Work Text:
Jared
1035 AE (After Earth)
Jared walks through the bookshelves, fingers trailing over the books that fill them. He is going to miss this bookstore and the treasure trove of books within these walls. He is going to miss Saffron, despite it being far from the most exciting planet in the galaxy. And despite it being so far from the red star that it is forever frozen. So unlike Jared’s home planet where flowers are always blooming and it’s always warm enough to swim in the crystal clear lakes that are so plentiful they're within walking distance, no matter where on the planet you live. Here, the only lake is always frozen, the ground always covered with snow. It is beautiful here with the frozen landscape eternally cloaked in soft twilight. But Jared will not miss the cold.
He will miss Darcy, the man who owns this beautiful bookstore. He’s a warm man and a generous lover. Generous in other ways too. Jared lifts his wrist and admires the way that the azalure stones of the bracelet Darcy gave him as a parting gift sparkle in the light.
The light reflects on a book in front of him. Jared picks it up. It’s a collection of poems from some of Earth’s nineteenth-century poets. Jared has always loved poetry, especially poetry from this time period. The words of men and women long gone from a world that no longer exists speak to him in ways that poets of his time never could.
Jared opens the book. He feels something stir beside him and looks to his left.
Jensen is there. Jensen, who has only ever before come to him in his dreams, is standing right beside Jared, reaching for a book.
He looks younger than Jared has ever seen him. In Jared’s dreams, he appears to be around thirty, but right now he looks ten years or so younger. He’s wearing a long brown coat, his hair is longer than he wears it in Jared’s dreams. Jared wishes he could touch him, but Jensen isn’t really there.
Although he appears close to Jared–he’s not standing in the same room Jared is now. Jared looks past Jensen at the wall on the other side of him. It’s a very faded pink, with a picture of Darcy’s father standing in front of the bookstore, a big burly man with a huge smile on his face.
The picture that is hanging in the secret room, the room that Darcy and Jared sometimes sneak off to in the middle of the day when business is slow and teasing touches and heated glances aren’t enough. Except he just helped Darcy paint the room pink a few weeks ago, a bright vibrant color of pink instead of the dull, streaked with gray pink that Jared is looking at now.
Plus, there are no bookshelves in the secret room, but looking beyond Jensen Jared can see several bookcases crammed with books. Whenever Jensen is in time, he is not of Jared’s present. He is not in the past either, Jared knows the secret room has never been painted pink before because Darcy had told him that the walls had been painted gray when his father purchased the bookstore and that his father had never repainted them.
Jensen therefore must be in the future. Perhaps far into the future.
For years he’s been waiting to meet Jensen, the one fated to be his. And now to realize Jensen is nowhere where Jared can find him. Not yet anyway.
Jared’s heart sinks for a moment, but just a moment. He has no idea why the fates entwined his soul with a man not from his own time, but the fates will find a way to unite them. Of this he is certain. But until then he feels blessed that Jensen will continue to visit him in his dreams. Blessed that he can spend his nights with the man who holds his heart.
Jensen turns to him. Jared has just a glimpse of his smile before he fades away.
Someday, Jensen will be here. In this very bookstore. Jared knows this as surely as he knows that somehow, someday, impossible as it may seem, they will be together.
He takes the book to his reading nook in front of a huge window. Outside the snow is glistening, the always present twilight of the planet giving it a soft glow. Jared settles on his cushion and opens the book and begins to write.
To Jensen,
I long for the day we meet face to face, until then I will cherish your visits in my dreams.
With love, Jared. Inscribed herein on the fourth day of the eleventh cycle, AE 1025.
He starts to close the book, but he has a pricking feeling he needs to add something.
And so he does.
P.S. Yes, you may kiss me.
He's not sure why he felt compelled to write that last part, but he is sure he very much wants to kiss Jensen. Jensen has full lips that look perfect for kissing. And other things…
He has just finished when Hoban runs up to him, his eyes flashing with excitement.
“Jared, I just saw a big ship in the sky! Bigger than Papa’s even!”
Jared smiles at the five-year-old boy. Hoban is a bright child, with dark blue eyes that remind Jared of the flowers that grow in his mother’s garden. Of all the things he will miss from his time here, and there are many, he will miss Darcy’s son most of all.
And then Hoban’s words hit him. A big ship is about to land here. Time has officially run out. Jared knew this was coming of course. Several days ago there had been an announcement on the communication system.
Sparta law 23.2.5 is now in effect. The aliens known as Tristans are hereby ordered to return to their planet. All humans living on alien lands are to evacuate immediately. Repeating…
The Spartas had begun as an organization on their own planet, Dorci, an overcrowded planet close to Jared’s own, with high crime rates and eternal unrest. They had promised to return law and order to Dorci and within a few years, they had worked what seemed to be a miracle.
But then they began to extend their reach. First to other planets close to theirs, with the exception of Tryppyt, Jared’s home planet. And then shortly after Jared signed a contract with Darcy, Sparta had declared that they were now in command of all the planets in the galaxy.
There had been some resistance at first, but not much. Most people on whatever planet they were living on didn’t really care who ran things as they didn’t see that it made any difference in their day-to-day existence.
Jared doesn't know why the Spartas hate his people. Maybe because they are different. Maybe because they refused to accept the Spartas’ leadership. Tryppyt has no form of government and has no desire for one.
Jared knows his people will not bow to these bullies–they will fight. But he cannot risk Darcy or Hoban being harmed. So he will leave Saffron quietly, and when he is back home he will fight side by side with his people.
Jared stands and takes Hoban’s hand. He leads him to the hidden door to the secret room. He picks up the small boy, engulfing him in his arms for one last hug before pressing his palm against the wall. The door opens.
“Stay in here until Papa comes for you,” Jared tells him, kissing his forehead before putting him down inside the room.
Hoban smiles at Jared. They’ve played this game before. He has no idea this will be the last time he sees Jared, but Jared is acutely aware this is almost assuredly the last time he will lay eyes on Hoban’s sweet face. “Papa will be surprised when he finds me here, won’t he, Jared?”
Jared forces himself to smile back, blinking back the tears he doesn’t want Hoban to see and nods. Quietly he shuts the door.
He hears voices, loud and demanding, from the front of the bookstore. He hears Darcy’s reply, his voice rumbling through the bookstore. He sounds sure and strong, but Jared can feel his anxiety. He can feel the others too, feel their cold determination. It sends a shiver down his spine.
He starts to call for Chad, but his friend lands on his shoulder, his presence a reminder that Jared is not alone.
Jared places the book of poetry on a shelf and then walks toward the front of the bookstore.
Time Jump
Jensen
1125 AE
Jensen leaves Jeffrey and Hoban to their negotiations and wanders around the bookstore. It’s one of the few left in the galaxy, a relic of times long gone by. Still, there’s always people thirsting for nostalgia, who want to hold a book in their hands and explore the pages like their forebears did in the long ago.
The books on display are the Sparta-approved books. Books on religion, the rewards of hard work and discipline, the carefully curated history books. Books on self-improvement, on how to be a better person—parent—citizen.
Jensen makes sure no one else is around and then presses his palm against one of the walls. The hidden door slides open and Jensen slips inside, the door shutting behind him.
If one of the Spartas ever discovered this was here, Hoban would be sent to the colonies for rehabilitation, along with anyone else found in this room. No one has ever come back from the colonies. It is whispered that all prisoners are placed upon a transport ship, taken out into the deep, and then the doors are opened, thrusting all inside the holding cells out into the nothingness. Jensen is risking just such a fate by being here, but then he risks that same fate on a daily basis. The day he aligned himself with the Wanderers, the name given to the group of rebels led by Jeffrey Morgan, he had become an outlaw. There are no courts in the realm of the Spartas, no judges, no jury. To be found in defiance of the very structured rules laid out by the Sparta government means instant detainment.
It wasn’t always so. Jensen knows his history—both the history taught by the Sparta-schools and the true history, shared in furtive whispers and found in books like the ones hidden away in this room. Many, many centuries ago, a brutal war broke out on Earth. Four ships made it off Earth before the mass destruction of the once-thriving planet. These ships were filled mainly by the rich and the elite, and largely by English speakers which is why it is by far the most dominant language spoken even now. Even though they were traveling at the speed of light, traveling through galaxies previously unknown to them, they had wandered for many years, trying to find a galaxy with planets that could sustain them.
Then they found this galaxy with hundreds of planets circling a red star much larger than the sun they left behind. Only a relatively few planets were inhabitable, with atmospheres similar to Earth’s. Over time,human bodies adapted, and the use of supplemental oxygen or biomasks originally worn to keep out noxious or oxygen-depriving gasses were no longer needed. Some planets were habitable but too close to the belt—a stream of powerful atmospheric gases that sucked in debris from destroyed ships, asteroids, and even tiny transport ships that carelessly traveled too close to it. Larger ships can pass through the belt if their pilots are good enough to avoid the debris, but the turbulence these ships cause sometimes dislodges some of the debris floating through the belt.
Soon after arriving in the galaxy, one of the four original ships managed to displace an asteroid which demolished a planet teeming with lizard-like creatures. Over time, the scientists were able to construct a shield around other planets close to the belt, one that protects the planets but can be opened by a signal that most ships are equipped with.
Only a few of the planets were populated by alien species. Those that were hostile to humans were wiped out. The official Sparta version is that only one species remained--small round silver creatures with metallic wings and eight tiny finger-like appendages. They can both walk and fly and proved to be near impossible to catch, much less kill. This species communicate telepathically both with each other and with humans, and are the biggest pests known to the galaxy. They are known collectively as Chad, and if one dies or is killed, their bodies split in two, and two Chads are born. The most conservative estimates are that there are thousands of Chads out there as opposed to the dozens that were originally discovered on their tiny planet which was almost entirely covered in a lava-like substance.
It's the other alien species that fascinates Jensen. The ones wiped clean from the history books. The one that very few now living have ever seen and the descendants of those who once lived side by side with them are too wise to admit they even existed.
But they did. Jensen has read every forbidden book he can find that mentions them, yet still he hungers for more.
They were known as the Tristans. That’s not what they called themselves, but the English speakers who first encountered them could not understand their language, so they called them Tristans and the name stuck. Eventually, all the inhabitants of Tryppyt took Tristan as their middle name, so they could be easily identified as being not fully human.
Tristans, especially after centuries of cross-species breeding with humans, were humanoid enough to pass as human—but they never became fully human. Their eyes changed color depending on their moods. They were exceedingly tall and rumored to be uncommonly beautiful. It is also said that they were highly intuitive, extremely intelligent, and unapologetically sensual beings. Many took on the role of companions, willingly giving humans pleasure in return for exploring new planets or in exchange for jewelry and other goods.
They are all gone now. Another victim of the Spartas’ regime. If any survived the annihilation of their planet, they were tracked down and sent to the colonies, never to be seen again.
Jensen first learned of the Tristans through his official tutor. Jensen’s tutor, Ricard, had been a rebel. Not a Wanderer like Jensen is now, but a part of the underground rebels all the same. He had instructed Jensen in all the official approved curricula. But he taught Jensen other things too, like the Unjust War in which the Tristans and many others had been killed, about the time before the Spartas reigned supreme, when people were allowed to live as they wished, loved who they wanted, and found pleasure wherever they could.
Jensen’s parents would have turned Ricard in if they had known. They are Sparta loyalists from their carefully coiffed heads to the bottom of their sensible shoes. It was Ricard who accompanied Jensen off the ship that Jensen had spent his whole life on, on the pretense of helping Jensen prepare for specialty training in whatever the Sparta officials believed him to be best suited for. Jensen never arrived at his appointment for his evaluation. Through Ricard, Jensen was introduced to Jeffrey, captain of the ship known as the Wanderer and leader of the Wanderers, the group of rebels he’s assembled over the years. They spend most of their time in the deep dark, off the grid, trading in goods long ago forbidden.
Jensen’s fingers skim over the books. He is saving the goods he carries in the pockets of his long brown coat to trade for other things, things like berries to supplement the dried herb bars that are the main diet of all humans now. Or maybe he will save them until he has enough to barter for the whiskey sold by the scamp Mark.
His eyes catch on a book. He takes it off the shelf and studies it, puzzled as to why it caught his eye. Poetry is definitely not his thing, and certainly not nineteenth-century Earth poetry.
He opens the book though, because something is telling him this is important, that he must open it. The feeling is unsettling, he’s never felt anything this strong before.
Inside, written in a messy scrawl, is a message that begins:
To Jensen
Ross is the name his parents gave him. Jensen had seen the name he now goes by once in a book Ricard had given him and it had always stuck with him. So, when Jeffrey told him he would have to choose a new name, a name not registered in the official chronicles of the Spartas, Jensen had felt like the right choice for him.
Jensen has never heard of anyone else named Jensen; the book he had found the name in was millennia old. Why would his name, a name from the times humans lived on Earth and as far as Jensen knows unused for centuries, be sound in this book?
Jensen’s hands are shaking as he reads the rest of the message:
I long for the day we meet face to face, until then I will cherish your visits in my dreams.
With love, Jared. Inscribed herein on the fourth day of the eleventh cycle, AE 1035.
P.S. Yes, you may kiss me.
For a man so old his skin is as crinkly as the parchment he wraps his books in, Hoban strikes a hard bargain. Jensen leaves Saffron with his pockets empty, but with the poetry book tucked away in his pack.
Time Jump
1135 AE
“There’s something out there, Captain.”
Jensen approaches the bow of his ship and peers into the inky darkness of space. He sees nothing out there but endless black. They are far from any known planets, out in the middle of the nothingness that the Sparta Force rarely ventures into.
After that bit of a mishap in Tyrrit’n, Jensen had decided it was best for him and his crew to lie low for a little while.
“I don’t see anything. Why would anything be this far out?” Jensen asks.
If it’s the Sparta Force on a rare reconnaissance mission, they’ll have to make a run for it. They not only have berry trees, long forbidden, being nursed along by Felicia and Christian in the lower quadrant of the ship, but the loading deck of the ship is full of forbidden goods too hot to offload right now—books, a box of silver jewelry, long-ranging WT’s used by people like Jensen for communications that are untrackable and therefore strictly forbidden, and the vat of perfume that they ‘rescued’ from that crooked merchant in Tyrrit’n. For days, Jensen had the burn marks on a place which hurt like hell when he sat from where the merchant’s goons had gotten a little too close with their lasers.
They have a healer, but medical supplies are more precious than even Sparta gold so Jensen had been left with a wicked reminder of what a close call they had every time he pulled on his underthings and the rough fabric brushed against his ass.
His is a small crew, but a good one, a loyal one. Most were recruited by Jeffrey, who five years ago settled down in Saffron with the love of his life and took over the bookstore run by his old friend Hoban. He gave his ship—the Wanderer—to Jensen who he considers the closest thing he’ll ever have to a son. Jensen is proud that the core group of Wanderers stayed—Dani who co-pilots the Wanderer along with Jensen, Christian who is both their healer and their cook—when there is food other than the dried herb bars that are the Sparta’s manufactured and approved staple for all humans (food isn’t supposed to taste good, it’s just supposed to sustain you), and Clif, who provides the muscle when negotiations go south.
After taking over the Wanderer, Jensen found Felicia wasting away in a Sparta facility for the exceptionally gifted. He thought he would have to bribe her to join his ragtag crew, but one look at his ship (or maybe it was Dani) and she had jumped at the chance to join him. It turns out that Felicia’s sense of adventure rivals Jensen’s own, and she’s a whiz at all things mechanical and electronic, which helps keep the Wanderer flying.
