
He had actually been away from Montressor on a mission for closer to a month, but the spontaneous meeting with Silver at their last port stop had been both exciting for Jim and had triggered an increase in his longing to see his parents.
With a small sigh, Jim turned to greet his first mate as he climbed the stairs to the bridge. “Everything in order, Mr. Onyx?”
“Aye, commander,” Onyx smiled faintly and came to stand beside him.
“Then it appears we are ready to descend,” Jim said, casting his gaze on the green and blue planet they were swiftly approaching.
Onyx bowed his head respectfully, then started booming orders to the crew to prepare for the change from etherium to in-atmosphere travel. The shift was smooth and completely unnoticeable, which Jim took great pride in his crew for having gotten to the point of being able to make the transition seamlessly.
They passed through the cloud layer and Jim let out a small noise of exclamation at the sight of a vast, sparkling ocean directly below them. It stretched for miles in all directions, and was dotted with green islands. A larger landmass was behind them, but their bow was pointed toward a smaller collection of tiny islands surrounding two larger masses. He’d never seen so much water in one place and though he’d heard of mostly oceanic planets, he hadn’t been to any before now. Apparently Luthea – or at least this part of it – was mostly ocean.
More than a dozen SOS calls had been made by various merchant ships over the past several months, all claiming they’d been attacked in the general vicinity that the Victory was heading toward. All contact with the ships had then been lost shortly thereafter, and the large quantity in tandem with all of them reporting the attacks in the same area had drawn the Navy’s attention. So much activity was generally an indicator of a pirate base of operations, and shutting it down quickly was imperative to the local population’s safety, leading the admiralty to assign this mission to Jim.
“There haven’t been any reported SOS rockets or radio transmissions in the past few days,” Onyx said stiffly, and completely unprompted. Jim glanced over at him to see that he was standing far more rigidly than usual with his gaze straight forward. “Do you suppose the pirates could have moved to a new location?”
“That is a possibility,” Jim said, eying his dear friend closely. He straightened as well and added, “Mr. Onyx, would you join me in my stateroom so we may discuss our plan of action when we moor?”
“Of course, sir,” Onyx said, following him closely into the stateroom, though he remained standing by the door once it had been closed and as far from the windows as he could get.
Jim turned and looked at him, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm. “Are you alright?” he asked, no longer as Onyx’s commander, but as his partner.
“I’m perfectly healthy and prepared for duty, sir,” Onyx said emotionlessly.
“Onyx…” Jim stepped up in front of his first officer, his closest friend, his life partner, and laid his hands on Onyx’s chest. “Onyx-glimmers. Tell me what’s bothering you,” he said in Rhusper.
The faintest smile touched Onyx’s lips at the spoken version of his native language and he pressed his hands lightly over Jim’s. “The ocean,” he whispered.
Jim nodded slowly as his guess was confirmed to be correct. He’d learned early on in his friendship with Onyx that cragorians were unable to swim. They were unable to float, let alone swim, and as a precaution, all cragorians were taught young to fear deep or large bodies of water lest they meet an untimely end. “I thought that might be the case. We won’t be here long. Soon, we’ll be sailing back out of here and you don’t ever have to see the ocean again.”
Onyx let out a heavy breath and the smile on his face widened. “Thank you.”
“You’re not the only one doing all the worrying around here,” Jim teased gently. Onyx chuckled weakly, then sighed again.
“I just hope you’re right.”
Jim’s smile faded and he nodded. “Me too. I’m sorry our mission brought us here. I would have thought that the admiralty wouldn’t send us someplace that could pose such a threat to an officer or crew member.”
“I don’t deserve better treatment than any other spacer simply because of my species,” Onyx countered.
Jim raised an eyebrow. “That’s true, but you also don’t deserve any worse treatment. They could have taken into account the heightened danger to yourself over the rest of the crew.”
“Perhaps they were unaware of the planet’s geography,” Onyx offered softly.
That was possible. Jim guessed that it was probably quite difficult for the admiralty’s administration to keep track of every little detail pertaining to all the planets, islands, and waystations under the Empire’s control. If it was a known fact how oceanic Luthea was, then sending the RLS Victory to it was likely an oversight. They were a proficient crew and he and Onyx well respected commanding officers. The admiralty probably didn’t even question that they would be able to handle this mission.
Jim was just being over-protective.
He forced his own shoulders to relax and stepped closer to Onyx to offer him a hug before they returned to the bridge, when he stiffened again at a frantic shout “INCOMING SHOT!!” from the lookout.
They stood frozen for a moment before barreling out of the stateroom.
“EVASIVE ACTION! BATTLE STATIONS!” Jim ordered.
The deck erupted with activity as the crew jumped to do as he’d commanded, and Jim threw himself against the gunwale to see where the shot was coming from. A rocket zipped toward them at great speed, a smoking trail behind it showing him that it had been launched from the ground on one of the small islands they were approaching.
He hadn’t seen many anti-etheriumcraft weapons like this one, and it formed a pit in his stomach at just how quickly its rockets flew. Shots like this had been designed during the Third Procyon War to defend towns against the Procyons and Ironclads, but they hadn’t ever been rolled out for general use and were highly guarded by the Navy still, though it seemed as if the pirates had gotten their hands on one of the launchers.
Jim gripped the gunwale as he watched the rocket, realizing that even as they turned to evade it, they wouldn’t get out of the way in time, and now they’d just put the stern – with the thrusters and engine room – right in the flight path of the shot.
He shoved away from the railing and ran to call to the crew, “PREPARE TO EVAC–”
Before he could finish, the ship lurched violently with a terrible grinding and groaning. The wheel wrenched out of the helmsman’s hands. Jim and half the crew were thrown to the deck. The Victory listed heavily to the side.
“TO THE LONGBOATS!” Jim ordered, scrambling back to his feet.
His eyes scanned the deck once, twice, three times, and he started to panic when he didn’t see Onyx. A strangled laugh burst out of him when he finally caught sight of his first mate climbing to his own feet and helping another crew member up as well. Their gazes met, Onyx’s barely withholding the panic he was feeling, and Jim started toward him.
The ship rocked again, and he felt the wood buckling under his feet. Jim looked down in horror at the widening gaps between the individual planks. All the reinforcements to the hull that he’d commissioned in the years following the Third Procyon War were no match for the incoming fire they were taking, which had been designed to pierce Ironclad hulls.
“GO, GO, GO! TO THE LONGBOATS! NOW! ABANDON SHIP!” Jim ordered.
He grabbed the helmsman by the arm and dragged him down from the bridge, then helped other crew members up and into the ship so they could head toward the longboat hangar. One of the riggers lay on the floor, clutching his leg, and Jim hauled him up and pulled his arm over his shoulders. “Come on, spacer, we’re getting out of here.”
They stumbled and fell a couple times as the ship shuddered and rocked, but they were able to make it to the hangar and he helped the man into one of the four boats. The crew were frantic, climbing in and lowering them almost on top of each other as the hangar door opened below them.
Jim barely caught hold of something before he was thrown out of the hangar when the ship lurched again. He landed on his stomach, gasping for air and gripping tight so he wouldn’t slide along the catwalk. The surface of the ocean was growing closer. They were running out of time to launch the longboats.
“Launch now!” he shouted, jumping back to his feet and searching the faces of the crew already in the boats.
“But, sir–”
“DO IT! There’s another longboat! I’ll get the rest of the crew to it, just go!” Jim ordered over his shoulder as he pelted back up the stairs toward the deck. Onyx hadn’t been one of their numbers, and he was not leaving his first mate behind.
“ONYX! ONYX!! We have to get to the longboat!” he shouted, growing more anxious when he didn't see his friend anywhere.
The cragorian appeared at the top of the stairs, his expression panicked, and Jim reached for him. “We have to go–”
He yelped in pain as the ship shuddered and rocked, throwing him down the stairs on his back. Onyx had been thrown too, but he landed somewhere on deck and Jim struggled to roll over and crawl up the stairs to find him again.
“Jim! Jim!!”
“I’m coming!” he called.
It was almost impossible to stand anymore. The ship was moving downward at a sharp angle, falling fast. They wouldn’t make it back to the hangar in time, and the boat wouldn’t launch properly even if they did. He finally got to the deck and looked around quickly, spotting Onyx clutching at the main mast.
“Hold onto something buoyant!” Jim shouted, but the wind stole his voice.
The impact against the water was deafening. Jim’s ears rang as he was launched into the air. He watched the world moving by as if in slow motion; sky, sea, sky, sea, sky–
His own impact on the water hurt like hell. His skin instantly stung from the sharp slap and immense cold, and he gasped down a breath only to find his lungs filling with water as he slipped into the dark waves.
Jim clawed uselessly at the water for a moment before his muscle memory kicked in and he was able to swim to the surface.
He coughed up the lungful of salty brine, choking as his body tried to draw breath at the same time, and nearly dipped below another wave as he forgot that he needed to kick his legs to tread water.
“Onyx!” he choked.
It was impossible to see anything over the rolling waves and debris from the crash. All he could make out was a mast standing up out of the water and smoke rising into the air.
“Onyx!!” Jim shouted, then choked again as a wave went over his head.
He looked around under the surface, praying that he wouldn’t see the familiar form of his life partner sinking into the gut-twisting darkness below, but there was so much litter under the surface and the salt was so painful to his eyes that he couldn’t make out anything.
Jim swam to the surface again and gulped down air, then paddled toward a floating chunk of wood and climbed onto it to catch his breath and rest for a moment.
His eyes landed on the last longboat, which must have been dislodged and fallen from the ship before the crash. It was upside down with the rudder in the air and the mast facing down, but if Jim could get it turned back over–
He jumped off the bit of wood and swam for the longboat, gasping for air between strokes and nearly running into the hull when he finally reached it. Relief flooded through him when it didn’t appear as if the boat had been damaged, and he dove under the water, where he grabbed the lip of the railing.
Jim kicked his legs as hard as he could while pushing upward and the longboat started to tip upright. Shoving as hard and fast as he could so it wouldn't fill with water, he let out a relieved gasp – that immediately filled his mouth with saltwater – when the small craft righted and floated on the surface of the ocean.
He reached up and grabbed the side, then pulled himself in, panicking slightly when it wobbled dangerously close to tipping again. He lay in the bottom of the boat for a moment, slightly dazed, then scrambled to his feet and looked around frantically. His crew, the ship, Onyx–
A resounding boom came from the ship and Jim covered his head as chunks of metal and wood flew through the air and the last bit of the hull disappeared beneath the surface. He raised his head, watching as the ship he’d poured years of devotion into sank until it was no longer visible. His heart twisted painfully in his chest, sorrow filling him as he silently mourned his ship.
A black tricorn with gold ribbon edging floated by on the top of the water amid the flotsam and Jim snatched it up, holding it to his chest as tears sprang to his eyes.
"No... no!" he cried. "Onyx, no!!"
He dropped the hat into the boat and grabbed up a long piece of wood, which he used to paddle toward the floating debris.
"Is anyone over here? Is there anyone alive!!" he shouted, hoping beyond hope that somehow Onyx had gotten a hold of something that could float.
"Help! HELP!!"
Jim whipped around in search of the source of the call, his heart in his throat as it seemed his prayers were answered. "Onyx! Where are you?!"
"Please help me! Please! Please! "
In the center of the crash site, clinging desperately to an intact bit of one of the masts, was Onyx. Somehow, miraculously, he had been able to keep his hold on the main mast and the long beam had separated from the rest of the ship during the crash. Jim could have cried with joy if he wasn’t still so terrified. "ONYX!! I'm coming! Just hold on!"
He paddled desperately, cursing when he had to slow down to shove things out of the boat's path, until he finally reached Onyx’s side.
His friend was petrified, frozen while grasping the one lifeline keeping him from sinking straight to the ocean floor, with his eyes distant and panicked. Jim leaned over the railing and grabbed his shoulder, startling him. "I'm here, Onyx! I’m here!”
"Jim..." Onyx breathed, relief flashing briefly over his face.
"I'm going to get you out of the water. Grab hold of the side–"
"I can't– I can't– I can't move– I'll sink–"
Jim reached out and cupped Onyx’s cheeks in his hands while saying sternly, "Where-the-onyx-glimmers, I need you to breathe and listen to me! You will not sink, because I won't allow it. Now, I need you to work with me. Can you climb on top of the mast?"
Onyx stared up into his eyes for a moment before whispering, "I think so."
He moved carefully, and painstakingly slowly, to drag himself up onto his stomach on top of the mast and then turn his body so he was lying on top of it lengthwise, then finally he sat up to straddle it while still death gripping the wood.
"Good job, you did amazingly," Jim encouraged, then paddled the boat closer until it bumped against the mast, causing them both to wince with fear that the slight touch might make it roll. He gripped Onyx’s sleeve, staring breathlessly at the mast, until it was apparent it wouldn’t move, then said, "Now grab the side and pull yourself in."
Onyx reached out hesitantly and grasped the side of the boat, anxiously leaning forward while keeping his eyes fixed on Jim.
The boat itself started to tip and the mast rolled, making it look as if Onyx would fall into the water, and panic surged through Jim. He grabbed hold of the lapels of his friend's jacket and yanked as hard as he could, leaning as far back as possible to counterbalance Onyx’s weight so the boat wouldn't capsize. Just like when Silver had fallen off the bowsprit during the supernova, Jim found a burst of incredible strength that allowed him to drag Onyx onto the boat with him.
He lost his balance and fell back onto the bench seat he'd been straddling, and the air rushed out of him when Onyx’s massive form landed on top of him.
The boat rocked wildly, freezing the air in Jim’s lungs with terror that it would flip and all this would be for naught and he would lose his dearest friend anyway. Jim clutched at Onyx, making the silent and instinctual resolution that if his life partner were to sink and drown, so would he.
But the boat slowly straightened again and returned to gently bobbing on the ocean’s waves. Jim continued to hug Onyx tightly, so relieved that tears started to slide down his cheeks.
Even long after the threat of imminent death passed, Onyx didn’t move. He shivered in Jim’s arms for a while before he started to shake more erratically as his breaths came out as sharp gasps, and tears wetted Jim's shirt even more.
"I know... I know... you're okay now... I've got you," Jim soothed, rubbing gentle circles into Onyx’s shoulder blades. "I've got you…”
He hugged Onyx tighter, pressing his cheek to the top of his partner’s head, and fell silent as he let Onyx cry himself out. Jim could hardly keep his own composure and his breath kept hitching in his chest as tears threatened to fall again, and he was throttled by fear that he very nearly lost one of his best friends. He couldn’t even imagine the terror that Onyx had felt being faced with his own mortality in the form of his greatest fear.
Very slowly, Onyx’s crying died down and he slid his arms around Jim to hold him back and Jim felt him raise himself up a little so his full weight wasn’t on top of him. Jim hugged him tighter, refusing to let him sit up quite yet without pulling him up as well, though Onyx didn’t seem to mind laying with him with his cheek pressed to the center of Jim’s chest.
“I’m sorry…” Onyx finally whispered after a long while of the two of them simply holding each other.
Jim startled. “For what?”
“I should have helped to look for any other crew trapped on the ship…” Onyx murmured.
“No, sir, you shouldn’t have. I’d already ensured that everyone alive had gotten on the other longboats and was trying to find you to get in the last one when we hit the water. It was for the best that you found something buoyant to hold onto,” Jim said.
“But–”
“Onyx, enough. It’s okay. You’re okay. You did everything you could and I never would have forgiven myself if you’d gotten hurt, or worse,” Jim said. His voice cracked and he quickly cleared his throat. He turned his head and nuzzled his face against the top of Onyx’s head despite his rough plating.
His friend was quiet again for a moment before saying, “I’m sorry as well for falling apart. It was…”
“If you say ‘unprofessional’, I’m going to slap you,” Jim mumbled against Onyx’s skin. “It’s absolutely reasonable and understandable that you would ‘fall apart’ when faced with your biggest fear. I don’t blame you, and I’m certainly not angry at you for that.”
Onyx’s arms squeezed around him the tiniest bit. “I didn’t make it any easier for you.”
“But you still allowed me to help you.”
“And what if I hadn’t?” Onyx asked.
Jim shook his head, scraping his cheek on Onyx’s heavy brow. “But you did. There’s no reason to dwell on the ‘what if’s when you ultimately believed in me enough to trust that I would help you, and for that I’ll be forever grateful.”
Onyx’s arms loosened around him and he shifted to raise himself off of Jim enough to turn his head and look up into his eyes. They were glassy with tears again and he searched Jim’s face for a long moment before whispering, “I’ll be forever grateful for you, Jim. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Jim said with a weak, playful grin. “Though you can thank me for rescuing your hat.”
His friend sat up more and Jim allowed his arms to relax so Onyx could. “What?” Onyx asked after a moment.
Jim jerked his head toward the tricorn on the driver’s seat of the longboat and Onyx turned his head toward it, his eyes still locked on Jim until he’d nearly turned all the way and then they snapped over. A small, breathy laugh flew out of him and he laid his head back down on Jim’s chest. “Thank you, my friend.”
Smoke still trailed from the collision point of the Man-o-war and the anti-etheriumcraft shots, and it rankled deeply that the order to ‘watch the Naval ship’ had somehow been misinterpreted to ‘destroy the Naval ship’. The thin wisps remaining from the explosion were reminiscent of the ones drifting lazily from the end of the pipe bowl, though they were hardly as appealing. Soon another Naval ship would come to investigate why their brethren had been shot down. The community would be crawling in uniformed men and women demanding answers. If only the order had been respected, then none of this would have ever happened.
What a mess.
The quality of work that could be expected from anyone these days was woefully unimpressive at best. Such a shame. There was a time when everyone would have jumped at the opportunity at honest work, but now it seemed that time had long passed.
While trailing a long, pointed red nail on the pipe’s stem, the sighed words slipped out, “I suppose I shall have to deal with those too incompetent to handle a simple task.”
Notes:
Rhusper, Rumble, and Onyx's full name 'Where-the-onyx-glimmers' were all created by Velgamidragon, and I have since wholly adopted as my own.
Chapter 2: Landfall
Summary:
After securing their immediate safety, Jim and Onyx now have to figure out where to go from here. They eventually settle on finishing the trek to their original destination despite the potential danger that they could be killed when they reach port. When they reach port, they are met with incredible kindness instead of swords, but the vibe of the town feels... off.
Chapter Text
“Where do we go?”
Jim looked over at Onyx, then back at the debris from his destroyed Man-o-war. His eyes were then drawn to the island that the anti-etheriumcraft shots had come from. The smoke trails from the shots were mere wisps now, but the evidence was all around them; they hadn’t been wanted here and could potentially put themselves in grave danger if they sailed toward the island.
But a quick search around them provided no other options, and Jim remembered from when they’d first descended into the atmosphere that there weren’t many land masses in the near vicinity. He had no way of knowing when they would find land if they set off in a random direction.
Their speed was throttled, reliant on the wind and ocean currents, since they couldn’t start or launch the longboat with the thruster submerged as it was now. They had no food, no water, no shelter, and no way of knowing how the weather or water would turn if they tried to sail someplace other than the nearest island.
Jim sighed heavily. “We continue toward our original destination and pray that they are a frightened community that mistook us for a pirate ship intending to raid them.”
Onyx’s expression tightened and he reached out to take Jim’s hand. He didn’t need to question what would happen if that wasn’t the case and they were heading toward a pirate stronghold. But there was no other option; they would die from dehydration, weather or drowning if they changed course, or by a laser shot. All they could do was hope for the best.
The longboat’s mast had somehow survived the crash, which they extended manually, and then lashed the tiller in place after pointing the bow toward the island. Thankfully the wind was behind them, so the sail wasn’t completely useless, and they used the breeze to another advantage too; hanging their coats and clothes from the bottom of the yard so they could dry.
Jim tipped his boot over the side of the boat and sighed when water poured out. There would be no way that it would dry before the rest of his clothes did, so he’d have soggy feet for a while, but it was a small discomfort he could live with. That could very well be the least of his concerns in a few hours.
He set his boots down so they were upside down to drip-dry as much as possible, and turned to make his way back to sit next to Onyx when he saw his life partner had slouched and had his head in his hands. They may have gotten out of direct danger, but they were still surrounded on all sides by water so deep that it was nearly black, and Jim’s heart twisted painfully at how much Onyx was suffering right now.
“Oh, Onyx…” Jim murmured. He walked very carefully to not tip the boat at all, and stopped to stand in front of his dear friend, then gently pulled him forward and cradled Onyx’s head to his chest. “We’ll make it to land soon.”
Onyx gathered him up in his arms and pulled him closer, drawing Jim into his lap and holding him tightly. “I’m sor–”
Jim laid his hand over Onyx’s mouth. “Don’t apologize. I understand.”
They were silent for several minutes before Onyx slowly released his grip and he sat back to look into Jim’s face. “Should we hide our coats to lessen the chances of being caught as Navy personnel if we are sailing toward a pirate’s stronghold?”
While normally Jim would agree to that… “If they shot us down because we were Navy, they’ll question where a non-water built craft with two spacers came from, if not from the ship. Better to face them with some dignity,” he sighed and shrugged tiredly.
Onyx nodded slowly in agreement, and Jim could see that while he wasn’t confident about their chances, he too preferred that they show pride in their profession and promise to defend the Empire up to the end.
Jim glanced at their coats. They were still damp, and they’d be wrinkly and would certainly need a new starching, but there was no damage to either considering what they’d been through. He turned and looked at the approaching island.
Even from this distance, he could see the rooftops of the buildings. They were dark, and sloped with sharp peaks and curved eaves, but one building stood out above the rest. It was massive, towering far over the rest of the town by several stories, and had a gorgeous red roof. There were matching red eaves on each story like a skirt around the white walls, and it drew the eye no matter where Jim looked.
As they drew closer to port, he could see boats on the water, some with a single sail, and others without, and he studied them closely.
Their longboat rocked when he stepped toward the edge and Onyx drew in a sharp breath, causing Jim to freeze and look over at him apologetically. His life partner dropped his head into his hands again, and Jim remained where he was so he wouldn’t frighten him any further than he already was. He laid his hand on Onyx’s shoulder to remind him he wasn’t alone, then Jim turned his attention back to the boats.
Several of them had only one person inside, while the larger ones with the sails had two or three, but all of them were drawing in some sort of net. He narrowed his eyes, watching curiously, until realization clicked.
They were fishermen!
Jim chewed on the inside of his cheek. Would a pirate stronghold bother to employ fishermen to feed their forces? Certainly they wouldn’t let them fish all on their own without some sort of ship or boat manned by their own people to ensure that the fishermen weren’t conspiring against them.
“It may just have been a community frightened by the recent pirate activity that caused the Victory’s crash,” Jim said quietly.
He felt Onyx shift the slightest bit. “Oh?”
“Look around. Do you see any pirate flags or boats?”
Onyx didn’t move and Jim winced at his slip. “Sorry. I’ll just describe things. There are no pirate flags, no favored ships that pirates use, all around are just fishing boats. In fact, there aren’t any etherium faring ships. From what I can see, the town is clean and the people well-fed. There’s no indication at all that this is a pirate stronghold,” he said.
“If they were, it’s likely that we would have seen scout boats come to check on the crash site. We probably wouldn’t have even made it this far,” Onyx added thoughtfully.
Jim nodded. “I’m guessing someone just got a little trigger happy with the anti-etheriumcraft weapons.”
“That’s still a grave offense in the Navy’s eyes,” Onyx said, very briefly looking up into Jim’s face before back down into the bottom of the longboat.
“Yes… I’m sure the admiralty will confiscate the weapons from the town due to this, though I doubt they’ll leave them defenseless,” Jim said.
“Certainly not if there’s believed piracy in the area,” Onyx huffed.
Jim walked very carefully over to sit beside him on the bench and reached out to hold his hand, offering a small bit of comfort as the winds pushed them closer to town.
“We should probably dress again,” Onyx suggested quietly.
Momentarily confused, and then highly embarrassed that they’d been sailing past several fishermen while practically naked, Jim stood again and pulled their clothing down from the yard. They’d just pulled on their still-soggy boots when the docks came into view around a rock jetty, and Jim saw a large group of people standing on the end of the largest one.
“Do you suppose the crew came this way?” Onyx asked, daring to look up now that they were nearly to land.
Jim’s eyes turned skyward. “I didn’t see them overhead, but they launched before the ship crashed and I didn’t see which way they went. They could be here.”
He stood again when a couple small boats turned and sailed directly toward them. His hand twitched toward his hip, but his fingers grasped at nothing; he had no weapons, not even a knife, and the flintlock laser pistol he normally carried when they went into more dangerous situations was back in its locked cabinet, all the way on the ocean floor. Jim dropped his hand.
“Ahoy!” a voice called from the dock and Jim turned to see who had hailed them.
A human man in a well-fitted gray pinstripe suit gazed back at him. Jim’s eyes drifted over him; he was slim, tall, with near-black hair and beard trimmed and styled nicely. As they drew closer, he could see the man had a broad smile on his face that was oddly unsettling and he glanced over at Onyx.
His life partner stood carefully, his shoulders squared and back stiff. Anyone who didn’t know him would think he was intimidating and aloof, but Jim could tell he was incredibly anxious to be out of the boat and away from the water.
The boats that had turned to sail toward them flanked theirs on either side and guided it to the dock, where it was swiftly tied off and both Jim and Onyx helped out by a great number of people.
“Good day to you, captain!” the man in the pin-stripe suit said, offering his hand to Jim.
“Commander,” Onyx corrected stiffly.
Jim smiled faintly at Onyx’s defensiveness, and accepted the man’s hand. “Commander Hawkins. My first officer, Mr. Onyx. And it hasn’t been a very good day, actually. If you weren’t aware, our ship was shot from the sky a few hours ago.”
The man’s smile faltered only a small amount and he nodded his head in a sympathetic manner. “So I heard. A fisherman informed the city guards that they witnessed the crash while pulling in their net and the news only recently made it to me. Ah, please forgive me, gentlemen. I am Mr. Honda, the mayor. Welcome to Negaijima! Please, please, this way. You must be exhausted from such an ordeal.”
“We–” Jim started to speak, but the mayor continued without letting him get another word out.
“Rest assured, commander, I have started an investigation into what caused our defensive weapons to be discharged. Daisuke, continue the preparations for a search team. We’ll recover any of your crew that are still out there,” Mr. Honda assured.
“Unless they came in longboats before us, then there is no one else,” Jim said, slightly taken aback by Mr. Honda’s forcefully pleasant personality and interruption.
“Oh dear, we haven’t seen any other boats come in… Well, it never hurts to double check, now, does it?” Mr. Honda smiled wider.
A creeping, crawling feeling started across Jim’s shoulders and down his spine. There was something about this man that he didn’t like, but he couldn’t pin down what . He found himself leaning closer to Onyx instinctively, and he straightened quickly so as not to indicate their relationship in any way to this uncomfortably polite man.
Mr. Honda gestured to the two of them while the other individuals on the dock – whose beautiful wrap-style embroidered robes Jim was getting highly distracted by – hurried to fill boats and sail out to the Victory’s crash site.
“Come, come! Please allow Negaijima to treat our most esteemed guests with the highest of honors! Our beloved Madame Shugosha will be sure to set you both up with accommodations, food, and entertainment for the duration of your stay,” Mr. Honda said.
Onyx met Jim’s gaze when he glanced again at him, and they shared a hesitant look. Jim didn’t like this man. He didn’t like that he hadn’t been given the option to ask about the anti-etheriumcraft weapons. He didn’t like the way he was talking about them. It felt disingenuous.
“Excuse me, Mr. Honda, but I have a few questions,” Jim said. He and Onyx hurried to follow him, and the mayor fixed Jim with his eerily wide smile, which Jim tried to ignore as he continued, “How did Negaijima come by anti-etheriumcraft weapons? This is far from where the fighting occurred during the Third Procyon War, and they were highly classified pieces of machinery that never made it into public circulation.”
“I must apologize as I have never heard of ‘anti-etheriumcraft weapons’ before, and I would have to look through the records of the previous mayors to determine exactly what all they acquired for the city’s defenses,” Mr. Honda smiled.
“You have never looked into this yourself?” Onyx asked.
The mayor turned his grin on him. “I leave the city’s defense to our loyal captain of the guard.”
Jim glanced at Onyx again. “You don’t discuss the defenses at all?”
“Gentlemen, I understand that you have been through a difficult morning, and I apologize for the incredible inconvenience, but I can assure you that an investigation is underway as we speak,” Mr. Honda said brightly, smiling at them both as he walked briskly through the streets. “I will be sure to present you with the official report as soon as I have it in my hands.”
“Could you give us an estimated timeframe you’ll have that report so we won’t be pestering you in your office in the meantime?” Onyx asked.
Jim glanced at him again. His life partner was still stiff, and it seemed Mr. Honda’s skirting around the subject and his unnerving personality was starting to annoy him.
“There’ll be no need for you to leave your accommodations, Mr. Onyx, or you, Commander Hawkins. We will handle everything for both of you and Madame Shugosha will ensure the two of you are comfortable.”
“That–” Jim cut off, so flustered and annoyed by the conversation himself that he was having a difficult time coming up with things to say. He shook his head sharply. “Mr. Honda, it is incredibly important that the nearest Navy Headquarters be notified of the crash and that the existence of your town’s anti-ethe–”
“Here we are!” Mr. Honda announced dramatically, startling Jim as the man stopped abruptly and spun around to face them. He spread his arms and Jim’s eyes were drawn to the immense building behind him, the same that he’d admired from a distance as they were approaching town. “Behold the home of our beloved Madame Shugosha! Welcome to Negaijima’s Heart's Desire Pleasure House!”
It was so much larger when they stood in front of it, and so much more impressive, but Jim could only feel a coiling in his gut. The presence was oppressive.
“Heart's Desire Pleasure House?” he repeated distractedly. That seemed like an odd name for an inn…
“Why, of course! The crowning jewel of Negaijima is our brothel,” Mr. Honda smiled.
