30. Essa
thirty
Essa
A Few Months Later
T he air in the desert humans call Death Valley reminds me of home. Sure, not of the temperature controlled palace, but of the times Niivi and I used to sneak off to play in the sand dunes with the other children. We aren't near the dunes, but I saw them on our ride here. That, and the hot, arid smell, reminds me of good memories.
"Fuck, it's hot as balls," Adam says, tugging at his crotch like he's done a handful of times already.
"Your balls are hot, or this place is as hot as your balls?" I ask.
It's a strange expression. I don't remember his balls being particularly warm, but then again, I'm used to the hot. Maybe they're too warm for him.
"His balls are sticking to his legs because he went commando thinking he'd get to fuck you when this was all over," Seth tells me before taking another swig from his canteen. His eyes skate over my body, making it seem as though neither of my males is taking this mission as seriously as they should. "My junk is nice and snug in some boxer briefs, and I think I'll still be able to fuck you when this is all over."
I roll my eyes as I keep moving across the cracked earth. Leave it to my males to be thinking of fornication when we're this close to something we've been working on for months. I don't call attention to how it's their way of dealing with the complicated feelings being back at this place brings up.
"Why do either of you think I will want your sweaty balls anywhere near me?" I have to fight not to laugh at my own question, but I hear twin snorts from the men behind me, telling me they found it as humorous as I did.
An arm wraps around my waist, and then Seth's pressed up against my side, his tongue lashing across my neck as though he's eager to taste my sweat. Okay, his point has been made because I would enjoy licking the sweat off both of them. Not their ball sweat, though. They can keep that to themselves.
"This is a reminder that I'm helping you and not consenting to watching the three of you do whatever this is," Phial grumbles from behind us. I cringe internally at how many times he's heard the word balls in the last few minutes. My males distract me too easily.
"Don't watch then," Adam says, and I can see his smug smile in my mind without needing to turn to face him. Seth is still beside me, though I doubt he'll stay like that for long with how hot it is and how our body heat can't be making it any cooler for him.
"Don't watch," Phial mutters before getting louder. "I believe it was the three of you who asked for my assistance in this."
"And you assisted, so go invisible and sunbathe on a rock or something," Adam says with a chuckle. "Isn't that something lizards like to do?"
Seth shakes his head but doesn't join in on the conversation, and I'm not about to butt in unless the two of them start fighting with one another. We've grown accustomed to one another in the few months since Adam and Seth joined the crew. Even Adam, who used to be all snapping teeth and growling like some kind of untamable wild animal, has proven to be domesticated.
Sure, he still likes getting underneath Phial's scales, but that's something Phial enjoys doing to him as well. It's made living with them easier since they take out most of their annoying nature on one another instead of spreading it out amongst the rest of the crew.
"Essa, are you to let him talk to me this way?" Phial asks, his footsteps padding on the hard ground until he's standing at my side, forcibly pushing Seth away. I glare at him, but Seth shakes his head again as he laughs. "Tell your male I'm not a lizard."
Unfortunately for my scaled friend, the mother has not looked favorably on him today because a creature that's most definitely an Earth lizard sits on a rock close to where we're walking. I think for a moment that my males won't see it, but Adam notices it almost immediately, lunges for it, and has it in his hands before the poor creature can flee.
"You're telling me this doesn't look like you?" Adam asks, holding the lizard up so we can all see it. Although his coloring differs from Phial's, he has the same facial structure and double eyelids.
"I'm a fully grown male, and that isn't even big enough to be a Sytharian when they first hatch," Phial says, glaring at the Earth lizard like it's wronged him in some way by looking a little too similar to him. "He has too many fingers as well. How am I to think this is what you think I look like when you can't even count–"
Phial is cut off when blood spurts out of the creature.
"What the fuck?" Adam asks, holding the lizard away from his body so the creature doesn't do anything to him. "Where the fuck did that come from?"
"Did you hurt it?" I ask, trying to get close to the creature to comfort it or offer it aid if my male has done something to hurt it. When I get close, there's nothing wrong with it, but there's blood pooled in the corners of its eyes.
"Are you holding it too tightly?" I ask, scowling at Adam, who looks like he's as upset about maybe hurting the creature as I am at him maybe hurting the creature.