And she’s the one who, on her own, stole the five samplings of the berry trees and has somehow managed not only to keep them alive but to help them flourish. There’s nothing more tasty than a huge slice of berry tart, a treat most of the humans living their drab lives, going to their drab jobs picked for them by Sparta officials, will never experience.
“I don’t know what it is, but it’s right there,” Dani huffs, shining one of the ship’s lights at something in the distance. “When’s the last time you had your eyes checked, old man?”
“That’s Old Man Captain to you,” Jensen retorts. “And my eyesight is just fine. It’s your freaky eyes that—”
He stops because with the light shining right on it he does see something. Something definitely not a planet or a star. Jensen tenses. He knows only one reason another ship would be this far out. That rat bastard Stephen had sent the Spartas after him.
“Not an official ship.” Jensen turns to see Felicia sitting in the communications deck behind him. “We’d know by now if it was them. They would have spotted us long before we did them and would have already chained us.”
The Spartas’ ships have technology not available to other ships that allow them to ‘trap’ other ships. Once trapped, a ship cannot move, cannot do anything until the invisible chains are removed.
Felicia is working on something to counteract the chains. If anyone can replicate that technology, it would be her. After all, she once was one of the Spartas most trusted trainees, working with just that kind of tech.
“What is it then? Other raiders?” Jensen asks.
He’s not the only raider out there of course. He’s the best, no doubt about it, but there are others who chafe under the rule of the Sparta regime and have chosen to become outlaws.
“Not sure,” Felicia replies. Jensen moves over to where he can see her studying three screens at once. He can tell for certain now it's a ship. Judging by the size and design, it's an old one. “They aren’t responding to our signal so that’s not good. And their system is glitchy.”
Jensen leans over Felicia, tracking the ship.
“Is that a Ranger?” Jensen asks. “I haven’t seen one of those in years, outside a junkyard that is.”
“Yeah, which is why it’s ridiculously easy for me to access their system. I’m doing a scan now.” Jensen looks pout of the big window that spans the forebrow of the ship. They are almost caught up to where the other ship is. It’s not moving, just sort of…idling there. “Not getting any heat signals, so if there is life on there it isn’t human.”
Years ago, there had been a lot of experimenting with robots. Robots captaining ships, robots as crew.
All the robots had been destroyed when the Sparta regime declared them ungodly. Jensen doesn’t miss them—to tell the truth; they mostly had freaked him out with how humanlike they had become. Some of them had even developed ‘personalities’ that were both abrasive and kind of scary. If it’s robots on board, though—the sky is the limit on what he can ask for in trade for parts of a robot. And if he found a whole one—he’d be set for life.
“Get closer,” Jensen orders Dani. “I’m going to board it.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Felicia says, frowning at one of the screens. “It’s almost out of fuel. All the systems are already failing.”
“How long until total failure?” Jensen asks. That explains why the ship is no longer moving. Energy is being preserved.
“It’s hard to tell without looking at their systems directly,--they are so ancient that ours don’t communicate with them fluently enough to be totally accurate. But I’d say maybe a day until total system failure, maybe less.”
“Plenty of time,” Jensen decides. “Get me close enough to attach, Dani.”
“You should take Christian or Clif with you,” Dani replies as she maneuvers the ship into place with ease. After all, she’s the second-best pilot in the galaxy.
But nobody flies Wanderer like Jensen does. He had known this black beauty was meant to be his from the moment he met her. Jensen can steer her through anything—debris, lasers, other ships. She’s his Baby, although he only calls her that when no one is around to mock him for it. They are a team.
“I’ll take a good look around and if there’s anything worth salvaging, I’ll link our ships so anyone else can board that wants to help out. I’ll take my WT with me.”
Jensen feels a surge of adrenalin as he heads for his cabin. He lives for this kind of thing—walking into the unknown, looking for treasures, the ever-present sense of danger.
He grabs a WT, his work boots, a pack, and his biomask. Generations ago, humans had worn bulky spacesuits that took forever to get into to walk even briefly into space or to explore planets unknown to them. But after eons of scientific breakthroughs and modifications to every inch of the spacesuit, they now use a lightweight suit called a skimmer that can be slipped over Jensen’s clothes in a matter of seconds. Along with his gravity boots and the biomask, he will be perfectly fine, especially for as short of an excursion as this will be. The biomask contains everything he needs to breathe, compressed in the tiny pack that is attached to it.
Jensen makes his way down to the loading deck, stepping from there into the bay chamber. The bay chamber is the smallest space in the Wanderer, Jensen feels claustrophobic every time he spends more than a few seconds in here.
“I’m in place,” Jensen says into his WT.
“Better make it quick,” Felicia replies. “I just have a hinky feeling about this.”
The door slides open.
In front of him is a ship, maybe half the size of the Wanderer. It’s white, a white dulled by time and exposure to space. There are visible cracks along some of her seams that make Jensen question if she’s seaworthy.
Between Felicia’s ‘hinky’ feeling and the appearance of the ship, Jensen is beginning to wonder if this was his brightest idea. Not that it matters, he’s going to go inside anyway.
He slips his heavy gravity boots over his regular boots.
“Any luck opening their door?” Jensen asks.
The door of the other ship slides open as he speaks. There’s nothing but darkness inside.
“Thank you, Felicia.”
Jensen picks up the conducer from its place near their door and throws it toward the open door across from him. As per usual, his aim is true. A line of light flickers between the two ships before taking shape into something more solid. Making sure his biomask is firmly in place, Jensen steps onto the conducer.
Jensen hears chatter from Dani and Felicia over his WT as he crosses over to the other ship, but he ignores it in favor of savoring this brief moment in time and space. The air is frigid, sending goosebumps down Jensen’s body. The darkness is so complete, so utterly beautiful in its totality. Infinity drifts all around him, surrounds him, includes him.
He can’t linger here long, though, for space is as deadly as it is beautiful. Jensen walks the rest of the length into the ship. The bay is dark, quiet. He opens the door in front of him—an old-fashioned door with a doorknob and an unfastened bolt—and takes off his biomask in the empty loading deck.
The air is breathable, if more than a little stale. Jensen folds the biomask and stashes it in his pack before stepping further into the ship.
Almost immediately warning alarms sound—piercingly loud.
Low fuel. System failure is imminent. Warning. Low fuel. System failure is imminent. Warning. Low—
“Can you turn that off?” Jensen yells into his WT.
“Trying,” Felicia replies. “Jensen, I think I overestimated the amount of fuel left. It sounds like the systems are going to fail any moment now. You need to get your pretty ass out of there.”
The alarm stops as suddenly as it started. Jensen is surrounded again by the quiet, the stillness eerie enough to send a shiver down Jensen’s spine.
There’s nothing in the holding deck but a few boxes that Jensen quickly ascertains to be empty. He looks up at the stairs that lead to the rest of the ship.
Should he dare it?
He loves to take risks, but he’s also awfully fond of breathing. Maybe he should just consider this a wasted trip. If there were robots on the ship, the parts have probably deteriorated in the thin, musty air. It’s gotten a bit harder to breathe in the little time Jensen’s been in here. When the system shuts down, the oxygen will quickly be totally depleted.
“All right, I’m headed back to the ship,” Jensen says into his WT. He turns around and then he feels it—something crawling up his leg. “Shit!”
“What is it?” Dani asks. “Should I send in backup?”
The thing crawling up him lands on his arm. A fucking Chad. Of course, it would survive in this forsaken ship when nothing else would. Chads aren’t human, so Felicia’s scan wouldn’t have found the pesky creature.
“Just a fucking Chad,” Jensen replies.
“Well don’t bring it in here, he’ll cause total destruction on the ship by tomorrow,” Dani warns.
“I think they’re kinda cute,” Felicia says.
She’s wrong. They are not in the least bit cute—they are annoying ugly little creatures. Jensen tries to shake Chad off of him. It digs its little finger-like appendages in deeper. “Go the fuck away,” Jensen growls at it.
He’s almost out of time. There’s no time to waste.
It’s so fucking weird to hear a Chad in your head. It’s been years since Jensen’s experienced it and he doesn’t like it now anymore than he did back then. Then the words register.
“He? Who? Another one of your kind? Go save it yourself,” Jensen grumbles, trying to push it off his arm with his free hand. Chad just digs in deeper, piercing Jensen’s skin with what feels like needles. “Fuck, that hurts.”
I thought heroes were made of sterner stuff. He’s a friend of mine - my best friend, and you will save him. I believe you call him a Tristan. Now hurry!
“A Tristan? That can’t be. They are all gone,” Jensen protests.
Well, obviously you are wrong. There is one left. Hurry, we are almost out of time.
Chads are annoying, but they don’t generally tell lies, at least not that Jensen knows of. A Tristan. Could it be?
“Show me,” Jensen demands.
“Captain, you really need to get out of there,” Felicia warns.
“I’ll just be a minute,” Jensen promises.
Chad finally lets go of Jensen’s arm and flies in front of him. This way, hurry .
Jensen has to practically run up the stairs to keep up with it. Above his head, the lights flicker, and the ship makesg an ominous groaning sound as Jensen follows Chad down what feels like endless corridors.
“If you are leading me on a wild goose chase, I swear I’ll squash you under my boot,” Jensen says, but he’s far too breathless to sound truly threatening. The air is thin enough here that he’s thinking of pulling on his biomask as they turn yet another corner.
They enter a chamber. The light is still bright here. In the middle of the chamber, a long tube spans most of the chamber. It’s filled with a liquid that looks like synthesized water but is probably not, considering the Tristan doesn't appear to be wet. Whatever it is, it appears to be keeping the Tristan in stasis.
Inside the tube, a tall man lies sleeping. His hair is long and brown. His eyes are closed but Jensen knows—because of all he has read about Tristans—that if they were open, they would never settle on a color. He’s wearing a shirt similar to Jensen’s, but his shirt has no fastening and is longer than Jensen’s, going down to his knees. It’s blue and is made of something shiny. He’s not wearing any trousers or anything on his feet. His bare legs seem to stretch out endlessly.
He’s looking at a Tristan. The last of his kind.
Stop drooling and get him out of there! Chad demands.
The alarm begins blaring again.
System failure Imminent. System failure—
“Jensen, get the fuck out of there. Now .” Dani sounds almost frantic.
Jensen presses his hand against the tube. It feels warm to the touch.
Break it. Hurry you idiot! Chad buzzes beside Jensen’s ear. Jensen bats it away.
There’s an old-fashioned monitor attached to the tube. It’s beeping erratically, a sound Jensen can barely hear over the loud blaring alarm.
Jensen stands there for a moment, transfixed by the beauty of the sleeping man. He has never laid eyes on this Tristan before, but somehow he feels as if he has—he feels as if he knows him, is known by him--
The ship begins to shake. The lights above his head blaze so brightly that Jensen has to slam his eyes shut to escape the burn of the flare. A few seconds later, the lights flicker out altogether.
Now! It has to be now! Chad sounds almost as frantic as Dani does.
Jensen is almost knocked off his feet by another violent shaking of the ship. He looks around desperately for something to break the tube with.
He’s got no choice. He doesn’t have time to worry about how badly this could go. He grabs the monitor. Its weight almost buckles his knees, but he manages to hold it high in the air. He brings it down, smashing it against the tube. The tube shatters under the impact, and something so warm it’s almost scalding splashes against Jensen. Chad flies around, frantically demanding Jensen hurry the fuck up.
The Tristan still sleeps.
Jensen lifts him into his arms. He’s so still that Jensen can’t tell if he’s breathing or not. He’s heavy, but not as heavy as he looks. Jensen staggers as the ship lurches again. Following Chad, Jensen walks as fast as he can with the heavy weight in his arms. He looks down at the Tristan. He’s still, so still, not even a flutter of his eyelashes. Jensen has a feeling of dread that he’s carrying the last of the Tristans in his arms and that he was too late—the Tristan is already gone. Or perhaps Jensen killed him by breaking the tube that kept him alive for heavens know how long.
“Hurry!” Jensen can’t tell if it’s the Chad in his head or one of his crew members over the WT. The air is so thin now that he’s barely able to catch his breath. And his biomask is in his pack.
He struggles on the stairs, his feet slipping as a large cracking noise fills the air. He’s too late. He’s too late. They are both going to die. He tries to take the next step but it’s not there. Jensen clutches the Tristan as tightly as he can as he tumbles into nothingness…
Beep Beep Beep
Jensen’s eyes flutter open.
He’s laying on something soft. The air is rich with oxygen. The light over his head is almost too bright.
Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. He struggles to remember. He was on the other ship. He was--
“You are an idiot.”
Jensen turns his head to look at his best friend. Christian is smiling. The panic that had Jensen in his grip lessens.
“Seriously, an idiot. What the hell were you thinking? If Clif and I hadn’t rescued your ass you’d be dead, son. You are never ever walking into anywhere without backup. And that’s an order.”
Jensen smiles. He tries to sit up, but his body still feels very heavy, so he gives up the attempt. “You can’t give me orders, I’m the Captain.”
“When it comes to your safety, you can bet your sweet ass I can order you around. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking—” Jensen sits up, ignoring all the bright flashes of pain. “The Tristan!”
“He’s fine,” Christian replies. “Well, I think he is. He hasn’t woken up, but his vitals are all good. I’m not familiar with whatever drugs they used to make him sleep so I’ve got no idea how to counteract them. Is he really a Tristan?” Christian whistles. “Damn, I know some scientists that would pay a fortune to get a hold of him.”
“They’re not touching him!” Jensen feels a fierce surge of anger at the thought of someone poking at his Tristan, of them sticking their needles into his perfect skin.
Christian raises his hands in surrender. “Sorry, Captain. Just a thought. Fuck, stop stinging me you damn pesty insect. I said I wasn’t going to send him to the scientists!” Christian glares at Jensen. “Did you have to bring a Chad back with you? The damn thing has stung me like fifteen times today already. I’m about to stomp it out of existence.”
Bite me Jensen hears Chad reply.
“If only I could,” Christian snaps back, swatting at Chad who keeps buzzing around, always just out of reach.
Jensen would be laughing at just how outmatched Christian is by Chad if he wasn’t so worried.
“Where is he?” Jensen asks, swinging his legs to the side of the cot.
“Hey, no. You broke a few bones in that fall. I’ve healed them as best I could, but all of our equipment is so fucking outdated. Next time we do a raid, we need to hit a medical facility and load up on supplies.”
Raiding a medical facility is a pipe dream and they all know it. The clinics are all heavily fortified. Medical treatments are doled out as the Sparta doctors see fit. They are lucky that Jeffrey found what he did in an abandoned facility years ago.
Mark probably has medical supplies, but the old bastard will charge an arm and a leg for anything he gives them.
“Is he in the next room?” Jensen asks, ignoring Christian’s warnings. His bones ache, and his legs are shaky, but he determinedly stays on his feet.
“Yes,” Christian replies. “But if you break that ankle again by putting weight on it before it’s fully healed, then I’m not fixing it again!”
Jensen ignores the empty threat. He hobbles toward the door, walking at a pace a hundred-year-old would consider eye-rollingly slow.
He has to see the Tristan again. He has to see for himself that he is okay.
Christian walks ahead of him and pushes open the door next to the one Jensen woke up in. This is their second sick bay. The Tristan is hooked up to a monitor, much like the one he was attached to on his ship.
“What happened to his ship?” Jensen asks Christian as he approaches the Tristan.