Jim’s jaw dropped, and he quickly closed his mouth as he tried to recollect himself. “Excuse me?”
“This is where our accommodations are?” Onyx snapped.
“Of course, of course! Heart's Desire Pleasure House has the most comfortable beds and the greatest of hosts,” Mr. Honda said.
The creeping feeling of unease only heightened. Jim had never been interested in stepping foot in a brothel, nor in acquainting himself with any occupants inside one, and he was shocked and more than mildly offended that the mayor – a random stranger – would assume he would be comfortable with staying in one for an unforeseeable amount of time.
He stiffened now too and fought to keep a scowl off his face. “Thank you for the consideration, Mr. Honda, but we’ll be more comfortable staying at an inn.”
Mr. Honda’s smile faltered the smallest bit, and Jim felt a shudder go down his spine as he realized that it didn’t meet – nor had it never met – his eyes. He brought it back up in the blink of an eye and swept his arms again. “Come, come, we’ll discuss after you’ve met with our lovely Madame Shugosha. I’m sure she can accommodate any of your needs.”
Jim hesitated. He really didn’t want to go into the brothel for any sort of discussion and wasn’t sure why Mr. Honda was so adamant that they do so, but if it meant that they could negotiate for a room at an inn then he would.
With a glance up at Onyx, Jim hesitantly followed Mr. Honda up the steps to the ornate doors.
They slid open before their little group even reached them and Jim’s shoulders tensed. Inside was dimly lit and elegant, with light, floaty music playing from somewhere deeper within. Red painted pillars lined the long hall, more ornate sliding doors were on either side of them as they walked, and when they reached the end of the hall it opened into a wide room with several sets of stairs. Two on opposite sides of the room facing each other, and then another directly ahead leading down.
Jim’s eyes moved upward at the grand open space above them. All the way up to the roof above was open with several stories of rooms, and sets of stairs criss-crossing over their heads to go from floor to floor.
“Heavens…” he breathed.
“Right this way, gentlemen!” Mr. Honda chirped, and gestured to the stairs leading downward.
Jim startled at a gentle touch in the center of his back, but relaxed when he recognized it as Onyx’s hand, and he glanced up at his life partner. Onyx gave him a tight look and Jim smiled apologetically, wishing he could reach out and press his hand over Onyx’s heart to indicate he felt the same.
They followed Mr. Honda down the stairs and into another long hall that was even dimmer than the last. The music grew louder the further they walked; some sort of plucky, medium-pitched, stringed instrument whose notes slid from one to the next smoothly with no breaks or pauses of silence.
Mr. Honda slid the door at the end of the hall open and bowed, gesturing the two of them into the large room beyond.
Another wide space opened up to them with pillars all around the perimeter and large cushions or low lounging chairs positioned on the floor near similarly low tables. The scent of incense wafted around them, mixed with the smell of spiced tobacco. Dark colored gold and red glass orbs hung from the ceiling, the light of several candles flickering from within them.
Women in loose robes sat or laid on the vast assortment of seats, their faces painted with intricate white, gold, and red makeup and hair done up into incredibly complex hairstyles sparkling with pins and ornate combs. Tea sets sat on the tables as if they were all sharing a drink, though a few women were dancing, and another played a long, box-like instrument sitting on the floor.
At the center of the room was a large, square platform with wrap-around steps surrounded by heavy, lush crimson drapes. On the platform was a larger lounging couch where a silver-haired woman reclined comfortably.
Jim assumed she must be Madame Shugosha given her seat and different clothing from the other women, who were all garbed in silver and blue robes, while she wore a gold robe with delicate and elaborate red and white embroidery all over it. She herself was something to behold as well; a fox-like alien with pointy white ears, an elongated face, silvery hair, pale skin, and nine thick, white tails that draped on the couch behind her. She lowered the long-pipe she’d been smoking from and tapped the stem lightly with a long, red nail.
“Why, Mr. Honda, I wasn’t expecting you to bring me such distinguished guests,” she said in a silky voice.
Three women approached smoothly and bowed as they presented cups of steaming tea.
Jim took his, but hesitated to drink it and saw that Onyx did the same, though Mr. Honda took a sip before leading them over to the platform, where they stood at the bottom step. Now that they were closer, Jim could see that Madame Shugosha’s eyes were pink and her skin even paler than he’d originally thought.
“Commander Hawkins and his first officer, Mr. Onyx, Madame Shugosha,” Mr. Honda smiled, bowing to her.
Madame Shugosha sat up smoothly, her motions graceful and deliberate, and she smiled at Jim, then at Onyx. “Welcome to Negaijima, commander, Mr. Onyx. To what may we owe this visit?”
“Our ship was shot from the sky, ma’am,” Jim said curtly, overwhelmed by the scents and the goings on around him.
Her thin eyebrows pulled together and her expression turned to one of deep sadness. “My goodness, how terrible. You poor dears.”
She gestured with a hand and several women immediately descended upon Jim and Onyx, trying to coax their uniform coats off while she said, “Let us ease your troubled minds–”
“Actually, ma’am, we would prefer to spend as little time in your establishment as possible,” Jim said stiffly, hugging his arms to his sides so his jacket couldn’t be removed. “We joined Mr. Honda to meet you in the hopes of discussing accommodations at an inn.”
Madame Shugosha smiled at them, a motherly, doting sort of look, and set her pipe down on a table beside her settee. She stood and smoothly descended the steps toward them, holding her arms out welcomingly. “Of course we can discuss accommodations. Please, come.”
She glided past them and led the way back toward the door, Mr. Honda right behind her.
Jim held his hand out for Onyx’s cup, and he ditched both on a table, then rushed to follow Madame Shugosha and Mr. Honda out of the room and away from the brothel women.
They were led back up the stairs and toward another set, but Jim and Onyx stopped at the bottom. “I’m sure your establishment is wonderful, ma’am, but we don’t want to stay here,” Jim said.
Madame Shugosha turned and gazed at him, the corners of her mouth turned up subtly. “Won’t you please allow us to treat you gentlemen to all of your hearts’ desires?”
“Thank you for the offer, but we won’t find that here,” Onyx said.
He turned and Jim followed, both of them swiftly walking down the long hall toward the front doors, where they quickly slid them open and started down the steps to the street. Jim gulped down a breath of fresh air, then let out a sharp sigh of relief and Onyx did the same beside him.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please allow us to offer–” Mr. Honda called as he hurried after them.
Jim shook his head. “Thank you, Mr. Honda, for the generous offer, but we would like to find an inn now.”
The mayor joined them, quickly overtaking their quickened gates and stopping in front of them, forcing them to stop as well. He smiled wide and spread his arms to the sides. “Of course, of course! Come, we’ll discuss as I show you our beautiful town!”
Before giving them a chance to respond, Mr. Honda stepped between them and placed his hands on their backs, then started to guide them down the street. He was taller than Jim and surprisingly strong, effortlessly coaxing Jim to walk. Onyx could easily have planted his weight and refused to move, and Jim felt an overwhelming sense of relief that his partner hadn’t done so and allowed Mr. Honda to direct them deeper into the town so they wouldn’t be separated.
Jim’s disquiet only heightened the further they were led down the streets, and he repeatedly looked up at Onyx, trying to communicate through his gaze to come up with an escape plan.
Something was weird here, and he had an intense urge to cut and run as quickly as possible to someplace private where he and Onyx could discuss everything that had happened.
It was late into the afternoon when a haggard group of spacers poured from three longboats they moored directly in front of the Navy Headquarters building in the city of Aquas on Luthea.
They rushed up the stairs and into the building, stampeded down the hall to the first open admiral’s office, and startled its occupant nearly out of their skin.
“Excuse us, sir, but we have grave news,” the highest ranking officer said, stepping forward and removing his tricorn solemnly. The admiral saw now that the faces on the spacers held the same disheveled, mournful expression and they stood slowly from their chair to face the group. The officer spoke again, “The RLS Victory was shot down earlier today over the ocean while en route to Negaijima. We were unable to verify the survival of Commander Hawkins or first officer, Mr. Onyx, sir. Please… is there any way a search party can be organized to rescue any potential survivors?”
Chapter 3: Safehouse
Summary:
After an excruciating tour of the town by the mayor in which it seems like they'll never be taken anywhere other than the brothel for accommodations, Jim and Onyx are finally rescued by another citizen of Negaijima who takes them to a secret safehouse where they can hide out and come up with a plan to get away from this place.
Chapter Text
Mr. Honda was utterly exhausting and Onyx was very ready to be done with him.
He didn’t know how the man had managed it, but he’d talked around the subject of getting Onyx and Jim lodging at an inn with such skill that Onyx found it incredibly impressive, despite his annoyance. Somehow the topic of the brothel – ‘our crowning jewel, Heart’s Desire Pleasure House’ as Honda put it – kept coming up and Onyx was certain that he’d never wanted to hear less about a place than he did this particular brothel, or its madam.
“Mr. Honda, again, we appreciate the offer, but we would be far more comfortable in an inn,” Jim said for what felt to Onyx like the hundredth time, and he wondered where his heart stone was finding his seemingly endless well of patience. Normally it was the other way around where he was the patient one and Jim was grinding his teeth, but not in this instance.
Onyx was sure his short fuse ws due to the panic he’d felt a few hours ago, and the frustration of not being allowed to process his emotions now that the danger had fully passed, and he was endlessly annoyed at himself for his heightened emotions. There was no longer a need to dwell on the near-death experience, and the minor flashes of terror that gripped him every time he caught the smallest glimpse of the ocean were completely unnecessary.
The town’s mayor once again launched into a spiel about the history of the town, drudging up some obscure and trivial detail that Onyx was certain they would never need to know.
“–Madame Shugosha–”
Onyx had to force his hands to relax from the fists they’d curled into. If he heard one more thing about Madame Shugosha or the Heart’s Desire Pleasure House, he was going to pick Jim up and let Mr. Honda try to stop them as they turned their efforts instead to searching for an inn without his assistance. The man had been less than helpful so far, and Onyx had the distinct feeling he was trying to wear them down to eventually agree to stay at the brothel. To what end, he had no idea, but it only made him more staunchly stubborn to continue to reject the proposal.
A man donned in an intricate deep blue wrap around robe hurried over to them from the direction of the docks and waved. “Mr. Honda, I have news of the cra–” he started to say, but the mayor gestured sharply to the side as if to indicate that he should step away to make his announcement.
“Excuse me, gentlemen! Please spare me just a moment!” Mr. Honda said brightly and swiftly led the other man so they could stand several paces away.
Onyx felt his muscles relaxing more with each step Mr. Honda took away from them, and he placed a gentle hand in the middle of Jim’s back. His heart stone leaned into his palm with a quiet groan.
“My stars,” Jim whispered, looking up at Onyx. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could talk around the same sentence in so many different ways…”
Onyx started to respond, but was startled by a soft “ Pst !” from off their right side. Both he and Jim looked over, searching for the source of the sharp noise, and Onyx’s eyes landed on a young woman in a similarly colored blue robe to the man that Mr. Honda was speaking to. She was a human, with light tan skin and dark eyes, her hair pulled back into a simple braid that hung over her shoulder as she leaned around the corner of a building. She waved them over frantically to join her in the narrow alley, peering over at Mr. Honda before meeting their gazes again and mouthing “Come here!”
In a moment of uncharacteristic impulsivity, Onyx grabbed Jim by the arm and rushed to join the agitated stranger.
The woman grabbed their arms and pulled them deeper into the alley. “You’re with the Navy?” she hissed.
“Yes. I’m Commander Hawkins and this is my first officer, Mr. Onyx–” Jim started to explain, but she waved her hands sharply.
“That’s not important! Hurry and follow me!” she snapped, then whipped around and ran down the alley.
Onyx and Jim remained frozen for a moment, gazing after her then up at each other, before following behind her.
Was this a good idea? This woman was a total stranger, who hadn’t even provided her name, and had given them absolutely no reason to trust her. Even so, Onyx would much rather follow her than Mr. Honda, though he couldn’t tell if it was because he was so exhausted of Mr. Honda’s roundabout and frustrating way of talking, or if there was something actually off-putting about the man.
He glanced at Jim, who didn’t question the woman either, so he hoped that his heart stone also felt the odd aura around the town’s mayor.
It was several minutes of trotting steadily behind the woman through a maze of narrow roadways before she finally stopped and held her hand up. Onyx skidded to a stop as well, catching Jim’s arm to catch him as he came to an abrupt halt. They watched intently as she peered from side to side at the end of another alley.
“Okay, it’s safe,” she said, jerking her head and leading them out and toward a row of houses. “So, a commander, huh? Can you get me and my family off the planet?”
Jim balked slightly. “Excuse me?”
“I need you to get us off the planet. No questions asked. I help you, you help me,” she said, turning and planting her hands on her hips. She looked sternly at them while waiting for a response.
“Help us how?” Onyx asked.
She glanced around, then leaned forward. “Food, shelter, clothing. What do you say? I give you all those, and you help us off the planet.”
Onyx looked down at Jim. Any under-the-table deals like this were far more likely to hurt or end his career than they were to hurt Onyx’s. The ‘no questions asked’ raised a glaring red flag for him, and he knew for Jim as well, as it meant that she and her family were trying to hide something.
“We’re not criminals,” the woman added quickly at their hesitation. “I can’t talk about it. I’m putting us in enough danger as it is just talking to you .”
“Okay. We’ll help you,” Jim finally said. “We’ll take you off the planet and deliver you safely to a Navy Headquarters.”
The woman didn’t seem at all distraught by this condition as she smiled broadly. “Great!”
“But–” Jim interjected, making her flinch “–we need a way to get off the planet, first and foremost. We need to get in touch with the nearest Navy Headquarters to report our ship’s attack and crash, either by radio or heliogram.”
“I can handle that for you. We’ve been standing out in the open too long, c’mon,” the woman said, gesturing for them to follow her again.
Onyx hesitated, glancing at Jim, and then followed both him and the woman around the side of a small, square building. She stopped in front of the back corner and carefully pried a section back, revealing a narrow, hidden hall.
“Go in, quick,” she whispered, eyes hard as she peeked around them toward the end of the small space between the two houses.
Jim stepped in first, with Onyx right at his heels, and they walked down the hall, which opened into a very small room. It had a wood stove in the center, a tiny strip of counter, and a table with a single chair. At the very back were two doors, both of which were open, and Onyx could see a small cot in one, and a large wash basin in the other. Light and fresh air filtered in from tiny open slits near the top of the walls by the ceiling, and there were no light switches that he could see anywhere. Onyx guessed that this part of the house was an addition that the occupants weren’t keen on anyone learning about based on the construction, small size, and the dirt floor.
“It’s not much, but it’s enough,” the woman said quietly. “Keep your voices down, don’t have any light after dark, and don’t let anyone see you coming and going. I’ll bring you some food and clothes that you can change into.”
Her eyes roved over Onyx’s large form and she twisted her mouth to the side. “I’ll try to find something to fit you. Give me a little while. I might have to make something.”
“Please don’t bother. I can wear my uniform–” Onyx started to say, but she shook her head.
“Not unless you want Honda tracking you down you won’t,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t we want Honda tracking us down?” Jim asked, though Onyx could have come up with several reasons of his own without a moment’s hesitation.
The woman’s expression darkened briefly, then she shook her head. “It’s best that you stay out of sight. I’ll bring paper for you to write down the note for the Navy Headquarters when I bring your food and clothes. Stay here, I’ll be back.”
She turned and slipped back down the hall. Light shone in for a moment as she pushed open the panel, then it was dim again, and Onyx stared after her. Both he and Jim stood silently, gazing into the darkness, before Onyx made his way to the chair and sat heavily on it.
Jim approached and laid his hands on Onyx’s chest. “How are you feeling?” he murmured.
“Exhausted,” Onyx sighed. He reached out and pulled Jim forward and into his lap, curling his arms around his heart stone while resting his cheek on Jim’s shoulder. “Are we sure this is wise?”
“To put complete reliance on a nameless woman who’s vaguely hinted that we shouldn’t trust Mr. Pin-stripe and should remain hidden? I have no idea,” Jim sighed, leaning heavily against Onyx in return.
Onyx snorted out a surprised laugh at Jim’s reference to Mr. Honda as ‘Mr. Pin-stripe’ and he hugged his heart stone tighter. “Do you mean ‘Mr. Honda’?”
Jim mumbled against his shoulder, “Yeah, whatever his name is. The guy gives me the creeps.”
“Me as well,” Onyx murmured. “He was incredibly frustrating to try to get an answer from.”
“I’m sure Lucinda would have fun talking to him and doing the same back to him,” Jim huffed.
Onyx smiled faintly at the mention of Kate’s mother. “Yes, I’m sure she would… Do you suppose our host will be able to get a message to the Navy Headquarters?”
Jim leaned back and looked up into Onyx’s eyes. “I was wondering that myself. I don’t believe for a minute that Mr. Honda is truly investigating the crash, and now that we’ve run off on him, I don’t think he’ll let us wander around freely. He’ll probably have someone monitoring all the incoming and outgoing heliograms, so it’s likely that anything we send won’t make it out.”
“Then what should we do?” Onyx whispered.
“We could send a heliogram to Silver,” Jim suggested.
Onyx raised a brow. “And that’ll get past Mr. Honda’s security?”
“It will if it’s coded,” Jim grinned tiredly.
“Then we shouldn’t bother with sending anything to the Navy Headquarters, and something straight to Silver,” Onyx said, but Jim shook his head.
“No, let’s send one to the Navy first and then wait a day or so to send something to Silver. Give Mr. Pin-stripe–” he rolled his eyes and grinned when Onyx teasingly corrected him “–a sense that he’s throttled our means of communication, then send one to Silver since he’ll already believe that we’ve sent our message. Maybe we could even send the first one in person and send Ms. Nameless with the one for Silver.”
“Seems like a reasonable plan to me,” Onyx said. He sighed and tugged Jim against him again, relaxing only when his heart stone was tucked comfortably with his head under Onyx’s chin.
They were silent for several moments before Onyx asked, “What if it doesn’t reach him?”
“We should go drag our boat out of the harbor and someplace where the thruster can dry out, then we’ll have a means of transportation to leave if we have to,” Jim said.
“Do you suppose Mr. Honda will leave it in the harbor long enough for us to get to it?” Onyx asked. He couldn’t fully explain it, but he didn’t trust the man to leave the longboat alone, and he wondered if something had already happened to it.
“Well, we’ll have to check. We should wait until nightfall, though, so it’s harder to make out who we are.”
“And perhaps our host will have clothing for us by then,” Onyx added.
Jim hummed quietly.
Onyx’s thoughts bounced around tiredly, and they happened to circle back to Jim’s suggestion to send a heliogram to Silver. “What if Silver’s not at port anymore and doesn’t receive your message?”
His heart stone jerked slightly as if he’d been woken by Onyx’s voice. He hummed, then said sleepily, “I’ll send it to Mom. She doesn’t know mine and Silver’s coded messages, so it won’t alarm her, and she’s really good at sending him a transmission whenever I send something for him when he’s not around.”
He was quiet for a moment before adding, “I wish I hadn’t left my communicator in my cabin. I could just reach out to him directly.”
Onyx sighed. He too regretted not carrying his communicator on his person, though he wasn’t sure how waterproof the little device was. It could have been that being partially submerged would have been enough to make it unusable.
The reminder of his very close brush with death earlier sent a shudder through him and his blood to run cold. The horrible feeling of nothingness under his feet came back to him just as strong as he’d felt it in the moment and the frigid water tugged at him. His body ached from the cold, from clinging to the mast, from his own terror, and Onyx started to shiver all over.
“It’s okay, Onyx-glimmers. You’re safe.”
He startled at Jim’s voice, then let out a heavy breath as the details of their tiny temporary living space came back into focus.
“I’ll go get the longboat later,” Jim continued soothingly, “So you don’t have to go near the water again.”
“I would prefer you not go alone,” Onyx whispered back.
Jim shook his head. “I’ll be careful. And I can send our heliogram at the same time. I’ll be okay, I promise.”
Onyx would be lying if tried to deny that he was relieved Jim offered to go to the harbor on his own, but he also felt an intense sense of guilt for not arguing more vehemently that he accompany Jim. He didn’t like this place, not simply because of the dangerous situation earlier in the day, but also because of Mr. Honda’s behavior, and the general aura around the town. It was off-putting, and he wasn’t happy about the idea of Jim being out there alone.
“I want to accompany you,” he finally whispered.
Jim was quiet for a moment, then nodded minutely. “Okay. But I insist you keep a row of buildings between you and the harbor so seeing it won’t stress you out. You’ve been through enough already today.”
Onyx hugged Jim tighter, relieved by his heart stone’s insistence and deeply grateful for him.
“Let’s lay down for a while first,” Jim suggested tiredly and Onyx let out a sigh.
They sat for a while before Jim extracted himself from Onyx’s arms and lap, and then they carefully stripped off their clothing, hung everything up to dry out the rest of the way, and trudged to the small bed. There was just enough space for them to lay together comfortably, and Onyx pulled Jim into his arms again before shutting his eyes and giving into his exhaustion.
It felt as if Jim had barely closed his eyes when he was instantly alert by Onyx jerking sharply.
Jim pushed himself up, looking around anxiously for the danger in the dim light, but startled again when he heard Onyx whimpering and muttering incoherently while still asleep. It took Jim several long moments of his exhausted brain trying to process what was happening before it finally clicked that his life partner was having a nightmare.
“Oh, Onyx,” Jim breathed, mildly panicked, and leaned forward to stroke his cheek and wake him as gently as possible. “Onyx-glimmers, my rock, it’s okay. You’re safe here. You’re not going to drown. You’re safe.”
Onyx’s subconscious panicking lessened, but he still twitched and murmured in distress, and Jim scooted up to cradle his head to his chest, trying to turn Onyx so he could hear his heartbeat. “My anchor, my rock, you’re alright. It’s Jim. You’re with Jim. You’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
After several minutes of gentle whispering, Onyx’s arms slowly tightened around Jim and he fell silent. He let out a long, low breath and nuzzled in closer. “I hear you, my heart. Thank you,” Onyx murmured after a while.
“There you are,” Jim breathed. He bent down to kiss the top of Onyx’s head and didn’t stop his gentle stroking of Onyx’s cheek even though his life partner had woken up. “Just breathe. You’re safe.”
Onyx shifted and Jim sensed that he was about to apologize and preemptively pressed his thumb over his mouth. “Don’t. You’re okay. Heaven knows you’ve been woken by enough of my nightmares. I’m more than happy to help with yours.”
“Thank you,” Onyx mumbled around Jim’s finger, and Jim grinned to himself, then leaned his cheek on the top of Onyx’s head.
He’d nearly fallen asleep again when his life partner shifted and he flopped onto his back as his support was removed. Jim jerked awake, blinking tiredly up at Onyx as he sat up, then sighed and dragged himself into an upright position as well. It was impossible to tell what time it was by the light inside, and Jim hoped that it wasn’t actually morning because he didn’t feel as if he’d slept at all.
He groaned and rubbed his palms over his eyes to force himself to wake up, and leaned to try to find Onyx so he could rest against him.
“Our host was back while we slept,” Onyx said quietly.
Jim stared up at him blankly, then followed his gaze to the small common room, and specifically to the table. There was a wicker basket with an assortment of food options, and a pile of fabric in two similar shades of blue. He hummed softly, a bit disconcerted that she’d been able to come and go without either of them hearing her.
“We should probably eat and then figure out what time it is,” Jim finally said, turning so he could dangle his legs off the bed before reluctantly standing and stretching.
He wandered into the next room to look at the food that had been brought for them, and picked up what looked like some sort of bread, then what he guessed to be fruit, and offered them to Onyx. His life partner made no motion to take them, and Jim held them up more. “You need to eat, my anchor.”
Onyx smiled faintly, accepting the fruit, and the two of them ate silently while unfolding the fabric to see that they’d been provided with a robe each. There was also paper available, and a charcoal pencil, and Jim picked both up to start penning a generic message to the Navy Headquarters. He then wrote a second message meant for Silver, and jotted down that it needed to be sent to Montressor and which particular heliograph tower.
“There. That should cover our bases. And in the off chance both of our intuitions are wrong and this one–” he waved the message for the Navy Headquarters “– does make it through, then I can just apologize to Silver later for worrying him and explain we didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Hopefully that will be the case,” Onyx said, but his tone was anything but optimistic.
Jim turned to him and reached up to cup his cheek. “Are you sure you want to come along? You don’t look like you slept well.”
“I’ll be fine, Jim, thank you,” Onyx breathed, leaning into his palm. “I won’t sleep with you being gone anyway.”
That was fair. Jim didn’t think he’d be able to sleep, let alone sit still, if Onyx went out and was separate from him. He took a deep breath and looked over at their uniforms, which seemed to be dry by now. “Then let’s get this done and return as quickly as possible so we can get some more rest.”
Jim handed Onyx the larger of the two robes that their host had brought them and started to pull his normal uniform on, then the robe on top of it. He’d seen the heliograph tower in one of their many rounds of the town, and he remembered that it was on the far side of the harbor from their little safehouse.
It took them a few minutes to figure out how to tie the robes closed so they would stay in place, and while Jim was a bit hot wearing two layers of clothes, he actually really liked the fabric of the robe.
They slipped out into the evening and Jim was relieved by the breeze that cooled his face. He turned and started down the alley and was unnerved by the sight of the red roof of the massive brothel looming over the other buildings. He didn’t like how enormous it was. It was essentially the center of the town, and certainly the most impressive structure. Jim couldn’t even remember if he’d seen a government building where Mr. Honda was supposed to do his mayoral duties from.
“I don’t like that building,” Onyx breathed.
“Nor do I,” Jim responded.
With a shared glance and deep, bracing breath, they walked quickly down the street, looking carefully before stepping out, and weaved their way through town toward the harbor.
Jim kept his eyes on the birds overhead, taking note that they were getting to be more numerous as the scent of salt grew stronger, and he came to a stop when he was reasonably certain that the port was close. He doubted that Onyx’s nightmare earlier was going to be a one-time occasion, and he didn’t want to exacerbate his worries and stress any more than he absolutely had to.
“Okay, I’ll go from here and get the longboat out of the water. Once it’s pulled onto land I should be able to start the engine without having to worry about the thruster being flooded,” Jim whispered.
Onyx’s expression shifted to one of deep worry and he reached for Jim’s hands, clasping them gently in his and pulling him close as he whispered back, “Please be careful.”
Jim leaned into him briefly before pulling away and promising, “I will.”
As Onyx crept back into the deepening shadows, Jim stepped out onto the street and walked as casually as he could toward the docks. He kept his gait at a stroll in an attempt to not draw attention by looking like he was in a hurry, and his head down so his bangs partially obscured his face. He even went so far as to pull his hair free of its ponytail so it hung around his shoulders, since he wasn’t sure how many people Mr. Honda might have keeping an eye out for him and Onyx.
He didn’t even have to get all the way to the port to know that this part of their trek was in vain; the longboat was gone. Jim thoroughly scoured all the docks for the little boat, but there wasn’t even the smallest sign of it.
Careful to not look suspicious, he continued on his way, making a wide loop as if he was just going for an evening walk, and slipped down the alley from the opposite side to meet up with Onyx again.
His life partner jumped when he approached, relaxed, and then looked at him a second time with his brows raised when he saw Jim’s hair down. Onyx reached out and gently caught a clump.
Jim smiled ruefully. “I figured it’d be harder to identify me if I don’t look like myself.”
“There’s not much you can do about your distinctive eyes and face,” Onyx pointed out with a faint, teasing grin.
“No, but I can hide it. Do you think I could pass off being a woman if I had a fan to hide everything below my eyes?”
Onyx snorted out a quiet laugh, then sobered when Jim said, “The longboat’s gone. I don’t know if a fisherman took it as their own, or if it’s smashed somewhere, but it’s not in the harbor.”
“Then our means of leaving are severely limited to walking and hoping there’s another town or waiting on another Navy ship or Silver to come get us,” Onyx said.
“Yep. And I don’t know how much I would trust any other towns in the general vicinity,” Jim added.
“Nor I,” Onyx agreed.
Jim sighed. “Then we’ll have our lovely host send the message to Silver for us and I’ll send the decoy one to the Navy Headquarters.”
That said, they still had to get to the heliograph tower, and Jim had to be seen and not get caught while speaking to the tower attendant. His unease grew as they snuck through the town. No matter where they went, the brothel was always visible, and it was discomfiting. Jim felt as if the building itself was watching them, and he glanced toward it numerous times.
His skin felt as if it was crawling by the time they finally reached the last few rows of buildings before the winding path up the hill to the heliograph tower.
Jim pulled off the robe and handed it to Onyx, who looked at him with his heavy brow furrowed. “What are you doing?”
“They’ve got to see me in my uniform going to send a heliograph.”
“Yes, I’m aware, but why are you giving this to me? I’m coming with you,” Onyx said.
“No, you’re staying here, because you’re not in uniform and if they see you in clothing similar to the townspeople's they might suspect we’re up to something and they’ll also know that we know to hide from them by using their own clothes,” Jim argued as he tied his hair back into a ponytail.
His life partner’s expression pulled into a concerned frown. “I don’t like you going so far alone.”
“You’ll be able to see me the entire time,” Jim said, gesturing to the path with his chin. It was free of trees or shrubs, and was mostly a rocky hill with small tufts of grass here and there, so Jim could easily see that no one was hiding out to ambush him.
Onyx took a deep breath, looking up at the hillside. He let it out slowly, his eyes falling back to Jim’s face, and he nodded finally. “Alright. Be careful. I know you are wont to be reckless and impulsive, and I beg of you, please be careful.”
Jim stepped toward him and placed his right hand in the center of Onyx’s chest. “I promise you, Where-the-onyx-glimmers, that I will be careful.”
A tender smile came over Onyx’s face and he mimicked the motion on Jim’s chest, then sighed. “You have the message?”
Jim held it up. Onyx sighed again. They both looked over at the heliograph tower.
“Now or never. I’ll be back,” Jim murmured, then glanced to either side before darting out of the alley and sprinting up the path to the tower. He didn’t stop or slow until he reached the tower despite how his side ached and his lungs burned, and he collapsed through the door.
The attendant startled and looked at him with wide eyes, their gaze traveling down his disheveled appearance as he quickly straightened and tried to save some face, but he was still panting too much to speak properly when he reached the counter and said, “I need… this message sent… to the nearest Navy… Navy Headquarters…”
“I see–” they started to say, but Jim leaned forward and looked them dead in the eye.
“Quickly. And don’t tell anyone I was here,” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder anxiously both for extra effect and because he was actually worried someone could be on their way. “I have to go.”
“Ah, uh, o-okay–” the attendant said.
Jim hurried out of the tower, looking around quickly for anyone that could by trying to come up the hill to intercept him, then rushed out of the heliograph tower and ran down the hill. He could see Onyx’s faint silhouette in the alley, watching as he came pelting down the path, and then his life partner stepped forward just to the edge of the shadows and opened his arms for Jim to run into.
He wasn’t able to slow his momentum before slamming into Onyx’s chest, accidentally nearly concussing himself on his life partner’s hard plates, and Onyx yelped anxiously before very carefully inspecting him all over for injuries.
“Heavens, Jim, I told you to be careful!” he hissed.
“I was,” Jim said back, but his partner let out a gusty sigh.
“I didn’t just mean when you were going to and coming back from the heliograph tower!”
Jim shook his head and grabbed his robe, which Onyx had hung on the roof eaves, then started to pull it on and walk down the alley. “I’m fine, I promise. We should get back to the safehouse.”
They scurried back through town, ducking through the rapidly darkening streets as the sun set further and further, waiting with hearts slamming in their chests as people passed by or glanced their way, until they finally reached the safehouse and snuck through the moveable panel.
Onyx glanced around before closing it, his eyes moving upward and his expression darkening, and Jim waiting with growing unease in his chest for him to close the entryway.
He finally did, sighing and shaking his head as he pulled it tight and double checked that there was no light coming through, and then they both walked down the narrow hall to the small living space.
“There’s something going on with that brothel,” Onyx said, unprompted.
Jim nodded slowly. “I’ve been thinking the same. It’s far too big, and far too prominent. Normally they’re unassuming buildings you could easily pass by if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but this one… it’s certainly the ‘jewel of Negaijima’,” he said with an uncomfortable roll of his shoulders. “My best guess is that Mr. Honda has something to do with that building, and it’s more than what it seems. There’s a reason that there are anti-etheriumcraft weapons defending the town. They’re defending his secrets.”
“What better than to hide your secrets in the most ostentatious building in town,” Onyx snorted.
Jim grinned faintly, but his mind caught on something he’d said. He knew he’d seen the trails for the anti-etheriumcraft missiles leading from the very island they were on, but in all the wandering around the town that Mr. Honda had taken them on, he hadn’t actually seen them anywhere. He absolutely wanted the Navy to confiscate them, since he was more than convinced that the attacks on the merchant ships were tied to Negaijima.
“It’s too big simply to be a brothel… Perhaps he has his base of operations there as well. Would it be too much to hope that the anti-etheriumcraft weapons are there too?” Jim suggested.
“Probably.”
Yeah, Onyx was probably right. But that also meant that neither of them would have to go into the building to try to find these weapons, which was at least a small relief. They would unfortunately have to go in to investigate their other theories.
Jim sighed and turned to Onyx, then walked over and leaned against him. That could wait for another day. He was beat from the crash, sailing in a non-ocean-worthy vessel, and then everything that had happened once they’d reached the island.
Onyx gently tugged on the tie holding Jim’s hair back, setting his locks loose again, then carded his fingers through it.
Tingles bursting across his scalp and down his neck made Jim shiver with appreciation as Onyx played with his hair and he readily fell into Onyx’s arms when his life partner moved to pick him up. “Would you be opposed to going straight to bed without dinner?” Onyx asked softly.
“Not in the slightest,” Jim said. He was hungry, but he was far more tired and they could just have a big breakfast.
They settled into the small cot, forced by the small space to lean into each other but both comforted by the closeness, and swiftly fell asleep.
Chapter 4: Two Messages
Summary:
After getting settled in the safehouse and given clothing to fit into Negaijima's population, Jim and Onyx make efforts to send out heliograms to both the local admiralty and to Silver in the case something more nefarious is going on behind the scenes.
Chapter Text
“Sir.”
Honda turned away from the window he’d been gazing through to survey Negaijima and smiled tightly at the men in the doorway. One of his personal guards, a towering dog-like alien with sharp features and a wide build who responded to the name of Balsom stood behind a smaller, felinid man that Honda recognized as one of the two heliograph tower attendants. This is who he turned his eyes on.
The attendant flinched and shied back a step, his ears pinned back and head lowered, but his back came into contact with Balsom’s chest and he winced.
“What is it?” Honda hissed between his teeth. His cheeks hurt from holding the smile, though he refused to let it drop.
“S-sir, the Navyman brought a message to the heliograph tower and asked me to send–”
He faltered when Honda stormed over and snatched the note from his hand, then stood in anxious silence as he read it over.
Commander Hawkins and First Officer Onyx reporting from Negaijima on Luthea. The RLS Victory was shot down by anti-etheriumcraft artillery. The ship has been lost. No news on the crew. Requesting immediate transport off-planet.
Honda’s shoulders relaxed and he smiled easier, though he still looked sharply at the tower attendant. “You’re sure it was him?”
“He looked exactly like the description,” the man murmured, his face pale.
“When did he bring it?”
The attendant gulped. “L-last night, sir.”
Honda looked over sharply. “Was the message already sent?”
“No! No, sir! I just couldn’t leave my post until Hammon came for his shift–”
Honda waved his hand, cutting the man off. “Good. Now, this message never passed your hands. You’ve never seen or heard of Commander Hawkins or First Officer Onyx. Understood?” he asked pointedly.
“Y-yes, s-sir.”
With that taken care of, Honda walked over to his desk and set the note down, then went through the meticulous motions of preparing a cigar. He traced his fingers over the options in the box, picking one that felt well packed and not too tightly rolled, then clipped the end and flicked open his metal lighter.
Still smiling, he took the end of the cigar between his teeth and pulled in a long drag, savoring the taste of the rich tobacco while making the butt glow red. He held the breath for a while, basking in the burn in his lungs, then blew it out. Then, raising the commander’s message from the desk, he drew in another long drag of air and touched the paper to the glowing end of the cigar.
It took only a few moments for the plea for help to be consumed by the flame, and he dropped it into the ashtray.
“Leave now,” he said, looking back at Balsom and the heliograph tower attendant, pointing over at the felinid man. “Remember, you know nothing.”
“Nothing at all, sir!” they said shakily.
Honda nodded to Balsom. He would take care of him.
They exited the room and the door slid shut. Honda walked to the window again and scrutinized the town from his vantage point on the top story of the brothel. From here he could see every corner of Negaijima, and yet the commander and his cragorian first officer had evaded him. There was nowhere else on the island for them to run to, no other heliograph towers that they could utilize, and the cragorian would be easy to see even in the densest of crowds.
So where were they?
He noticed a figure walking toward the heliograph tower and snapped his attention over to them, staring hard and pausing in puffing on his cigar until their features were clear enough to make out who they were. Honda let out a sigh of annoyance.
It was just Miss. Kimmi, the daughter of the town’s master merchant, probably on her way to send a message to one of their vendors. This time in the morning, especially so soon after they’d received their last shipment of cargo, was around when he’d seen her do this exact thing before.
Honda turned away from the window with a frustrated puff of his cigar and started toward the door to visit Madame Shugosha.
Kate perked up at the sound of the radio printing a message as she was passing by the communications room on her way to her cabin for a short rest after the early morning watch shift and peeked into the room.
“Where is the transmission from, Mr. Holly?” she asked after it had finished, and she’d realized that she’d missed the first part of the message and who had reached out to them.
“Navy Headquarters in Aquas on Luthea, ma’am,” he said, standing to attention and offering her the paper transcript.
She read over the morse code and her ears shot straight up. A Man-o-war had been shot out of the sky and sunk on Luthea! By whom?
The message was frustratingly vague, and she assumed that the full report would be ready for them once they reached the Navy Headquarters. Kate looked over at Mr. Holly and said, “Return their message and tell them we’ll be there in a few days.”
“Aye, commander.”
Kate then walked out of the communications room and back up to the bridge to order that their course be changed to Luthea.
A few days into the etherium after leaving port – which they’d been stuck at for longer than Silver had hoped – and he was already getting a transmission on his personal communicator.
He reached for it, batting Morph away with a chuckle as he walked toward his stateroom and popped the lid of the little, shining device open. Sarah Hawkins' face appeared on the green holographic screen and he smiled at her.
“Well, ain’t ye a fine sight te see first t’ing in the morning,” Silver said, winking and raising his tricorn to her.
Sarah laughed and he could have sworn that he saw her cheeks flushing even with the green tint that the hologram gave her face. “Oh, stop it. Though it’s good to see you too. How is the etherium?”
“Bright and clear, but I’ve heard whispers of a storm this evening I’m hoping te skirt around,” Silver said. “What do I have the pleasure o’ seeing ye?”
“We got a heliogram from Jim this morning, and he attached a message for you,” she said with an amused grin, her gaze dropping to, presumably, the heliogram.
“Oh, did he now? I jest saw him less than a week ago. What trouble’s he got into already?”
Sarah laughed and shook her head. “Oh none, but I thought you’d like to see the message for yourself. Would you like me to read it to you or do you think you can do it yourself?” she teased.
Silver chuckled and waved his hand, indicating that she hold it up for him. “I’ll give a go, but I might need yer help. Heaven knows I’m getting older with every day, and I might have te break down and get me some spectacles.”
Sarah laughed harder, scolding him for his teasing, and held up the thick cardstock for him to read.
Hey Pops,
It was good seeing you, but it reminded me how much I’ve wanted a fresh purp.
See you soon.
JH
Silver started by scoffing at Jim’s use of ‘Pops’, but quickly sobered when he remembered that it was Jim’s code to warn him he was in trouble. As was the mention of a fresh purp, as it was an allusion to when he’d saved Jim from being skewered by Scroop back on their voyage to Treasure Planet.
It took a great deal of restraint to keep his expression easy and smiling, and he shook his head when he’d finished reading. “That rascal. Where’d he send that from? They ain’t got purps there?”
“The heliogram was marked from Negaijima on Luthea, and apparently not,” Sarah chuckled.
Silver smiled a bit wider, relieved that he’d gotten the information so easily and Sarah seemed completely unaware of his and Jim’s little code. He was thankful that Jim had been so adamant to come up with some easy-to-translate code phrases after all Silver’s robot-double had done during the Third Procyon War. It had felt silly that Jim was so resolute on having it for so long, but Silver was grateful now.
“Ah, well, I ‘ppreciate ye sharing Jimbo’s message with me, brightened me day right up,” Silver said.
“Of course. Though I hope you don’t mind that his message to me was a bit sweeter,” Sarah smiled warmly.
Silver brought his hand up to his face and wiped away a faux-tear. “I suppose I’ll have te bear it,” he sighed dramatically, making Sarah laugh again. “Well, I s’pose I shouldn’t keep ye any longer.”
“The inn doesn’t run itself. Though with all the staff I have now, I almost don’t have anything to do,” Sarah said.
“Tsk, I don’t believe that fer a second,” Silver chuckled.
It earned him another smile, and Sarah wished him fair travels before disconnecting the transmission.
Silver clicked the lid of the communicator shut and sighed heavily. What trouble had his pup gotten into this time?
Striding out of his stateroom, with Morph once again darting around him eagerly, he walked to the wheel and started making preparations to change course toward Luthea.
Onyx opened his eyes, feeling as if he hadn’t slept for even a moment and was alarmed to find he was the only one in the bed.
Sitting bolt upright, he was about to shout for Jim, but saw him in the next room over, standing in front of the wood stove and looking as if he was cooking something. The adrenaline from his surprise almost instantly faded, leaving Onyx completely drained again, and he sagged back onto the bed.
He watched Jim moving fluidly and with practiced ease over the pan for a while, wanting to call his heart stone back to bed while also admiring Jim’s confident, graceful motions.
With a small sigh, Onyx sat up and rose from the bed, but nearly sat again when he realized just how tired he really was. His body was sluggish to respond and he worried that if he closed his eyes for longer than a blink that he might fall asleep on his feet.
"Hey, Onyx, how are you feeling?" Jim asked as soon as he saw him awake.
"Exhausted," he mumbled groggily as he stumbled over to his heart stone. He wrapped his arms around Jim's waist, clasping his hands in front of his stomach, and pulled him back against his chest and tilted his head forward to rest his forehead on top of Jim's head. The nightmares of drowning had kept him up half the night and had interrupted Jim's sleep too. "Sorry."
"You can't help the nightmares," Jim said gently, and Onyx felt him lean back against his chest and one of his hands come up to rub his head.
Onyx leaned into it, careful to not push too far so he would overbalance them, and let his eyes close as Jim’s fingers massaged gentle circles against his temple.
“Our host was back again at some point, though I don’t remember seeing her. She brought another basket of food and took my message to Silver,” Jim murmured.
Onyx didn’t bother opening his eyes to check the table and trusted Jim’s word. “She must have come in during one of the few times we were actually asleep.”
Jim hummed softly. He didn’t move for a while except to stroke his fingertips over Onyx’s temple, and then Onyx felt him shift slightly to stir their breakfast. The sizzling from the pan was satisfying to hear, and almost soothing, as it wasn’t uncommon to find Jim in the galley making something, so it was familiar. Onyx could almost trick himself into thinking they were in the galley of the Victory , except that he wouldn’t have been so open with his affection toward Jim in a space where the crew might see them.
At least here they could be openly domestic, which he could count as one silver lining to the whole situation. Another was that neither of them had been injured. He could live with nightmares. He’d be far more distraught if something had happened to Jim. Onyx so easily could have accidentally hurt him in his panic immediately following the crash, and he was still surprised that he’d been cognizant enough to catch himself before his full weight fell on top of his heart stone, because Jim would easily have been crushed.
Onyx hugged Jim a little tighter and forced the disturbing thought out of his mind.
“I was going to suggest that we do some exploring today to see if we could find where Honda is hiding Negaijima’s not-so-legal weapons, but seeing as neither of us really slept, I wasn’t sure if you’d be up for it,” Jim said softly, startling Onyx slightly and waking him up fully.
Onyx shifted in an attempt to not fall asleep again, but didn’t release Jim. “Honda might have people out looking for us right now anyway, so would it be best to wait a day or two before we go out again? And would it be wise to go out during the day?”
Jim hummed. “Good points. I don’t know how well we would fit in with the normal population, and it’s more likely we’ll catch any unsavory activity at night when most honest people have gone to bed.”
“And will serve to make us harder to see as well,” Onyx pointed out.
He had to release Jim when breakfast was done, which he did reluctantly, and followed his heart stone over to the table. There was only one chair, which Jim gestured that he take, and then he planted himself on Onyx’s knee.
“So we’ll spend the day here and try to get some more rest, then tackle finding whatever Honda and Shugosha are up to,” Jim said, offering Onyx a fork.
Onyx nodded in agreement, and they ate slowly, both fighting sleep until they couldn’t any longer and went back to the bedroom.
Chapter 5: A Terrifying Display
Summary:
After a few days, Jim and Onyx notice a group of individuals leaving the brothel through a hidden door and then making their way out of town. They follow and discover the anti-etheriumcraft cannons that took out the Victory, then are subject to a show they hadn't expected when the cannons are used to shoot down an approaching ship.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Jim had hoped that a few days of rest while lying low would help them, but Onyx’s nightmares had been relentless. They hardly got an hour of rest without waking up, and he knew that his life partner was not only upset but also felt deeply guilty for waking Jim up so often. Jim just wished they could leave the planet as he was sure distance from the ocean would help Onyx greatly.
“Onyx, you don’t have to come with me,” Jim said for the nth time, but his life partner shook his head.
“We’ve had this discussion before, Jim. I’m not going to get any rest without you, and I’d rather you not go anywhere without me,” Onyx said.
Jim couldn’t help but smile. “Alright.”
They donned their blue robes, hoping the dark shades would help them blend into the shadows of the night, and tiptoed out of their safehouse.
Their host hadn’t shown her face again since she’d first brought them here, and Jim wondered how he was supposed to find her or her family once it was time for them to leave when he didn’t know where or who they were. A small part of him believed that she would just appear again when a ship came to get him and Onyx. He hadn’t yet come up with what to say to convince anyone to let her or her family board the ship, and he wasn’t sure how kindly the commanding officer would take to his injudicious promise.
Jim crept down the alley and glanced to either side on the main street. There were paper lanterns hanging from the eaves of every other building to light the streets, and not a soul in sight. Faint light came through the curtained windows, illuminating silhouettes as townspeople went about their evening routines. He pulled back and looked up at Onyx.
“It looks clear. Where do we start? Do you remember seeing any building that might be Mr. Honda’s office?” he asked in a whisper.
Onyx’s brow lowered. “Everything was relatively non-descript, if my memory serves. But if it’s not in the brothel, I would assume it would be near it and the rest of the market area.”
Jim blew out a breath, puffing his bangs up and out of his eyes. Man, they were getting long again. “Then I guess we start around the brothel…”
Very carefully, and walking casually so they wouldn’t be questioned if anyone were to see them, they made their way toward the center of town, mainly using the narrow alleys.
As they walked, Jim cast his eyes upward at the rooftops. The buildings were close enough together that he was certain he’d be able to bridge the gaps in between them if he jumped, and it’d be easier to move around and see where they were going from above. Though it would be easy for him to get onto a roof, it’d be harder for Onyx, and he wasn’t sure how thick the roofs were or if his life partner would fall straight through into a house of unsuspecting townsfolk.
That would be the opposite of discreet, so he banished the idea and turned his gaze to the brothel. At least one good thing about it being so much taller than all the other buildings in town was that they could see when they were getting closer to it.
They stopped at the end of an alley and looked out into the wider streets around the brothel. Unlike the rest of the town, it had innumerable lanterns adorning it, and Jim felt a pang of sympathy for whoever had to hang them up each and every night, since he distinctly remembered it being bare of lanterns during the day.
“Alright, we’re here. I guess we start going down the street and looking at each building to see if any of them might be a government building,” Jim breathed.
Even with the plan in place, they hesitated to step out of the alley and into the plaza around the brothel that the market lined. The feeling that he was being watched made Jim’s skin crawl and he glanced at the brothel anxiously. The windows were dark save for a few on the lower levels. It was impossible to see if anyone was looking out from the higher stories–
Jim drew back into the darkness with a soft gasp, bumping into Onyx’s chest, as a small group of men filed out of the brothel from a side door that he hadn’t even seen until it opened.
Onyx snapped his arm around Jim’s waist and pulled him a few steps back into the alley so they were out of sight as the men passed by.
They were silent for a moment, waiting until they were certain the group had passed, then crept forward and peered around the corner of the building at them. Jim glanced back at the brothel. The door they’d come through was impossible to make out from the rest of the wall.
“What are they up to?” he whispered.
Without waiting for Onyx to answer, since there was no way for him to know, Jim started to follow the group, pressing himself to the walls of the buildings to stay in the shadows. He heard the soft steps behind him as Onyx trailed behind him, and they tailed the men all the way out of Negaijima and past the heliograph tower.
There was a narrow path through the waist-high grass and boulders on the side of the hill, and Jim glanced up as the hillside quickly steepened. There were a few little carved out caves and crevices, each of which startled Jim when they came across them and caused him to panic with the prospect that the men might be hiding in them. Every crevice was empty, and they continued on.
He came to an abrupt stop, listening hard.
“What–” Onyx started to ask, but Jim waved his hand frantically for him to stop.
The sound of muted voices came from in front of them, accompanied by a dim light, and Jim’s heart leapt into his throat. He spun around and motioned for Onyx to go back, but his life partner grabbed him and dragged him into the nearest crevice.
Onyx pushed Jim against the wall and started to strip off his own robe, startling Jim. He stared for a moment, speechless, then hissed, “What are you doing?!”
“Hold this!” Onyx said, shoving his robe into Jim’s arms and then pinned Jim against the wall with his body.
The voices and light drew nearer. Onyx crowded Jim tighter against the wall and curled his body. Jim was beyond confused, then realized that the rock around them was a similar shade to his life partner’s own rocky plates. Onyx was using his body to attempt to blend into the wall!
Jim held his breath when the voices were right on top of them and he could see the light from around Onyx. He felt Onyx stiffen, and they waited in tense silence as the group passed.
The light eventually disappeared and the voices faded. Onyx let out a heavy sigh and leaned back enough to peek out of the crevice. Jim sagged against the wall, shaking slightly at how close they’d been to getting caught sneaking around. He held up Onyx’s robe and his life partner pulled it back on.
“Sorry to startle you, I thought it would be easier to hide than to try to run,” Onyx whispered.
Jim shook his head. “It’s alright. I was really confused at first when you started undressing. This is no time to get intimate.”
Onyx snorted as he finished tying the robe shut and shook his head. “I’m quite aware of that, my heart.”
They peered out of the crevice in either direction before stepping out and walking again. The hillside once more leveled out and there was grass all around them, but the sound of the ocean was much louder. Jim stiffened and glanced around, hoping that the sound was just bouncing off the hills, but then he saw waves peaked with white foam as the side of the path suddenly dropped off to a sheer cliff.
Onyx gasped sharply and scrambled backward, catching Jim’s arm and yanking him back as well.
He gripped Jim to his chest, gasping for breath and shaking all over. Jim raised his hands and stroked Onyx’s cheeks as best he could, trying to silently soothe him and bring him back from panicking.
Several minutes passed before Onyx finally calmed down, and he leaned down to press his forehead to the top of Jim’s head.
“You should stay here out of sight while I go on ahead to see where the path ends,” Jim said gently.
Onyx stood straight with a jerk. “Out of the question.”
“Onyx–”
“I won’t hear it, Jim. We’re going together,” he hissed.
Jim took a breath, but didn’t argue, and they started apprehensively toward the path again. Onyx drew in a sharp breath when they reached the cliffside and his hand grasped tightly around Jim’s, and while he faltered, he didn’t stop walking as they continued down the path.
They’d only made it fifty or so feet along the cliffside before Onyx came to a grinding halt with his back pressed to the wall behind them and his eyes screwed shut. “I can’t… I can’t… I’ll fall into the ocean and drown… I can’t…” he breathed.
“Onyx, love, listen to me,” Jim said gently, lying his hand on Onyx’s chest. “I need you to go back down the path and wait for me in the level area. Can you do that?”
“I can’t move… Jim, I can’t–”
“Yes you can,” Jim said firmly. “Don’t look down. Just move sideways little by little. I’ll guide you. Do you trust me?”
Onyx was silent for a moment before saying, “With my life.”
“Then listen to me now. You can do this. Move your left foot. Good, now your right…" They moved like this, inch by inch, until they had reached where the path no longer hugged the side of the cliff and the grassy field spread out wide.
Jim didn’t have to coax Onyx to move anymore, but he didn’t pull away until his life partner had stopped and sank wearily onto a rock, then fell into his hands. “I’m sorry, I thought I could handle it–”
“Onyx, love, it’s okay,” Jim said, gently cupping his cheeks and coaxing his head up so he could lean in and plant a chaste kiss on his lips. “Will you be okay without me for a little while? I promise I’ll be back as quickly as possible.”
Onyx nodded, holding him for a moment and tugging him down for another shaky kiss before letting him go. “Please be careful.”
“I will be. I swear it,” Jim promised.
He lingered for a moment, stroking Onyx’s cheek, then hurried down the path to keep his promise of not being gone long. Jim wasn’t bothered by the height, but it was still dark and he didn’t know the landscape, so he kept a slower pace than he might normally, and trailed one hand along the wall for added balance.
The path wound along the side of the cliff, the sound of the ocean roaring all around him and drowning out any sounds that he might make. Jim wondered how much longer there was to go, or if he and Onyx had accidentally passed whatever it was that the men had brought out here and it was actually them doubling back with a light when he and Onyx had hid in the crevice. But then he stepped out into an open space and was startled by suddenly being face-to-face with an immense, ground-mounted cannon.
Jim scrambled backward behind the wall, praying that no one saw him, and stood pressed against the cliff for several long seconds with his heart slamming away in his chest.
When he was reasonably certain that no one had seen him, he peeked back around the corner.
There was a wide, carved out cave on the side of the cliff with three ground-mounted weapons positioned along the lip of the ledge. They looked like laser cannons, but much larger, and held a different cartridge with missiles instead of laser charges.
“Found ‘em,” Jim whispered as he stared at the anti-etheriumcraft guns.
He started to lean around the corner more to see if there were more illegal weapons or artillery when a shout nearly startled him out of his skin.
“We’ve got another one!”
Jim whipped back around the corner and started to run down the path, praying that he didn’t slip and plummet into the waves below, because he knew it would be certain death either by drowning or getting dashed on the rocks if he did.
The deafening sound of three booming shots nearly knocked him off his feet, and Jim pressed himself flat against the wall, sliding down until he sat on the path, and clapped his hands over his ears. The recoil from the guns shook the ground, rattling his teeth and vibrating through his entire body.
Three more shots went off and Jim yelped in terror and pain as the reverb knocked him against the wall.
Silence, broken only by the ringing in his ears, hung heavily over Jim, and he blinked hard to try to clear his vision.
Up in the night sky he saw fire and smoke and his heart dropped.
It was too far and too dark to tell what kind of ship it was, but he had a horrible feeling that it was the Sunhawk . The size was just right. It had a single mast like his dad’s ship. No… no… please no…
Tears sprang to Jim’s eyes as he thought of the message that their host had sent to Silver for him several days before. He hadn’t been far behind them, it could easily be him on his way to rescue them…
“Dad…” Jim choked. “Oh gods… please, don’t let it be Silver…”
It took him several minutes before he could stand again, and his legs felt like jelly as he watched the blazing ship falling from the sky before landing on the surface of the ocean. A cry broke out of him when it shattered to pieces and the flames eventually disappeared as the waves swallowed the wreckage.
Jim staggered back toward Onyx, fighting tears and praying to any god that would listen that it wasn’t his adoptive-father’s ship that had been shot from the sky. It felt like an eternity of stumbling along the path, dragging his body along the wall while choking on desperate, panicked sobs.
“Jim! JIM!!” Onyx shouted when he came around the edge of the cliff and broke out into the open.
Onyx charged toward him, sweeping him up off his feet and hugging him tightly. “Good heavens, I was so worried! What happened?! I saw an explosion in the sky, was it a ship?”
“Yes–” Jim managed to croak and then he collapsed against Onyx’s shoulder. “What if it was the Sunhawk ? What if it was Silver and now he’s–”
An agonized howl flew out of him and Onyx hugged him tighter while breathing gentle, soothing words as he stroked Jim’s hair. After a few moments of letting Jim cry, he pushed him back so he could hold Jim’s upper arms and look him in the eye. “Jim, Silver is a smart, experienced man. If he got your message, he’d know to be on high alert when coming here and would have taken great measures to be careful. You didn’t see for sure that it was the Sunhawk , and even if it was, we both know that Silver is incredibly resourceful. He’s survived one ship explosion, he can survive another.”
Jim took a shaky breath, nodding along with Onyx’s words as he tried to calm himself. He needed to pull himself together. It was unnecessary to get so upset when there was no way to verify who or what the guns had shot down. He felt so helpless that they couldn’t go out and check for any survivors from the potential ship crash.
“You’re right… you’re right… Sorry, I shouldn’t have–”
“Hush, my heart,” Onyx said gently. “It’s understandable that you would get upset given the potential circumstances. Did you find anything helpful?”
Jim nodded. “Yeah. There are three anti-etheriumcraft guns mounted in a cave at the end of the path. I didn’t get a chance to look around for any other weapons or ammunition before the shots were fired, but I have a general idea of the area we’re at, we just need a way to inform the Navy of the guns’ location.”
“I’m sure we’ll come up with something. You’re just as resourceful as your adoptive father,” Onyx said.
A tiny smile pulled at Jim’s mouth. “Thanks. Let’s get out of here. I’m sure the shots will draw some attention, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Honda is either on his way or has sent someone out here.”
“Then it might not be safe to take the path back.”
Jim glanced toward it. “No, but we can walk on the hill above it and duck down behind rocks if we have to. C’mon, let’s go.”
The trek back to Negaijima was much longer than the one out of the town, and without a path they found themselves tripping more. Though Jim was glad that they had chosen not to take the path back, since they had both been right that there would be people coming out to check what had happened. They had to hide behind rocks for what felt like hours before the area cleared again and it was safe for them to keep walking, and the faintest hints of the sunrise warmed the horizon when they finally made it back to the safehouse.
With an exhausted groan, Jim slid his robes off and tossed them onto the table. Onyx did the same, then curled his arms around Jim and coaxed him to the bed, where they collapsed.
Despite his incredible fatigue, Jim found that he couldn’t sleep, and he lay in anxious silence, his cheek pressed to Onyx’s chest and his heart beating too quickly as he worried endlessly that the attack he’d witnessed had been on his father.
Silver had taken precautions; he’d anticipated hostility, and had entered the planet’s atmosphere at night, being sure to douse all lights and use cloud cover where he could.
He hadn’t anticipated ground-mounted firepower capable of shooting ships down.
It had been a miracle he’d made it to a longboat and gotten it launched as the Sunhawk plummeted toward the inky black ocean, and an even bigger miracle that he’d pulled off some fancy maneuvers that’d give even Jim a run for his money to evade following fire.
He hung as low over the ocean as he dared, skirting around the island while eying it sharply with his cybernetic vision, searching for heat signatures that could indicate more hidden weapons.