“Decimated,” Christian replies. “If we had been just a few minutes later…”
Jensen feels strangely drawn to this beautiful young man. He places his hand on the Tristan’s chest, comforted by the way he can feel his chest move with every breath that he takes.
“Will he wake up soon?” Jensen asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe we could drop him off at a medical facility on one of the lesser planets. They might have more experience—”
“No,” Jensen says, cutting Christian off. “He’s one of us now. He stays with us. There has to be a way to wake him.”
He won’t be able to rest until he knows for sure that the Tristan is on his way to recovery. There’s no telling how long he had been on that ship. His planet had been blown up a hundred years ago—but surely that old rickety ship hadn’t stayed flying that long. If it had, that would have been a miracle. Just like finding what is most assuredly the last of the Tristans is a miracle.
How to wake him is so obvious, I feel ashamed on your behalf that you haven’t thought of it already. Chad buzzes over their heads before landing on the cot beside the Tristan.
“Okay, so how do we wake him then?” Jensen asks, glaring at Chad who is far too close to the sleeping Tristan for Jensen’s liking.
Seriously, are you such heathens that you have never heard of Sleeping Beauty? Chad asks. It’s the prince’s kiss that wakes the sleeping princess.
“The Tristan is no princess, nor is he a prince,” Jensen points out. “There has been no royalty since our people left Earth behind. And how exactly would a kiss wake him anyway?”
A kiss he must have, princess or not. Or he will never wake up , Chad insists.
“It wouldn’t hurt to try I suppose,” Christian says. He walks toward the cot.
Jensen tenses, fighting an irrational need to insist that Christian stay where he is and come no closer. Jensen is protective by nature—his crew are everything to him and he would stand between them and any danger they might face. But the Tristan isn’t a member of his crew. He isn’t anything to Jensen. So why does he feel this need to protect him from one of his own?
“You can’t kiss him,” Jensen says to Christian. “It is forbidden by law.” Which it is, but that has nothing to do with the reason Jensen doesn’t want Christian to kiss the Tristan.
Men are not allowed to kiss men, nor are women allowed to kiss women. Although Jensen has his suspicions where Felicia and Dani are concerned.
“Since when have you cared about laws?” Christian asks.
“I don’t, but—”
Breaking any law can lead to being sent to the colonies. And Jensen has broken so many. But never this one. He has never kissed anyone, man or woman. He’s not sure why of all the rules, he has felt such a strong compulsion to follow this one. Until now, that is. Right now, he wants nothing more than to press his lips against the Tristan’s. And if it saves him, wakes him…
It can’t be the cook anyway. Jared must be kissed by his Jensen and no one else.
Jensen looks at Ch ad who is now perched on Jared’s shoulder. “Jared? His name is Jared?”
Of course it is, now kiss him. I miss my friend. I wish to talk to him again. He’s been deprived of my company for far too long.
Jared.
In Jensen’s cabin, there is a book. He’s owned it for over ten years now. The pages are dogeared. He’s read every poem within its covers multiple times, despite his normally total apathy toward poetry.
The words scrawled on the inside page of the book are burned into his memory.
To Jensen…
There’s no way. It can’t be.
P.S. Yes, you may kiss me.
It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. And yet, it makes perfect sense. It's like Jensen’s whole life has been leading to this moment. Jensen leans over Jared. He looks at his lips, pink and slightly open. Inviting. An invitation meant only for Jensen.
Jensen leans down and presses his lips against Jared’s.
A feeling so powerful and alien that Jensen can’t describe it slams through him.
He grabs Jared and gathers him to him, his lips still pressed against Jared’s. There’s a slight tremor in Jared’s body. Jensen places a hand on Jared’s back and reluctantly ends the kiss. Jared makes a soft sound. “Shh, you’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re fine. Wake up for me, Jared.”
Jensen pulls his head back, his eyes wandering over Jared’s face, looking for any sign that Jared is wakening. For a moment, there is nothing but stillness.
And then Jared’s eyes open. His eyes are dark, just a shade lighter than the endless space that surrounds them. He looks into Jensen’s eyes and smiles.
“Hello, my love, I’ve waited so long for you.”
Time hop
Cover/title page
“So, this will be your cabin. It’s nothing Fancy but…”
Jared steps into the room. His movements are still unsteady, his arms and legs sometimes spasming. Christian had scanned him once again after Jared had woken and found no abnormalities, but Jared was asleep for a long time. According to Jared’s calculations, for a hundred years. It might take him a while to adjust to walking again. To adjust to everything.
So far, Jensen has kept the other crew members at arm’s length, not wanting to overwhelm Jared. Jared hasn’t asked many questions, instead staying as close to Jensen as possible. He seems to believe he knows Jensen, although obviously they have never met.
Jared and Chad are clearly very good friends, Jensen has never heard of a Chad being so close to a human before—although Jared isn’t fully human, so maybe that’s why they have such a close bond. Jared and Chad chatted over a dinner of a savory stew that Christian managed to scrape together with some of the few precious vegetables he keeps squirreled away somewhere and some mystery ingredients Jensen figures he’s better off not knowing about. The stew had been so delicious that Jensen had three bowls, although Jared barely finished one.
He did seem to enjoy the berry pie almost as much as Jensen did. Jared has a sweet tooth, it seems, and Jensen adds that to the little pile of things he knows about Jared.
Jensen wants to ask Jared everything. He wants to know about the Tristans, their culture, their beliefs. He wants to know about Jared’s family, his upbringing. He wants to know how Jared ended up on that ship with only a Chad for company. He wants to know why his kiss was able to wake Jared. He wants to know why it feels like he’s known Jared forever, why Jared seems to know him when they have just met. He wants to know about the book—did Jared write those words and if so, why?
But Jared is in no shape to be bombarded with questions. He seems fragile, as if a strong gust of air could shatter him. He looks exhausted, even though he’s just woken from the longest nap anyone has ever heard tell of.
“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Jensen says, indicating the cabin. “I know you’re tired, I’ll leave you to your rest. If you need anything I’m in the cabin next to yours.”
“Stay for a moment, please, Jensen,” Jared requests. “I’ve waited so long for you.”
“You keep saying that, but…I don’t know you. We’ve never met.” Jensen sits down on Jared’s bunk. Jared sits down beside him. They are sitting close, their thighs almost touching.
Jensen has never wanted anything as much as he wants to touch Jared. He doesn’t care about the right or the wrong of it. He just wants .
“You used to visit me sometimes in my dreams. I used to count the hours until it was time to sleep, hoping I would see you again. You didn’t come every night, but often enough. I knew you were mine, just as I knew I was yours.” Jared turns to look at him.
“What is the last thing you remember before you woke up here?” Jensen asks.
“I was home. My mother and father were anxious about the Spartas. The Spartas don’t like us Tristans much. We wear too colorful clothing, we are too free with our touches and our bodies, we do not bow to their god. Do you know of them?” Jared asks.
Somehow, Jared has edged closer. Their arms are touching. Both of their hands are on the bed, their fingers dangerously close to touching. The lure of the forbidden hangs heavy in the air.
Intimate touching of any kind is strictly forbidden outside of joinings and even then only for the purpose of conceiving a child. Touching of a sensual nature between people of the same sex is absolutely forbidden as there can be no child born of such a coupling.
Jared’s finger brushes against Jensen’s. Jensen shivers.
“The Spartas rule everything—our planets, our military, our government, all of our facilities. They make the laws. They have absolute authority,” Jensen says to Jared. His eyes are on their hands though. The way that Jared’s long elegant finger is stroking Jensen’s finger. It feels intimate and wrong and dangerous. And it’s just the slightest of touches. What will it feel like if Jared takes his hand? If Jared takes him to bed?
They’ve already kissed. A threshold has already been crossed.
Jared moves his hand away and turns to face Jensen. “So, they won the war? What of my people?”
The Unjust War (the one the Spartas refer to as the Ascension) had been short and brutal. Once Jared’s planet was annihilated, their species blown off the face of the galaxy, all the humans fell in line.
Jensen looks into Jared’s beautiful eyes, now the color of soft gold. He can’t stand the thought of being the one who causes him pain, but Jensen also knows that clinging to false hope is damaging in ways that some people never recover from.
He’s the Captain. It’s his job to take care of his crew in any way that they need taking care of. And Jared is now a member of his crew.
“Jared, your planet—it’s gone. Everyone in it, they are all—I’m sorry, Jared, as far as I know, you are the only Tristan left.”
Jared gasps, his eyes filling with tears. He grabs both of Jensen’s hands and holds on to them. This is not the soft touch of before, this is a man seeking comfort.
“All gone. But how?” Jared asks.
“The Spartas. They had a weapon, no one knows what kind. It’s never been used again. But your planet—it’s gone. Nothing is left of it.”
Jared is silent for a moment. He closes his eyes. A tear falls onto his cheek and then another one. Jensen’s heart hurts for him.
“I need to see,” Jared says, opening his eyes. He doesn’t brush away his tears, doesn’t try to hide them from Jensen. “Will you take me?”
“Jared, there’s nothing there.”
“I need to see it,” Jared insists. “I know it’s been a hundred years and my parents would probably be gone anyway. But I thought—hoped—maybe my siblings…I was just with my family yesterday, or so it feels to me. I won't be able to accept they are all gone until I see for myself.”
Taking Jared there will mean flying close to the planet that Spartas govern from—Dorci. It’s far too dangerous to even think about. Maybe he’ll convince Jared of that in time.
“My beautiful home. My brother. My little sister. My parents. Am I to believe I will never see any of them again?” Jared asks.
Jensen expels a breath. “It’s all gone, Jared. I swear I would not lie to you about this. But we can go, so you can see for yourself. It will take a while; we are far in the outreaches. I’m surprised your ship carried you out this far.”
Jared leans down and brushes his lips against Jensen’s knuckles. A feeling of warmth seeps into Jensen. “Thank you, Jensen. As far as how the ship traveled so long and so far—the ship was not mine, but my parents,” Jared explains. “I don’t know how I came to be on it. If your healer is correct, I’ve been asleep for a hundred years. I don't understand how that was possible. Before the occupation was outlawed, I was a companion; I have no medical training or knowledge. But my brother did. I assume he and my parents conspired to put me on the ship. They knew my destiny was with you and we had yet to meet. To my kind, destiny is everything. I just wish their destiny was to accompany me. Instead, they decided to stay and fight.”
Jared’s tears have stopped falling, but sadness still radiates from him. Jensen wishes he knew a way to bring Jared comfort.
Jared is quite obviously fighting sleep. He looks so tired, so sad. To wake up and find a hundred years have passed—that your family, your home, your entire way of life is gone forever. Jensen left his parents behind a long time ago, but that had been by choice. He did not have them ripped from him while he slept.
“We’ll talk more in the morning,” Jensen promises Jared, standing up. “You need to sleep now.”
“You’d think I’d have quite enough of sleeping by now,” Jared replies with a ghost of a smile.
Jared lies down on the bed, still wearing the blue shirt he had woken in. He is still barefoot. His shirt is soft to the touch, so much softer than the coarse material of Jensen’s own shirt. He’s wearing a pair of Jensen’s trousers, which are too small for him so they hug Jared’s long legs in a way that draws Jensen’s eyes to them over and over. Clif is more Jared's height, but his trousers are much too big for Jared and besides Jensen really likes that Jared is wearing something of his. He might like the sight of his trousers clinging to Jared a bit too much.
Jensen, feeling he must do something, pulls the blanket over Jared, resisting barely the urge to kiss him once again.
Jared looks up at him. “Good night, my love.”
Every time Jared calls him his love, Jensen’s heart feels a bit tighter. They are strangers, yet somehow they are not. It feels right for Jared to call him that, it feels wrong not to say the words back to him.
“Good night, Jared,” Jensen says softly, before the light in the room fades and Jensen is left in the darkness. He stands there for a moment before realizing that watching over an already sleeping Jared is creepy. He forces himself to leave Jared’s room and walk to his own.
He knows his crew has a thousand questions they want to ask him, but he can’t face them right now. He’s feeling too much of—everything. Excitement and wonder, sorrow for all Jared has lost, fear for what could lie ahead if the Spartas’ forces decide to board the ship, worry that he’s putting Jared’s needs over the safety of his crew.
He sits down on his bunk and pushes aside the flap covering the window. He stares into space, finding peace in her eternal darkness. He had grown up on a ship, far bigger than this one. A ship where many lived and died and never stepped foot on a planet. His parents never had. They were happy living the quiet life the Spartas dictated they lead. Jensen hated that life. Hated the rules that govern everything from when you can eat your meals to what you can read, hated the sameness of the endless days. But space—space has always been his peace, his home. Growing up, he had spent hours on the ship’s forebow, quietly learning from the pilots while he stared into the vastness of the sky. When he came of age, he had been allowed a furlough with his tutor on the planet where he met Jeffrey. There will never be a planet that Jensen calls home. For him, the Wanderer is his sanctuary, but his home is the vast expanse of space.
Jensen lies down on his bunk, still facing the window, and closes his eyes.
He wakes sometime in the night to a feeling of warmth. Opening his eyes, he finds he's no longer facing his window, but instead the man who somehow slipped into his bunk without waking Jensen. The bunk is nowhere near big enough for both of them to lie comfortably in; Jensen’s back is pushed against the wall behind him, and Jared’s larger body is curled up against Jensen’s. Jared is fast asleep.
Jensen reaches up and touches Jared’s hair. Jared sighs and settles closer to Jensen.
He should wake him. He should insist that Jared return to his bunk.
But instead, Jensen strokes Jared's hair until he too falls back to sleep, his fingers still wrapped in Jared’s hair.
“Morning, Captain.”
Jensen opens his eyes to see Dani standing at the door, a smirk on her face.
Jared makes an unhappy sound, but doesn’t open his eyes. Jensen puts his fingers to his lips.
Dani mock-salutes him and eases out of the door.
“Breakfast?” Jared asks. His eyes are still closed.
“Yes, and then I’ll give you the grand tour of the ship,” Jensen says.
“Fruit?” Jared asks. Apparently, full sentences are beyond him.
“I think that can be arranged,” Jensen replies. He can tell already Jared will hate the bars that make up most of their meals. He’ll have to see if they can trade for some more fruit and vegetables, food that Jared is probably more accustomed to than dry herb bars.
Jared’s eyes open. They are a light green right now. He smiles at Jensen and Jensen realizes he’s lost a war he never even knew he was fighting. Moving slowly, so Jared can pull away if he so wishes, he presses his lips against Jared’s. Jared pulls Jensen closer, his tongue pressing against Jensen’s lips. Jensen, confused, opens his lips and Jared slides his tongue inside. Oh that’s—that’s—fuck, he’s been missing a lot. Maybe he should have tried this kissing thing before.
“Food first, kissing second,” Jared says. “And then tonight—I’ve waited all my life for you, Jensen. And tonight, I will have you and you, my love, will have me.” Jared brushes his lips against Jensen’s again. “We will become one.”
“We can’t, Jared. It’s—"
Forbidden. Wrong.
“We can. And we will,” Jared promises him. Jared slips out of bed and stands. Jensen watches as Jared stretches his long body, his fingers touching the ceiling of Jensen’s cabin.
So much of him for Jensen to feast his eyes on.
Jared smiles. “C’mon, I’m hungry.” He reaches over and pulls Jensen out of bed. In the small cabin, their bodies are so close that Jensen can feel the heat radiating from Jared’s. Do all Tristans run this hot? “And not just for food,” Jared adds. “But for now, I suppose food will have to do.”