“It’s alright, Morphy,” he said soothingly to his coat pocket, where Morph had dived to hide when the ship started going down. “They ain’t shooting at us no more.”
There was a soft, sad coo, and he rubbed his thumb on the top of Morph’s head. “I know. It weren’t nice o’ them te do that, and heaven knows I’ll have whoever’s head it was that shot me ship down.”
A scowl tugged on his lips yet again as he recalled the too-soon memory of his ship crashing into the ocean. He’d poured a lot of love into that ship. Named it for his boy. Spent a lot of good time with him, Katelyn, and Onyx on it. There were a lot of memories that had been lost with that ship. He wondered now if this was how Sarah had felt when the original Benbow had burned, and his anger was tinged with guilt.
Silver turned his attention back to the island and he pulled the lever to slow the longboat. He’d seen the town and determined that there wasn’t another on the bit of rock, so now he needed a place to stash the longboat where it would be safe. Once he found Jim, they’d have to head to another port for transportation off-planet, but they’d worry about that later. He had to find Jim first.
Silver pulled into a small cave and drew back on the controls, bringing the boat to a stop and going so far as to fully shut it off after lowering it to the ground.
“Alright, Morphy. I’ve got a job fer ye,” Silver said tiredly.
Morph drifted out of his pocket apprehensively, looking around with his luminous eyes before gazing up at him.
“I need ye te find Jimbo, but ye’ve gotta be sneaky like. Can ye do that?”
The little squidge perked up at the mention of Jim and started to wiggle all over, chirping and nodding in understanding before saluting and zipping off into the early dawn light. Silver watched him go, then rubbed his hand over his face and settled down at the back of the cave to hide the longboat and try to get some rest before the long walk he’d be making when Morph returned.
“Sir, Balsom has Miss. Kimmi upstairs in your office.”
Honda turned swiftly after bowing to Madame Shugosha, and hurried to the door where Laral, Balsom’s twin brother, knelt on one knee.
The doors to her large chamber were slid shut and the two of them ascended the stairs to the main floor, then up several more sets of stairs to get to the very top floor of the brothel. Honda glanced up at Laral. “Any report on the ship that was shot down?”
“Boats have been sent out to search the crash site and handle any survivors, sir.”
“Any sign of the commander or his cragorian first mate?”
Laral pursed his lips. “No, sir, though we did discover a patch of grass that had been worn to dirt very recently.”
Honda's smile faltered slightly. “Where?”
“Before the cliff path. We didn’t see anything else, but it would suggest that someone or something had been in that area for a while. Balsom suggested it looked as if someone had been pacing.”
How peculiar. And concerning. The cliff path was the final stretch before the remote path led to their greatest defense and assets were, and if the commander had discovered their location, it was a matter of time for him to pass that information onto his colleagues in the Navy.
They reached the top floor and Honda pulled ahead to get to his office first, quickly sliding the door open and striding through it.
Balsom and Miss. Kimmi stood before his desk, and the young woman jumped slightly, her dark eyes going wide when she saw him. “Mr. Honda, sir,” she said while bowing, and her braid swayed and flopped over her shoulder.
“I apologize for such a late meeting, Miss. Kimmi,” Mr. Honda said, smiling brightly at her as he came around his desk and looked at her. “But Negaijima has an urgent problem that I feel you may have some connection to.”
Her eyes went wide again before blinking rapidly. “Sir?” she said uncertainly, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t think I understand.”
“It came to my attention that a heliogram was sent by someone other than the two trained attendants, and it just so happened to have gone out concurrently to your last visit to the tower,” Mr. Honda said, holding his smile as he watched her.
Kimmi’s tan skin paled slightly and she shook her head. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, sir. I merely sent a request for our vendors to come–”
“Then you’ve never seen this message?” Honda asked, his smile no longer reaching his eyes as he pulled a crumpled carbon copy from his pocket and dropping it on the desk. Her eyes followed the paper and she read the message on it, her expression not betraying whether she recognized it or not.
“No, sir, I’ve never seen this before,” she said, but Honda waved his hand and cut her off.
“Of course, of course,” he said, smiling wider. “Forgive me for alleging you knew anything. Balsom, Laral, please escort Miss. Kimmi back home.”
Both dog men nodded curtly, taking Kimmi by her arms, and turned her around to march her out of the room. She started to protest, realizing immediately that she wasn’t being taken home, but neither man responded to any of her pleas.
Honda watched with a cold smile as they disappeared down the hall, and then he turned to the window to glower out of it. They would get the information out of Kimmi one way or another, then they just needed to find Commander Hawkins and Mr. Onyx.
Notes:
I was so sad to destroy the Sunhawk, but it made the story more dramatic and harder for Jim, Onyx, and Silver to leave Luthea, so it had to be done. *cries*
Chapter 6: A Brief Glimpse of Hope
Summary:
Silver is able to find his son and what's essentially his son-in-law, and is filled in on what the two of them know. He then makes a trip of his own to the brothel to speak with Madame Shugosha to see if he can get anything else out of her that neither Jim or Onyx could. Meanwhile, Jim comes up with and enacts an incredibly impulsive and dangerous plan, and while he's successful in doing what he set out to do, he isn't able to make it out before he's caught.
Notes:
*Made a small edit to remove the mention of Silver having feelings for someone, since that particular plotline ended up not going anywhere, so it became unnecessary
Chapter Text
Jim woke with a start, certain that he’d felt something cool on his cheek, but when he sat up and looked around in a bit of a dazed panic, he didn’t immediately see anything that could have caused the sensation.
When his mind cleared of sleep, he was able to tell that there was nothing out of order. Jim glanced up at the ceiling, then leaned over the side of the bed and peeked underneath it, finally sitting up and staring dumbly out into the living area. Their host hadn’t brought a new basket of food, but they still had most of the last two that she’d delivered.
“Jim? What’s wrong, my heart?” Onyx murmured sleepily, stroking his hand lightly from the middle of Jim’s back to his shoulder.
“I thought something touched my cheek,” Jim mumbled. He rubbed his cheek absently, the ghostly feeling still on his skin.
“Perhaps it was part of a dream?” Onyx suggested.
Onyx tugged him down gently and Jim curled against him again, leaning into his warmth. They’d had another rough morning after they finally both fell asleep, with both of them waking up a few times from nightmares, and Jim had no idea what time it was. He was exhausted and anxious again, but Onyx’s fingers rubbing gentle circles between his shoulder blades as he laid on his life partner’s chest was starting to make his body feel as if it was melting.
He woke again with a jolt and sat up. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was. Onyx startled awake too and reflexively grasped his arms. “Jim! Heavens… are you alright?”
Jim shook himself, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah, sorry… I just… I have to get up… I’m sorry, love.”
Onyx propped himself up on an elbow as Jim slid out of bed and stumbled out to the living space. He followed after as Jim started to pull his pants and undershirt on, and helped him start a fire in the stove so they could make something to eat.
Jim wasn’t hungry, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something had woken him earlier. He noticed that their host still hadn’t brought another basket, which was odd. She’d been very timely every single day and made sure that they had fresh supplies…
There was a noise at the end of the corridor where the hidden panel into their secret living space was and Jim snapped around to see a bit of light coming through. They hadn’t seen the woman since she’d brought them here and he was surprised that she had chosen to make an appearance now.
An elated trill startled him, and a moment later Morph slammed against his chest and exploded into a cloud of pink globules before recorporating to nuzzle and lick his face while squeaking and wriggling happily.
“Stars! Morph!” Jim gasped, his hands coming up in an attempt to cradle the little creature against his cheek, and then Silver stepped into the living space with his crooked, gap-toothed smile.
“Dad?!”
Jim’s jaw dropped as he stared at his adoptive father and Silver chuckled. “There ye are, Jimbo. I was coming te bring t’ose purps ye were craving, but hit a spot o’ trouble on me way.”
Relief slammed through Jim. He launched himself at Silver and threw his arms around his wide gut, burying his face against his chest while trying hard not to cry. It had been the Sunhawk that was shot down last night, and Onyx had been right that Silver had been resourceful and quick-thinking enough to get out of danger alive.
“There ye are, lad. It’s alright, pup. I’m glad te see ye alive. You as well, Onyx,” Silver said warmly, wrapping his arms around Jim and encircling him entirely.
“Thank you, sir. It’s good to see you alive as well,” Onyx said, stepping nearer. “We were both worried about you last night.”
“I would’a liked a heads up on t’ose guns, but we ain’t got a code phrase fer anti-etheriumcraft weapons, so I s’pose I can’t be too mad at ye,” Silver chuckled, rubbing his flesh hand tenderly over Jim’s back as he tried to compose himself.
“Yeah, sorry about that, I initially thought that we’d been shot down because we were Navy, but if they’re shooting all ships down then… I dunno. I probably could’ve come up with something to at least make you aware there could be issues,” Jim said. He sniffled and rubbed his cheeks dry with a palm, embarrassed for getting so emotional.
“Ah, now, don’t ye go feeling bad fer that, Jimbo. I’ll jest tease ye fer not thinking o’ everyt’ing when coming up with that fancy code o’ yours,” Silver said, ruffling his hair playfully, though his mirth died a bit. “Though I will be wanting a chat with whoever’s order it was te shoot down me ship. Put a lotta love inte that old tub.”
Jim stiffened slightly. “You made sure to refill all the cartridges in your arm cannon and rifle, right? You might need them.”
Silver straightened, his mouth turning down at the corners. “Oh?”
“Whatever’s going on, the mayor is part of it. His name is Honda. Human man. Wears a pin-striped suit. You can’t miss him; he stands out against everyone else. He kept trying to get us to stay at Madame Shugosha’s Heart’s Desire Pleasure House,” Jim said.
“That the big ol’ building at the center o’ town?”
“It is,” Onyx said with a sigh. “Shugosha herself is probably part of the illegal activity.”
“Then I’ll pay a visit te her too,” Silver said, but he didn’t move toward the door, and instead sat in their single chair at the table. “First, why don’t ye fill me in on everyt’ing so’s I know what I’m walking into.”
Silver didn’t bother sneaking through town, though he was careful when leaving the safehouse so he wouldn’t accidentally lead anyone to Jim or Onyx.
He got several startled looks – nothing he wasn’t used to – as he walked directly to the brothel after making a roundabout trail around town. A pair of tall dog-like aliens with tall, triangular ears and long snouts met him part-way, seemingly dissolving from opposite shadowy alleyways, and fell in step on either side of him.
“G’day te ye gentlemen. Ye wouldn’t happen te know who I could talk to that runs this here town, eh?” he said with an easy smile.
They didn’t say anything, but walked with him all the way to the impressive building with gleaming red roofs at the center of town. The doors slid open as they approached them and the three of them walked down a long hall to an open central area with a vaulted ceiling reaching all the way to the roof. They then made their way down a set of stairs and another hallway to a dead end where more doors slid open.
Silver stepped through while his two silent companions stayed standing on either side of the doorway.
A beautiful fox-like woman with silvery hair lounged on a low couch on a platform at the center of the room, smoking a long pipe and watching him with a playful expression on her face. A dozen or more equally beautiful women dotted the room, playing music, dancing, lounging, all watching him with coy expressions. “Welcome to Heart’s Desire Pleasure House. I am Madame Shugosha,” she said while setting her pipe down. “To whom do I owe this visit?”
“Pleasure te meet ye, ma’am,” Silver said, sweeping off his hat and bowing to her with a flourish. “Me name’s John Silver and I was jest sailing past when me ship were shot down. Barely made it out alive.”
“Oh my, that’s terrible,” Madame Shugosha said. She sat up and her robe slipped off her fair shoulders. “You poor dear. Would you allow us to ease your troubled mind?”
She gestured subtly and several of her ladies stood and started toward Silver, but he raised his hands and stepped back. “Thank ye kindly, ma’am, but this ol’ cyborg’s got no interest in romantic relations.”
Shugosha smiled warmly. “Then please let us provide lodging and food.”
“Ah, that’s mighty kind o’ ye, but I’ve got that handled already.”
“Then what is it we may help you with?” Shugosha asked.
Silver smiled disarmingly. “Well, ma’am, I’m looking fer answers. Ye see, I put a lot o’ love into me ship, paid good money fer it, and named it fer me son, but now it’s lost te the bottom o’ the sea,” he said.
“And your heart desires for it to be returned to you?” Shugosha smiled back.
“That’d be quite a miracle, ma’am,” Silver said with a chuckle. “But no, I’ve come te terms that it’s gone. I told ye, I’m looking fer answers. What’s a pretty little town like this doing with three big ol’ guns protecting it?”
Shugosha tilted her head slightly, her expression not betraying anything. “Guns, Mr. Silver? You must be mistaken. Negaijima is a peaceful town.”
Silver nodded slowly, tucking his hands into his coat pockets. “Oh, aye, I don’t deny ye that. It’s nice and quiet here. Real peaceful atmosphere. But me eye don’t lie, and me ship didn’t drop outta the sky spontaneously,” he said, tapping next to his right eye with a fingertip.
The brothel madam watched him for a moment before motioning with her hand again. All of the women in the room stood as a unit and filed quickly out of the door, and Silver smiled faintly as he kept his eyes on Madame Shugosha.
Once all of them had gone and it was just the two of them in the room, she leaned over on an elbow and trailed her long red nails along the stem of her pipe. “You seem like a smart man, Mr. Silver,” she said softly.
“I like te think I didn’t get this far in life on just dumb luck,” he responded.
“And yet you walk directly into what you seem to believe to be an enemy’s home,” Shugosha hummed.
Silver smiled. “Aye, ma’am. I wouldn’t’ve done so if I didn’t know I could handle meself.”
Her pink eyes darted briefly toward his cybernetic arm despite him making no motion at all with it and he smiled as she sized him up. All at once she stood and started down the stairs, moving gracefully with her gold robes billowing around her.
“Tell me, Mr. Silver, what is it your heart desires?” she asked softly as she sauntered toward him, her hips and tails swaying sensually.
He hadn’t yet figured out how, but that question was loaded and something in his gut was telling him he shouldn’t answer it. At least not directly.
“I’ve already got everyt’ing me heart could desire, ma’am,” he said. “I was just hoping te palaver with the leader o’ this town, and a pair o’ stern looking dogs brought me te you.”
Shugosha smiled faintly. She started to circle him, trailing her nails along his shoulders as she walked slowly. “Is that all? There’s nothing that you wish for? Nothing that you desire that life has denied you? Nothing that couldn’t be restored to their original form?”
She tapped her nails on the outer plate of his right arm before stroking her palm across the back of his metallic hand.
“Your wishes can become reality,” she hummed.
“Fer what price?” he countered readily even as he wondered at her phrasing. He’d met many colorful characters in his long, storied life and even amongst them, there was something off about this lady.
Her laugh was soft, floaty, drifting through the room like the music her girls had been playing earlier. “You are a clever one, Mr. Silver.”
He dipped his head in silent thanks and she stopped in front of him again, looking at him side-long over her slender, bare shoulder. Silver smiled at her and sighed. “Well, seeing as I’ve already paid me price, it seems ye owe me a wish.”
Shugosha’s easy, calm aura shifted to one of startled confusion, and she turned to face him with her eyebrows slightly pinched. “I beg your pardon?”
He’d used her earlier phrasing on a whim, but her reaction told him there was something more to it, so he said, “Ye took me ship. Taking into consideration the money I’ve paid into it over the years, the memories attached to it, that it was part o’ me livelihood, and now I can’t use it fer work or personal enjoyment with me family, ye’ve taken a great deal from me, meaning ye owe a mighty big wish.”
Her ears twitched, almost looking as if they might lay back, but she managed to keep them perked up and her face from shifting from the mask of calm she’d adopted. She smiled and said, “That is quite a jump in logic to assert that I took these things from you, Mr. Silver.”
He stepped forward so he was right beside her and looked down at her side-long before circling her now. “Ah, but ye did. I asked te be taken to whoever was in charge o’ this town, and was brought te you. Then when I said so, ye didn’t argue that fact. So it was your order that took me ship, therefore your responsibility te repay me in a wish. Which ye already knew, seeing as ye offered food, lodging, and entertainment without discussing payment. Poor business practice if ye ask me,” he said with a wink.
Shugosha had gone very stiff all over as he made a slow path around her and she watched him with a look bordering on a glare as he came to stand before her again. She took a breath and let it out slowly, forcing herself to relax, and finally offered him an easy smile again. “Very well. I cannot argue with that logic. What is your wish?”
“I told ye, ma’am. I’m here fer information,” Silver said, smiling.
“You wouldn’t prefer for me to return something of yours that has been lost?” she offered.
Silver bowed his head. “No, ma’am, I want information. What’s yer town doing with those big guns? What’s been happening te the ships that come ‘round here? How’re ye feeding your people when there’s no agriculture? What’s driving the economy fer yer bustling market?”
The madam’s jaw tightened more and more with each question and her smile became more strained, until she made herself relax again and trailed a finger down the length of her pipe. “While I would love to grant this wish, you haven’t paid enough of a price for the answers.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Ye can place a price on me lost memories?”
“Everything is quantifiable,” Shugosha said. “Those that you made the memories with are still alive and can make new ones with you or you would be more distressed over the loss of such a sentimental object. Now, let’s be honest with ourselves. You’re not here on your own behalf, are you?”
Silver tilted his head slightly. “What makes ye think that?”
“You said it yourself; you’ve come to terms with losing your ship. You aren’t in need of entertainment, room, or board, and yet you’re here,” she said, waving a hand and beginning to circle him again. “You attempt to bargain for a wish with the loss of your ship, where an equal payment would be a ship of the same general size and worth, but that isn’t what you requested. You haven’t asked for transportation away from Negaijima, which leads me to believe you don’t need that either. I offered you love with anyone you may desire, yet you’ve rejected it. Instead, you ask for information irrelevant to your situation. If you’re so content with your position, and can so easily leave Negaijima without ever having come to speak with me, then you must have chosen to come here on behalf of another.”
She walked back up the steps to her low couch and lay down on it, draping an arm on the side while the other rested on her waist. Shugosha raised her pipe and drew a long breath through it before blowing out a wispy cloud, and then she smiled at him knowingly.
“Tell me, Mr. Silver, where is Commander Hawkins right now?” she hummed.
Silver felt a twist of unease in his gut despite having anticipated that she would guess his connection to Jim, and he shook his head. “I couldn’t tell ye, ma’am,” he said.
Shugosha took another draw from her pipe. “I certainly hope he’s not getting himself into trouble. It does seem to be his tendency.”
A chill rushed down Silver’s spine though he refused to show how her words had affected him. Jim and Onyx had explained that they’d spent as little time in the brothel as they could get away with, going so far as even rushing out when they got the opportunity. His pup had been smart not to divulge personal information, they’d rejected all of Shugosha and Honda’s suggestions, so this comment felt pointed and odd.
Where was Honda? Jim had said that he’d not left them alone and they’d had to make a break for it when he was distracted, but Silver hadn’t seen anyone fitting the description Jim had given of the mayor even once.
“I take it ye aren’t going te give me the answers I’m looking for,” Silver said.
Shugosha smiled. “I’m afraid I have nothing I can offer you, Mr. Silver.”
“Then I s’pose I’ll stop taking all yer time,” he said with a bow of his head.
The madam made no motion to call anyone to restrain him or stop him from leaving, and he reached for the door to slide it open. Neither dog-man was in the last place he’d seen them guarding it, and Shugosha called to him as he stepped through, “Do pay my regards to the commander, and to Mr. Onyx as well.”
With a final glance at her, and unease beginning to well in his gut, Silver slid the door shut and hurried from the brothel to start making a roundabout path back to the safehouse.
“I really don’t like this,” Onyx said softly.
Jim looked up at him and reached out to squeeze his hand, feeling a flicker of anxiety in his own chest but trying to mask it. “I don’t either, but now is the perfect time to look for a radio, and I’m guessing our best bet at finding one is in there.”
He indicated the brothel with a jerk of his head, where they’d just watched Silver and two tall dog-men disappear inside. Onyx’s eyes traveled up the building to the highest roof, and he let out a heavy breath. Silver had told them to wait at the safehouse, but they needed to get a message to the Navy Headquarters as soon as possible, since Jim guessed that the crew would have warned the nearest admiralty board by now of the crash. If they hadn’t, then he and Onyx had the obligation to, and he didn’t want anyone else to potentially get hurt or killed by the illegal guns the town had in their possession.
The best time to sneak in would be when Silver had Honda and Shugosha distracted, and they were wasting time by standing out here and waiting around.
“I’ll be careful,” Jim promised.
Onyx blew out a low breath, his eyes catching Jim’s gaze, and he reached out to grip his shoulders. “Be quick. And take Morph,” he urged.
“Of course,” Jim said, then smiled at the squidge as he chirped in response to his name. Turning his attention back to Onyx, he asked, “You’ll be sure to whistle if there’s danger?”
His life partner raised a brow subtly. “That’s why I’m staying out here, isn’t it? I’ll draw the entire town away from the brothel if I have to so you can get out.”
Jim smiled fondly, reaching up to cup Onyx’s cheek tenderly before finally pulling back and glancing around the plaza. He whispered for Morph to keep close, then darted out of the alley and ran to the brothel.
The doors didn’t slide open as he rushed up the stairs, which he took as a good sign that he hadn’t been seen or expected, yet he still peeked through after pushing one open a crack before tentatively slipping inside. The hall was empty and his footsteps, though quiet, echoed the smallest bit as he hurried toward the wider room with the staircases.
“Morph, go find a radio,” Jim breathed, hoping his little friend understood him.
Morph zoomed off ahead, spiraling up in the tall-ceilinged room, and Jim trailed behind him on the stairs. It was eerily quiet and empty, with no one at all wandering the walkways or halls as he climbed story after story.
Jim’s heart raced. His hands shook the slightest amount. The higher he climbed, the more frequently he ducked behind pillars and peered around them anxiously before continuing on.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Morph flew up to him and chittered in his face excitedly.
“Stars, Morph…” Jim breathed, catching the blob and holding him against his chest for a moment. Morph slipped out from between his fingers and waggled around in the air before beckoning with his pudgy arms for Jim to follow, which he did quickly.
They ascended the final set of stairs to the top floor, and Jim peeked over the railing toward the main floor far below. No one was coming up after him, at least that he could tell, so he hoped that meant he had plenty of time to send a message and then get out of here without being caught.
Morph urged him down a hall and toward a door, so Jim hastened to follow, trusting that he wasn’t going to be led into an occupied room.
He slid open the door Morph squeezed through and glanced around. It was an office with dark windows all the way around so he could see the entire town and surrounding landscape. A shiver raced up his spine. Is this why he’d always felt as if he was being watched whenever he and Onyx went anywhere outside? He felt bad for the people who lived in this town that had to suffer this feeling all the time.
The elated chirps and squeaks that Morph was making on the far side of the room drew his eyes to the radio that the blob was dancing around, and Jim smiled. “Good job, Morph. I’ll make sure to get you a treat when we get out of here,” he whispered.
Morph squealed happily and Jim shushed him, then set him on the job of watching the door as he descended on the radio. It only took him a moment to tune to a Navy frequency, and he tapped out a message.
Commander Hawkins to Admiralty. Come in Admiralty. Over.
He waited impatiently for a response to come through, tapping his foot on the floor while glancing at the door, and reached for the knobs to tune to a different frequency when a message started beeping back at him.
Admiralty of Aquas reading you loud and clear, commander. State your location. Over.
A relieved breath rushed out of him. Jim glanced around for any paper printer that might be spitting out a transcript of the admiralty’s side of the conversation and was grateful that there wasn’t one.
Negaijima. Reporting three anti-etheriumcraft guns hidden north by northeast of the town in a cave just off the coast along the cliffs. Over.
There was a long pause before the next response came through, and Jim assumed that the message was being passed along to whoever was running the radio answered to.
Admiral Dosha on the line, commander. Can you give coordinates for the weaponry? Over.
Jim looked around quickly for a map of any sort, then started going through drawers as he hunted. It took him several minutes, in which time he heard another message come through asking if he was still there, and he nearly whooped with triumph when he found a map.
He rushed over to the radio again and traced his fingers over the map, estimating where the cave was based on the topography and started punching out a message with the rough coordinates.
Morph squeaked from the doorway, alerting him to someone coming, and Jim scrambled to tap out that he had to go.
“C’mon, Morph!” he hissed. Jim threw the radio knobs back to the position he’d found them at initially, stuffed the map back into the drawer, and ran toward a window. It’d be safer at this point to climb from eave to eave to get to the ground than to try to go back through the building.
The door slid open just as Jim reached the window and a startled yelp came from the hall. He ignored it and scrambled to find the latch to open the window.
“Get him!”
Jim panicked. He grabbed a chair and swung at the window, but both he and it were snatched before he could make contact with the dark glass.
“GET OFF ME!” Jim snarled, twisting, thrashing and kicking in an attempt to break free.
His foot collided with something solid. There was a grunt of pain and the hand on his elbow loosened enough that he could wrench his arm free. He threw that same elbow and jabbed hard into something fleshy.
Agony bloomed from his left shoulder as one of the two men that grabbed him sank their teeth into the muscle. Jim’s knees buckled and he howled in pain.
The men forced him to the ground and pinned him in place by holding the back of his neck and crossing his arms behind his back.
“Morph! Find Silver!” Jim snapped.
The blob whizzed out of the room, easily evading Honda’s grasping hands and disappearing back the way they’d come to get here. Honda ran a few steps after him, but stopped himself and whirled around, his smile looking strained and his eyes flashing with anger.
“What were you doing in my office, commander?” he hissed through his teeth.
Jim stared back at him, refusing to say anything despite the blunt claws digging into the sides of his neck as incentive to speak.
Honda’s smile looked more like a grimace with how angry his eyes were, but then he took a deep breath and visibly relaxed his shoulders, rolling them back and smoothing his expression so his smile was easier.
“It’s quite rude to go anywhere you aren’t invited, commander. I’m quite surprised at your incivility,” Honda said with a shake of his head.
Jim still didn’t say anything, which seemed to annoy Honda, as he gestured to the two buff dog-aliens that were holding Jim on his stomach on the floor. They yanked him up to his feet and the group of them started marching swiftly out of Honda’s office.
He was paraded down the halls and stairs to the main floor, and Jim looked longingly toward the front doors, but he was turned bodily and forced to walk down the stairs to Shugosha’s room.
It was empty save the madam, and she looked almost as if she’d been expecting to see them.
Jim hissed through his teeth as he was forced down onto his knees at the bottom of the stairs of her platform and his head tugged back by his hair so he was made to look at her.
“What a pleasure to see you again, commander,” Shugosha said silkily.
“He was in my office, attempting to escape via a window when I arrived,” Honda said.
Shugosha flicked an ear. “Is that so? How intriguing. Tell me, commander, what were you doing in Mr. Honda’s office uninvited?”
Jim gritted his teeth.
The madam stood from the couch and walked toward him, each step deliberate and slow. “How odd that I would receive a visit from Mr. Silver just moments before you were discovered skulking around where you were unwelcome. And how very odd that he would bring up Negaijima’s defenses when he claimed to have no interest in it himself. You wouldn’t happen to have asked him to seek me out as a means of distraction, would you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jim said stiffly.
Shugosha’s easy expression pinched the slightest bit. “There’s no use being coy, commander. I know that you’ve been lurking around my town. I know that you have a connection with Mr. Silver. I know that you were sent here. What have you been doing these past several days?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jim repeated. He felt sick.
She descended the last step and bent down to look him in the eye, her nose nearly touching his. “Your act isn’t impressing anyone here.”
“I’m not trying to impress anyone,” he breathed.
“Then what is it you are trying to do?”
He stared into her pink eyes and clamped his mouth shut. His heart beat rapidly in his chest. He could feel sweat making his clothes stick to his back. His breaths came fast and shallow. The reality that he could be captured and tortured had always been at the back of his mind for any mission he accepted, but never had the threat been so glaring as it was now and Jim’s skin prickled and stung from how anxious he was.
"I'm giving you one last chance to be honest with me," Shugosha said and gripped Jim's chin tightly with her thumb and first two fingers. "What is it that you were doing in Mr. Honda’s office?"
Jim swallowed hard but still said, "I don't know what you’re talking about."
Shugosha's brow creased, and she scratched her fingernails across his cheek deep enough to make him hiss as she drew back and straightened.
“Very well,” the beautiful woman said, smoothing her expression once more. “Since the commander has so rudely rejected my hospitality, see to it that he’ll be more receptive to future kindness offered to him.”
She flicked her hand dismissively as she sank onto her cushioned settee and reached for her pipe once more. Her pink eyes followed Jim as he was dragged toward the back of the room, where a sliding door was hidden amongst the wall panels, and he was made to walk down a dim, narrow hallway with the men gripping his shoulders and pinning his arms behind his back.
Jim tried to dig his feet into the floor, but the polished wood was too slick and he was forced forward to a dead end.
The man on his left released him, but the other quickly took his place and stood at Jim’s back like a brick wall, as a trap door perfectly fitted to the floor was revealed. The seams had been so exact he hadn’t been able to see them at all and Jim shuddered as he was pushed forward down the stairs into the darkness.
“Commander Kate, thank you for your prompt arrival,” Admiral Dosha said as Kate strode into her office. The Ovidae woman stood and settled her hands at the small of her back, her expression stern and eyebrows pinched. “We received new information earlier this afternoon regarding your mission that couldn’t have arrived at a better time.”
Kate stood to attention in front of the admiral’s desk, awaiting the report.
“At roughly 0900 hours, eleven days ago, the RLS Victory was shot from the sky over the ocean while en route to Negaijima to investigate a series of merchant vessel attacks and disappearances in the area. The crew escaped and arrived here, but Commander Hawkins and his first officer were not recovered,” Admiral Dosha said and Kate’s blood ran cold.
She stood stiff as a statue, her body frozen with horror and shock as the news of her two closest friends having been not only shot down, but also possibly killed.