For a moment, Jensen thinks Jared is going to kiss him again and he wants that so much. But instead, Jared bumps their foreheads together before grabbing Jensen’s hand and dragging him out of Jensen’s cabin.
Jensen had been more than half afraid that meeting the rest of the crew would be overwhelming for Jared, but as it turns out he had nothing to worry about. Jared seems genuinely happy to meet everyone and is as curious about them as they are about him. Clif had already eaten by the time they walk into the mess hall, but Christian and Dani are there.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how they were able to put you into such a deep sleep for so long,” Christian says, as he sits down at the table across from Jared and Jensen. “We have ways to put someone asleep for maybe a few weeks, but nothing I know would cause someone to slumber for decades and not only not age, but be perfectly healthy upon awakening.”
“My brother was the healer in the family, not me. But I suspect something I ate or drank had lily-wort in it. If it’s touching any part of your body, your body remains in stasis until it is removed.” Jared passes Jensen a bowl. “Eat, you’ll need your energy for later for the very big plans I have for us.”
Jensen carefully looks at no one as Dani laughs delightedly.
He hands Jared a whey bar. Jared takes one bite, makes a face, and hands it back to Jensen. This time both Christian and Dani laugh.
Jensen glares at them and hands Jared a bit of the loaf of bread they had bartered for from Stephen before negotiations went south.
“Lily-wort?” Christian asks, blithely ignoring Jensen’s glare. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“It was native to my planet,” Jared explains. “If our planet was indeed destroyed then—”
Everyone in the room falls silent for a moment. Jared pushes the berries around with his fingers, his normally bright eyes (greener now, more like the color of Jensen’s) dimming. Jensen wants to comfort Jared, but he’s not sure how. He places a hand on Jared’s knee. Jared looks at Jensen and smiles.
“The lily-wort must have been on your lips then, so when Jensen kissed you—” Christian looks from Jensen to Jared. “That’s it. Residue from the plant must have been on your lips and he must have removed the last traces of it.”
Humans are inoculated at birth against all known diseases, poisons, and toxic substances. Of course, humans being humans they somehow always seem to create more of all three but lily-wort must have been something Jensen was inoculated against although like Christian he has never heard of it. “I must be immune to lily-wort,” Jensen explains. “So it wouldn’t have the same effect on me.”
“That makes as much sense as anything I guess. There are still things I would love to know more about. For instance, I wish I could’ve tested the solution that was in the tube they placed you in, Jared. I’m guessing it contained substances unknown to us as well,” Christian says.
Jared is about to say something when Felicia enters with Chad on her shoulder. They are chatting away as if they had known each other for years.
“No way,” Felicia says to Chad as she grabs a bowl and some bread. Christian, who is not fond at all of Chad, quickly takes his leave as Felicia sits in his place. “I would have loved to have seen that.”
In their heads, they all hear Chad’s reply. It was something to see all right.
“You must miss your kin something terribly,” Felicia says as Chad jumps from her shoulder onto the table. Chads don’t need food to survive, they seem to be able to convert air to fuel, but they still like to nibble on food from time to time, especially when they are able to steal it from someone else. So Jensen isn’t surprised at all when two of Chad's tiny appendages grab his last berry.
Jared pushes one of his over to Chad. “Give Jensen back his food. That was rude, Chad.”
This berry tastes better , Chad replies. Also, are you sure this is the Jensen you’ve been mooning on about forever? Because he seems kind of ordinary to me, not divine at all like you always claimed.
“Chad—” Jared begins. Jensen looks at Jared, his cheeks have turned a pretty color of pink. “Behave.”
“No fun in that,” Dani says. She’s finished eating but seems to be in no hurry to return to her station. The ship is on autopilot, they are still drifting along in the outreaches. “So, is it true all Tristans were companions, and if so how exactly did you train for that?”
Jensen almost chokes on the piece of bread he just took a bite of.
“Dani—”
If he’s as curious as Dani, he’s not about to admit it. Not until he and Jared are alone again anyway.
“No, it’s fine. I take it there are no companions these days?” Jared asks.
“No. Sex is outlawed. Unless it’s for reproduction. Fun is bad, you know.” Dani looks over at Felicia and winks. Felicia's cheeks turn pink and she turns her attention to feeding Chad bits of her bread.
“Not all Tristans were companions, but I was one yes. We did train for it, but it was more about the customs of humans and how to relate to people of different standings than it was about sex. The sex came pretty naturally,” Jared says. He places his hand over the one Jensen still has on Jared’s knee and squeezes it. Jensen is pretty sure his cheeks are now the same color as Felicia’s. “I wasn’t one for long though. By the time I was in my third year of service, the Spartas were rising in power. By the time I was in my fifth year, we were forced to stop serving as companions.”
“We’ve heard whispered horror stories about companions, about how poorly they were treated,” Felicia says. “Was that true?”
“No, not at all. Companions were very highly respected. I was a companion for two men who treated me very nicely and one woman who did not, but she was a hell of a lot of fun.” Jared winks and pops the last of the bread into his mouth.
Everyone laughs, except for Jensen. He’s trying to swallow his food past the sudden lump in his throat. The idea of Jared being with other people, of sharing his body as easily as his smiles…
Maybe his Sparta upbringing affected him more than Jensen thought, because it just feels so wrong. Although he’s apparently the only one at the table to think so.
Jensen pushes his bowl away. For his own peace of mind, it’s time to change the subject. “Dani, we need to head to Tryppyt. Or rather to where Tryppyt used to be.”
“There’s nothing there,” Dani says with a frown. “Plus, there’s no way I can steer the ship past Dorci without getting their attention.”
“We can approach from the East,” Jensen says.
“But the belt is in the East. There’s so much debris. I hear it’s gotten even more dangerous to fly through the belt in recent years, even with ships far larger than the Wanderer." Dani is a hell of a pilot, but she is cautious, a trait Jensen has never been burdened with.
“I can fly through it,” Jensen replies confidently.
Jared stands and starts gathering bowls and clearing the table. “I hate to ask it of you, of everyone, but I—if there’s any way, I need to see for myself. You see to me; I was there just yesterday. I can’t really wrap my mind around it—them— being gone. And I can't grieve until I know their fate with absolute certainty.”
“Jared, I understand that. I do,” Dani says. “But it’s so risky. Maybe there’s another way to find closure. Some way that is safer for everyone.”
“I think I know a way we can sneak past Dorci,” Felicia declares.
“How?” Jensen and Jared ask in unison.
Felicia stares at them for a moment before continuing. “I found something on Jared's ship. I’ve never seen anything like it before, so I picked it up and I’ve been poking at it since then. Chad’s pretty sure it knows what it does, but we haven’t figured out how to operate the thing yet.”
“You went on Jared’s ship?” Jensen asks. “What, did the whole crew go over there? That was dangerous!”
“You were in trouble. And you are our Captain and we love you. Of course we went,” Felicia says.
Chad snorts, farts, and then lays on his side and promptly falls asleep in the middle of the table.
“Too much food knocks him out,” Jared explains.
Jensen makes a mental note to feed Chad at every meal.
“I stayed on the ship,” Dani says. “After all, if something happens to you, it’s mine.”
“I love you too, Dani,” Jensen replies to her, smiling.
She makes a kissy face at him in reply before turning her attention back to Felicia. “What was it you found?”
“I don’t know what it’s called, but if Chad is right and if I can properly fix it, it will generate a shield. We should be able to pass by Dorci without the Spartas spotting us, though we might have to shut down all our communication devices to make sure we aren’t sending any kind of signal.”
“Some of the planets close to the belt still have shields,” Dani says. “But you can still see the planets. And ships can pass through them. I’m not sure why Tryppyt would have had one though. Debris only ever hits planets closest to the belt.”
“Chad swears this shield is different. It was created for ships, not planets although I think it uses some of the same basic technology. And it’s not meant to defend, but hide,” Felicia replies. “Chad was there when a relative of Jared’s was working on it.”
“Did someone you know work on something like that?” Jensen asks Jared.
“I don’t know. My sister Lauri was an inventor, so maybe…I mean, there were Sparta ships all around us the last day I was on my planet. They were making sure we stayed on Tryppyt as they considered us undesirables. If somehow my family conspired to make sure I was able to escape the planet, then Lauri devising some way to hide the ship—that would make sense. I just wish my family had told me their plans. Maybe I could've convinced them to join me on the ship.”
“Maybe they thought they had more time,” Jensen says softly. “Maybe they were preparing other tubes, but then the Spartas started attacking and they had to send you by yourself.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Jared replies. His eyes, a deep brown, are wet again. “I think I’m going to lie down for a while if that’s okay.”
“You can lie down on my bunk if you’d like,” Jensen offers.
Jared smiles at him. “I was planning to.”
Dani heads to her station and Felicia picks up a sleeping Chad to take him with her. Jensen cleans up and makes sure everything is put in its place. They all take turns cleaning. He may be their Captain, but he’s also a part of the crew and he always makes sure he does his share of the work.
He doesn’t want to disturb Jared so he heads to the medical bay instead. He finds Christian there, taking stock of the supplies.
“We really are getting low on everything,” Christian notes.
Jensen nods. “We’ve got quite a lot of goods right now; we can maybe make a trade.”
“With who? Mark?” Christian asks. “Do you really trust Mark after what happened last time?”
“Not as far as I can throw him,” Jensen replies. “But if anyone has any medical supplies to trade, it would be him.”
Christian doesn’t look happy about the idea, but nods. They don’t have a lot of options. Most people follow the laws because the penalty for not following them is so severe. There’s only so many rebels out there, and even fewer that stock the variety of forbidden goods that Mark does, which greatly limits their options.
“The ship is moving,” Christian states. “Are we headed to Mark’s now?”
“We might stop there,” Jensen replies. “On our way to Tryppyt.”
Christian turns to look at his friend. “You are joking. Please tell me you are joking. Do you know what will happen if one of the Sparta agents steps foot onto this ship? Not just to you, Jensen, but to all of us.”
“Jared needs to see,” Jensen explains. “It was his home. He’s lost everything. If it helps him to see it for himself, I have to take him there.”
“There’s nothing to see!” Christian states.
“Do we know that? For sure? I mean our official history books don’t mention Tristans at all. And the information we’ve gotten from the forbidden books—who knows if it’s even accurate or not? What if the planet wasn’t totally destroyed? What if it was turned into one of Sparta's colonies instead and his people are being held prisoner there? He has a right to know for sure.”
“Jensen, it’s been a hundred years. Even if his planet wasn't destroyed, and I believe it was, his parents are gone. More than likely, his siblings are gone as well.”
Back on earth, or so they’ve read, humans lived to between seventy to ninety years on average, almost none lived past a hundred. With advances in medical care, advances that have been brought to a halt by the Spartas who value faith over medicine, generally humans live twenty to thirty years longer than that. But no one lives forever. Not even Tristans who due to centuries of joining with humans were as much human as Tristan before their destruction.
“We won’t know anything until we see. Felicia found something on Jared’s ship that she thinks she can use to shield our ship. We won’t stay long, just long enough for Jared to know for sure. I want to give him that, if it’s at all possible.”
Christian sits on one of the cots and Jensen sits on the chair closest to it. Christian studies him for a long moment.
“You care about him.”
“I do. I know it makes no sense, we just met, but I do,” Jensen replies.
“He seems to think you were—destined for each other or something like that. Do you believe that?”
“I’m not sure,” Jensen replies. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. I mean, the Spartas matched my parents, that’s the way it’s been done for a hundred years. I know before them, people married for love. But—can you fall in love with someone in less than a day?” Jensen asks. “Plus, we are both men. We will never be allowed to join. And—it’s wrong. Isn’t it? To want something like that with him?”
“I don’t know anything about love, but I do know you care about him. And he cares a lot about you. The two of you can’t keep your eyes off each other. As far as it being wrong–what do those poems in that book you hide in your room say about love?”
“How do you know—”
“The ship isn’t that big, son,” Christian explains with an unrepentant grin.
“The poems are all over the place about love. Some say love is something joyous. Pure in a way, but also very impure.” Jensen thinks of some of the poetry he read, about the way lovers touch each other, how they hint at so much more than just touching. “It’s all very confusing, to be honest. And love can be very sad when it doesn’t end well.”
“But it can be joyous, right? That’s the first thing you said about it, and I think the most important thing. Don’t you think you deserve a bit of that joy?” Christian asks. “If you ask me, love and sex—there’s nothing right or wrong about either of them. There’s always someone out there telling folks how to feel about being in love, who they should love, how they should express that love. But we are on this ship because we don’t give a fuck about what ‘they’ say. Not about how we make our living, not about how we live our lives, not about where in this whole entire universe we belong. And I don’t think you should care about what the Spartas say about love either. If you want him, and he wants you, then—I think you’d be a damn fool to walk away from that. And you may be many things, Captain—stubborn, careless, too damn noble for your own good, a loyal friend, a damn good pilot, an even better leader—but foolish isn’t anywhere on that list.”
“Thank you, Christian. You’re a good friend.”
Christian reaches over and pats Jensen on the knee. “I’m going to see if I can help Felicia figure out that thing you said might shield us. If my life is depending on it, I want to make damn sure it works. You go get your boy.”
Jensen stands and pulls Christian in a hug. “I think I will. And Christian? Stay the hell out of my cabin.”
Christian only laughs in response.
Jensen makes a sweep of his ship. Dani insists she can handle things in the prow and shoos Jensen away. He meets Clif in one of the corridors and suggests that he start sorting through their goods, they need something special to tempt Mark into giving up some of his medical supplies. He finds Felicia, Christian, and Chad with their heads together, discussing a small silver cylindrical object that lies on the table between them.
At one time, he thought everything he could ever possibly want or need was on this ship. He cares for every member of his crew and enjoys spending time with them. He loves piloting his ship of course, but his Baby keeps him busy in other ways too. There’s always something that needs to be fixed or maintained to keep her flying. Always a new plan brewing to take her on a visit to a remote planet to make a few deals. Always something new to explore in the forgotten outreaches of the galaxy.
But now, he realizes he’s been missing something very vital in his life. And that something is waiting for him in his cabin.
He opens the cabin door to find Jared sitting there, the poetry book open in his lap.
He smiles as Jensen shuts the door behind him. “You found the book. I knew you would,” Jared says.
“Are all Tristans able to—dream about other people like you did?” Jensen asks, sitting beside him. “How did you think you’d ever find me when I wasn’t even born yet?”
“Not everyone, no. The dreams are—they’re usually vague, misty images of things that might come to be, or maybe just wishes that are never fulfilled. But you—you burst through the mist and I could see you shining bright as day. I knew you were mine. I didn’t even know for a long time that you weren’t of my time. Your visits were sporadic but I saw enough of you to know that you were—are—shiny and beautiful and I ached to touch you. To see you when I was awake. To finally hold you. I found this book last year—well, the last year I was awake. I knew instinctively what to write in it. It was then that I realized that you weren’t of my time. But yet somehow I knew—I knew I would find you. And I have.”
“If your people—if you could see the future—how did you not see the Spartas coming? Maybe you could have—I don’t know. Done some things differently, I guess.”
“We can’t control what we see. Many of us go our whole lives without seeing anything. It’s a gift that is passed on to some and skips others. I was the only one besides my mother with the gift in my family. And as far as I know, she had no glimpses of what destruction the Spartas would bring. I know I never dreamt of them. She did share my belief that I would find you someday, she said she dreamt of us together. On a ship as shiny and black as the sky, she said.”
“My ship is indeed,” Jensen says. “You know, maybe we were wrong about why you were on that ship. Maybe it wasn’t so much of them trying to hide you as it was to make sure I would find you someday.”
“I think you’re right. I think my family putting me on that ship, it was about me finding you, not because anyone thought that the Spartas would take their conflict with us to such levels. My mother knew it would be painful for me to have to decide between my family and you, so she took that burden from me. I think somewhere on that ship there must have been a letter to me. I’ll ask Chad about it, he will have read it if there was one. Chads have no concept of privacy.” Jared shuts the book and places it on the table beside Jensen’s bunk. “I think my family worked together to give me this—you. And I’ve waited so long for you, Jensen. I don’t want to wait a moment more.”
Jensen’s pulse rate picks up. He wants this, wants Jared in ways he can’t even picture clearly. He has no knowledge of what goes on between a man and a woman, much less between two men.
Jensen usually loves walking into the unknown. He’s always thought he’s ready for anything, everything. But he’s not sure he’s ready for this.
So he blurts out the first thing his mind latches on to. “Your parents must have been so proud of your siblings,” Jensen says. “A healer and a scientist, that’s amazing.”
His parents would’ve been proud if Jensen had been either of these things. Proud, in that distant, muted way of theirs. Sparta's official policies prioritize love of duty over family bonds, and so do his parents.
He doesn’t know if they know what happened to him. Or if they care. They like their quiet lives, no doubt more quiet without Jensen being there. If they somehow found out about the life Jensen leads now, they would despise him–in the same distant, muted way.
Jared stops smiling and Jensen has no idea what he said to cause that but he instantly wants to take it back. “My parents are—were–proud of all of us. Being a companion is as noble a profession as being a scientist or a healer, and it takes just as much skill and hard work to be a good one. And I was very good at my chosen profession.”
Jensen has no idea what to say to that. Or how to feel about it.
Sex for pleasure’s sake is wrong. Everyone says so. Everyone but Jared….And Christian. And Jensen supposes Felicia and Dani.
It’s all very confusing. And Jensen is scared he’s messed up things with Jared.
“I didn’t mean to—” Jensen starts, unsure how to finish.
“Does it bother you that I was a companion?” Jared asks.
The easy thing to do would be to lie, to smooth this over. But this thing between them is new and fragile and precious and important and Jensen has no desire to taint it with lies.
“A little. I’m sorry,” Jensen replies.
“I’m not ashamed of what I did. In fact, I’m proud of what I did. I brought pleasure and joy to people who might not have been able to experience either of these things without me. I would have continued being a companion if it hadn’t been outlawed. The giving and receiving of pleasure isn’t wrong, Jensen. In fact, if you let me, I’ll show you how right it is.”
“Would you—if you had met me back then, would you have continued being a companion?” Jensen asks.
“No, once I met you there wouldn’t have been room for anyone else in my bed. You are my everything, Jensen. You are the one the fates chose for me. It’s your touch I crave, it’s your lips I need, it’s your body I desire. Yours and no one else's. Will you let me show you, Jensen? Please?” Jared asks.
Jensen’s mind is a jumble of emotions.
“Are you sure? We’ve just met,” Jensen says. “We can wait, get to know each other better.”
“I want to know everything about you.” Jared begins unfastening the snaps on Jensen’s shirt. “I want to know all your hopes, your fears, about your family, about your plans for the future, about your favorite food and your favorite wine. I want to know if you love the mornings or prefer the nights. But right now, I need you , Jensen. I am yours, if you will have me.”
The Spartas are wrong about so much, he has no idea why he ever thought they were right about this. What happens between him and Jared is nobody’s business but their own.
If Jared wants him, Jensen is his.
Jensen leans over and kisses Jared. He has never tasted wine, but he would bet his ship that no wine has ever tasted sweeter than Jared's lips. “I don’t know what to do,” he admits to Jared. “I’ve never—”
“I can show you,” Jared replies. He slips his hand under Jensen’s shirt.
“Okay, yeah.” Jared’s touch is burning his skin. His cock is thickening inside his trousers.
He no longer cares about the right or the wrong of it. He just wants Jared.
“I promise to be gentle,” Jared says, kissing Jensen before nipping Jensen’s lower lip with his ridiculously sharp teeth. “Well, maybe not that gentle.”
“What should I do?” Jensen asks. “How do we start?”
“Let’s start with this.” Jared sits up and pulls off his shirt.
Underneath it he’s wearing something of the same dark blue, but very shiny. It clings to him, Jensen can see Jared’s nipples pressing against the shiny fabric.
Jared takes Jensen’s hand and places it over one of his nipples. “You can touch, my love.”
The fabric is silky and soft and like nothing Jensen has ever seen before. He wears underthings of course, like everyone does. But nothing like this.
Jensen strokes the fabric. Underneath his fingers, Jared’s nipple hardens.
If the ship went into free fall, it would just have to tumble into the nothingness. Nothing could persuade Jensen to move even an inch away from Jared right now.
Jared is still shoeless, they haven’t found anything that fits him yet. He lifts up the lower part of his body and slips his trousers off.
The underthing covers the lower part of his body too. There are silver fastenings where his cock is pressing against the fabric. The fastenings are like the ones on Jensen’s shirt, but shinier and larger.
“This will go better if you take your clothes off too,” Jared teases.
As Jensen fumbles with his boots, Jared leans against the window. The flap is pulled up. Jensen can see outside, see the dark endless sky. Jared’s eyes are the same color as the darkness.
Jared slides his fingers underneath him.
Jensen stills, one boot off and the other still on.
He feels a fool for asking, but he just has to. “What are—what are you doing?”
Jared smiles. He lies down on the bed and bends his knees. “Come, look.”
Jensen scoots to the end of the bed, the boot still on his foot. Jared spreads his legs wide, so wide that one of them lands on Jensen’s lap.
There had apparently been fastenings underneath Jared as well. They are open. Jared’s ass is half off the bed. And Jared is pushing two of his fingers into his hole. “I have to get myself ready for you,” Jared explains. “If I were making love to you, which I very much hope to be doing someday, we would need something to help ease the way—oil of some kind. But I have glands inside, that if I press upon them, or say if your beautiful cock presses against them, they make things slick inside of me. So when you push inside, I will be able to take you—all of you. Just like I’ve been dreaming about for a hundred years.”
“You remember your dreams?” Jensen asks. “From your time on the ship?”
“They are hazy, but yes. Some of them will come to pass, others will not. But this one I am sure will.” Jared slips his fingers out of his ass. Jensen can see they are wet. “Me and you on this bunk. Me sitting on top of you, sliding up and down your cock, taking you in so deep I could feel you in my very core.”
Jensen’s cock is now so hard it’s hurting. Jensen unbuttons his pants to relieve the pressure.
“Yeah, that sounds—yeah,” Jensen says, sounding nothing like the captain of a ship.
Jared laughs and pulls himself up on his knees. His face is flushed, his eyes a color Jensen has never seen before, so mesmerizing and so exotic that Jensen feels he could drown in them. Jared’s body is long and lean, his nipples are hard, but it’s his hard cock that Jensen’s eyes are drawn to.
"I’m ready, my Captain. I’m all yours,” Jared says.
Hensen fumbles with his clothes, yanking them off hastily, not even wincing when he hears one of his shirt’s fastenings hit the floor of the cabin because he forgot his shirt was still fastened.
Jared whistles. “I knew you were beautiful, of course, but–let’s just say I’m the luckiest guy in the galaxy right now.”
“No, you’re not.” Jensen reaches up and pulls Jared to him. For the first time, Jensen initiates the kiss, because he can’t wait another moment to taste Jared once again. Jared moans and wraps his arms around Jensen. When Jensen breaks the kiss, it takes a moment for Jared to open his eyes and when he does, his eyes are unfocused, his lips are swollen, and his cheeks are flushed. “Because I am.”
Jared blinks. ”You are what?”
Jensen feels more than a little proud that he caused Jared’s brain to go as unfocused as his eyes are. “The luckiest man ever,” he says, pulling Jared into another kiss.
Jensen has no idea how Jared accomplished it, or maybe if he himself is the one who maneuvered them, but when he comes up for much-needed air he’s sitting with his legs bent at the knees and Jared is straddling his lap.
Jared takes Jensen’s head in his hands. He looks down into Jensen’s eyes. “Ready?” he asks.
The realization slams into Jensen–so hard it takes his breath away. He feels a whirlwind of emotions all at once–desire, joy, excitement—and overriding all of those, love. He loves this man. He loves him with a fierceness that almost scares him, knows that he would risk all that he is and all that he has, give up anything, sacrifice everything for this man.
Us it possible to fall in love so fast? It has to be, because what Jensen is feeling is love, he’s sure of it. Love at first sight, Jared’s book of poetry called it. Maybe for Jensen he was lost the moment his lips touched Jared’s.
"I love you,” Jensen says, because he has to say it. Has to say it now or it will explode out of him.
Jared’s eyes shine as bright as any star in the galaxy, outshines even the red star that gives light to all the planets that orbit around her. “I love you so much, Jensen. I always have. I always will.”
Hensen grips Jared’s waist, so small for a man as large as he is, as Jared begins to sink down on his cock. Oh—so this is how two men… ohhhhhhh… .
Pleasure is already building up inside of Jensen with such an intensity that he very much fears he will come before he’s all the way inside of Jared. He may be inexperienced when it comes to any of this, but he knows that he does not want this to end before it truly begins. He’s never felt pleasure this intense before, had no idea such a thing was possible. His cock slides deeper into Jared and Jensen has to bite his lip not to cry out in pleasure. He’s gripping Jared’s waist too tightly and tries to ease his grip as Jared takes the rest of Jensen’s cock inside of him.
"You don’t have to worry about hurting me,” Jared says, kissing the sting away from Jensen’s lip. “I want your fingers to dig into my skin, to leave their mark.”
Jensen wants that too. Wants to leave his mark everywhere on Jared’s body. He wants everyone to know that this beautiful, smart, loving man is his, and only his. Jensen has never been possessive of anything beyond his ship, but he feels it so strongly about Jared that he’s almost frightened by the intensity.
He grabs the back of Jared’s head, wrapping his fingers in Jared’s hair and pulling him into a kiss. “Mine.”
Jared’s violet eyes are dancing as he ends the kiss. “Exactly.”
It all feels so amazing that Jensen doesn’t realize there could be more until Jared begins pushing his body off Jensen’s cock and then sliding back down. Each time Jensen’s cock is engulfed in the delicious heat of Jared’s body, the pleasure that Jensen had already thought peaked grows and grows until it becomes a firestorm. He begins to move too, in some kind of instinctive rhythm, lifting his hips as Jared pushes down, feeling his cock being driven into Jared over and over again.
"Touch me, I’m so close,” Jared says, his voice a husky whisper.
Jensen almost says that he is already touching Jared, before his sex-hazed mind realizes what Jared meant. He reaches between their bodies. He grips Jared’s cock in his hands, trying to stroke him in the too-small space, with hands that are clumsy and shaking, because his own need to come is so overwhelming.
He only manages to stroke Jared’s cock a few times when Jared’s body shudders. The feeling of Jared coming sends Jensen’s own release roaring out of him, and Jensen can feel his cock emptying inside of Jared. They are kissing, hungrily, messily, as their bodies continue to ride out the aftershocks of their orgasms.
Jensen pulls Jared as close to him as he can, not caring that both their stomachs are covered in Jared’s come. “We are never leaving this cabin,” he says.
Jared laughs. “Might be hard for you to captain the ship from in here.”
"Right now, I don’t care,” Jensen replies. He runs his hand through Jared’s hair, wondering how it got so messy before realizing he must have done that while he was kissing Jared. A sudden doubt bites through his pleasure haze. Jared has had so much experience, has made love to people with more experience than Jensen. “Was it okay for you?”
"It was amazing and I can’t wait to do it again,” Jared replies. He pulls away from Jensen and Jensen’s cock slips out of Jared. Jensen immediately misses their connection. He’s afraid that Jared is going to get up, but instead, Jared kisses Jensen again, rearranging their bodies until Jared is flat on the bed and Jensen is on top of him. “But this time you’re the one who is going to be doing all the work.”
Time Jump
Three days have passed. Three glorious days. Every inch of Jensen’s body is sore from all the ways they've contorted their bodies on the too-small bed. And still he can't wait to get Jared naked again.
It's been three days, yet in many ways, it's like Jared has always been here. Dani and Felicia treat him like a little brother. He's seen Christian and Jared talking together quite a few times about medicinal plants, and Jared’s life before his long sleep, and embarrassingly, about Jensen.
Even Clif, always a man of few words, has taken to Jared, to the point of sharing a few of his precious books with Jared.
And Chad—well, Chad is Chad. It’s annoying–always stealing Jensen’s food (and only Jensen’s) and takes up way too much of Jared’s time. But it’s also helping Felicia with the shield mechanism, and they’ve finally figured out how to unlock the thing. Felicia thinks they'll be able to take it for a test run when they get closer to inhabited planets.
But they still haven't reached the inhabitable planets that are on the outskirts of the ring of planets that circle the red star yet. They aren't traveling very fast, partly to conserve fuel, partly because Jensen is too wrapped up in this new thing with Jared to push the ship to go faster. But mainly, because Jensen loves seeing Jared relaxed and happy and he's in no hurry for Jared to have to face that his planet is truly gone.
Jared is reading a book and Jensen is pretending to as he sneaks glances at Jared’s pink lips and the way his long shirt has shifted just enough to show a tantalizing glimpse of Jared’s shoulder when the transmission comes over the system.
Sparta law 58.2.3 is now in effect. From this point forward it is illegal for anyone to hold any type of celebration outside of the sanctioned religious observances. Repeating…
The message is repeated three times.
“But we’re so far from any of the inhabited planets,” Jared says. “How are we receiving a signal?”
“They’ve been able to enhance their communication systems. There’s no way to block them, believe me, I’ve tried,” Jensen replies. “I guess there goes the big birthday bash I was going to throw for myself.”
“Hm, what a shame. I had such plans to show you exactly how excited I am that you were born.” Jared puts down his book and turns to face Jensen. “You’ll be what—thirty-five on your birthday? That’s something that should properly be celebrated no matter what the Spartas say.”
Jensen gasps and then gently smacks Jared with his unread book. “I will be a mere thirty, how dare you besmirch my youthful looks in such a way!”
“Pardon me, your youthfulness,” Jared replies. “I will be but twenty-six on mine so forgive me for my youthful lapse in judgment.”
“A hundred and twenty-six,” Jensen reminds him. “But you don’t look a day over eighty-five. Truly.”
Jared tosses his book aside and tackles a laughing Jensen.
Time Jump
The next few days pass in a blur of sex, Jared, sex, food, piloting, sex, Jared—Jared—Jared.
Jensen has no idea how he made it to almost thirty years without sex or Jared in his life, but now he can’t get enough of either.
Today they are all standing in the bow. Dani is steering the ship. Everyone else is staring out the window intently.
“Is it working?” Clif asks.
“I don’t know. Space does look hazy around the ship,” Jensen replies.
“It’s black. How can you tell if black is hazy or not?” Christian moves closer to the window. “I don’t see the shield.”
“Of course you can’t. It wouldn’t be working if you could see it,” Felicia states. “It’s working. I think.”
They are still a long way from anywhere. But a few minutes ago, Dani had spotted a ship. It’s not a Sparta ship. It’s one of those that endlessly roam the galaxy, like the one Jensen grew up in.