“Then today at 1430 hours, we received a radio transmission from Commander Hawkins warning us of the location of the town’s anti-etheriumcraft weapons.”
Kate’s ears flicked forward. “Anti-etheriumcraft weapons?” she repeated, shocked.
“Yes. Illegally obtained, no doubt. There are three, and this was the general location that Commander Hawkins was able to provide for where they’re mounted,” Admiral Dosha said, offering a slip of paper.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Kate breathed, taking the radio transcript. She stared numbly at the side of the conversation that had come through from Jim, her heart now beating far too quickly as she worried about his and Onyx’s safety. If they’d been shot down over the ocean, then there was a high probability that Onyx had drowned and she prayed that wasn’t the case. She hated the possibility that Jim could be mourning the loss of his partner while all alone in a hostile town.
“I’m prepared to leave immediately to follow up on this,” Kate said, lowering the transcript and squaring her shoulders.
Admiral Dosha nodded curtly. “Then you are dismissed, commander. We’ll be awaiting your report.”
Chapter 7: Unbreakable
Summary:
In an attempt to figure out what Jim was up to, Mr. Honda and his guard dogs use extreme measures to make him talk.
Notes:
TW
References to
-Torture
-Violence
-Blood
-Injury
Chapter Text
Onyx knew that something was wrong when Silver left the brothel and Jim still hadn’t come out. He waited though, watching the building like a hawk, and hoping his hunch was wrong. If something had happened while Silver was in the building, he would have done something. There was no way he would have let anyone near Jim.
But as more time passed with no sign at all of his heart stone, Onyx’s certainty that Jim had been caught only grew stronger.
He wavered between wanting to rush inside to hunt down Jim himself or to wait and trust that Jim was just waiting for a moment to slip back out. Morph hadn’t come out to alert him something was wrong. He could just be overanxious.
Onyx very nearly startled out of his skin when Morph came screaming toward him, chattering and squeaking in a panicked manner, then darted off again while gesturing wildly for him to follow.
They didn’t get very far before Silver appeared at the end of an alley and Onyx hurried over to him. “Have you seen Jim?”
Silver’s eyebrows rose. “What do ye mean? I left him with you.”
Onyx started to turn back around to charge the brothel, but Silver grabbed his arm. “Onyx, lad, what do ye mean? What happened?”
“He’s still in the brothel–”
“The brothel?!” Silver snapped, still holding Onyx’s arm with his mechanical hand. “Why is he in there when I told ye both te stay back?”
With a final anxious glance at the looming building, Onyx turned back to what was essentially his father-in-law and explained, “We needed to send a message to the Navy Headquarters and our best guess at finding a radio would be in the brothel, since we haven’t been able to find any other building where Mr. Honda frequented that could serve as his office for mayoral duties. Jim suggested that the best time to go in there was when you had Honda and Shugosha distracted.”
Silver stared at him flatly before his cybernetic eye flashed briefly to red, though he calmed himself quickly. “And neither o’ ye thought te talk te me first about this plan?”
“Jim didn’t suggest it until after you’d left.”
“So he came up with this on the fly, told it te ye, ye didn’t question– ”
“I did question it,” Onyx argued back. “I told him immediately that I didn’t think it was a good idea.”
This made Silver’s eye flash red again. “Then he came up with this plan, ye told him it wasn’t safe, and yet ye still went through with it?”
“You and I both know that Jim would have found some way to go through with the plan whether I agreed to it or not. Short of tying him to a chair, there would have been no way to stop him,” Onyx snapped back, annoyed and deeply worried that they were wasting precious time.
“And ye didn’t think te tie him te the chair?” Silver bit out.
Onyx scowled. “He would have had Morph untie him,” he argued defensively.
Silver let out a long breath. “If they’ve got Jim, then they’ve got a bargaining chip against us. Ye were right that Shugosha’s got a hand in the action; she’s the head o’ everyt’ing, but there’s somet’ing else going on with her too. Claimed she could grant wishes.”
Onyx balked. “Wishes?” he repeated.
Silver snorted. “It sounds bizarre, but I ain’t dismissing it jest yet. As fer Jim, I got a feeling that they’ll keep him alive te try te bait us.”
“That won’t stop them from hurting him,” Onyx said.
“No it won’t.”
Deep fear for his heart stone’s safety started to creep through Onyx’s chest and he tried to tug out of Silver’s hand, but the man held fast. “It’s imperative that we get to Jim as soon as possible,” Onyx warned, glancing down at the hand on his arm.
“Aye, I ain’t disagreeing with ye, but we also don’t know exactly where he’s at. If ye think they’d keep him at the brothel, then yer doubly a fool,” Silver said, making Onyx stiffen. “Shugosha’s cunning and she ain’t gonna leave him someplace she knows we could take with force. Best thing we can do is look fer Jim and get him away from ‘em before we confront her.”
While he hated it, Onyx couldn’t argue with Silver’s proposal. It meant Jim would likely be hurt, and the longer they took to find him the worse it could be. Silver finally released his arm and Onyx glanced again at the brothel. “Where do we start?”
“We split up. Morphy, go find Jimbo,” Silver ordered and the squidge zoomed off, then he looked at Onyx. “We meet up back at the safehouse at dusk and discuss where we’ve looked, then come up with a gameplan from there. If ye find him, head back and wait for me, and we’ll leave on me longboat. Break into houses if ye’ve got to te look for him. I’ve been picking up faint heat signatures underground, so I’ll look fer a way te get down there.”
Onyx nodded, the fear only gripping harder on his heart. His eyes moved down to the ground they stood on and he glanced around for storm drains that could take them down. “We’re wasting time by standing here. I’ll see you at dusk,” he said finally, then turned and walked quickly away, aiming for the east side of town.
His heart grew heavier with each step and his guilt for not arguing more vehemently against Jim’s plan deepened, but he held out faith that they’d find him quickly.
The tunnels underneath Negaijima were winding and damp. Jim guessed that at one point they’d been carved by the ocean itself and then converted to something usable for Shugosha and her cronies. He also wondered anxiously if parts of it still filled with water when the tides came in, particularly as he felt around the walls and floor of the pitch black room he’d been locked inside. His hands kept coming in contact with puddles and he’d pull them back in a panic. So far he guessed that there were fewer dry spots than not in his prison and his clothes were completely soaked through.
He jumped when the door opened with a heavy scrape and creak and the flickering light of a lantern flooded in. The silhouettes of the two dog-men that had escorted Silver into the brothel, and then brought Jim here were illuminated and they gazed in at him momentarily before the one not holding the lantern entered.
Jim scrambled backward, but his back hit the wall and he was easily grabbed and his arms pinned behind him. He was then forced to walk down the hall, and he flinched every time water dripped on him from overhead.
They marched in silence, their footsteps echoing wetly, until they came into a large room with more lanterns hanging from the walls.
There were a variety of horrible looking devices all around the room and Jim planted his feet on the floor and attempted to stop the push to take him into what was very clearly a torture chamber. Chains, saws, a chair with nails sticking up from the seat, stone rollers, a table with an assortment of rusted tools– his eyes darted around as his mind spiraled to all the ways he was going to be hurt by these men.
“NO!” Jim howled as both dog aliens dragged him closer to his imminent torture.
He thrashed and fought all the way to the wooden beam that they slammed his chest against. They pulled his arms up over his head and shackled his wrists into cuffs that were high enough they forced him onto his tiptoes, and then locked his ankles into shackles on short chains at the bottom of the post.
Jim yelped when one of them grabbed his shirt at the collar and ripped it wide open so his back was exposed to the cold air.
“Hello, commander.”
He flinched at Mr. Honda’s voice and strained to turn enough that he could see the suited man standing with his hands tucked behind his back and that awful, chilling smile on his face. Honda stepped nearer and gestured to the room. “Welcome to the Conversation Room. It’s quite opportune that we discovered you when we did or you might have had to share the space with Miss. Kimmi, but that’s no longer a concern.”
Miss. Kimmi? Jim didn’t know who he was talking about, but he wasn’t in the right mindset for curiosity.
Mr. Honda walked closer, moving so he was behind Jim, and trailed a fingertip down Jim’s spine, causing him to shudder. “Look at this untouched flesh. Smooth. Unmarred. Whole. It could remain that way.”
One of the dog aliens picked up a black leather whip from the table, making a show of dragging it across the ground as he walked to stand behind Jim as well. Terror clutched at Jim’s heart. Squeezed around his throat. He shuddered again at the promise of pain.
“What were you doing in my office, commander?” Honda asked softly, right next to his ear.
Jim swallowed hard. “Nothing.”
Mr. Honda clicked his tongue, sounding almost disappointed, and withdrew his hand from Jim’s back. Footsteps echoed for several paces before oppressive silence crushed down on Jim.
He heard the whip snap before he felt it. Pain erupted across his back from his left shoulder to below his right shoulder blade, and Jim flinched forward against the beam with a sharp intake of air. His back arched, eyes went wide, knees buckled. If it weren’t for the shackles on his wrists he would have collapsed.
His breaths came hard as he tried to fight through the pain, but a second burning snap crossed his back the exact opposite of the first. Jim spasmed again, trying to twist away from the pain as he let out a wheeze.
The dog alien paused for several seconds between each time he whipped Jim’s back. Sometimes it was only a few moments, sometimes it was several minutes, but Jim flinched and squirmed no matter how much time it was as his body waited in anxious anticipation for the agony it knew was coming.
After five whips, Honda asked, “Where have you been hiding?”
Jim bit his lip and closed his eyes, resting his forehead on the beam. “Nowhere,” he said thickly.
The snap of the whip had him tensing before the end collided with his skin and he failed in swallowing a scream as it seared a mark across his lower back. Jim howled through the ten lashes before the man stopped again, and he gasped for air between heaving sobs.
“What were you doing in my office?”
“Nothing,” Jim repeated, his voice cracking, then let out a whimper.
The ritual continued. Five additional lashes were added on from the last round each time he refused to answer either question that Honda repeated. Jim’s throat was so raw from screaming he resorted to shaking his head to answer. His hands were numb from hanging from his wrists since he hadn’t the strength in his legs to keep standing.
It was once the lashes reached fifty in a row that Honda finally sighed and said, “Very well. Take him to his room. We’ll speak again later.”
Jim stumbled between the two dog aliens as they dragged him back down the hall. He barely brought his arms up in time to catch himself before he hit the floor. A shudder passed through him as the door scraped closed and he was plunged into darkness.
The strength bled out of him and he pressed his cheek on the floor. His back burned. He could feel blood pooling and dripping in rivulets down his sides. While the sound of dripping water had been eerie earlier, it was almost soothing now.
It felt as if he’d just closed his eyes when he was startled by the door grating against the floor once more. Jim scrambled to stand up, forgetting in his half-asleep daze about his wounded back, and howled in pain when it felt as if fire licked across the entire expanse of shredded skin.
He was yanked onto his feet and dragged back to the torture chamber where Mr. Honda was already waiting for him with that blasted smile on his face.
Jim writhed as he was forced onto his back on a table and his ankles and neck were shackled in place. He grasped at the metal band around his neck, trying to work the latch open, while watching Honda as he walked closer.
“Welcome back, commander. Will you speak with me now?”
Jim gritted his teeth. He’d endure pain for the rest of his life if it would protect Onyx and Silver.
Honda shook his head and nodded to one of the dog aliens. “Balsom, his boots.”
Balsom stepped forward and yanked off Jim’s boots, then peeled off his socks. Jim flinched. He couldn’t raise his head off the table enough to see where he walked after that, but he heard a rush of wind a couple times. Something scraped against stone and Balsom walked back over with a long bar of metal. Jim’s mouth and throat ran dry at the sight of the white-hot tip and he strained against his shackles.
Despite his struggling, the tip was pressed into the ball of his right foot. Jim shrieked. The same motion was made to his left foot and Jim fought harder against his binds, clawing now at the tabletop to free his neck. Balsom retreated to the forge and the mayor stepped into Jim’s line of sight again.
“What were you doing in my office?” Honda asked, parroting the question from the last time Jim had been in the torture chamber.
Jim glowered at him, fighting tears and the tremble in his bottom lip. “Screw you,” he hissed.
Balsom advanced with the metal prod and now poked Jim’s heels, and then the bottoms of his big toes. Jim thrashed, choking himself momentarily on the neck shackle. He curled his feet to try to escape the burning pain. Balsom raked the prod from Jim’s heel to his toes on the right foot, and then the left, sending stars across his vision as he bucked in response to the agony.
“Where have you been hiding?”
“What were you doing in my office?”
“Where have you been hiding?”
“FUCK YOU!” Jim screamed in response to the questions, then at the pain, and he sobbed when Balsom moved to the tops of his feet. His vision plunged to blackness and was brought back with more pain.
Honda sighed after a while and shook his head. “My dear, how disappointing. Return him to his room.”
Jim staggered when he was forced to his feet. He couldn’t put any weight on his feet, but the men didn’t slow for him and dragged him along whether he could get his feet under him or not. They tossed him into his room and he lay on the floor, wheezing and shivering.
It took him a while, but he was able to shift slowly until he could dip his feet into one of the many puddles on the floor. The cuts and burns stung and he flinched repeatedly until he’d grown accustomed to the feeling, and then there was the barest amount of relief.
Once again, it felt as if he’d been in the dark for only a short period before the door opened again, and Jim looked up at the two dog aliens, his stomach writhing and the realization that there would be no end until he either broke or they killed him.
It was a bad idea. Silver knew it, and yet two days of searching for Jim with no sign at all of his son had him beyond panicked for his well-being and furious at Shugosha for having him abducted.
He glared at the towering building, swapping between attachments on his arm as he simmered in his anger, debating what to do.
Onyx was back at the safehouse, supposedly resting while it was Silver’s turn to scour the town. He’d already frightened half a dozen families by walking straight into their houses and storming to their cellars, only to find that none of them connected to any sort of hidden tunnels.
The longer Jim was missing, the lower the chance that they’d find him alive.
If Jim died, Silver would be sure to watch this entire town burn to ash. He set his jaw and stepped out from the side street he’d been standing in, walking swiftly and with determination toward the brothel.
The doors slid open and he walked straight through, not pausing or glancing around as he strode directly toward Shugosha’s large, lavish chamber.
She didn’t look up from her pipe as he threw her doors open and stormed inside, nearly making it all the way to the stairs before she so much as glanced his way. “Mr. Silver, to what–”
“Where is he?” Silver demanded.
Her ears flicked subtly. “Who?”
“You know exactly who,” Silver sneered, taking a threatening step toward her.
Shugosha looked over at him from the corner of her eye, flicking her ears again. “I don’t believe I do.”
Silver swapped his hand for his sword. “I ain’t here te play games, and I ain’t here te talk. Yer going te tell me where Commander Hawkins is now or I’ll start going through yer town and making house calls te every family, starting with the lovely ladies ye’ve got living right here in this blasted brothel.”
The woman turned slowly to look at him, lowering her legs from the couch and standing to her full height as she stared down her nose at him.
“Very well.”
A door at the back of the room slid open with a snap, and the two dog aliens appeared with Jim in between them.
Silver stiffened at the state of his son, horror and fury alike coursing through him as he noted every cut, welt, and bruise on Jim’s chest, arms, and face. Jim sagged between the two of them, his head hung as he panted for air, and his eyes widened when he saw Silver.
“Let him go,” Silver demanded.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Silver, but you simply requested that I tell you where he is,” Madame Shugosha said, walking down the steps with her robe billowing. “You haven’t paid the price for him to leave this place alive.”
She flicked her hand and the dog aliens dropped Jim to the floor, then dove on him, their claws and teeth flashing. Jim screamed and fought against them, but they were so big, so strong, their muzzles were covered in blood. His shrieks cut off suddenly and the silence cut Silver’s heart like a knife. He stood frozen, watching as his son was ripped to shreds–
“No! NO!!” he bellowed.
It stopped abruptly. Jim’s broken body disappeared. The dogs disappeared. There was no sign at all that they’d ever been there. Not a single drop of blood or shred of cloth remained on the floor. Shugosha was standing still at the top of the steps, her head tilted to the side and expression amused. Silver knelt on the floor, clutching his head and breathing hard.
He looked up at her, his body feeling numb and his mind reeling. “What–”
“Is that the reality your heart desires?” Shugosha asked silkily.
“No!” Silver barked immediately, panic flooding through him.
She smiled faintly. “Then I would suggest you return to your companion and continue your search for Commander Hawkins. This town is under my protection, Mr. Silver, and I do not take kindly to my people being threatened.”
Silver stared at her, his heart still thundering in his chest from the vision of his son being murdered in front of him. He scrambled to collect himself. Frantic to find some way to rescue Jim and his mind latched onto something she’d said.
“You haven’t paid the price for him to leave this place alive.”
“Ye haven’t granted me wish yet,” Silver burst out with.
Shugosha paused in her ascent to the couch and looked back at him. Silver climbed to his feet, trying to hide how badly he was shaking. “Ye told me that ye couldn’t grant it before. So grant it now.”
“What is it that your heart desires?” she asked.
“Release Commander Hawkins, alive ,” he said.
Her eyes darted around his face and she tilted her head slightly, then nodded slowly. “As you wish. I will release Commander Hawkins – alive. But…”
Silver tensed and she sat, slowly reaching for her pipe again and drawing a breath through it before continuing. “I won’t return him directly to you. You must find him.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she arched a brow and held up a hand. “That is all I will consider after everything that Jim has done. Go now, Mr. Silver. You’re running out of time to find your son.”
Silver stiffened again at her words, his own gaze darting over her as he realized that he’d never mentioned his and Jim’s relationship, let alone his son's first name. He hesitated only a moment before rushing out of her chamber and the brothel to meet with Onyx and explain what had changed.
Kate was thankful for the cloud cover they flew above as they sailed toward the coordinates that Jim had sent to the Navy Headquarters earlier that afternoon.
She glanced up at the etherium over their heads, searching for a moon that could illuminate them. Either Luthea didn’t have one or it was in a phase that left the night sky dark tonight. That was to her favor as well.
With a final glance at the navigation screens indicating that they were nearly within firing range of the anti-etheriumcraft guns, she strode over to the sirru and pressed the button to turn it on and send a transmission to the three ships that had been assigned under her by Admiral Dossa.
The screen blipped when each of the two captains and one lieutenant answered and she leaned over the speaker. “We are almost within range of the guns. I’ll circle back around and descend through the clouds while sailing directly toward the town. You three continue toward the coordinates and destroy the guns. Take out the entire cliffside if you must.”
Three distinct voices chirped a curt “Aye, ma’am” and she pressed the button again to disconnect.
“Prepare the crew for a potential emergency evacuation,” Kate ordered, and her first mate rushed away to follow her command. She then turned to the helmswoman and relayed the order to turn back and circle around while beginning their descent.
Kate clasped her hands at the small of her back and did her best to appear unaffected, but her heart was beating a mile a minute. She was using her own ship as bait, knowingly potentially putting her crew in harm’s way, and relying on the dark of the night to obscure the rest of her squadron from the gunners that had downed the Victory .
She suppressed a shiver as they passed through the clouds and flicked her ears to wick away the condensation that clung to her short fur.
They broke through the clouds and Kate sucked in a small gasp. The town was closer than she’d pictured and was illuminated by faint, flickering lanterns. Her eyes were drawn to the impressive building at the heart of the town and she stared in awe at it.
“Ma’am, the longboats have been prepared and the crew is ready for an escape!”
She startled at the shout and nodded curtly. “Thank you. Stand by.”
Kate scanned the cliffs, searching for any sign of the guns they’d been warned about and relying on her excellent night vision. She saw motion and tensed, preparing to call to abandon ship.
The three ships in her squadron burst from the cloud cover directly over the cliffs and immediately opened fire, loosing a barrage of lancer and laser cannonballs along the wall. Kate watched as chunks of rock crashed down into the waves and flinched when there was an explosion that lit a large cavern. The hillside caved in and slid down, cascading rock and debris into the ocean.
All three ships continued to fire for a while longer before stopping abruptly and pulling up, sailing away from the destroyed landscape and back toward her frigate.
Kate watched the coastline intently, waiting for return fire, but there was none even several minutes after her squadron had ceased fire. She strode to the sirru and pushed the button, then called the order to sail to Negaijima.
“I’m coming, Jim,” she murmured, turning her eyes once more to the building at the center of the town.
Honda ran up the stairs two at a time, his jaw aching from how hard he gritted his teeth while trying to hold his smile in place.
He hadn’t seen the attack, but he’d felt the very earth shaking when the Navy ships had descended upon the hidden anti-etheriumcraft guns and blown the cliffs to pieces. An entire hillside had been dislodged and fallen into the sea. A few buildings had collapsed due to the tremors. The heliograph tower had fallen.
The brothel still stood, but there were tears in the doors and cracks climbing the walls. He could hear as clay tiles slid from the roof and eaves and shattered on the street far below.
Honda threw open his office door and came to an abrupt halt, his heart lodging in his throat when he saw Madame Shugosha standing near the far window and gazing out at the smoldering destruction of the hill.
Four Navy ships shot toward the town, grazing just above the surface of the ocean.
Shugosha turned and fixed him with a sharp gaze just as the light of the dawn pierced the horizon and she was bathed in golden light.
“Take Commander Hawkins and kill him,” she said coldly.
“Yes, ma’am,” Honda breathed. “How do you want me to do it?”
“Give him to the sea. He escaped it once, he won’t do so a second time.”
She paced toward him slowly, her pink eyes holding him in place. He remained frozen, flinching when she came to stand beside him and whispered, “You know the cost if you fail me.”
A chill shot down his spine. “Yes, ma’am…”
Shugosha continued on, disappearing down the hall, and Honda shuddered, finding it almost impossible to hold his smile in place as he waited for her to walk far enough that he wouldn’t catch up to her as he ran to do as she’d ordered.
Chapter 8: Shared Breath
Summary:
Shugosha grants Silver's wish and releases Jim, fully intending that the young commander will die before anyone finds him. Onyx barely gets there in time, but it may still be too late.
Notes:
Finally the chapter based on the short story that started it all! If any of you have read the original, you'll probably notice some edits, but overall it's the same :3
Chapter Text
The door to the pitch black room opened and Jim blinked against the bright light that flooded in. His vision was still adjusting when he heard the sound of booted feet coming into the close space he’d called his home for… he wasn’t sure how long he’d been in here. It could have been hours, it could have been days. All he knew was that when the door opened, it wasn’t a good thing and his throat was too dry and raw to ask what they intended to do to him this time.
He flinched bodily when he was grabbed under his arms and yanked to his feet, but the pain through his body from the last time he’d been led from the room was so strong that his knees buckled and he fell against the people trying to pick him up.
They were far stronger than he currently was and easily dragged him out of the room and into another that he was all-too-familiar with.
Jim yelped as he was forced into a chair and his back shoved against the backrest. Stars exploded across his vision at the pain that seared from the whip marks criss crossing his skin. He flinched again when two large hands clamped down on his shoulders and held him still while a third hand caught his jaw and raised his head.
Mr. Honda gazed back at him, smiling tightly. Jim’s eyes drifted tiredly over him; his clothing and hair were styled perfectly, which stood out in stark contrast to the wet floor and drab grays and deep rust colored stains of old, dried blood. He was decidedly out-of-place in this torture chamber full of horrible devices conjured from the most depraved of minds to inflict pain upon the poor souls brought into this room.
When their gaze met, Mr. Honda raised his chin subtly and widened his smile.
“It seems our time together has come to a close. While it has been a pleasure, commander, I have business to return to and I cannot have you wasting any more of my time,” he said crisply, then turned to the two dog aliens holding Jim to the chair. “Give him the scenic send off.”
With that, he turned sharply and exited while a densadron that had been lurking in the corner descended upon the lit forge on the right side of the room.
Jim watched him carefully turning flat strips of metal with chains attached to one side in the fire until they were red-hot and if his throat weren’t already as dry as Montressor at the peak of summer, it certainly would have gone dry when the massive alien carried the still glowing pieces over to him. His heart started to beat faster and he tried instinctively to pull away as the first piece of metal was raised and brought up to his arm.
“Hold still,” the densadron said gruffly.
Jim’s captors shifted their grips on him, holding his hands and right over his elbows and the desandron swiftly brought the metal to Jim’s wrist and bent it to make a custom shackle free of locks or a hinge so it couldn’t be opened without heating the metal again to bend it open. A gasp flew out of Jim in response to the intense heat. The smell was awful as his skin started to literally cook against the metal, but the most horrifying part was the lack of pain and how his hand no longer worked properly. He couldn’t get his fingers to bend without a great deal of pain and it almost felt as if his arm from the mid-forearm to his fingertips was numb.
The densadron moved to the other arm and repeated the process, and then the men holding Jim grabbed the attached chains and yanked.
Jim launched out of the chair and fell to his knees, which he scrambled to get up from so they wouldn’t drag him behind them on his face, and he staggered to keep up as they marched him from the room and down the dark hall. They followed the twisting corridor for a long while before Jim realized that the floor was slanting upward. The walls widened suddenly and he blinked rapidly at the bright sunlight as he was led into a cave and then outside for the first time in what felt like an eternity.
The fresh air was incredible. Clean and crisp, not at all like the hot, stuffy, stale room he’d known recently. Jim marveled for a moment as the breeze caressed his cheeks, and then shook himself as he remembered the horrible situation he’d gotten himself into. He looked around frantically, desperate for any indicator of where he could be, but none of the landmarks were familiar. They were near the docks for the ocean sailing ships; he could hear the hub-bub of the port and could smell the salty on the breeze, but he couldn’t discern anything else. There were no buildings, nothing but rocks and grass stretched before them. Not even the brothel was visible when he looked around. Jim wasn’t given much time to try to get his bearings before he was dragged along again in the direction opposite the town toward the gray, drab beaches.
“Where–?” Jim managed to croak, but his voice refused to work and he swallowed repeatedly to try to wet his throat.
Neither of his companions said a word as they practically dragged him along and Jim didn’t try to ask again where they were going. He focused instead on not losing his footing on the slippery rocks as they led him down from a narrow path beaten into the grassy hillside to a pair of odd metal box-like devices drilled to a large, flat shelf of rock. They then forced Jim onto his knees, stretched his chains to these boxes, and hooked the chains inside them. The heavy clunk as the inner mechanisms locked into place made Jim’s stomach drop like a stone.
The two men then walked away without a word – Jim wondered briefly if they even could speak – and climbed back up the rocky outcropping from the beach.
A heaviness settled over Jim’s body. The sound of the ocean’s waves were suddenly much louder in the silence all around him and he turned to look over his shoulder.
The water was gray except for the peaks of the waves, which rolled in white and foamy. Seabirds and mantabirds alike hung in the air over the water and overhead. Their cries broke the air occasionally and sent jolts of deepening fear through Jim. The tide was out for now, but by the look of the land around him, which was bare of any shrubbery, Jim guessed that it wouldn’t be for long. His eyes followed what he imagined to be the waterline and he did a few quick estimates in his head for how deep the water would get where he was.
On the low end, he’d be under ten to fifteen feet of water once the tide was at its fullest. Then it’d be hours before it went out again and anyone would be able to see where his body was chained in place.
Jim waited for as long as he dared to make sure that his captors wouldn’t be around to hear him, but once the incoming waves were only a few feet away he couldn’t keep calm enough to wait any longer.
With building panic, he licked his lips to try to wet them, and whistled. The sound was short, weak, and Jim gritted his teeth with annoyance that he couldn’t even whistle . He bit down on his tongue to try to stimulate saliva and was able to get a small amount, which he wetted his lips with again.
His second attempt at whistling went better, but it was still quiet, and Jim shimmied from his knees onto his stomach. A dull, throbbing ache was starting to radiate up his arms from his wrists and his hands still refused to work properly, but Jim was able to get the thumb and forefinger of his right hand into his mouth.
The piercing sound as his whistle echoed off the rocks brought with it a wave of relief and Jim lowered his head to rest his cheek on the cool rock.
He waited for a few moments before repeating the process and whistling again.
Then again.
And a fourth time.
Jim started to lean over to whistle a fifth time when a wave splashed over him up to his stomach and he gasped at the cold and shock of it.
The water retreated quickly, but it didn’t make him feel any better. The tides were coming in and none of his whistles had reached anyone. Either no one had heard him, or his captors were making it so no one would be able to reach him before he was fully submerged. Neither option was good.
“Please…” Jim breathed shakily before whistling again frantically.
Another wave washed over him, this time nearly to his shoulders, and Jim had the desperate urge to get off his stomach and to keep his head as high as he could. He fought it and leaned over to whistle again, a shiver starting through him because of the deep fear and cold as the ocean inched ever closer.
He was just about to whistle again when he heard a familiar happy trill and a relieved, if not choked sounding, laugh burst out of him.
Jim struggled back onto his knees and looked around for Morph, a second laugh escaping him when he saw the blur of pink right before his blobby friend slammed against his chest and exploded into countless globules.
Morph recorporated and nuzzled his face in greeting, which Jim leaned into for a moment, then the protoplasm darted to his wrists.
“Morph, no– can’t unlock– you have to get help,” Jim tried to explain in his faint voice, but Morph had now moved to the metal mechanisms locking his chains in place.
He flitted all around them, chirping inquisitively and with increasing anxiousness as he searched for a manner to unlock them. Jim didn’t have the time for Morph to figure it out or to try to figure out how they worked himself, so he clicked his tongue and whistled weakly to try to get Morph’s attention again. “Morph– Morph– I need– I need you to get Onyx or Silver–” he whispered hoarsely.
The protoplasm stared straight into his eyes as Jim repeated himself at least four more times to try to make the command stick. He had no way of knowing how much Morph actually understood him or anyone else when they spoke to him, but he hoped beyond hope that his urgency was at least coming across. The blob mimicked short phrases seemingly at random, and knew simple words like ‘food’ and ‘snack’, but it was always hit or miss when Jim told him to do anything a little more complicated.
“Please, Morph, please, get Onyx or Silver,” Jim begged.