The irony of it is, after finding a few planets that could sustain life and settling here, humans eventually overran the available space on the planets. None of the planets here are anywhere near the size that Earth was reputed to be. Some of them can be walked their whole width in a day or two. The planet Mark calls home is barely big enough for an airstrip and a dozen houses.
So, bigger ships were built and people once again took to the sky. Living on planets is for the lucky and the relatively few, those with wealth or prestige or whose forebearers staked their claims centuries ago. Everyone else lives on ships, only occasionally visiting one of the habitable planets. It makes no sense therefore that the Spartas destroyed one that was not only large enough for ten thousand people to live comfortably, but was also full of natural resources—real water, farms with fruit trees and vegetables, planted the same way those that lived on Earth did in the long ago.
The one heading toward them isn’t the ship that Jensen grew up on, but it is as big as that one. Jensen figures five thousand people, maybe more, live on that ship.
If the captain of the ship sees the Wanderer, he will communicate with them. That is how things are done out here. You ask if the other ship needs assistance. If there is something you need, you ask if the other ship has it. If there is trouble out there—a falling star, a rogue ship, you communicate that.
The Wanderer gets closer to the ship. There is no communication from them.
“Maybe they’re just unfriendly,” Dani says. “It doesn’t mean they don’t see us.”
“Well, we can’t just ask them if they see us or not,” Jensen replies. “Otherwise everyone in the galaxy will know we have the technology to hide a ship before tomorrow dawns.”
“Chad, can they see us?” Jared asks.
Chad buzzes over them. At least one of you has a brain cell in his head. No, they cannot see you.
“Are there Chads on that ship?” Christian asks. “Is that how you know?”
We are everywhere, Chad replies. It lands in Christian’s hair because it knows how much Christian hates that. Christian tries to swat it away, but it just clings to his scalp.
Jensen winces. He knows how much those tiny appendages sting.
Jared reaches over and plucks Chad off of Christian’s head.
Spoilsport , Chad mumbles before flying off.
“It works. If the Chads on the ship can’t see us, no one else can either,” Felicia says excitedly.
Jensen breathes a sigh of relief. He has no desire to attract the attention of the Spartas. This way they can stop at Mark for supplies, then head to where Tryppyt used to be so Jared can see for himself that it's gone.
And then—who knows? The possibilities are as endless as the sky.
Time Jump
Flying used to be Jensen’s favorite thing. Before Jared, anyway. He’s at the wheel, steering the Wanderer in the direction of Hagan—the tiny planet that is Mark Sheppard’s domain. They are still far enough out that there is little traffic. But in the distance, Jensen can see the faint glow of other planets. Much further away, he can just make out the light of the red star.
The door to the bow opens and Jensen turns. He smiles as Jared walks in.
“Hey, there,” Jensen says to him.
Jared walks over to him and kisses him. “Hey, yourself.”
Jared stands behind Jensen, his hands on Jensen’s shoulders.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Jared asks, looking out the window. “I can see why you like flying so much. I had thought of becoming a pilot at one time, but as it turns out I was more suited to be a companion.”
Jensen wonders if he will ever hear Jared mention being a companion and not feel irrationally jealous about something that happened over a hundred years ago.
“Want to try steering her?” Jensen asks, more to distract himself than anything.
Jared’s blue-grey eyes light up. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Jensen stands and Jared takes his place.
“This shows you the direction we need to head,” Jensen explains, pointing out the readouts on the panel. “This shows you how fast we are traveling. This is the fuel gauge, don’t worry we have plenty. This one—”
“What does this one do?” Jared asks, pushing the accelerator.
The ship jerks as it picks up speed. Jared grins. “Oh yeah, now I remember. Oops.”
Jensen grabs a laughing Jared and pulls him out of the chair. He sits, quickly restoring his Baby to her proper settings.
“Nothing to worry about,” Jensen says through the speakers. “Everything’s fine.” Jensen turns to Jared. “You are being a menace today. What has gotten into you?”
“It's not what has gotten into me but what hasn’t gotten into me,” Jared replies, with a very obvious look at Jensen’s crotch.
“We made love just this morning,” Jensen reminds him.
“Plus, I missed you.” Jared kneels beside Jensen, cups his face in his hands, and kisses him soft and slow.
Jensen can feel his body react to Jared’s kiss. He leans into it, groaning as Jared deepens the kiss. When Jared starts to pull away, Jensen growls his displeasure and grabs Jared’s shoulders, holding him tight.
Kissing Jared is just as addictive as flying into the deep. And just as exhilarating.
Jared chuckles, the vibration tingling Jensen’s lips. “I thought you had work to do.”
Jensen reluctantly lets Jared go. “Have a seat somewhere, Dani’s due to take over in an hour.”
Jared heads for the communication bay. Jensen practically leaps out of his chair to stand between Jared and the equipment. “Not here. Felicia will eat both of us alive if she finds you at her station.”
“She definitely will.”
Jensen turns to the door to see Felicia and Dani looking at them with big grins on their faces.
“I wasn’t going to mess with anything,” Jared protests. “I just wanted to check it out.”
“Jensen, it’s clear your boy has a lot of energy he needs to expend somehow. Take care of that like the good Captain you are.”
Dani passes by them to take his place in front of the wheel.
“It’s not your shift yet,” Jensen objects, although Jared already has grabbed his hand and is tugging on it.
“It is now,” Dani replies.
Felicia takes her place at the communication bay, clearly checking to make sure Jared didn't actually touch anything.
Jared tugs on his hand again.
“Captain, I am in great need of your services,” Jared says. “Can you please help a poor crew member out?”
“I’ve been wondering. Exactly what is your position in this crew?” Dani asks.
“I’m the entertainment,” Jared replies with a bright smile.
Felicia laughs. “Then go and take Jensen with you and do your job. We’ve got work to do here. Very important work.”
“Yes. You do. And we wouldn't want to distract you from your very important work.” Jared has managed to tug Jensen almost out the door.
Jensen looks back at his crew one more time to make sure they really are okay with him leaving.
He catches a look passed between Jared and Felicia that Jensen doesn’t quite understand. Before he can ask about it, Jared turns him around so he's facing him and he’s distracted by the force of Jared’s smile.
A few moments later, he’s in his cabin holding a lap full of Jared and nothing else exists in his world.
Time Jump
They are making good progress, they are within a couple of days of reaching Mark’s planet. Jensen rolls his shoulders as he makes his way to his cabin–or rather his and Jared’s now. It was a long shift, but the closer they get to more planets the less Jensen likes to rely on autopilot.
He finds Jared sitting on the bed, a book on his lap.
They’ve taken to reading one poem from their book to each other every night.
“Have you picked one to read to me?” Jensen asks, sitting on the edge of the bed so he can remove his boots.
Jared holds up his book. “I’m reading a book I got from Clif, but I do have a poem to read to you later.”
Jensen frowns as he reads the title of the book. Why Our Ways Are God’s Ways. “Why are you reading that rubbish?”
He also wants to know how Clif had come by it in the first place. If Clif is secretly Sparta-leaning, that could end very badly for the rest of his crew members. He could betray them, even allow members of the Sparta force on Jensen’s ship. He would rather the Wanderer be destroyed than end up in the hands of the Spartas.
“Clif says you have to know how they think in order to fight them,” Jared explains. “And he’s right.”
“Fight them?” Jensen asks. He scoots back on the bed so he can sit beside Jared.
“Yeah. This book is very educational, I have to say. And more than a little scary. This part here–”
“What do you mean by fighting them?” Jensen asks, not looking at the book. He lived under Spara rule. He already knows how they think.
“I mean we need to fight them,” Jared says. “We can’t let them remain in power. They’re causing so much harm, beyond what they did to my people.”
Jensen takes the book away from Jared, closes it, and places it on the table. “No way. It’s not going to happen, so just put the whole idea out of your mind.”
“Why isn't it going to happen?” Jared asks. He’s got a stubborn look in his aqua eyes.
“Because it's not!” Jensen snaps back.“The Spartas control everything. There is nothing anyone can do about that and especially not a crew of misfits.”
“How do you know nothing can be done if you haven’t tried? The Spartas took everything away from your people. They took joy, sex, good food, sweet wines, your free will, your right to happiness. How can you be okay with any of that?” Jared demands.
“Of course, I’m not okay with any of that. That’s why I left the ship I grew up on. That’s why I didn’t go to their universities, or train to be one of their soldiers like my parents wanted me to.” Too upset and angry to sit any longer, Jensen stands and paces the floor of his cabin, even though it takes only a few steps to reach one end of the cabin to the other.
“I thought you considered yourself a rebel.” Jared folds his legs close to his body and wraps his arms around them. He’s always so open, and Jensen has no idea why it hurts so much to see Jared so closed off. He just has to make Jared see sense.
“We are rebels. We live freely. This is a good life, Jared. I thought you thought so too.”
“It is a good life. A life you chose with a group of people you chose to surround yourself with. And everyone else out there deserves to live the life they choose too. We can help them have that. We can fight the Spartas, Jensen. They have control because we let them have control.”
“That’s not how it is and you of all people should know that. The Tristans tried to fight and look what happened to them.”
Jensen regrets the words as soon as they fly out of his mouth. Jared flinches as if Jensen has delivered him a blow. “I didn’t mean that.” Jensen sits down beside Jared. As close as he can without touching him. “Jared, others have tried to fight them. And no one has seen any of those who tried again. The Spartas say they take them to colonies to be ‘rehabilitated’. But whatever they are actually doing with them, it’s not good. Maybe they are dropping them off on planets not suited for humans, where death might come slowly if they are unlucky, quickly if they are lucky, but painfully all the same. Or they are dropping them out of ships, free-falling into nothingness until the cold takes them. This might not be the life you once led, but it’s a life. A good life. And I’m not willing to risk you, or any of my crew, on a mission that has no chance of succeeding.”
“You don’t know that,” Jared insists. “I promise you; we are not the only ones who long for freedom. There are others just waiting for someone to lead them. Someone like you, Jensen.”
“I—I can’t fight a war, Jared. I don’t have those kinds of skills. I’m not that kind of leader.”
“I say you are exactly that kind of leader. You inspire loyalty, my love, because you are loyal. You are the type of leader people line up to follow. And you wouldn’t have to do it alone, I would be right there beside you.”
Jensen sighs. “Jared, it’s just not possible. And the sooner you accept that, the happier you will be.”
“I will never accept that,” Jared replies. “The Spartas consider the love we share wicked. But we are not wicked. Love is not wicked. Pleasure is not wicked. Everyone deserves to feel joy, Jensen. To feel love.” He unfolds his long body and scoots off the bed. He doesn’t look back at Jensen as he walks out the door.
Time Jump
It’s miserable without Jared. Jensen’s lonely in a way he’s never been in his whole life. Not even when he was on his parents’ ship, stuck in a life he hated.
He’s lost in a way he’s never been before too. He wanders the corridors of his ship, endlessly seeking something he knows he won’t find.
That is, when he's not hiding from Chad. Who knew Chads could bite as well as sting? Or their bites could be so painful?
To be honest, he deserves everything Chad dishes out. But he sees no way to breach this distance between him and Jared. He can’t risk everyone’s life for a lost cause.
His crew are walking on eggshells. Christian tries to talk to him once or twice, but Jensen isn't interested in talking. He just wants things to go back the way they were before he found Jared with that cursed book.
He eats when everyone is finished eating. Dani finds him in the kitchen one afternoon, shredding his uneaten whey bar into bits.
“We’re close now. We should reach Mark’s by tomorrow,” Dani says, sitting down beside Jensen.
“That’s good,” Jensen replies.
“Yeah, you sound really happy about it.” Dani bumps her shoulder against Jensen’s. “I don’t know which one of you is more miserable, you or Jared, but I know I’m sick of seeing both your long faces. Go to him and fix this. On bended knee if you have to. Actually, you on your knees might go a long way to fixing things.”
“What do you know about me being on my—never mind. I really don’t want to know.” Jensen sighs. “I would fix things if I could, but he wants things I can’t give him.”
“He’s not wrong, you know.”
Jensen looks at Dani in surprise. “He’s not wrong ? He wants us to raise an army, Dani. He wants us to fight a war we cannot win.”
“Who says we can’t win?” Dani asks. “How do we know we can’t if we never even try?”
Jensen turns toward his friend, surprised by her words. Dani is usually far more pragmatic about things than he is.
“You’re actually sitting there telling me you are willing to throw your life away for nothing?” Jensen asks.
“A hundred years ago, I'm betting someone stood in an office where a few Spartas were gathered and said the exact same thing to the others in that room. That naysayer said they didn’t have the numbers to overtake one planet, much less an entire galaxy. That they shouldn’t even try. But that person was obviously wrong. And so are you.” Dani stands. “I will follow your lead. But if it’s only fear holding you back, then maybe you should rethink things.”
After she leaves to return to the bow, Jensen cleans up and then walks through the corridors until he finds the two giant windows that span a section of the ship. He sits down in front of them, losing himself to the darkness.
A few moments later, someone sits down beside him. It’s the closest they’ve been since the fight.
“There was a spot a lot like this on the ship I grew up on,” Jensen says. “I used to sit there for hours, just like this. You never realize how small you are until you are faced with infinity.” Jensen turns to look at Jared. “I’m sorry I upset you, but I haven’t changed my mind.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you as well. And I haven’t changed my mind either.”
“I know. You’ve been talking to my crew. You managed to convert Dani, which is pretty damn impressive,” Jensen says.
“Can we not talk about it right now?” Jared asks, leaning his head against Jensen’s shoulder. Jensen wraps his arms around Jared’s waist. For the first time in two days, he feels whole. “I’ve missed you so much. I don’t like sleeping in my bunk, there’s too much space.”
Jared barely fits in his bunk, but Jensen knows exactly how he feels.
“I’ve missed you too,” Jensen replies. “And you are always welcome in my bunk.”
Jared sighs, but says nothing. They sit there together, staring into the deep.
Time Jump
““Most of this is junk. What am I going to do with more books? And this perfume stinks to high heaven.” Mark pushes away from the table. “I’ll give you a few medical supplies for the lot, but I’m telling you right now I don’t have a lot left. I’ll bring what I have and I’ll let your boy Christian pick out what he wants. It’s the best I can do.”
“Bullshit. The WTs alone are worth more than you are offering, and you know it. We need as many of your medical supplies as you can spare, along with some of those vegetable plants I know you have hidden away,” Jensen says. “And I’m not leaving here until we get a fair trade.”
“Fair, the man says. Like he’s not trying to rob me blind,” Mark mutters.
“We also need lasers. And any other weapons you might have.”
Jensen turns to look at Jared. “No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we most absolutely do.” Jared looks at Mark. “We are fighting a war you see, a war you’d very much want us to win, if I might add.”
“What do I care about your petty wars? If you want weapons, you’d better have a lot more to trade than this junk. Who are you anyway? I’ve never seen you before and there you are making demands.” Mark steps closer to Jared. Jensen instinctively tries to move between them, but Mark just weasels his way past Jensen. “You’re a tall one, aren’t you?” Mark looks up at Jared and then takes a few steps back. “No, it can’t be. It’s not possible.”
“Apparently It is very possible,” Jared says. “Hi, my name is Jared. Jared Tristan Padalecki, at your service. Now about those weapons…”
“Might be we can work out something,” Mark says, apparently recovering quickly from his surprise. “I hear tell you Tristans make great companions and I’ve been a wee bit lonely.”
“No, that’s absolutely not happening.” Jensen steps in front of Jared, forcing Mark to take a few steps back. “No way in hell.”
“Jensen, it’s actually my decision. Although I appreciate your gallantry, misplaced as it might be,” Jared says, his hand on Jensen’s shoulder. Turning to address Mark directly, Jared says, “But Jensen is right, it’s not going to happen. Not that you aren’t lovely, you absolutely are. But I’ve given my heart to Jensen, therefore I can only give my body to him.”
“Well then, good luck to you all. You can go away now, I have other business I need to attend to.”
“We are your business,” Jared replies. “How long until the Spartas decide to take notice of you? How long until they pay your cozy little planet a visit? Which rumor do you think is true, Mark? The one where they toss you into a colony and watch you die, or the one where they take you up on one of their ships and just throw you out the hatch?”
Mark’s face turns pale. “I’ve been here for years. None of them has ever paid me any attention.”
“There’s a ship not far from here. One of theirs. Looks like they are out scouting. Wonder what they will find?” Dani asks.
“Bullshit. If you got close to their ship, they would have chained you. There weren’t any Sparta ships anywhere near or you wouldn’t have risked coming here,” Mark states. Chad buzzes around Mark’s face before settling on the top of Mark’s head. “Is that a fucking Chad? Who brought a Chad to my home? Hagan is a Chad-free planet. Get that fucking thing off of me!”
“Behave,” Jared says to Chad. “We’re trying to save the world here.”
Mark rolls his eyes. “Unless you are hiding a shit ton of people in that clap-trap of a ship, you aren’t saving anyone much less a whole world. And since none of you bothered to refute it, I can just assume I’m right, which I usually am. That story you just told of you passing a Sparta ship is just bullshit. You can take your junk and leave—I will not be trading with you today.”
“Bullshit, huh. Is that so?” Felicia opens the door to Mark’s house. “Hey, Mark, where did we park our ship?”
“What a stupid question. It's where you always park that hunk of junk.” Mark steps out of his house and onto the barren fields beyond it. Nothing grows on Hagan, not outside anyway although Mark grows forbidden vegetables in a cellar, Mark even has to import synthetic water so that he and his hired goons can drink and bathe. There’s nothing but dust as far as one can see, only broken by a cluster of houses around Mark’s much bigger one and a landing field with Mark’s two ships parked close by.
Mark looks around him. “What the hell?”
Felicia takes the small sphere from the pocket of her trousers and pushes down on it. The Wanderer appears, parked where they always park it.
“Holy shit balls. I want that. I’ll trade you anything you want for it. Lasers? Protective gear? I’ve got shirts made from protarium—lasers can’t penetrate ‘em. Name your price.” Mark’s practically salivating at the mouth. Not that Jensen blames him, it is pretty damn impressive technology.
“It’s not for sale,” Jensen tells him. “But now you can see we weren’t lying about the Sparta ship doing recon near here. Won’t be long before they decide to pay you a little visit.” Lying no, exaggerating—maybe. It had been two days since they passed the ship. “So, if you are ready to bargain with us—”
“I want that disc thing,” Mark says, pointing to Felicia’s hand. “And you will give it to me.”
Jensen turns to see two of Mark’s goons, who seemingly appeared out of freaking nowhere, pointing lasers at Jared.
Behind him, Jensen hears movement and knows that Christian and Clif have pulled out their own lasers. Jensen never carries one. He’s not fond of violence, which is why he hired crew members to take care of things when things go south. But right now he very much wishes he did.
Because it’s just at that moment that he realizes just how much he loves Jared. He’s known he's loved him since the first time they slept together—but the feeling had never hit him so intensely before. He loves Jared with a vehemence that is almost frightening. And he knows he’d do anything for Jared. Including waging a war he has no chance in hell of winning.
“If you don’t tell your men to stand down—” Jensen says.
“You’ll do what? Tell your hired help to shoot me? Mine will blast your little plaything here into bits before they take their first shot. Is that something you are willing to risk?” Mark asks. “Now, give me whatever it is that’s allowing you to hide that monstrosity of a ship.”
You will not hurt my Jared! Chad flies closer to Mark.
Mark laughs. “Well, now I’m properly scared. Fuck off, pest. The grown-ups are talking.”
Behind Mark, Jensen sees something—somethings—a lot of them—rising from the dust.
Chads. Dozens of Chads.
Before anyone can react they are on the goons that are pointing the lasers at Jared. Some of them sting the men, some swarm the lasers. As everyone watches in astonishment, the lasers are taken from the goons by hundreds of tiny appendages all working together. And then the Chads hit the goons over the head with their own lasers.
You will not hurt our Jared!
Instead of one voice, it’s dozens of voices. Everyone curses as the Chads’ voices thunder in their heads. Everyone but Jared accepts the lasers from the Chads and beams at all of them.
“What the actual fuck?” Clif says from behind Jensen.
“You wanted an army, I think you found one,” Dani says to Jared.
We do not believe in violence. Unless it’s to protect one of our own. Thankfully it’s just Jared’s Chad that is speaking this time.
“What do you think about mischief though?” Felicia asks. “Like say, disabling a parked ship so that it can’t fly? Or maybe helping me glitch a corporate communication system?”
Chad lands on her shoulder. The other Chads mostly return to wherever they were hiding in the dirt—maybe they live underground, Jensen thinks, but a few remain buzzing around Mark’s hired men.
This is what you humans have never figured out. We are not many Chads; we are all Chad, all parts of one whole. We can be anywhere, everywhere. And if it is mischief you need doing, well then—count us in.
“Thank you, Chad,” Jared says. And then he turns to Mark. “You will give us what we need and you’ll accept what we have to trade in return.”
“I will, will I? Or what, you’ll sic your pests on me?” Mark asks.
“No, you’ll do it because it’s the right thing to do. Tristans can sense emotions and I can read yours loud and clear. You pretend to be grumpy, all me-first, but I see you. The real you. And underneath all that nonsense, you care. You care about your people. You care about your planet. You care that people you don’t even know are hurting when they shouldn’t be. And you want to stick it to the Spartas, because you hate them almost as much as they hate you.” Jared places his hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Now about those lasers you have squirreled away somewhere. We’ll need as many as you can spare, and more when you get your hands on them.”
“So, it’s a bloodbath you want,” Mark replies. “I’ll have no part of that, thank you very much.”
“Not at all. I don’t want to hurt anyone. My people, like the Chads, value peace,” Jared states. “If we can get the Spartas to surrender peacefully, that would be the best possible outcome. But if they don’t listen to reason—then I refuse to sit idly by and let them destroy everything all our forebears worked so hard for. Now, about those lasers—”
“I say we just put this one in the room with the top Sparta officials and let him jabber at them until they give in,” Mark grumbles.
Jensen steps closer to Jared, putting his arm around Jared’s waist. “I think that would probably work.”
Jared turns to Jensen. “So, does this mean you’re in?”
“Wherever you go, I go. If you think this is a war that we can win—a war worth fighting for—then I’m going to be right by your side.” Jensen realizes he never had a choice, not really. Because he loves Jared with everything in him and will follow Jared wherever he chooses to go. Jensen looks at Mark. “We need a plan, and something tells me you are very good at strategizing.”
“Of course I am,” Mark replies. “Kamden, bring us a couple of bottles of whiskey. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
It’s almost dawn before Jared and Jensen open the door to the house Mark is letting them use for the night.
Jensen is exhausted. They’ve spent hours poring over the main strongholds of the Sparta empire, working out plans, strategies, figuring out all the ways the Chads can wreak havoc with Spartas’ ships, their weapons, their technology.
But Jensen doesn’t want to think about any of that right now. He doesn’t want to think about tomorrow or what it will bring. All he wants is to show the man that is holding his hand how damn much he loves him.
“Shower, clean clothes, then bed?” Jared asks.
A lot of planets, like Mark’s, use synthetic water. One of its greatest strengths is how quickly it cleans clothes, just a few seconds with the clothes submerged in it, and then a drying cycle in the compressor, and the clothes are as good as new. It’s the same process they use on the Wanderer.
“You forgot the most important thing, sweetheart,” Jensen says, pulling Jared close to him. He’s come to love Jared’s loose shirt, how easy it is to work his hands underneath it and touch the silky fabric of Jared’s underthing. “Shower, clean clothes, bed, and then I want to make love to you.”
Jared pulls back just a little and studies Jensen a moment before he kisses Jensen’s cheek and then smiles down at him.
“Have I ever mentioned how damn much I love you?” Jared asks. “I have since before I met you. Waking up to your kiss was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“I love you too, Jared,” Jensen replies. “And I plan to spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you’ve made me.”
“Maybe we should just skip the shower for now and do the making love part first,” Jared says, leaning his head down to kiss Jensen.
“You strike a hard bargain, sir, but I bow to your superior persuasion skills,” Jensen teases.
The house is basically a big room with one of the largest beds Jensen has ever seen pushed against the wall furthest away from them. All the food and cooking equipment would be in the center building, the mess hall, just like in ships small communities like this one combine resources and share meals. The people who live on Mark’s planet would only use their houses to shower, relax, or sleep. Or to make love.
It will be nice to sleep with Jared in something not quite as cramped as Jensen’s bunk.
Jensen reaches down and swats Jared on the ass. “Clothes off, on your back on the bed, legs spread.”
“Whatever happened to my blushing virgin?” Jared leases. “Oh, that’s right. I’ve fucked the blushing part out of him. Kinda of a shame, really. When you blush, your cute little freckles just pop out. But then, I do love it when you growl orders at me, my Captain.”
“I’m going to do a lot more growling if you don’t get those clothes off right now,” Jensen promises. He sits down on a chair and begins tugging off his boots. By the time he finishes pulling them off, Jared is on the bed, lying just as Jensen told him to do.
Jensen’s cock goes hard so fast it makes his head swim. He gathers their clothes and puts them in the cycle and then joins Jared in bed.
Jensen wonders if there will ever be any greater joy than exploring Jared’s body, of teasing every gasp and moan from his sweet lips, of the feeling of sinking into Jared’s tight heat. Jared is so beautiful, so responsive, so giving and Jensen plans to spend the rest of his life showing this stunning man how much he loves him, how lucky he feels to have Jared in his life, in his bed, in his arms.
They make love slowly, their bodies moving together, murmuring words of love and praise. When they come, they come together, Jensen spilling his seed inside of Jared, Jared’s spilling between them. Ecstasy, love, joy, all combining to make them one.
Afterward, Jensen gathers Jared into his arms. This huge bed and they are plastered together as closely as they would be on Jensen’s bunk, and he would have it no other way.
Jensen hears the faint ping that tells him that their clothes are ready. The shower beckons. Jensen is sticky with sweat and come. But he can’t bring himself to move. Not with Jared curled up beside him.
Jensen thinks Jared has fallen asleep until Jared speaks.
“What made you change your mind? About fighting?” Jared asks.
“You,” Jensen answers. “And—it’s not right what they did. Destroying your people for no other reason than that you were different. It’s wrong. I hate thinking that after you there will be no more Tristans. The world will be losing something precious, and not because your eyes are different or how you view the world is different than ours, but because you are pretty damn special, Jared. My world would have been far greyer without you in it.”
“Tristans are a stubbornly independent bunch. I refuse to believe everyone came home when the Spartas outlawed companions and ordered us to return to our planet. There are so many ships, it’s impossible for the Spartas to check them all. With us evolving until we could pretty much pass for human, it would have been easy enough for a Tristan to hide in plain sight. But even if that turns out not to be so, I am not the last of the Tristans.”
“What do you mean?” Jensen asks. He lifts his head to look at Jared.
“Did you know that before the humans came, that all Tristans were male like me. Well, not exactly like me. Full-grown Tristans were taller than I am, believe it or not. We had webbed feet, and more fingers than we do now. And, of course, we had no word for male until you all came, we were just us.”
“But if you were all male—how did you procreate? Were you like the Chads and split in two?” Jensen asks.
Two Jareds.
Jensen’s cock valiantly, but ultimately futilely, tries to get hard. He’ll be lucky if his cock recovers enough to get hard again before they have to leave, but he’s hoping it will. He very much wants to have sex on this nice comfy bed one more time before they face whatever they are going to face tomorrow.
Jared laughs. “No. We bore our children much like humans do, even back then.”
“Are you telling me that male Tristans were able to get pregnant?” Jensen asks.
“Not were– are . We don’t have cycles like women do, our bodies determine when we’re ready to conceive. But when that time comes—I’ll bear you a child and the Tristan lineage will continue.”
Jensen looks at Jared in shock. “How was that not in the history books? Or any books?”
Jared shrugs. “I don’t know what was written about my people, but I do know we will survive. Even after centuries of intermingling with humans, we remain uniquely Tristan. And so will our children, and their children, and so on.”
“That’s—”
Jensen isn’t sure what to think about that. He had long ago resolved not to join with a Sparta-approved woman, so he had assumed he would never father a child.
A child with Jared’s eyes, his mischievous personality, his thirst for knowledge, his ability to sway anyone into doing anything.
The Wanderer may not survive their child running loose in her, but Jensen would very much like to meet that child someday.
“I figure we have many years before my body becomes ready, but until then we simply have to practice conceiving one.” Jared sits up. “Speaking of which, I am about to introduce you to the joys of shower sex.”
As it turns out, Jensen’s cock was able to get hard again.
Time Jump
“I don’t understand why we are heading right to Dorci. It’s like you knuckleheads want to be blasted into kingdom come,” Mark grouses.
“The shield is hiding us, we’re perfectly safe,” Felicia replies. “Plus, Jared needs to see his home.”
“You have a lot of faith in something the size of my hand.” Mark points to the sphere Felicia is holding. “And there’s no planet to see. I heard the explosion from my home in Hagan. I saw it explode.”
Jensen can feel Jared tense beside him. He places a hand on Jared’s lower back.
“Be it as it may, that’s where we are headed,” Dani says. “And nobody here cares if you like it or not, so shut it.”
Jensen watches as Dani steers the ship between the many others that protect Dorci. His fingers itch to grab the wheel, but his need to be beside Jared and support him is greater than his need to be the one who steers the ship.
Felicia is sitting in her chair in front of the communication deck. Everything is shut off so there is no signal that the Spartas might spot. But it also means that they have no idea if they are approaching a dangerous situation or if they have somehow been spotted. Everyone is tense. Even Chad is unusually quiet from its perch on Felicia’s shoulder.
The Wanderer’s navigation systems are also shut down. Dani is guiding the ship by sight, relying on the hand-drawn map of the galaxy Mark has provided.
Dorci is on their right, a large grey planet with patches of blue. There are huge ships all around it, most with shields painted on them—the symbol of the Spartas. Everyone holds their breath as Dani steers the ship past a cluster of four ships. Jensen has never been this close to Dorci. Anxiety pools in his stomach, along with fear that at any moment a Sparta ship will chain the Wanderer and he and all his crew will be lost.
Jared grabs his hand and holds it tightly as the Wanderer creeps her way through a maze of ships.
Jensen can feel everyone collectively holding their breaths. The planet is the biggest in the system by far. It seems to take an eternity to pass it by. Dani’s avoiding all the docking areas, but still there are enough ships around to make Jensen nervous and Dani is having to make her way through them without the benefit of the navigation system.
Minutes pass. No one says a word. Now Jared is gripping Jensen’s hand so tightly that Jensen can feel his joints ache, but Jensen needs this contact just as much as Jared does.