Morph saluted before zooming off and Jim stared after him. He fought the urge to whistle and call him back, terrified of being alone as the ocean washed far enough up that when the waves pulled back his legs were still underwater.
He shivered harder as the ocean rose. A knot lodged in his throat. The salt made his wrist, back, and foot wounds sting constantly. The breeze he’d noticed earlier was now frigid. The waves were getting stronger and easily pushed him forward and pulled him back as far as his chains would allow. More than once he had to scramble to pick himself back up to keep his head over the surface.
He couldn’t stand the tension of waiting, couldn’t stand how his heart was slamming in his chest with terror as the waves licked his chin when they came in, couldn’t handle the sound of water, and started to shout for help. His voice was weak and it hurt to scream, but Jim didn’t stop.
“HELP! HELP ME! PLEASE!!” he begged into the empty air. Not even seabirds circled overhead anymore and the thought that he might die out here completely alone filled Jim with an immense amount of sorrow.
The tide had risen to his shoulders, but still no one had showed up along the ridge over the beach and Morph hadn’t returned. Where was he?! Had he gotten distracted?! Jim begged that this wasn’t the case between gasping, heaving breaths as tears poured from his eyes.
A wave splashing over his head and submerging him completely startled him and Jim’s body spasmed instinctively. He gasped and water flooded his lungs.
The wave pulled back, he broke the surface again, and Jim coughed violently while simultaneously trying to gulp down air.
“Jim! JIM!! ”
He startled, then searched desperately for the source of Onyx’s voice. His cragorian first officer, his best friend, his life partner, was running along the top of the ridge toward him and Jim shouted “ONYX!!” but his voice was so shot that it came out as hardly a squeak.
Jim saw the foamy white top of an incoming wave out of the corner of his eye and gasped down a breath just before it washed over him.
He was forced forward and then back again by the powerful surge of water, but instead of breaking over the surface like he had the last time, Jim remained completely submerged. He fought the urge to panic and instead strained against the chains to try to get his head above water while praying that Onyx would get to him before he couldn’t hold his breath any longer.
Onyx couldn’t think of a time when he’d run faster than he did when he first caught sight of Jim being submerged by the incoming ocean waves. He went as fast as he dared, but he was still so far away that panic leapt up in his chest and grew with every passing second.
He slipped and fell several times trying to get down the outcropping to Jim and only slowed when he slid into the water and it came up to his waist. A gasp flew out of him and he froze. Panic crashed through him. Every instinct screamed to turn around and escape the water. It was so dark he couldn’t see his feet. The undercurrent yanked at him, threatening to drag him deeper, too far to climb out and get to safety. His body felt so much heavier in the water, it took so much more effort to move. He was going to drown. He was going to die–
Jim…
His eyes moved to where he’d last seen his heart stone.
Onyx shook himself and forced his body to move forward. His desperation to get to his dearest friend, his heart stone, his life partner, was stronger than his fear. He was stronger than his fear. Jim had saved him before. Held him through his nightmares of the crash in the subsequent days. He was going to die in the same way that Onyx feared the most if he didn’t do something now.
Morph squeaked and chattered anxiously while floating in the air over the water and Onyx surged through the waves as quickly as he could to reach him.
How long had Jim been submerged? He couldn’t time it, so Onyx took as deep a breath as he could and dropped to one knee, searching with his hands for Jim under the surface of the water. He gasped sharply as the cold waves licked the underside of his jaw. He forced himself to not freeze up with terror. He jumped when he found Jim’s arms, then worked his hands upward quickly to Jim’s cheeks and tilted his dearest friend’s head up right before steeling himself and diving under the freezing water. Panic once more surged through him when he was fully submerged, but once again his desperation to save Jim fueled him to keep going.
His eyes stung from the salt as he forced them to stay open so he could see and after a moment of searching, he met Jim’s gaze.
Panic was written all across Jim’s face. He searched Onyx’s face frantically. Bubbles burst out from between his lips. Pain filled his features. Onyx surged forward in a panic while turning his head sharply so his chin wouldn’t get in the way and pushed his mouth against Jim’s.
Jim’s eyes widened, but Onyx ignored his startled reaction and gently worked his friend’s mouth open with a thumb, then blew out while hoping the air he provided would give Jim a buffer breath for Onyx to get him loose.
Onyx pulled back, sat up as much as he could to gasp down a breath for himself, then dove back under and tried to figure out how Jim was trapped. His wrists were shackled and chained between two metal boxes, and Onyx didn’t think he had time to try to figure out how to get the chains free. He popped up again for air, which he transferred to Jim via another ‘kiss’ and then gulped down air for himself. Then he traced his hands down Jim’s arms to the shackles on his wrists. He wrapped his hands around Jim’s wrists, braced himself, then yanked up abruptly and tried to stand.
The tension strained his arms and made his shoulders ache before it suddenly let up. Onyx shot upright and nearly fell backward as a wave hit him square in the chest. He gasped for air as he staggered to regain his footing.
“Jim! Jim! Holy stars– Jim! ” he shouted, dragging his heart stone up out of the water and into his arms as he stumbled and searched for footing.
Jim made no noise. He didn’t cough, didn’t move, and Onyx looked frantically down into his face to see that he was unconscious and pale and his lips were parted. Onyx’s heart stopped beating. He staggered when he reached the rocks and reached frantically to get a handhold to pull them out of the water. “Jim!” he cried.
There was still no response from his heart stone and Onyx scrambled out of the water and to a flat bit of land where he laid Jim down.
Water poured from Jim’s mouth. Panic surged through Onyx again and he pushed Jim onto his side, angling his head so his face was near the ground. The amount of water coming out of his mouth made Onyx’s stomach flip.
“Jim… Jim… Please… You can’t leave me…” Onyx wheezed anxiously. He rolled Jim onto his back again and planted his hands in the center of his chest, the training he’d received to apply CPR kicking in and fueling his motions. More water was pushed out of Jim’s mouth as Onyx started to compress his chest, trying his hardest not to break his heart stone’s ribs as he counted each press.
“Come on, Jim… Come on…” he pleaded.
Thirty. Onyx leaned down and tilted Jim’s chin up, propped his mouth open, and pinched his nose shut, then blew a steady stream of air into his mouth.
He returned to pressing on Jim’s chest, counting once more. Jim’s eyes remained closed, his body moving only because Onyx was pushing repeatedly on his chest, not a single sign of life on his face.
“Please, Jim… Please… ”
Still nothing. Thirty. Onyx leaned down again and breathed more air into Jim’s mouth. He returned to compressing on his chest, his vision going blurry with tears as panic and sorrow started to overwhelm him.
“Breathe, Jim! Please breathe!” he pleaded desperately.
Thirty. He blew more air into Jim’s mouth. Still no reaction. No sign of life. A howl of agony flew from Onyx’s mouth and he punched the ground next to Jim before returning to compressing his chest. “Dammit, Jim, breathe!!”
Onyx blew air into his mouth and Jim suddenly gasped before choking and coughing violently.
“That’s it, Jim! That’s it! Breathe for me,” Onyx urged. He rolled Jim onto his side again, hoping that it would help him breathe easier and Jim continued to cough and gasp for air. He eventually stopped hacking and instead just gasped desperately while shivering all over and Onyx carefully gathered him into his arms.
Jim’s eyelids fluttered open and he stared up at Onyx dazedly for a moment before he croaked, “Onyx…?”
“I’m here, my heart,” Onyx said, gently stroking his cheek.
“You went into the water…” Jim rasped.
Onyx cupped his cheek and leaned down, pressing a chaste kiss to Jim’s lips. “Yes, I did. You’re far too important to me, I couldn’t let you drown.”
Jim’s eyelids fluttered and he smiled weakly before an almost violent shudder passed through him. Onyx’s eyes traveled down his heart stone’s body, taking in the wounds on his arms and the horrible mess of welts and lacerations across Jim’s back. He cradled Jim to his chest and stood, looking around for Morph, who he found floating anxiously over his shoulder.
“Morph, go get Silver. Tell him we’re going back to the safehouse,” he ordered.
He’d barely gotten the words out before the blob zipped away, and Onyx turned his attention to climbing the rest of the way up to the path. Jim gasped and sagged against him, shivering as the wind whipped through them.
“It’s okay, you’re okay, we’re getting you someplace safe,” Onyx promised.
Latent fear welled in his gut as he finally reached the footpath at the top of the outcropping and chanced a peek over his shoulder at the ocean. He’d rushed into the water and forced himself to go deeper, fighting his instincts in order to save his partner, and now that the danger was past and his adrenaline waning, Onyx couldn’t stop his mind from running circles around the possibility that they both could have drowned. He hadn’t even gotten fully out of the reach of the ocean before stopping to give Jim CPR and had risked the possibility of them still being dragged out by the undercurrent while he’d been distracted. He shook his head sharply to banish the thoughts until they were actually safe and focused on getting back to the safehouse.
Jim had been missing for two– nearly three full days, and now to find him like this … Onyx shuddered and tried to soothe his frayed emotions as he trotted along the path toward the small town by holding Jim tighter to himself.
“Where have you been?” he asked Jim, trying to get his mind off his fears.
“Caught… Honda… and Shugosha…” Jim croaked.
“How badly are you hurt?”
“Whipped… and my wrists… feet… not too bad…” Jim mumbled.
Onyx shook his head. That was a blatant lie. From Jim’s hoarse voice alone he could tell that Jim had been made to scream from pain enough that his vocal chords had been at least temporarily damaged. Hopefully they were just strained.
It took far too long to get to their hideout. Onyx pried the secret panel open, nearly forgetting to close it behind them, and finally hurried to the bedroom. Silver wasn’t back yet, so wherever his searching had taken him had been far from here, and Onyx hoped that he’d potentially caught the perpetrators who’d tried to drown Jim by shackling him to a rock.
Jim let out a hissing breath between his teeth when Onyx laid him on the bed, and he tried to chug the water Onyx offered, but he forced Jim to sip slowly and told him to wait a while before he could have a second cup.
“Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,” Onyx said softly, mostly to himself, and started to carefully peel Jim’s pants off.
He stopped when he saw the state of Jim’s wrists and stared in horror. The shackles were solid pieces of metal that had been wrapped around his arms. The skin underneath appeared to be charred. They’d put the shackles on hot . Onyx could only gape at the extreme cruelty and wonder how much damage and agony such an act must have caused. He took a breath to steady his thundering emotions of disgust and rage and tore his gaze away from the wounds to return his attention to Jim’s clothing.
Jim shivered once he’d been completely stripped down so there was nothing wet against his skin. Onyx then quickly yanked his own sopping robes off and grabbed the blankets on the bed to bundle both of them up. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jim couldn’t regulate his own body temperature right now from how badly he was shaking and they didn’t have hot water bottles to help him, so sharing body heat would have to do.
Onyx curled his arms gently around Jim – staring once more in horror at the shredded state of his back – and pulled him close to help him warm up faster and hoped Silver would make it back as soon as possible so they could find a doctor to attend to Jim’s wounds. For now though he would focus on keeping an eye on Jim and making sure he was warm and breathing.
“Onyx…”
He startled at Jim’s faint voice and looked down. “What’s wrong? Do you need something?”
“I did it… I got the message out…” Jim rasped.
Onyx let out a small breath and hugged his heart stone tighter. He couldn’t even be relieved. Yes, Jim had warned the admiralty of the anti-etheriumcraft guns, but nearly at the cost of his life, and Onyx didn’t dare think about what might have happened if he had found Jim just a minute or two later. His throat and chest constricted with emotion and Onyx swallowed hard.
“That’s not important right now, Jim,” Onyx said tightly. “I just need you to rest and feel better. Can you do that for me?”
Jim leaned heavily against him, his cheek pressed flush to Onyx’s chest, and he breathed, “Yeah…”
It would be a whirlwind when Silver got back, and Onyx waited with a growing feeling of dread in his chest as he curled protectively around Jim. As Onyx stroked Jim’s still-damp hair and listened to his labored breathing, he knew down to his core that his new nightmares would be of not reaching him in time before he drowned.
Chapter 9: Destroy Any Evidence
Summary:
While they've made it to the safehouse, that doesn't mean they're safe, and the doctor that Silver finds attempts to finish the job of silencing Jim.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Silver had seen Kate’s ship coming in immediately following the attack on the hillside outside of town, but hadn’t paused for even a moment in his searching for Jim. Shugosha’s warning that they had limited time to find him sent chills down his spine each time he thought about their last encounter.
He was getting more and more frantic as the hours passed and he still hadn’t found Jim, so when Morph appeared Silver immediately redirected to go to him.
“Morphy–” he started, but the blob transformed into a tiny version of Onyx carrying a very tired, very beaten looking miniature Jim.
“We’re going back to the safehouse!” Onyx-Morph squeaked before turning back into himself.
Silver let out a breath. Jim was safe, but he was in a bad way.
He glanced at the incoming ships. They weren’t near enough yet to hail them, and Silver wasn’t sure just how injured Jim was. He turned back toward the town and hurried in the direction of the doctor that he’d seen during his hours of searching. Silver didn’t for one moment trust anyone in this town, but Jim needed to be seen by a doctor, and he would just keep a sharp eye on them.
The doctor startled when he opened the door and saw that it was Silver who had been banging on the post next to it to call him out. He startled again when Silver demanded he grab his bag and follow him, but he didn’t question him.
Silver was impatient, and with Kate’s squadron nearly to the town, he didn’t bother being careful as he led the doctor to the hideout.
He ripped the panel open and charged in, Morph flying before him and the doctor following anxiously behind him. “Onyx?” he shouted into the small space.
There was a startled yelp from the back room just as Silver burst into the small living space, and he saw Onyx starting to very carefully sit up while holding Jim to his chest. Silver rushed forward, his jaw tight, and got a good look at his son.
“Heavens, Jimbo…” he breathed.
Jim leaned heavily on Onyx’s chest, exhaustion lining his features, and he winced when Onyx turned and laid him down so he could get dressed. His eyes drifted up until they met Silver’s and held them, his expression blank for a moment before his eyebrows suddenly drew together and his bottom lip trembled.
Silver stepped forward and cupped his cheek with his flesh hand. “What’s wrong, Jim? Yer safe now, lad. We won’t nothing happen te ye,” he whispered.
“Dad… Dad, I can’t feel my hands…” Jim whimpered.
Silver’s gaze fell to the metal shackles on Jim’s wrists and his stomach dropped. His blood ran cold at the extent of the injuries. He remembered with vivid horror his own wounds that led to having to install cybernetic replacements. With a bracing smile, Silver turned back to look into Jim’s eyes and petted his hair. “It’s going te be alright, Jimbo. I brought a doctor and he’s gonna take good care o’ ye.”
He shot a look at the man, who stiffened and stared back wide-eyed, then nodded emphatically.
“Ye jest try te rest now, Jim,” Silver whispered, then stood straight and moved away from the bed, looking back at the doctor. “Ye do everyt’ing ye can fer him, ye hear me?”
“Of course, sir,” the doctor said shakily, then hurried over to the side of the bed and started to look Jim over.
Silver hesitated a moment, then stepped out of the room and approached Onyx. “Where did ye find him?”
Onyx gazed past him into the bedroom. “He was shackled to a rock to the south of the town, out below the high tide line. Morph came and got me, and I almost didn’t get there in time to save him from drowning. I had to perform CPR, but he’s been breathing without too much difficulty since then.”
“Heaven have mercy,” Silver gasped. He shook his head, rubbed his flesh hand over his face. Blast Shugosha straight to hell. “I saw his wrists. What’s the state o’ the rest o’ his body?”
“His back is pretty torn up. He mentioned something about his feet, but I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet. I mainly focused on his breathing and getting his body temperature back up,” Onyx said.
“Good, lad.”
Silver glanced back into the bedroom and watched for a moment as the doctor leaned over Jim’s chest, presumably to listen to his heart and lungs, then he looked back toward the corridor out of the safehouse, which he’d left wide open. “Saw Katelyn’s ship coming in. She’s got a squadron o’ three ships under her. Didn’t get a chance te get her attention; was too preoccupied getting the doctor.”
“Were they the ones that caused the explosions early this morning?”
“Aye. Saw part o’ the attack. They took out the guns,” Silver said.
Relief flashed briefly across Onyx’s face. “Jim said that he’d gotten the message out to the admiralty.”
Silver heaved a sigh. He supposed he should be grateful that Jim’s capture hadn’t been in vain and he’d at least done what he’d set out to, though he simultaneously wanted to shake his son and scold him for his impulsive stupidity.
There was a shrill, alarmed chirp and both of them snapped around to look toward the bedroom. A chill shot down Silver’s spine.
The doctor had a pillow pressed over Jim’s face and was snatching desperately at Morph, who had stolen a syringe full of a milky liquid and was darting around him. His eyes landed on both Silver and Onyx and his face drained of color.
Silver charged forward, fury coloring his vision red, but Onyx beat him to the doctor and grabbed him by the back of his black robes and yanked him away from Jim. He dragged him out of the room, prompting Silver to bark for him not to kill the man and just to restrain him, but then turned back to Jim. He threw the pillow off the bed and shook Jim by his shoulders.
“Jim! JIM! Wake up, son!” Silver said frantically, cupping Jim’s cheeks and looking desperately for any signs of life.
Jim’s eyelids fluttered open and his eyes moved tiredly before focusing on Silver’s face. “Dad…?” he croaked.
“Thank heavens!” Silver breathed before demanding, “What’s yer name?”
His son’s eyebrows drew together slightly. “What–?”
“Jimbo, I need ye te answer me questions. What’s yer name?”
“Jim… James Pleiades Hawkins…” Jim murmured, still looking mutedly confused through his exhaustion.
“How old are ye?”
His son’s eyes drifted upward as he thought before he finally croaked, “Twenty-seven…? Yeah… twenty-seven…”
Silver’s panic was beginning to fade that the doctor had been able to administer any of the mystery ‘medication’ and he didn’t seem to have done any damage with his attempt to smother him. He gently stroked Jim’s cheeks with his thumbs as he continued his questioning. “And what’s yer mother’s name?”
“Sarah Hawkins…”
“Yer father’s name?”
Jim’s lips twitched toward a faint smile. “John Silver.”
Warmth flooded through Silver’s chest. Just as he’d been immensely proud when Jim first called him ‘dad’, he felt it once again now. “And where are ye now, pup?” he asked gently.
Jim’s eyes moved again, this time to take in the room. “The safehouse… on Luthea...”
Silver bent down and kissed Jim’s forehead. “Good, lad. I’m sorry I woke ye, Jimbo. You get some more rest now.”
His son’s eyes drifted shut again, and Silver stood next to the bed with his cybernetic fingertips over his chest so he could ‘listen’ to his heart. It didn’t weaken, didn’t slow, and remained steady and strong despite Jim’s numerous injuries.
“Morph,” he said, the brief happiness that Jim wasn’t immediately dying fading as his smile slipped off his face.
The squidge zipped up from the bed where he’d been cuddled under Jim’s chin. Silver offered his hand and looked straight into Morph’s eyes. “I’ve got a job fer ye. Need ye te get Kate, and tell her te bring the surgeon.”
“Bring the surgeon!” Morph responded.
Silver nodded and spared him a faint smile. “Aye, that’s right, Morphy. Go on now.”
Morph zoomed out of the room and he assumed out of the safehouse, and Silver looked down at Jim once more. They had to get him out of here. But first he needed answers .
Turning and stalking out of the bedroom, he fixed his gaze on the man Onyx had tied to the single chair. Onyx himself stood against the wall, glaring darkly at the man, and if looks could kill the ‘doctor’ would be long dead.
“Seems ye’ve got somet’ing against me son, eh?” Silver said quietly.
The doctor shivered and looked up at him, anxiously working the cloth gag back and forth in their jaw as Silver came to stand right in front of them.
“And, well, I jest can’t seem te let it go that ye tried te kill him right in front o’ the two of us, which means ye’ve got a real desperate reason te get rid o’ him,” Silver continued. He bent down until he was nearly nose-to-nose with the doctor and whispered really quietly, “And yer gonna tell me what that reason is.”
He gestured for Onyx to join him, and the young man stepped forward with his hands clenched into fists at his sides and posture stiff as if he was holding himself back from doing something violent.
Silver lowered himself to a knee and started to pull off the doctor’s shoes and socks, then moving his robes up so Silver could roll up his pant legs.
“Now, yer gonna do jest as I say, ye hear? No screaming fer help, or ye’ll lose yer chance, ‘cause I ain’t got the patience te play nice today. If ye don’t tell me what I want te hear, I’ll start relieving yer foot o’ toes, then I’ll take yer foot, then up te yer knee, until I get all the way te yer neck,” Silver explained carefully, slowing the speed in which his cybernetics switched so the doctor could watch as the sections of the blade slotted into place one by one. He jerked his head toward Onyx, who stood a step behind him, his gaze darker and filled with more fury than Silver had ever seen before. “And while I’m working on yer right side, me friend here’ll work on yer left, slowly breaking every bone in yer body until yer nothing but a pile o’ mush and lil bits.”
The doctor’s breathing had picked up while Silver spoke, and he looked between him and Onyx frantically. He gasped when Silver pulled the gag out of his mouth and cried out, “I was ordered to! If I saw Commander Hawkins, I was told to kill him!”
“Who ordered it?” Onyx growled.
“M-Mr. Honda,” the doctor stuttered. “H-he said that the c-commander meant to destroy our community…”
Silver pursed his lips. “When did he order this?”
The doctor swallowed hard. “Not long before you showed up, sir. I had to. You have to understand. The… the madam… she controls everything… whatever she wants, everyone has to make it happen.”
“So all the merchant ships that have been attacked in the area?” Onyx asked.
“She ordered every attack. We rely on the supplies, and sell any excess,” the doctor said.
Silver shifted, making the man flinch sharply. “She claimed she could grant wishes. How so?”
The man’s face somehow paled even more and he shook his head. Silver waggled his sword as a reminder and his throat bobbed. “I don’t know how. She offers you your greatest wish and takes something from you to make it happen. That’s how Mr. Honda became mayor. I don’t know what he gave, but he was suddenly mayor overnight several years ago, and since then he’s always smiled like that… I don’t know how she does it,” he said quickly.
“Then I s’pose yer usefulness has reached it’s end,” Silver said, stepping forward.
“No! Please, no! I did what you asked!! Please, just let me go! I did what I had to!” the doctor pleaded shrilly.
“Silver! Onyx! Good heavens, what is happening here?!” Kate’s voice cut in sharply from the entry hall.
“Katelyn! Good te see ye, lass. Ye brought that surgeon?” Silver redirected, turning and looking at her while hurrying over. A man stood behind her, his eyebrows to his hairline as he stared at the man tied to the chair. Silver waved a hand. “Don’t mind this here. We caught him trying te administer a mystery substance te Jim while holding a pillow over his face.”
“It was seawater…” the man admitted with a sorrowful tone.
The Navy surgeon’s expression contorted with horror, then he shook himself. “Where is Commander Hawkins?”
“This way,” Onyx said, gesturing anxiously to the bedroom, and they all moved toward it.
Morph zipped over and cuddled under Jim’s chin. Kate drew in a sharp breath. The surgeon hissed between his teeth.
“How long have these shackles been on?” he asked, touching Jim’s left hand lightly and leaning close to inspect the charred skin.
Silver glanced at Onyx, who shook his head. “Couldn’t tell ye.”
The surgeon stood. “It’s imperative we get the commander to the medical bay as soon as possible so I can begin surgery. If there’s any hope to save his hands, we need to move now.”
“Ye three want te take him te the ship? I’ll take care o’ this mess,” Silver said, glancing at the doctor tied to the chair.
“We’ll handle him, Mr. Silver. I think Jim would benefit from his father staying by his side through his surgery,” Kate said, stepping between him and the bound man.
Silver eyed her, studying her face closely, then let out a deep breath. She was right. It wasn’t the doctor that deserved his ire. And Jim needed him more than he needed to relieve some of his built up anger. He patted her shoulder and smiled gratefully at her. “Thank ye, Katelyn.”
He hurried to the bed and gathered Jim into his arms, wrapping him in the blankets to keep him warm. Kate untied the doctor and cuffed his hands behind his back, and Onyx gathered up Jim’s uniform, then they all hurried from the safehouse and toward the docks where the ships were moored.
Notes:
This is a little bit of random lore about Mr. Honda that is only alluded to in the chapter. He wished to be in a position of power, which Madame Shugosha granted, and as part of his price to pay he is required to always smile. I haven't figured out exactly what happens if he stops smiling, but it's probably along the lines of him dying.
Chapter 10: Smoke and Mirrors
Summary:
With Jim finally safe and in the talented hands of a Navy surgeon, Onyx takes it upon himself to confront Madame Shugosha to bring her to justice.
Notes:
TW
References to
-Serious injury
-Blood
Chapter Text
Onyx stood in the clinic on the Perseverance and watched with his stomach churning as the surgeon, Mr. Doherty, gave Jim a thorough examination. Kate was on deck somewhere, speaking with her squadron and coming up with a plan of attack to confront Mr. Honda and Madame Shugosha.
Mr. Doherty stood straight and sighed. “Commander Hawkins’ back will need stitches, but his wrists are more important. I need these shackles off–”
“C’mere, Onyx,” Silver ordered, waving a hand sharply.
He hurried to join him, uncertain what was needed of him, and felt his stomach flip again when Silver swapped his mechanical hand for the clamp attachment. “Hold Jim’s arm steady fer me. I’m going te bend these open. When I’ve got ‘em wide enough, I need ye te pull his arm free. Ye ready?”
Onyx gently wrapped his hand around Jim’s forearm and nodded.
Silver took hold of the two sides of the shackle on Jim’s left wrist and started to bend, grunting softly as he strained. Jim let out a pained whine. His skin peeled up and tore off as the metal was pulled away from his arm. A sob caught in Onyx’s chest.
“Go now!” Silver hissed between his teeth.
Onyx pulled Jim’s arm up, wincing as the last bit of skin around his wrist separated from his arm. Blood slid down his arm, pooling by Onyx’s fingers, and he had to look away.
“Blood is a good sign,” Mr. Doherty said quietly. “It means there isn’t muscle death.”
While that may be true, it didn’t make it any easier to remove the shackle from Jim’s right arm. Onyx thought he might be sick by the end of it, and he sat slowly on the edge of the bed when Silver had pulled the metal away. He very gently took one of Jim’s hands and rubbed his thumb over Jim’s knuckles.
Mr. Doherty bent over Jim and carefully administered two syringes. “This is a sedative, and this is for the pain. While these take effect, Mr. Onyx, Mr. Silver, I request that you join me to sterilize for surgery–”
“I'm going with Commander Kate once she's prepared her crews,” Onyx said stiffly, though he didn't let go of Jim's hand.
The surgeon nodded. “Very well. Mr. Silver, this way please.”
The two of them hurried to the opposite side of the medical bay and began preparing for Jim's surgery. Onyx found his gaze drifting and he wondered how soon they could leave.
“Onyx… Onyx…”
At the soft, yet desperate call from Jim, he bent down and stroked his heart stone's hair. “I'm here.”
“You're… facing her…?” Jim murmured.
“Yes.”
Muted fear flashed over Jim's tired face. “Promise… promise you'll return to me… promise me… Onyx-glimmers…”
Onyx bent and pressed his lips to Jim's, cutting off his rasping pleas. “I promise.”
He sat with Jim, gently stroking his hair and watching as his eyelids slowly drooped more and more in response to the sedative, until his breathing evened out and indicated he was asleep. Onyx pressed his forehead to Jim’s, praying that the surgery would save his hands, then stood and stepped out of the way as Silver and Mr. Doherty approached.
“I’ll be back,” he promised softly.
“Be careful,” Silver said, meeting his gaze and holding it for a moment before sitting beside Jim’s bed.
Onyx lingered in the doorway for a moment, gazing back at his heart stone, then turned and hurried out of the clinic and up toward the deck.
Kate was on the bridge, speaking with the officers in her squadron with a stern expression. Onyx glanced toward the town. People watched from windows and doorways, looking anxiously curious. How truly loyal were they to Shugosha if she forced their compliance?
He cast his gaze back toward the bridge before stepping onto the gangplank and walking down to the dock. He’d meant to go with Kate, he’d planned for it, but he felt compelled to leave now. Shugosha had not only ordered that their ship be shot down and had nearly killed him, but she’d ordered the torture that had hurt his commanding officer, his dearest friend, his heart stone, his life partner. She’d made this personal, and Onyx would be the one to bring her to justice.
No one stopped him as he strode directly toward the brothel. Honda didn’t appear, the two dog aliens didn’t appear, he was allowed to climb the stairs and throw the doors open.
The music that he and Jim had heard when they’d been brought here upon first coming to Negaijima was absent. There were cracks in the walls and damage to the floors and pillars, but the building still stood proudly. Onyx walked swiftly down the long hall to the stairs, then took them down to Shugosha’s chamber.
He startled when he opened the doors and the room was very dark. The lamps that had lit it before were sparing. He could hardly see anything as he stepped tentatively inside.
Onyx jumped when the doors snapped shut behind him and he looked back only to find that they seemed to have disappeared and he was in a massively large dark room. He hadn’t remembered Shugosha’s chamber being so sprawling…
“Why, Mr. Onyx, I’ve been waiting for you,” Shugosha’s voice drifted from seemingly all around him.
Onyx looked around quickly, then started walking forward tentatively. “You’re under arrest, Shugosha. Show yourself.”
Her soft, airy laugh echoed around the dark room.
“Come find me and perhaps I’ll consider your suggestion.”
The light in the room brightened and Onyx found himself surrounded by mirrors while wispy smoke swirled around his feet. His own reflection gazed back at him on all sides. His normally crisp red coat was rumpled, a shadow of exhaustion hung over his eyes, he looked frantic, disheveled, uncertain, unprepared.
Onyx shook his head and started forward, one hand out to touch the mirrors and guide his feet so he wouldn’t run directly into any of them.
“Tell me, Mr. Onyx, how much have you slept without your partner at your side to soothe your troubled mind after waking from a nightmare?”
He clenched his jaw at Shugosha’s jab. How had she learned this? Even in their safehouse, they hadn’t been out of her grasp. He ignored the question and continued to walk through the maze of shining glass.
The madam appeared around a corner, smiling coyly at him with her head tilted to one side and her silvery hair draped over her shoulders.
Onyx rushed toward her and staggered backward when he ran into a mirror. Shugosha laughed again, a soft, floaty sound, and she disappeared from the mirror so he was face-to-face with his own reflection again. Rattled, and now a bit more anxious than before, Onyx started to walk through the twisting halls of mirrors again.
He found himself hurrying into dead ends and having to retrace his steps, then feeling more disoriented than before. The scent of her tobacco smoke was so overwhelming.
“You would be ahead to turn back now. You’ve a career to return to, a life left to live, a loving partner who needs your support,” Shugosha whispered all around him.
In a mirror to his right he saw an image of himself and Jim, smiling as they sat across from each other at a table in a restaurant. Onyx’s breath hitched. It was a memory, years old at this point, of one of the moments that had led Onyx to choose Jim as his heart stone; Jim had searched Crescentia Spaceport for hours on the basis of a rumor for an authentic cragorian restaurant, and had then taken Onyx to it to help him with his homesickness while they’d been enrolled in the Royal Interstellar Academy. It was one of their favorite restaurants to this day, and they returned to it at every opportunity.
The memory faded away so he was left staring into his own startled eyes.
He shook himself violently. How had Shugosha learned of that memory? Onyx started to walk again, his heart beating faster and the creeping feeling of dread and unease crawling under his protective plating.
“Jim has given you so much, and yet you cannot even sit with him during the most trying time in his life,” Shugosha hummed.
Onyx stumbled back a few steps as another memory appeared right before him. Another years-old memory, with Jim standing in front of him, looking shy and hesitant as he lay his hand over Onyx’s heart. The first time they’d made this gesture for each other. A knot lodged in Onyx’s throat.
The mirrors all around him faded to different memories. The first time standing on the bridge as official naval officers after graduating the Academy. Meeting each other’s families. Dancing during the celebrations of a birthday party. Their first kiss. Their first time making love. An argument over one of Jim’s reckless, impulsive ideas. Jim rescuing Onyx’s hat after the Victory’s crash, and then saving him –
“Stop! Stop it!” Onyx cried, holding his head in his hands and closing his eyes to block out the visions all around him.
He breathed hard, trying to calm down and stop shaking as some of the most precious moments of his life were put on display all around him. It was several minutes before he dared open his eyes again, and he stared down at the smoke swirling around his ankles.
Onyx followed it with his eyes, noticing that it wasn’t a uniform cloud over the floor, but instead a trail that led around a corner. He lowered his hands and took a step to follow the smoke, but stopped when he saw motion on the mirror to his left. He turned slowly toward it, his body frigid with horrified realization.
It was Jim again, this time lying on a medical cot while Silver stroked his hair and Mr. Doherty performed surgery on his left wrist. This wasn’t a memory. This was happening now while Onyx was here.
Shugosha’s whispery voice spoke again all around him. “Can you imagine it, Mr. Onyx? To be released from service and cast aside without purpose. To no longer be capable of creation to support your family and express your soul. And to never again be able to caress your lover’s body in an intimate embrace.”
Onyx’s heart twisted sharply.
“You can make it possible for him to do all of those things once more.”
“I can?” Onyx whispered.
The smoke curled up and around the mirror as he approached it and stared at the work that Mr. Doherty had already done. Jim’s right wrist was wrapped in bandages, and a stiff board had been fixed in place so his hand was flat and his fingers weren’t curled.
“Of course,” Shugosha whispered. “I can return his body to its uninjured state, if that is what your heart desires, for a price.”
“What’s the price?” Onyx demanded.
She laughed airily. The smoke curled around him.
“I will take his injuries from him, but he will not remember you. Jim will not know you. Jim will not know of his past love for you. Jim will not remember your friendship. All memory of anything beyond your cordial acquaintance will be wiped from existence. Your relationship will be strictly professional moving forward.”
His breath caught. Pain bloomed through his chest. All the memories that he’d been shown would belong only to him. There would be no question moving forward that Jim’s hands would work, but any memories they could possibly make going forward would be stolen, just as Jim’s memories would be altered or irretrievable.
A lick of selfishness coiled in Onyx’s gut. He didn’t want Jim to forget about their relationship. He didn’t want to give up their future visits to their favorite restaurant, their tender touches, the jokes and stories that only they knew. Could he stand by only as Jim’s first mate and not his friend, confidant, and life partner? Could he stand by and watch if Jim fell in love with someone else?
He swallowed hard and shook his head. Jim had given him so much, Onyx owed it to him to heal him if he could.
“How do I make this wish?” he whispered, then stiffened abruptly.
Onyx stared, his breath caught in his throat as Jim’s eyes fluttered open and looked directly at him, as if he could see Onyx through the mirror and whatever magic Shugosha had on this place.
“Promise you'll return to me, Onyx-glimmers…”
Silver and the surgeon jumped and then scrambled frantically to prepare another dose of sedative, and Jim’s eyelids fell shut once more and his breathing evened out.
It felt as if ice trickled down the grooves between Onyx’s plates. His body tingled. Jim was strong, both in body and mind. He’d dragged himself up from his lowest to become a hero, not once, but twice . This would be a new challenge, but he would be able to live through this too.
Onyx turned away from the mirror.
“He won’t be cast aside,” he murmured. Anger started to thrum through him at the gall of Shugosha to suggest that Jim was not only weak but meaningless after all he had done for the Empire. He raised his eyes and looked around the dim room, past the mirrors. “He will be able to express his soul. He will be able to caress his lover’s body.”
Onyx started to walk through the maze again, no longer confused or anxious, but determined and calm, following the smoke trail. “He doesn’t need your magic.”
Shugosha appeared before him at the end of the maze, standing at the center of her raised platform, her ears perked up and posture rigid. Onyx stared hard at her. “Jim’s will and our bond, our love is stronger than your magic. You have no power over us.”
The madam took a step back as he climbed the stairs toward her.
She raised her pipe swiftly, breathing in a breath and blowing out smoke directly at him. Onyx faltered, his eyes stinging.
“I have no power over you?” she whispered. “I wouldn’t be so certain, Where-the-onyx-glimmers.”
Onyx faltered again, shocked that she’d spoken his full name. How had she learned it? How had she learned anything that she’d shown him? He hesitated, watching as she brought her pipe to her mouth again.
Her pipe…
He didn’t know how, but that pipe was important. When it would have been more logical for her to flee, she’d gone for the pipe.
Onyx hurried up the last few steps and reached out toward her, startling her into stepping back. His fist closed around hers and he squeezed his fingers. He felt the stem snap. The bowl of the pipe clattered to the floor. Smoke curled up from it. Shugosha gasped sharply. Onyx stepped forward onto it, his weight easily crushing the delicate pipe under his heel.
“No–” Shugosha gasped before stiffening.
She wrenched her hand back, but Onyx held fast.
“You’re under arrest,” Onyx whispered.
Shugosha stared at him for a moment before a smile spread across her face. Her robes billowed, her hair swayed, and her eyes seemed as if they started to glow. Onyx hissed and yanked his hand back as it felt as if it had been dunked into boiling water for an extended period.
“I have no power over you?” she asked, seemingly growing in size. “That is where you are wrong, Where-the-Onyx-glimmers. As long as I know someone’s true name, I have power over them.”
Onyx forced himself to stay rooted in place and not back away from her as she bent down to look him in the eyes, baring her teeth in a cruel smile.
“And who has power over you?” he challenged.
She laughed. “Only the gods and time.”
Onyx flinched as she dragged her curling, blood-red nails up his arms then tapped them on his chest and he shook his head as he tried to think clearly. “That’s not true…”
Shugosha tilted her head slightly, her large ears flicking. He met her glowing gaze. “If you don’t know anyone’s true name, then you have no power. It is everyone else that holds power over you.”
“Fool!” she snapped her jaws. “ No one has power over me!”
“You said the gods and time did,” Onyx whispered, countering her shout.
“Because only the gods know my true name!” she hissed, digging her talons into his vest.
“And if I guess your true name?”
She threw her head back and laughed. What had once been floating and delicate was grating, sharp, and Onyx flinched again.
“I have a wish,” Onyx said.
Her ears flicked forward with interest and she leaned down to peer into his eyes. “Speak it.”
“But first… a challenge,” he said, his heart beginning to beat quickly and his hands shaking as he came up with a wildly impulsive and reckless plan that could put all of Jim’s to shame. “If I win, you will grant my wish free of charge.”
Shugosha narrowed her eyes. “What is this challenge?”
“If I can guess your name – with a hint – then I win. If I lose, you may do anything you want to me.”
“Anything?” she repeated in a breath.
Onyx took a bracing breath. “Anything.”
She slowly began to shrink to her normal size, the grotesque features her face had adopted softening until she was a beautiful woman once more, and she smiled coyly at him. “I accept your challenge, on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You get one chance to guess,” she said, holding up a delicate finger in front of his face.
Onyx swallowed. One chance. One hint. He was staking a lot for a slim opportunity to defeat her… “I accept.”
Her smile widened and she began to pace around him, trailing her hand along his shoulders as she circled. “Very well, here is my hint…”
The room plunged into darkness again, though he could still feel her fingertips.
“Truth of Inari, kitsune of protection, power of Negaijima…”
She appeared again directly in front of him, her eyes glowing once more and her teeth bared. “What is my name?”
Onyx stared at her. His mind was blank. Kitsune…? No… He silently mouthed the hint back to himself, searching the room for more hints. Truth of Inari… Kitsune of protection… Power of Negaijima… Truth of Inari… Kitsune of protection… Power of Negaijima…
She was the power of Negaijima. She wouldn’t name the city after herself, then everyone would know her name.
Kitsune of protection… She believed that she was protecting the town and its people with her actions. She was the kitsune… whatever that was.
Inari… truth of Inari … Onyx couldn’t seem to pull his thoughts away from that word. He didn’t know what it or ‘kitsune’ meant, but the phrase ‘truth of Inari’ would not leave his mind. He was afraid to say anything with his one chance, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he had that she’d given him her name in the very first line.
“Your name…” he hesitated, taking a breath to steady himself. “...is Inari.”
She stood frozen in front of him, her eyes wide and ears rigidly perked pointed toward him. Her teeth were bared again.
Onyx held his breath, watching her as she watched him, and he slowly squared his shoulders. “Your name is Inari.”
She let out a hissing breath and recoiled from him, ears flat and eyes narrowed.
Onyx stepped nearer to her. “You owe me a wish, Inari. Free of charge.”
“NO!” she snapped. Spinning away from him, she tried to flee across the room, which had come back in with intense clarity. Onyx reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “No, no!” she howled.
“You agreed with my terms,” he reminded, “And you would not hesitate to take what you wanted from me if you had won. Grant me my wish, Inari.”
She whirled on him, her expression furious and pained, and she snapped her jaws again in his face. “Very well! Name your wish!”
Onyx straightened his back and gazed down at her. “I wish for you to destroy your own power.”
Inari’s eyes flew wide and she staggered away from him. “NO!”
“You are bound by our agreement. Only the gods, time, and now I have power over you. Grant my wish,” Onyx hissed.
She howled in what sounded like agony and pulled away from him while throwing her hands over her face as if she was protecting herself from a physical attack. Onyx continued toward her, feeling angrier that she was resistant to abiding by her own rules. “Grant my wish, Inari!”
“NO!” she cried piteously.
“Grant my wish!”
“NOO!”
“GRANT MY WISH!”
She screamed in agony, falling to her knees and letting her head tip back. The building started to shake over them, the lanterns hanging from the ceiling rocking wildly, dust streaming to the floor.
Onyx stumbled. His heart leapt into his throat. He turned and ran toward the doors, pausing to reach for her, but she pulled away from him and screamed, “Get away from me!”
He hesitated, but the rocking of the building only grew stronger. Inari wouldn’t let him near her, so he turned again and fled toward the doors, tripping and staggering on the stairs as they started to cave in. Onyx barely missed getting hit by a pillar that tipped over as he was passing. The doors at the end of the hall rattled and one popped open, allowing light to filter in through the falling dust and walls.
Air rushed out around him as he stumbled through the doors and Onyx was thrown off his feet when the building collapsed and shook the ground.
He tumbled down the stairs, coming to rest on the street on his back, and stared up at the sky in a daze.
“Onyx! ONYX!! Good heavens!”
Onyx sat up slowly, looking back over his shoulder as Kate and nearly three dozen naval spacers came running down the street toward him, and then he turned to look at the brothel.
The proud building was nothing more than rubble. The pristine walls and gleaming roof and eaves sat in a pile. Dust drifted in clouds from the debris. He doubted that anyone inside was alive.
He allowed himself to be helped to his feet, and he found his gaze drifting to the surrounding houses. Citizens of Negaijima stood slack-jawed and wide-eyed, the centerpoint of their town demolished and the woman that had ruled over them buried amongst the destruction.
“They’ll need assistance in rebuilding their economy… their government…” he heard himself murmuring.
Kate caught his hand and pulled him away from the wreckage, coaxing him back toward the docks.
“It’s okay, Onyx. We’ll add that into the report for the admiralty. You need to rest now,” she said soothingly, her expression worried, and he let her lead him back to the Perseverance .
Chapter 11: A Test of Strength
Summary:
With Shugosha defeated, the focus now becomes Jim's terrible injuries and the long recovery time ahead of him. Onyx struggles with what to do to best support his heart stone and life partner.
Chapter Text
By the time they made it back to the ship’s clinic, Mr. Doherty had finished surgery on Jim’s wrist and had just completed affixing bandages into place around his torso.
Onyx stared at his heart stone, feeling numb all over as he was gently coaxed toward a bed. He lay on the one beside Jim’s, unable to tear his eyes away from him. He looked so small and tired, even while asleep, and his breathing still sounded labored.
Silver looked equally exhausted, and he sighed heavily, though didn’t move at all to leave Jim’s side. Instead he simply kept stroking Jim’s hair while sitting in his chair beside the bed. Onyx didn’t think he’d ever seen Silver look so haggard. He’d never seemed old before, even though he was in his sixties, but he definitely seemed old now by how he sagged tiredly.
Kate walked around the bed and laid her hand gently on Silver’s shoulder. “When was the last time you got some sleep?” she asked.
“Couldn’t tell ye, Katelyn,” Silver sighed.
Her face contorted with worry. “You should get some rest. We could lend you a cabin.”
“I’d rather stay with Jimbo in case he wakes up.”
“I can stay with him while you get some sleep,” Onyx offered softly.
“And once you’ve gotten some rest, then you and Onyx can trade,” Kate suggested, looking pointedly over at him now. “I’ll happily sit with Jim as well when I’m not on shift so both of you can recover.”
Silver appeared as if he meant to argue, but then he looked thoughtfully at Kate and smiled weakly. “I hate te admit it, but I do feel as if I were keel-hauled fer the past few days.”
“Jim will understand,” Kate assured him gently, and tugged on his mechanical arm. “Come on now, you old cyborg. On your feet for a few more minutes while I take you to a cabin. Are you sure you have the energy to stay awake, Onyx? I can come down here after I make my report to the admiralty.”
Onyx shook his head. “I’ll be okay. I should write up my part of the report as well, and now is as good a time as any.”
Silver stood with a soft groan and allowed Kate to start leading him from the room, though he paused and ordered, “Morphy, stay here with Jimbo.”
The blob chirped from where he’d cuddled on the center of Jim’s chest, and only then did Silver seem satisfied enough to leave the clinic.
Onyx lay for a few moments longer, then sat up and leaned his elbows on his knees. His eyes traveled from Jim’s fingertips, over the thick bandages on his wrists, and finally to the bandages covering Jim’s entire torso. He let out a heavy sigh.
“Did you need a physical examination as well, Mr. Onyx?” Mr. Doherty asked from the workbench he was filling paperwork out at.
“No, sir. Though I do have a few questions.”
Mr. Doherty stood straight and looked over at him. “Of course. What can I help you with?”
“Do you think Ji– Commander Hawkins’ hands will work again?” Onyx asked apprehensively.
The man sighed heavily. He hesitated for a moment before walking closer and pulling a chair over so he could sit. “It is hard to say at this point. The surgeries went well, I didn’t see any muscle death, and though Commander Hawkins’ reflexes are delayed, they are still there. It would suggest to me that he will be able to use his hands again, though I would imagine it will take a lot of time for both recovery from the surgeries and for physical therapy. He has a lot of skin to grow back, which will take weeks, and physical therapy itself will take a minimum of eight weeks once he can begin. It will be slow at first, and will be a continual process for a very long time, but I do believe that he could use his hands without needing prosthetics.”
Onyx’s heart skipped a beat at the suggestion of prosthetics and he took a shaky breath.
“Though, if he does need prosthetics, there are fantastic doctors who will be able to set him up with custom fittings and will see him through the entire transitional process. The recovery time would probably even be comparable to what he’s looking at now,” Mr. Doherty offered.
“Thank you for the information, doctor,” Onyx breathed.
“Of course. Was there anything else I could assist you with?”
Onyx shook his head. “No, I believe you answered everything.”
“Would you like paper for your own report?”
The suggestion reminded Onyx of what he’d told Kate and he nodded distractedly. “Yes please. Thank you.”
Mr. Doherty nodded and stood, returning the chair to its original place before walking back to the workbench. He fetched a few pieces of paper and a second pen, which he delivered to Onyx, before he finally continued his own report. Onyx set the supplies aside to tackle what he would write in a little while, then rubbed a tired hand over his face. He looked over at Jim for several minutes before reaching out and very carefully taking his hand. It was held in place by a thick brace, so he had to work his finger under Jim’s palm.
The time dragged on with him gently holding Jim’s hand and lightly rubbing his thumb over Jim’s knuckles. Jim’s skin had started cool to the touch, but was warm now, and there was better color in his hands. Onyx switched sides at one point to warm Jim’s other hand, and it eased some of his disquiet to feel warmth in Jim’s fingers.
Even so, guilt had long settled in his chest. He’d beaten Shugosha and earned a wish free of any charge. He could have wished for Jim’s wounds to be removed and for his body to be returned to its fully healed state. He should have wished for this and saved his heart stone the coming months of difficulty and frustration.
When would he be allowed to start physical therapy? Would it only be after the skin had healed back in place? What would he do in that time? Would it cause irreparable damage if Jim attempted to use his hands while the skin was growing back? What if Doherty was wrong and even after months of healing and therapy Jim still wasn’t able to use his hands and then had to go through the process of getting prosthetics? Onyx couldn’t even begin to imagine what Jim would feel to fall asleep with flesh hands and to then wake up after surgery with two metal replacements.
Tears stung in Onyx’s eyes. He’d meant well by wishing for Shugosha to destroy her own powers, but could he have wished for Jim’s immediate recovery instead and then arrested her? There was no way of knowing now.
“Onyx, are you alright?”
He startled at the soft question and nearly jumped out of his own stony plating when a small hand touched his arm. He looked over to see that Mr. Doherty had left the clinic at some point and that Kate was now standing beside him. The light had shifted through the portholes. It was brighter, no longer morning but now more likely afternoon, and she held a tray in her hands bearing a bowl of soup and two rolls.
Kate raised the tray slightly and smiled at him. “Have you eaten yet?”
“I haven’t,” Onyx sighed.
She stepped around him and set the tray on the small table beside the bed, gently shuffling the papers and pen to one side. “I see you haven’t had a chance to get to your report either,” she smiled faintly.
Onyx sighed again. “No, I haven’t. Please forgive me–”
“You stop that right now, Mr. Onyx,” she said sternly and motioned to the tray. “I won’t hear any apologies out of you except possibly one for scaring me earlier when neither myself or any of my crews could find you, only to discover you stumbling out of a collapsing building.”
A small huffed laugh escaped Onyx and he bowed his head slightly. “I should have warned someone what my plan was,” he admitted, then sighed. “Though I didn’t have a plan when I first set out. I simply felt I had to arrest Madame Shugosha myself.”
Kate nodded slowly, walking around him again, and perched on the side of Jim’s bed. She coaxed Onyx to relinquish his hand so she could hold it instead, then jerked her head toward the tray of food. “You can explain what happened and work on your report after you eat. Go on, before it gets cold.”
He wasn’t hungry, but he obeyed her insistence and slowly worked through the meal she’d brought him.
“What time is it?” he asked while dunking a roll into the broth.
“Almost 1500 hours,” Kate murmured. “You and I returned to the ship at around 1100 hours.”
Onyx nodded slowly. He’d been sitting here for hours, and it had simultaneously felt like an eternity and no time at all. He finished his meal and took up the pen and paper, but couldn’t bring himself to start writing. What was he even supposed to say when it came to Shugosha and her powers? He doubted that the claims that she could grant wishes would be believed by the admiralty.
Kate reached out and laid her hand on his, drawing his attention away from the blank page. “Don’t push yourself, Onyx. You need to get some rest too, and the report isn’t expected of you until we’ve reached Aquas.”
That was a relief. It would give him a few days to come up with some sort of believable explanation. He set aside the paper and pen again and looked into Jim’s face. He still hadn’t woken up, even after hours, and he realized that Mr. Doherty must have given him another dose of sedative.
“What’s on your mind?” Kate asked softly.
Onyx looked into her face. “Jim has months of recovery ahead of him.”
Kate pursed her lips. “Yes, he does.”
Onyx looked back into Jim’s face and reached out to pet his hair. He’d realized when Mr. Doherty had been explaining the process Jim would have to go through that he would be stuck on shore leave while Onyx would be reassigned to another ship. It would be months before they saw each other again.
“I’m going to marry Jim,” Onyx murmured.
Kate jerked, snapping her head around to look at him. “You’re…? Did I hear you correctly?”
Onyx sighed. “You did. I suppose I should suggest it to Jim first, or at least propose, but I want to stay with him while he recovers, and I know that the admiralty won’t even consider it unless we’re spouses.”
“And when he recovers enough to continue working?” Kate said, her eyebrows furrowing. “What will you do then? Even if you were to annul the marriage, the admiralty wouldn’t allow you to work together.”
“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” Onyx said.
Kate was silent for several moments, her eyes boring into him, before she said, “You’re really serious about this.”
“I am. Jim was with me through my worst moments, supporting me after nearly drowning and being forced to face my greatest fear, waking and soothing me through every nightmare that followed, and he deserves the same from me.”
He could sense Kate wanting to argue, but she didn’t end up saying anything.
Onyx heard the familiar whirring and clicking of Silver’s cybernetics before the ursid man appeared in the doorway and nodded in greeting. “Thought I’d find ye here,” he said with a small teasing smile as he approached, and settled into the chair he’d occupied earlier. “I see ye already ate somet’ing. That’s good. I can cover fer ye while ye get some rest, lad.”
“Did you eat as well?” Kate asked, standing and collecting the tray she’d brought for Onyx.
“Aye, lass, thank ye. No need te order me te do that,” he said with a wink.
Kate snorted and shook her head, making her way toward the door, and Onyx stood to reluctantly follow after her.
“Mind staying a minute, Onyx? I was hoping te talk te ye,” Silver said.
Silver wasn’t surprised when Onyx gazed at him curiously, but the young man didn’t question him and sat back down.
“Overheard ye suggesting ye’d marry Jim te stay with him while he heals,” Silver said quietly.
Onyx startled, then looked down at Jim and carefully grasped his hand. “I do plan to ask Jim to marry me so I can do that, yes.”
Silver nodded, pursing his lips while tapping his fingertips on his knee. “Also heard Katelyn asking what ye’d do when Jim’s well enough te work again.”
“She did ask that,” Onyx said suspiciously, eying Silver.
“Noble o’ ye te suggest that, but do ye think Jim would prefer being able te work with ye fer the rest o’ yer careers over ye spending a couple o’ months with him as he heals after surgery?” Silver suggested.
Onyx stiffened. “He needs all the support he can get going forward.”
“Aye, I ain’t arguing with ye on that,” Silver said, gently brushing Jim’s bangs with his fingertips. “He won’t be alone if ye continue te work while he heals.”
“But he’ll remember that I wasn’t there for him when he needed me, while he had been there for me ,” Onyx said defensively.
Silver met Onyx’s gaze and held it. He was essentially his son-in-law whether his and Jim’s relationship was legalized or not, and while he understood Onyx’s logic and desire, he also knew his son.
“Onyx, lad, ye know as well as I that Jim would forgive ye. In the long run, he’ll appreciate being able te work with ye every day once his recovery is over versus getting te see ye fer a couple months straight. He’d prefer not te trade that time for a lifetime o’ wondering if yer shore leaves will line up, or wondering if yer safe and not knowing until he receives a letter or a heliogram,” Silver said, then chuckled. “He’s a stubborn one and would leave the Navy before having another first officer. He’d worry that ye were being abused by another commanding officer. He’d feel guilty fer agreeing te marriage and keeping ye away from work. He’d worry that ye’d be investigated fer having been in a relationship all this time, and he’d worry about ye being disciplined for it.”
He could tell his words were getting to Onyx by the way his normally stoic face twisted with sorrow. The younger man shook his head, rubbing his free hand across his eyes while still holding Jim’s hand in his other.
“And if the surgeries weren’t successful and he can’t return to the Navy? What if he has to get prosthetics?” Onyx asked tightly.
Silver clenched his right hand, then flexed the fingers open. “Then he’ll need someone that can walk him through the transition who knows exactly how he feels,” he said quietly. “He won’t be alone, Onyx. And if it comes te the point that he can’t return te the Navy, then ye can revisit marriage, if that’s somet’ing ye’d still want.”
Onyx gazed at him silently, his expression reflecting the turmoil he was feeling. He knew Silver was right, that was clear enough, but it didn’t make the decision to leave Jim and return to duty any easier. Silver wished for both their sakes that the Navy’s restrictions on spouses working together weren’t so strict, but he knew there wouldn’t be exceptions without future repercussions for both of them. Jim was on the cusp of admiralty, and while his injuries would slow the process, the consequences of him and Onyx marrying could potentially completely halt it. An investigation into their relationship prior to this point could lead to either him or both of them being dishonorably discharged, and while their offenses would be the mildest that the Navy could find dishonorable, it would still put black marks on their reputations.
A heavy sigh rushed out of Onyx and he shook his head. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right.”
“If it makes ye feel any better, I wish it weren’t this way,” Silver said.
Onyx shook his head. “Not really, but I appreciate it. I’m sorry for what I said earlier about Jim potentially needing prosthetics. I… I just worry how he’ll adjust. I don’t have any prejudice against them.”
Silver smiled. “I know, lad. And I don’t blame ye. They’re not easy learning te live with, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t praying with everyt’ing I’ve got that Jim won’t need ‘em.”
They fell silent, turning their eyes to Jim’s face as he let out a soft, sleepy hum. Silver leaned forward and caressed his son’s hair, searching his face for any hint that he was feeling pain. Jim’s eyelids fluttered until they finally opened, and he looked around tiredly, dazedly.
“There ye are, Jimbo. How ye feeling, lad?” Silver asked gently.
His son’s eyes drifted to his face and he smiled faintly. “Hey, Dad… I’m… tired…”
“Then ye should get some more shut-eye,” Silver suggested.
Jim’s mouth turned down into a faint frown. “Onyx…?” he mumbled.
“I’m here, Jim.”
Relief and joy warmed Jim’s expression and he looked over at his partner, the frown melting into a smile. “You’re okay…”
“I am,” Onyx agreed with a weak smile.
“Shugosha…?”
Onyx took a breath, then let it out, inclining his head slightly. “She’s been taken care of. But you don’t need to worry about that. All that you need to do is rest and recover. Okay?”
“M’kay,” Jim murmured. A slightly pained look crossed his face, and he stared intently at Onyx despite his clear exhaustion, and Onyx drew a sharp breath.
Silver looked over at him worriedly, but then noticed that the cragorian man was gazing down at his and Jim’s joined hands and he saw that Jim had curled his fingers around Onyx’s. A rush of relief and pride flooded through him. Surely that had to be a good sign for Jim’s recovery and the question of whether he would be able to keep his hands.
Onyx raised Jim’s hand and planted a kiss on his knuckles, then laid his arm down on the bed again. “Don’t push yourself too hard too quickly, my heart. Get some rest.”
Jim let out a weak groan and nodded. Onyx stood slowly from his spot, and he and Silver watched Jim as he slipped back into unconsciousness, and only then did Onyx release his hand and walk out of the clinic to go get some rest.
Silver waited until he was alone with his son before gingerly gathering him into his arms and cradling him to his chest, vowing in a whisper to stay by his side through his entire recovery journey.
It took several days before they reached Aquas, namely because Kate had to organize her squadron and set in place a few things for the admiralty to take over the government of Negaijima, but it was plenty of time for Jim to come to terms with the position he was in.
It would be at least a week before he would be allowed to start physical therapy, since Mr. Doherty wanted a second opinion from a specialized surgeon on the state of Jim’s wrists. Then it would be months of physical therapy itself. At least two, and with the extent of his wounds, Mr. Doherty had warned it might even be longer.
The break from work didn’t bother Jim. He was exhausted. But the gravity of how long he would be out of work weighed on him like an anvil in the middle of his chest.
There was no way that Onyx would be granted shore leave to stay with him, not if he didn’t ask for it, and guilt that he wanted Onyx to ask had started to eat away at Jim. Logically, he knew that he wouldn’t be alone through his healing process; he and Silver would be transported to Montressor, so he’d have Silver and Mom, so he felt greedy for wanting Onyx to be there too.
It was embarrassing not being able to do anything for himself. He had to be fed, clothed, assisted in the head, tucked in. He couldn’t even scratch an itch. Jim couldn’t think of a time when he’d felt so useless and burdensome.