And then finally, they are on the other side of the planet. They passed by Dorci and no one noticed. The shield held.
The collective release of breath is audible.
“Easy peasy,” Dani says, with a toss of her red hair. “Now, according to this map, we should be within range of Tryppyt soon.”
Jared’s hand is shaking slightly. Jensen takes it in both of his and turns to face Jared.
“Tell me about Tryppyt. I know so little, even the information in the forbidden books was sparse.”
As Jensen had hoped, Jared turns his attention to Jensen.
“What do you want to know?” Jared asks.
“Everything,” Jensen replies.
Jared leans down and softly kisses Jensen before speaking. “Well, first of all, when you see Tryppyt from out your ship’s window, you will see so much blue. I might be biased, but I do believe it’s the prettiest planet in the galaxy.”
“Maybe slightly biased,” Jensen says, returning Jared’s kiss with one of his own. “Is it the lakes that make Tryppyt appear so blue?”
Jensen knows that Tryppyt is one of the few planets that have natural sources of water. Jensen has never tasted real water, only the synthetic kind, which has a slightly chemical feel. He’s never felt real water against his skin.
“I've seen pictures of them,” he adds. “They looked—look—beautiful.”
Jensen hopes Jared didn't notice his slip. But the truth is, they should be close enough to see Tryppyt in the distance if it is still there to be seen. His crew’s silence tells Jensen it has not been spotted. Jensen never really thought it had survived the Spartas’ wrath. But he feels almost desperate to delay Jared’s grief as long as possible. It's irrational and it makes no sense, considering Jensen’s belief that false hope is dangerous, but he isn't ready to face the inevitable sadness in Jared's eyes.
“Pictures don't do the lakes justice,” Jared replies.” And there were so many of them. I swam almost every day growing up. I wish I could have taken you to my favorite one, taught you to swim, but I suppose not all dreams are destined to come to pass.”
Jensen can feel tears prickling in his eyes. “Jared—”
Jared takes a shaky breath. He presses his forehead against Jensen’s. “They're all gone. The lakes. All the fruit trees. The vegetable gardens like the one my Mama was so proud of. My little town. All my friends. My family. My home. All gone.”
Jared pulls back and Jensen looks out the window. There’s nothing where Tryppyt should be.
Jensen looks up at Jared. Jared’s eyes are wet with tears, but he does not shed any. Instead, he squares his shoulders and stands tall. He nods at Felicia.
“I’m ready.”
Jensen knows now that Felicia—at Jared’s request—has been working on boosting the power of the ship’s communication system. It now has almost the same reach as the Spartas’ system does.
“Are you sure?” Jensen asks, blinking back his own tears. If Jared can be strong, so can he. “We don’t have to do this today.”
“Yeah, we do,” Jared replies.
Dani idles the ship. Jared leads Jensen to a spot in front of the communication bay. Everyone but Felicia pulls closer, standing just a little away from them. Felicia stays in her chair, fiddling with switches.
“Are you ready?” Felicia asks Chad.
Chad chirps and circles over their heads. We are ready.
“Then let’s do this thing,” Jensen says.
Jared looks at him and smiles. Jensen takes the moment to brush his lips against Jared’s.
There’s a buzzing sound, Jensen can’t tell if it’s from Chad or where it’s coming from.
It is done . Their communication system is in full failure. They are already panicking.
Chad flies over to Jared, landing on his shoulder. It’s your time to shine, my old friend.
Jared nods. Felica flicks several switches at once. A soft light bathes Jared and Jensen. Felicia nods at them.
Jensen feels the weight of so many unseen eyes on him. Everyone near a communication port in the galaxy will be watching.
“Hello. My name is Jared Tristan Padalecki.”
Many, who have never heard of the Tristans will be confused. But others, including the Spartas, will know the enormous significance of Jared’s middle name. “It is my understanding that my people, the Tristans, have been wiped from the history books, like Sparta tried to wipe us out of existence. But I’m still here. I’m still fighting. And I’m here asking you to fight along with me—” he looks over at Jensen and then raises their clasped hand. “WIth us. The Spartas are unjust. They are corrupt. They have been allowed to rule for far too long. A millennium ago, your forebears left Earth to find a new place to call home. My kind welcomed you, supported you, joined with you, learned your language and adopted it as our own. We learned your customs and your ways, and fought and lived and loved side by side with you. We did these things of our own free will. We did them because there were more things that united us than separated us. The love of family. The generosity of spirit. The joy in the small things in life. The capacity for love. All of that was torn away from me and mine the day Sparta destroyed my planet. And all of this has been stripped from you, bit by bit, leaving you with nothing to call your own. But that’s not how it has to be. Today, we stand with you. And we are not alone. Right at this moment, you are probably being surrounded by Chads. They are on our side– your side. They will fight with us against the tyranny of those in power. This is our galaxy, mine and yours. This is our world. Our lives are our own. We should decide how to live our lives, who to join with, who to love.”
Jared looks over at Jensen who smiles back at him. Jensen knows that once again there are tears in his eyes. He’s never been so proud of anyone.
“Today we declare war on the Spartas. My message to the Sparta government is this—surrender peacefully and no harm will come to you. But if you do not surrender, then we will fight and we will win. And those of you who want to join our cause–our liberation–you will find that your Chads will be your guide. Thank you.”
Felicia pushes a button and the soft light dissipates.
“Damn, Jared—that was amazing,” Christian says.
Clif pats him on the shoulder. Felicia leaves her station and hugs Jared.
“Let’s just hope others join us,” Jared replies. He looks down at Jensen. “Did I really do okay?”
“You were perfect,” Jensen replies truthfully.
“Guys, you are going to want to look at this.”
Everyone turns to look at Dani and then to the window in front of them.
Something is appearing where nothing was before. Jensen sees a lot of blue, a sea of blue, in a mass almost as large as Dorci.
There’s no way. It can’t be. It’s not possible.
But there it is.
“Tryppyt,” Jared whispers. “It’s Tryppyt.”
“I don’t understand,” Mark says, looking at everyone before turning his gaze once again to the blue planet in front of them. “I heard the explosion. I saw the sky flash so bright it burnt my eyes. How is it still there?”
“They shielded it,” Felicia says, almost breathless with awe. “Somehow those clever, clever Tristans were able to shield a whole planet . They must have used the same technology as they used to shield Jared’s ship, but on a grander scale. My guess is that as soon as they saw the Sparta ships approaching, they activated the shield.”
“So, when the Spartas sent the blasts, instead of hitting the planet—” Christian turns to Jensen, his eyes wide with wonder.
“They hit one of their own ships,” Jensen finishes for him. “And because it was their first major battle, they didn’t want to admit they failed. So they took the Tristans out of the history books and brushed the whole affair under the rug.” He turns to Jared who is standing still as a stone. “Jared, your planet is still there. And just maybe—”
“I can’t. I can’t hope. I can’t—” Jared closes his eyes. “Just let me know when we land, okay?”
Jensen grips Jared’s hand tightly. “I’ve got you.”
Dani approaches the planet cautiously, but there’s no interference. As they enter the planet’s atmosphere, they spot a landing field with several ships on it. As the Wanderer gets closer, Jensen can make the ships out clearly. They are Walkers, some of them look to be in as bad shape as the one he rescued Jared from.
As soon as his ship settles, Jensen leads Jared down to the bay doors. The others follow except for Dani, who stays back manning the bridge. Chad stays close to Jared.
“Ready?” Jensen asks Jared.
Jared nods.
“You can open the door, Dani,” Jensen says, looking at the speaker over their heads.
The door slides open.
Jensen has never seen so much green. A seemingly endless expanse of green spreads out in the field in front of them. Surrounding the landing field, splashes of color turn out to be trees that stretch all the way to the sky. Fruit trees, and not just ones bearing berries. On some trees, he sees small orange spheres, on others green octagonal fruit the size of his fists.
“It’s so pretty,” Felicia says.
“I’m looking at a small fortune.” Mark rubs his hands together.
Jared doesn’t say anything. He looks all around him, his eyes never settling in one place for long. He’s trembling all over, bouncing on the balls of the boots that Mark found for him (Jensen had to trade four WTS for them, but it had been worth it to see the smile on Jared’s face when Jensen handed him the boots.)
Jensen squeezes Jared's hand. “Breathe,” he says to him.
Jared looks down at him, his smile so wide and beautiful that Jensen almost forgets to breathe himself. Jared opens his mouth, but no words come out. Instead he squeezes Jensen’s hand back and then bends down and picks up one of the purple flowers that bloom all around them. He holds it in his hand, studying it for a long moment, before placing it in his hair. His eyes turn the same color of purple.
When he hears rumbling, Jensen looks over to see a carriage headed their way. Jared tenses and holds on to Jensen’s hand. As they come closer, Jensen sees there as many as twenty people in the carriage.
Jensen looks over at Jared, sees him scanning every face in the carriage. Suddenly his eyes–blue as the sky above them at the moment–stop moving and his entire body freezes.
“Lauri,” he whispers.
The carriage pulls to a stop and everyone exits at once. There’s so much talking that Jensen can’t make out many of the words. From what he can hear though, it’s clear they heard Jared’s transmission.
The woman Jared identified as his sister walks right up to Jared. She’s tall, taller than Jensen, but then everyone around them that are teenaged or older are all very tall.
She touches Jared’s face. “I was hoping to see you once more before it was my time.”
“Mom?” Jared asks. “Dad? Liam?”
“All gone. But they lived long, happy lives,” she says. “Mom would dream about you. She would tell us about you and your Jensen, how happy you were together. It made all of us happy to know that you found each other.”
Jared engulfs her in a hug. “I’ve missed you, little sister. So much.”
She laughs. “It’s been far longer for me than it was for you I suspect. You look the same age as the last time I saw you, when I was still a young girl myself.”
“I thought you were gone. I thought everyone was gone,” Jared says. He pulls back and looks at his sister. “I had no idea we had technology that could shield a ship, much less a planet. I think you kept some secrets from me, Lauri.”
“Maybe. A few. I had help, of course, and I wasn’t sure it would even work until the moment we had to use it,” Lauri explains. “To be honest, it’s been a lot of work maintaining it for all these years. I’m glad it’s finally gone.”
“You’re the one who built the shield?” Felicia asks excitedly. She takes the silver sphere from her pocket. “I found the one you used to shield the ship. I’ve never seen such intricate work before.”
“Basically, you are her hero,” Dani says, having left the ship as well now that it’s clear they aren’t in imminent danger. “And since Jared isn’t doing the honors, I guess I will have to do the introductions. I’m Dani, the pilot of that gorgeous ship right here, though sometimes I let that guy over there fly her. This is Felicia, in charge of communications and all things mechanical. The two thugs over there are Christian and Clif.“
“And I’m Mark Sheppard, at your service,” Mark says, taking his hat off with a flourish.
“And this must be Jensen,” Lauri says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“And this is Jensen,” Jared echoes, taking Jensen’s hand again. “Captain of the Wanderer and Co-Captain of our ragtag army.”
“These are mine,” she says, indicating the many people she brought with her. “Children, grandchildren, great, great-great,” she laughs. “And introductions will have to wait. We need to make some plans; we are at war, after all.” She pokes her finger in Jared’s chest. “And do not give me that look. I may be old, but I can still fight. In fact, I’ve been working on a way to create temporary flexible shields that are strong enough to protect a person from lasers or a ship from being blasted by Sparta weapons.”
Felicia is bouncing on the balls of her feet, her eyes dancing with excitement. “That’s amazing. Can I help?”
“Absolutely you can,” Lauri replies. “So few here are interested in my tinkering, just like Jared here never was, it will make a refreshing change to work with someone who enjoys my work as much as I do.”
Jensen looks around him. Near them, he can hear Chris talking excitedly to a man named Steve who is describing plants native to Trypppt that can be used for medicinal purposes. He’s never seen Chris so animated. Also, that slight flush to Chris’ cheeks is very interesting…
“Jensen, look up,” Clif says.
Jensen does. He nudges Jared who looks up too. Over their heads, so far up they appear the size of Chads, are ships. Just a handful of them, but as they watch two more join them.
“Spartas?” Jared asks. All talking ceases as all eyes look up to the sky.
Not very likely. We’ve disabled all their ships that weren’t already flying. And messed with the navigation systems of ships that were.
“You’ve always been so clever,” Lauri says approvingly. Chad brightens, turning almost red for a moment before returning to his natural silver color. “I’ve missed you, Chad. Trypppt has been way too quiet without you and this one causing trouble.”
“If they aren’t Spara ships, what are they doing up there?” Chris asks.
Jensen glances over. That guy, Steve, is still standing right beside Chris. Jensen smiles. If this is the beginning of something, he couldn’t be happier for his friend. Jensen hadn’t realized how dull his life was until Jared came and made everything so damn bright. Chris deserves that too, all his crew does although he strongly suspects Felicia and Dani have been in love for a very long time now.
“I think—I think they’ve come to help,” Dani says. “I’ll go back inside and start communicating with them.”
“I told you they would come.” Felicia turns to Jared. “You did this, Jared. They came for you.”
“No, they came because they want a better life,” Jared replies.
“And they will have it,” Jensen says, wrapping his arm around Jared’s waist. “The Spartas may not realize yet, but they don’t stand a chance.”
“Come, we’ve got work to do,” Lauri says. “And after we deal with those sons-of-bitches for once and for all, we’ll have a celebration the likes of which never have been seen before.” She reaches up and draws Jared into a hug, then opens her arms and pulls Jensen in too. “I’m just so damn happy right now I could burst. Now let's get busy. We have our children’s future in our hands.”
Lauri squeezes them both one more time and then heads toward the carriage. Jensen catches Chris’ eye. “Are you going with us?”
“Um, Steve here has some plants he wants to show me,” Chris says. “I’ll catch up later.”
Jared laughs. “You two have fun getting to know each other.” He calls out to Lauri. “You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up. I want to show Jensen my home first.”
“I’ll be waiting for you,” Lauri says. “We have much catching up to do, my brother. But until then, yes, enjoy showing your sweetheart our little home.”
Chad flits between all the crew, as if deciding where he wants to be most. Somehow the pest has wormed his way into all their hearts, and Jensen isn’t surprised when Chad lands on Chris’ shoulder, as Steve and Chris head to the line of trees on their right.
As the others scatter, some to the ship, the rest of them to the carriage to head to Lauri’s home, Jared and Jensen stay where they are, hand in hand, watching as more and more ships join the others over their heads.
“I suppose after this is over you’ll want to live here,” Jensen says.
There would be worse places to live, Jensen supposes. He’s never pictured himself with a home and a garden and being all domestic, but wherever Jared is, that’s where Jensen belongs.
Jared shakes his head. “Your home is the sky. And my home is with you.” Jared wraps Jensen in his arms. “When we defeat the Spartas–and we will defeat the Spartas–we can see what other mischief we can get into. We will become legends, you and I. Centuries from now, people will still be reading stories about our adventures, about our epic love story. About how we fought evil and won.”
“We will be in every history book,” Jensen agrees, pulling Jared down for a kiss. “People will write epic poems about us.”
“The most epic poems ever.” Jared lifts Jensen off his feet, laughing as Jensen gives a startled laugh.
“Let me down you big oaf,” Jensen says, still laughing.
Over their heads, some of the ships are beginning to circle lower. They will soon be joined by others. They have a war to win. They have much work to do. But for right now, still held safe in Jared’s arms, Jensen wraps his arms around Jared’s shoulders and bends his head down, claiming Jared’s lips.