He looked up with a flash of panic when the ship came to a stop and he could hear the faint noise of a busy dock.
They’d made it to Aquas.
It would only be a matter of time before he and Silver would be transferred to another ship – Kate had already explained that one was waiting for them – while Onyx stayed in port for a few days of shore leave before being assigned to another ship.
Jim perked up when Onyx stepped into the clinic and he gazed longingly at his life partner as he walked over to his bed.
Onyx cupped Jim’s cheek and bent down, gently resting his heavy brow on Jim’s forehead. “How are you feeling, my heart?”
“I’m okay,” Jim murmured, leaning into him.
“Are you feeling well enough for some visitors?”
Jim furrowed his eyebrows. “Who?”
“Your crew, sir.”
“They survived?” Jim gasped.
Onyx pulled away and stood straight, adopting the stern posture his position required of him, and erasing any hint of tenderness he felt for Jim from his expression. “Aye, sir. Due to your quick thinking and orders, there were no casualties.”
The news broke over Jim like a wave and he was struck with an unexpected rush of emotion that made his throat constrict and his eyes sting. Several of the spacers he’d had under his command since he’d been nothing more than a lieutenant, and then the others had been added under his charge quickly after with his two swiftly appointed field promotions to captain and then to commander. He’d had this same crew for years now and he was overwhelmingly relieved that they were all safe.
Jim cleared his throat repeatedly, blinking rapidly to clear his vision of tears, and nodded to Onyx. “I believe I am feeling well enough for visitors. Thank you, Mr. Onyx.”
Onyx turned and looked at the doorway, whispering to Morph to ‘get the men’, and it was only a few moments after the squidge zoomed off before the noise of a great number of feet came hurrying down the hall toward the clinic.
Trying his hardest to look at least somewhat professional, Jim sat up to face his crew, but all of his resolve bled out of him the moment he saw his crews’ relieved expressions. Several of them looked tearful, though they were fighting it, and Jim’s breath hitched again. He fought to keep his smile from falling, and he swallowed repeatedly before he was able to choke out, “It’s good to see all of you alive and well.”
“You too, commander,” Anthony Murdock, the helmsman, said.
The crew came into the room, asking far fewer questions than Jim had expected, and he realized that Onyx must have intercepted them and answered a lot of them prior to suggesting they come to the clinic. Mainly they wanted to know how he was faring and when he would be returning to duty.
Jim took a bracing breath. “That is yet to be determined. I have weeks of healing left, then weeks of therapy, and only once I’ve been cleared by the therapist will I be able to put the request into the admiralty to return to my post. Rest assured, I will be doing everything in my power to return as quickly as possible.”
“Don’t push yourself too hard, sir,” his master gunner said and Jim smiled gratefully at him.
“I’ll do my best,” he promised.
Kate appeared in the doorway and all eyes turned to her. She nodded politely in greeting before settling her hands at the small of her back. “Commander Hawkins, your transport to the Alliance has arrived.”
Jim’s heart dropped. It was time to go.
“Thank you, ma’am. It seems it’s our time to part ways, gentlemen. Thank you for your company,” he said stiffly.
His crew bid him farewell and wished him a swift and painless recovery as they filtered out of the room, and Jim looked over at Onyx. “Will you come with me to the ship?”
Onyx’s expression softened from the stoic mask he’d adopted. “Of course.”
He helped Jim dress in a clean shirt and pair of pants, then eased his feet into boots, and offered his arm for Jim to lean on. Jim didn’t need it, but he accepted it anyway, though he pulled away to give Kate the closest approximation of a hug that he could offer right now. His wrists ached when he tried to squeeze around her, and he wished he could hold her properly, but his hands were still in stiff braces to make sure the tendons wouldn’t heal constricted.
Silver was already waiting for them at the bottom of the gangplank, and he smiled up at Jim as he walked down it toward him. Morph zoomed ahead and cuddled his cheeks.
Jim hugged Kate once more, whispering for her to be careful and to travel safely, then he, Silver, Morph, and Onyx climbed into the hover carriage that would take them to the ship that the Navy had lined up for his and Silver’s trip to Montressor.
He leaned against Onyx, his gut twisting more and more with each passing second as unease overtook him. Ever since the two of them had become life partners, they had never been apart for more than a week at a time. They were now facing months, at least three, if not more, and Jim didn’t know if he could physically do it.
He would be forced to temporarily give up any physical affection with his life partner and the soothing effect that just being around Onyx offered to him. He wouldn’t be there for Onyx should he have nightmares caused by what they’d been through both on their way to and while in Negaijima. He wouldn’t be there to ensure that Onyx’s willingness and tendency to work more than what was expected or required of him wasn’t being taken advantage of by his temporary commanding officer. Jim was already beginning to feel the loneliness that he knew would plague him over the coming months and he hated himself for wanting to be so selfish as to beg Onyx to stay with him.
The carriage came to a stop and Jim’s heart lodged itself in his throat. He hesitated in climbing out and had to be gently coaxed by Silver. His eyes cut to Onyx and he stared anxiously at him, soothed only when his life partner climbed out too and walked with them up the gangplank.
“Good afternoon, commander. It’s an honor to transport you and Mr. Silver to Montressor,” the captain said with a smile.
Jim could hardly hold himself together enough to greet him in return. Each step toward his cabin was harder than the previous one, as if he was wading further into quicksand, until he stopped just inside the small room.
“We’ll be launching as soon as you’re settled in, sir,” the captain said, then turned and walked down the hall, leaving the three of them standing there.
“I’ll give ye a moment te say goodbye,” Silver said before following him.
Jim turned slowly, looking up at Onyx, and his resolve snapped. A sob snuck out of him and tears instantly blurred his vision. “Don’t leave… Onyx, please don’t leave me… I need you… I can’t… I can’t do it without you…”
Onyx drew in a sharp breath, his brow pitching upward in the middle, and he took a step forward to enfold Jim in his arms.
“Please… please… I need you, Onyx-glimmers…” Jim begged between gasping sobs. He whined pathetically when he couldn’t curl his fingers and grasp his life partner’s jacket in his hands.
“You can do this, Jim… we can do this…” Onyx said shakily, hugging him tighter.
Jim turned his head and pressed his face against the center of Onyx’s chest in an attempt to muffle the wail that rose out of him. He felt so weak, so pitiful, so greedy and selfish, but he needed Onyx with every fiber of his being.
Onyx lifted him gently and carried him to the bed, where he sat and held Jim in his lap, pressing his forehead to the top of Jim’s head. His tears fell into Jim’s hair just as Jim’s made a growing wet patch on Onyx’s vest. Neither said anything and simply cried, clinging to each other desperately, until Onyx pulled back and cupped a hand around Jim’s cheek.
He looked into his eyes, his expression pained, and he whispered, “If you want me to come with you, I will. Just tell me what you want, Jim.”
Jim almost instinctively continued his begging for Onyx to come with him, but he stopped himself. It tore his heart, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. It was selfish. He shouldn’t want it, but stars, he couldn’t help it.
Another choked cry snuck out of Jim and he leaned into Onyx’s palm for a long moment before murmuring, “You know I want you to, Onyx, but I shouldn’t have asked it of you… I’m sorry.”
Onyx gently tipped his chin up as he leaned in and pressed his lips to Jim’s.
“Don’t apologize, Jim,” he breathed, sounding as if he was on the brink of tears again. “I could never fault you for wanting to be with me, because I want to be with you just as badly.”
They leaned into each other, slowly calming down until they had reigned in their tears.
“Take Morph with you,” Jim said as he was set on his feet.
Onyx’s brow pinched. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll have Mom and Silver. And probably B.E.N., Doc, the quadruplets, and maybe even Amelia too,” Jim sniffled. “I don’t want you to be alone.”
Onyx swiped his thumb gently across Jim’s cheek, pressing his brow to Jim’s forehead tenderly before whispering, “Okay.”
Jim leaned against Onyx’s side as they walked back up to the deck, uncaring that anyone saw. He pulled away reluctantly when Onyx had to walk down the gangplank. Tears filled his eyes as he watched over the gunwale as the ship started to raise into the air to launch. Sorrow clamped down on his chest and he bit his lip, leaning over the railing to hold Onyx’s gaze as the ship rose more and more until his life partner was nothing but a speck on the dock far below them.
“Come here, Jimbo,” Silver whispered.
He curled his arm around Jim and tugged him against his chest. Jim broke again, crying against his father’s sternum as Silver nuzzled his hair.
“It’s alright, Jimbo. It’s alright. It’ll be over before ye know it,” Silver soothed.
Jim wanted to believe him, but he knew that every day away from Onyx would feel like a lifetime.
Chapter 12: Steadfast
Summary:
The recovery is slow and disheartening, leading Jim to a breakdown after failing to do the simplest of tasks, and he misses Onyx desperately, which only makes their reunion that much sweeter.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Your ‘homework’ this week will be to practice picking up items from a flat surface. Don’t push yourself too hard. Just a few minutes every couple hours and then rest. I’ll see you next Tuesday.”
Jim glared at his hands.
The skin still had yet to grow back on his wrists, so it felt as if he was almost constantly in Dr. Livesey’s clinic for follow up examinations. He claimed that everything was growing back nicely, but Jim could hardly see any progress even after a month and half and he was beginning to think he’d have to wear bandages for the rest of his life.
More frustrating though was how slow his physical therapy was going. There was a lot of numbness in his hands, and while he did have some reflexes, he didn’t have a lot, so his reaction time was abysmal. It hurt to curl his hands into fists, and he couldn’t even make proper fists. Livesey and the physical therapist claimed that the flexibility would come back with time, but it had already been a month since he’d started, and it felt as if he’d made no progress there either.
He turned his scowl to the items on the table. Silver had been present for each of Jim’s appointments, which was both a relief and felt a little overbearing, and had been with Jim for every step of the healing process so far. Jim couldn’t have asked for anyone better to be at his side, and he felt like a terrible son for wishing that Onyx was here too.
Tingling, aching pain radiated up Jim’s arm as he reached for the pen that had been set out in front of him and curled his fingers around it. He let out a hissing breath between his teeth as he simply tried to grasp it in his fist, and then carefully set it back down instead of dropping it. He then repeated the process with his left hand. It hurt a little less and Jim wondered if he’d been trying too hard with his right or if that one had been somehow hurt more.
“Agh, blast,” Jim murmured as he went through the process again, this time with a fork. He wanted to be able to hold this one properly so he could start feeding himself again. He knew how much of a burden it was on his parents to have to help him with literally everything that he needed, and if he could alleviate one of the things on their shoulders maybe it would slow down the process of them getting annoyed by him.
It hurt to pinch his fingers to hold the fork like he would to eat and it made his hand shake. Jim attempted to poke it into one of the cut pieces of purp that he had asked for, but the fork slipped up in his grasp and the tines didn’t even pierce the soft flesh of the fruit. Deep disappointment flooded his chest. It didn’t matter that he could hold the fork right if he didn’t even have the strength to use it.
The door opened and Silver stepped into the sitting room, whistling brightly, then grinned at Jim and held up a thick piece of cardstock.
Jim sat bolt upright in his chair, his eyes affixed to the message, and his heart suddenly thundering in his chest.
“Got a letter fer ye, Jimbo,” Silver started to tear it open, but Jim quickly shook his head.
“Wait! I want to try it myself.”
Silver’s eyebrows rose, but he stopped and held the note out to Jim, who shook his head again. He felt like he was asking a lot, and he squirmed a little, but he motioned at the table with a stiff, mostly-numb hand. “The therapist told me to practice picking things up from a flat surface, so I should probably try it with paper too,” Jim explained meekly.
“Aye, lad, ye probably should,” Silver agreed and set the heliogram on the table, then patted his shoulder. “How’ve ye been faring in here, lad?”
“I’ve picked up a pen and a fork,” Jim said. He reached for the heliogram and pressed his fingertips onto it to hold it steady while trying to make his thumb work with him to catch the edge of the thick paper with his fingernail.
“Great work, Jimbo!” Silver said exuberantly, but Jim could hardly muster a smile. Sure, he could pick them up, but he couldn’t use them. His hands were still next to useless.
“Did ye want me to sit with ye as ye keep going?”
“No, I’ve got it. Thanks, Dad,” Jim mumbled. Silver had enough on his hands, he didn’t have the time to devote to keeping Jim company on top of already helping him function.
Silver squeezed his shoulder lightly, giving him a warm smile, and stumped back out of the room.
Jim devoted his entire focus to picking up the cardstock.
It had to be a note from Onyx, probably sent not that long ago though that didn’t mean his life partner was still in whatever port they’d stopped in. He’d sent Jim two others already, which wasn’t cost effective given how much more expensive it was to send a heliogram versus a letter, but it was exponentially faster. Jim was eager to hear his life partner’s voice in his prose, even if it was brief, but he was also stubbornly set on how he wanted to pick up the note. It would be easier to simply slide it to the edge of the table and pick it up that way, and that’s how he would normally do it if his hands were fully functional, but he wanted to prove that he didn’t have to do it that way.
His frustration mounted the longer he fought to try to pick it up this way and he was seeing no success. His thumb was getting tired and more stiff with each attempt, and he’d only gotten the edge of the cardstock up a little bit before it snapped back down on the tabletop when he clumsily tried to slide his thumb underneath it.
With a wave of embarrassment and a defeated sigh, Jim gave up and slid the heliogram to the side of the table so he could pick it up finally.
Now was another test though. He had to open the blasted thing.
Jim instinctively tried to start with his right hand, which was his dominant one, and he bit down on his lip as pain pulsed through his fingers with the beating of his heart. He pinched the edge of the paper between his thumb and forefinger, but had the same issue that he had with the fork; he had no strength to actually tear it.
Frustrated and desperate tears blurred his vision as he begged under his breath for his hands to work enough to open the heliogram.
But his stupid, clumsy, worthless fingers knocked the whole thing out of the weak grasp his left hand had on it and it fluttered to the floor. Jim stared at it, trying to swallow the surge of emotion that threatened to overtake him.
With a small breath, Jim bent and attempted to pick up the heliogram. He knew it would be impossible given he couldn’t even get it off the table without pulling it to the edge, but he still tried for several minutes, growing more and more agitated and feeling more and more like he might scream.
“BLAST IT ALL!” he finally burst out with, then started to cry. It infuriated him that he couldn’t stop his tears, and he banged his hands down on the table multiple times until his arms throbbed. Then he collapsed forward onto it, his forehead on the wood, and sobbed pitifully.
“Jim! Jim!! Heavens, what’s wrong?!” Mom cried from the doorway as she and Silver rushed into the sitting room with him.
Jim recoiled, trying to hide his face with his shaking arms and said weakly, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I don’t need help, I’m fine, really. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I should have been quiet. I’m okay–”
“What? Jim, sweetheart, what are you saying?” Mom asked, trying to pull him into her arms.
“I can do it! I can do it! I don’t need you to!” Jim whimpered. “You’re helping me so much already…”
He finally let himself be caught by his mother and leaned heavily against her, burying his face in her shoulder despite himself. She kissed his temple and stroked his hair, but didn’t say anything and Jim could feel her confusion. He tried to compose himself, but the tears just kept coming and simply built in intensity. It took an embarrassingly long time for him to finally calm back down, and he slumped in his chair with his head hung and shoulders curled defensively.
“What happened, lad?” Silver asked softly.
“I couldn’t get the heliogram opened, and then I dropped it and couldn’t pick it up,” Jim mumbled.
“You could have called either of us to help you, Jim. It will still be a while before your hands can be used normally,” Mom said.
Jim shook his head, tears building in his eyes again. “I’m already asking you to do so much for me, I can’t ask you to do anything else…”
Silver pulled the chair from the other side of the table and sat down beside him. “Jimbo, I know what yer thinking, and it ain’t true.”
Jim glanced over at him, disbelieving, but Silver only gazed at him with a tender, loving expression. An expression that said he knew how Jim felt and he’d felt it too. He reached out and very gently curled his cybernetic hand around one of Jim’s.
“Yer feeling like a burden. Yer feeling useless. Yer feeling like we’ll wind up hating ye ‘cause ye can’t do anyt’ing fer yourself. Yer feeling that if ye can do one thing, jest one thing, that it’ll ease our load and we’ll love ye a little bit longer. Well I can tell ye that you’re wrong,” Silver whispered. He brushed the rubber pad on his thumb over the backs of Jim’s knuckles, a motion that he hardly felt. “We’ll love ye forever, Jim, no matter how much help ye need from us or for however long ye need it. We’ll love ye whether you’re flesh hands heal or not. We’ll love ye if ye’ve got te trade ‘em for fancy things like mine–” he squeezed Jim’s hand gently and smiled faintly “–we’ll keep loving ye even if ye start te hate us because yer tired o’ our fretting over ye. But we’ll never stop loving ye and we’ll never pull away if ye need us.”
Intense gratitude and relief throttled Jim, filled his eyes with tears and made his breath hitch in his chest, and he broke down in a fresh round of sobbing as his mother took his other hand and held it.
“I love you both too… thank you… thank you so much for… for everything…” he choked out and relaxed in their arms when they both reached out to hold him tightly.
“Of course, baby,” Mom whispered shakily next to his ear.
They held him for a long while before pulling back, and Silver stooped to pick up the heliogram. “Mind if I open it for ye, pup?”
Jim sniffled. “Please do. I’ve fought with it enough.”
Silver tore it open and offered it to Jim, who took it into his aching hands and read over the short letter that his life partner had sent.
My dearest Jim,
The RLS Titan has docked in Andoras for a quick supply refill and will be leaving port again probably before this message even reaches you, so I won’t be able to receive a response.
I miss you dearly and pray each day that you are recovering well. The voyage has been smooth for us, and the weather fair. Once we reach Majora Sceir, we’ll have reached our mid-way point and will be returning to the Port Ivy and Crescentia area. Morph has been a wonderful companion, but his presence hardly compares to yours. I count the days until I can see you again.
All my love,
Onyx-glimmers
Jim set the heliogram on the table and wiped the heels of his palms across his eyes to swipe away the tears that had once more jumped to them. He racked his memories, mentally tracing the longitude and latitude lines on the map of the whole of the Empire, the known Procyon expanse, and the known galaxy around their borders. One benefit of his eidetic memory was being able to plot a course without ever having to look at a map, and it only took him a few moments of silent calculations before he was able to place the RLS Titan’s current position and its end point.
Andoras to Majora Sceir would be a few more weeks of travel, and then it would be roughly two months before the RLS Titan would dock back at either Port Ivy or Crescentia. Jim had two and a half months before Onyx’s next longer shore leave. Three months before Onyx would have to return to work. That meant that Jim had three months to get his hands functioning enough that he could return to his post as well. It felt as if it would kill him to have to wait until after Onyx’s next mission before he could return to his station.
He looked around at the items that he’d knocked off the table in his burst of anger and anguish, then sheepishly turned to his parents. “Would you help me pick everything up so I can practice for a little longer?”
The relief that Onyx felt when laying eyes on the Benbow Inn as he stepped off the ferry from Crescentia Spaceport almost made his knees buckle.
It had been so long. So long since he’d spoken to Jim in person, so long since he’d seen him, so long since he’d held him… Onyx rushed down the gangplank and along the road toward the inn. Morph raced ahead of him, squealing as he disappeared up the road, and Onyx envied him for his speed.
Sarah was in the dining room with Morph covering her face with licking kisses when he burst through the door, and she smiled at him warmly. “Oh, Onyx, it’s so good to see you again, sweetheart.”
Onyx couldn’t help but smile back at her and he accepted the hug she offered, but his attention was elsewhere as he searched the room for his heart stone.
Sarah pulled away and gave him an apologetic smile, already sensing the question on his lips before he had a chance to ask it. “Jim is out at the moment, but he’ll be back shortly. He’ll be so annoyed when he finds out that you got here before his appointment was done; he’d tried to reschedule with the physical therapist, but they didn’t have any openings any sooner than three months out.”
“Oh, heavens,” Onyx murmured. He felt a flicker of disappointment at Jim’s absence, but quickly reasoned that it would give him time to change into civilian clothes and that it was best his heart stone attend this appointment instead of having to wait months for another.
Many of the regulars that Onyx had come to know from years of friendship and then partnership with Jim enthusiastically greeted him, so his trek to his and Jim’s shared room was slowed significantly. B.E.N. also graced him with a very exuberant hug before Onyx was able to extract himself and walk to the bedroom, where he let out a relieved breath and took in the familiar and comforting interior.
With a small sigh, Onyx deposited his pack at the foot of the bed to unpack later, then reached for the lapels of his coat to remove it.
The door slammed open, and Onyx spun around eagerly, not even jumping at the abrupt intrusion.
Jim stood in the threshold, a hand on the door, his breaths coming hard as hope filled his features. A wide smile crossed his face, tears leapt to his eyes, and he ran into the room.
Onyx extended his arms for Jim and swept him off his feet when they collided, both clinging to each other and laughing through tears.
“Oh, Onyx, Onyx, I missed you so much!” Jim gasped against his shoulder.
“I missed you too!” Onyx cried. He pressed his cheek to the side of Jim’s head as he tried to gather himself.
“How are you? Are you okay? The temporary captain didn’t overwork you?” Jim asked one after another, leaning back to look into Onyx’s face while wiping his face dry with a palm.
“I’m doing much better now that I’m here with you, and no, he didn’t,” Onyx breathed, his attention trapped by the scar on Jim’s wrist. He gently set his heart stone on his feet and curled his hand lightly around Jim’s forearm and raised it so he could look at the scarring.
The skin had grown back, but it was bright pink in a band roughly two inches thick that pinched and buckled slightly around the edges.
Jim smiled faintly, raising his other hand and wiggling his fingers stiffly. “Hey, it’s not so bad. Look what I can do now.”
Onyx let out a small, gasping cry and caught Jim’s hand, pressing it to his cheek as he smiled proudly at his heart stone.
Jim smiled back up at him, then jumped and glanced around. “Oh, you were getting changed, weren’t you? Sorry, I’ll let you get back to that.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Onyx said, making Jim smile again, and his heart stone walked over to the door to close them both inside.
Onyx hesitated a moment before reaching again to take off his coat. He hung it carefully in the closet, glancing over at Jim and smiling to himself, then kicked off his shoes and tucked them against the wall.
"Onyx..."
He turned at Jim’s soft call and gazed at him, stopping mid-motion as he was reaching for the buttons on his vest.
Jim walked over to him from where he’d been leaning on the door and gently rested his hands on Onyx’s chest. "How did the crew get on with the temporary captain?" he asked.
"Fine. There was a bit of an adjustment period, and I know they'll much prefer to have you back, but they've been getting on fine with Captain Oliver," Onyx said. He ran his palms lightly from Jim’s elbows to his wrists, where he gently traced over the scarred skin.
"And how have you been?" Jim murmured.
Onyx clasped Jim's wrists the tiniest bit. "I've missed you," he whispered.
Four months. Jim had been stuck on shore leave for four months for surgery and physical therapy, and Onyx had regretted every single day that he hadn't put in the request to stay with him for the entire duration. But how could he have explained his reasoning for such a lengthy leave of absence when he had no injuries? How could he have even considered trying to explain their relationship without then putting them under intense scrutiny and potentially having the admiralty split them permanently? How could he have expected his request to be approved if he didn’t also marry Jim the moment they landed in Aquas?
"I've missed you too," Jim breathed.
Slowly, carefully, he traced his hands inward to the triangular buttons on Onyx’s vest and started to undo them. His fingers shook and it took more time than if Onyx were to do it himself, but he could hardly think as he was overcome by pride and melancholic joy that Jim could once again perform tasks that required finger dexterity and precision.
"Oh, Jim..." Onyx whispered shakily.
He hooked a finger under Jim's chin and tilted his head back, interrupting his focus, and leaned in.
Turning his head sharply, he bent down and Jim stood on his tiptoes to meet him, their lips pressing together as Onyx’s emotions reached their breaking point and a tear slid down his cheek.
"I'm so proud of you," he mumbled against Jim’s lips.
Jim leaned in again, kissing him once more, and Onyx gathered him into his arms. He could change later.
Onyx pulled back when Jim faltered on his tiptoes, and guided one of Jim’s arms up so he could gently cradle his hand to his cheek. Jim traced his thumb lightly along a groove between Onyx’s plates, and that tiny motion was enough to bring tears to his eyes again. It had been so long since he’d seen Jim be able to do anything with his hands, even immediately following his surgery, and it had torn his heart to shreds to wonder if Jim would ever be able to use them again. There would have been options, such as cybernetic prosthetics, but Onyx would have hated losing the small, tender touches such as this. It wouldn’t have been the same and he was so relieved that Jim had seen improvement.
“How have you been?” Onyx whispered.
Jim’s jaw tightened briefly before relaxing again and he sighed. “I’ve been better… and worse. You missed a few… a few breakdowns…” he admitted finally.
He leaned into Onyx’s hand when he reached out to cup his cheek, and whispered with a faint smile, “I’m better now.”
Onyx bent down again and pressed his brow against Jim’s forehead. His heart stone snuck his hand free and gently started to loosen Onyx’s ascot, which he draped on the back of the desk chair. Onyx worked his vest off and leaned back to remove his shirt.
“Your nightmares?” Jim asked as he pulled off his own shirt.
“They’ve been… sparing,” Onyx said.
Jim’s eyebrows drew together. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“Morph helped,” Onyx assured him, reaching out to loosen Jim’s belt and trousers as his heart stone did the same for him. He watched with a small, proud smile as Jim meticulously undid each button before hooking his thumbs in the belt loops on Onyx’s pants and pushing the clothing down.
Fully unclothed, they stood before each other, Onyx lightly holding Jim’s waist as Jim traced his fingertips over the grooves between the plates covering his body. Jim’s hands moved upward, over Onyx’s chest, up his shoulders, trailed to his cheeks, where he cupped lightly and cast his adoring gaze into Onyx’s face.
Onyx slid his hands down, bending to meet Jim’s lips with his own as he followed the curve of Jim’s back with his palms, gliding over his ass to the backs of his thighs, where he gripped lightly and pulled upward. Drawing Jim against his chest and his strong legs around his waist, Onyx walked toward the bed, then bent and deposited Jim onto it.
He stood straight, gazing down at Jim, whose gorgeous eyes were alight with hunger and warmth.
“Come here,” Jim breathed, beckoning to him.
Onyx caught Jim’s arm and ran his thumb lightly over the scarring while drawing it closer to himself so he could press a gentle kiss to Jim’s inner wrist. Jim hummed quietly and gazed at him with tender adoration as Onyx then moved his hand to press it to the medial plate on his chest.
He lay back on the bed as Onyx crawled over him, sliding his free hand up and behind Onyx’s neck and pulling his legs up to brace his knees against Onyx’s sides. Arousal pulsed in Onyx’s gut. He tangled his fingers in Jim’s hair and sought out his lips again. Swallowed Jim’s mewl as he pushed into him and curled his other arm around Jim’s waist to draw their bodies nearer to each other.
Jim’s hands both clutched behind his neck, his legs encircled Onyx’s waist, he whimpered as Onyx dove deeper until their bodies were flush.
Onyx pulled his hand free from Jim’s hair and reached up, groping blindly for one of Jim’s arms, and he curled his fingers around his heart stone’s wrist, sliding his hand upward to hold Jim’s as he pinned it to the bed.
He moved slowly, tenderly, sharing the same air as Jim while making love to him. And when they had both reached their respective release, Onyx continued to hold Jim in his arms, their bodies still intertwined from their lovemaking, and shared languid, gentle kisses.
“My physical therapist cleared me to work again,” Jim whispered around Onyx’s lips.
Onyx raised off him only enough to look into his brilliant blue eyes, hardly daring to breathe as he waited for the next words from his heart stone.
Jim smiled up at him, his eyes sparkling. “My handwriting is still atrocious, but I've put in the request to return to duty to the admiralty. If it's approved, I'll be going back with you.”
A sob caught in Onyx’s chest. Their time apart hadn't been for naught and it could likely be over soon. He bent down again, capturing Jim's lips with his own and grinding his hips forward as joy flooded through him, and the desire to make love once more overtook him. Jim breathed a glorious moan into his mouth, and Onyx set to bathing him in his devotion. Pride filled every inch of him, and relief followed after. Shugosha may have been able to temporarily steal something precious from Jim, she may have forced them apart by distance as Jim healed, but all of her efforts had ultimately made their relationship stronger, more steadfast. Jim had healed and would continue to heal, they would remain together, and be able to work side-by-side again moving forward.
Notes:
Thank you everyone for reading, it warms my heart that people have enjoyed this (and my other pieces). I do plan to upload a short comic in a bonus chapter, but I'm on a small hiatus from drawing at the moment since there's sooooo much on my plate right now and I need to shave down the to-do list a bit before picking up my art again.
Thank you once again for reading, and I hope to see you for more shenanigans in the future <3
Zander
Velgamidragon on Chapter 1 Sat 14 Jun 2025 03:22AM UTC
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Velgamidragon on Chapter 5 Fri 11 Jul 2025 10:24PM UTC
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Just_Zander on Chapter 5 Sun 13 Jul 2025 03:57AM UTC
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Velgamidragon on Chapter 6 Sat 19 Jul 2025 01:04AM UTC
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Fandom_Fanatic94 on Chapter 11 Fri 22 Aug 2025 09:54PM UTC
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Fandom_Fanatic94 on Chapter 12 Sun 31 Aug 2025 07:50AM UTC
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Just_Zander on Chapter 12 Mon 01 Sep 2025 12:24AM UTC
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Fandom_Fanatic94 on Chapter 12 Mon 01 Sep 2025 01:59AM UTC
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Just_Zander on Chapter 12 Mon 01 Sep 2025 02:07AM UTC
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Fandom_Fanatic94 on Chapter 12 Mon 01 Sep 2025 02:43AM UTC
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Velgamidragon on Chapter 12 Thu 04 Sep 2025 11:16PM UTC
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Just_Zander on Chapter 12 Fri 05 Sep 2025 06:52PM UTC
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