"I don't think so. One of Adam's kids had a bearded dragon. I know how to hold a lizard without hurting it."
"His child owned a dragon?" I ask, my eyes going wide with this new information. "I thought those were human myths."
"What?" Adam looks at me like I've grown a second set of horns, and now I'm even more confused.
"You said she owned a dragon," I tell him, my tone a little sharper than it needs to be.
We shouldn't be playing around with the lizard at all, considering the explosives Phial rigged to blow are on a timer, but I think we're probably far enough away at this point. At least, I hope we're far enough away.
"A bearded dragon," Adam laughs. "It was like the size of this guy, no wings, no fire breathing."
"Stupid name then if it wasn't even a dragon," Phial cuts in, his lips pulled down in a frown as he observes the creature in Adam's hands. "Should you let it go now? You've already made it bleed. Maybe it wishes to go to its home." "I didn't make it bleed," Adam says, sounding a little unsure, like he thinks he somehow hurt the creature without meaning to.
"Just set it down. I don't think I can offer it any–" I stop speaking as more blood shoots from the creature's eye and lands on my shirt. I stand to my full height, taking measured steps away from the creature. "Is it attacking us with blood?"
"From it's eyes?" Phial asks, his tongue sticking out in disgust. "You compare me to that?" He points at the creature as he looks from Adam to the blood-shooting reptile. "Disgusting."
"Okay, okay, I'm setting it down," Adam says. At least I didn't hurt it."
He mutters the last part much quieter, as though he doesn't want any of us to hear that he cares about something. As if we don't already know that he cares about each and every one of us. Even Phial and he are friends, even if neither of them will ever admit it. Adam would do anything for the crew and Seth as well. The feeling is mutual between all of us.
A deep rumbling fills the air around us and vibrates the cracked Earth below our feet. The lizard darts away from us as soon as his little feet hit the ground, and thankfully, it runs off in the opposite direction of where we're coming from.
The rumbling grows louder until a loud explosion fills our ears. I grab for my males on instinct, pushing them behind me and wrapping my tail around Phial's ankle when he refuses to let me be his shield. He's too in awe of the cloud of dust and dirt that has filled the sky from where we've been walking away.
"I thought it would be bigger," he says after a few moments of admiring the destruction of his work. "Maybe next time we blow up an underground research facility, you let me pack more explosives."
"You packed enough," I remind him.
We debated how many explosives we would need to render the research facility useless. Phial tried to make the argument that the bigger the explosion, the bigger the message, and I had to keep reminding him that I was only doing this to make the people who hurt my males pay for what they had done. There was no message, and thankfully, there were no other test subjects.
Adam pushes back in front of me when the rumbling stops, and the dirt and dust start slowly settling.
"Where are you going?" I ask him, confused about why he's walking back toward the research facility when our transport is still a distance away in the other direction.
Adam doesn't turn to answer me. Just keeps walking back toward the now destroyed research facility.
"Oh, I wasn't joking when I said he wants to fuck you in the ruins," Seth tells me, squeezing my hand in his as he urges me to follow after our male. "I might be hoping for the same thing."
I expect to hear more grumbling from Phial, but he's walking back the way we came from, toward the transport. I allow Seth to pull me back toward the research facility. My comm is in my pack, so we can reach the crew if things go wrong.
"You have an hour once I get back to the transport," Phial calls over his shoulder. "I'll bring the transport, but I don't want to see anyone's genitals."
Adam's shoulders tense, and I wonder for a moment if he's going to spin around and tell Phial not to even think about my genitals, but he takes a deep breath, lets it out, and keeps walking. At least I know which desire wins out between wanting to argue with Phial or sleep with me. If it was the other way around, I might be concerned that I'm losing my touch on keeping my male in line.
"No genitals, promise," I call out over my shoulder, laughing when I watch Phial's feathers lift off the top of his head, his whole body shaking with a shiver of discomfort. He's my most dramatic friend, and I wouldn't want it any other way.
"Hurry up!" Adam yells at Seth and me. "If we only have an hour, I want to make good use of my time."
I shake my head in amusement, but Seth and I pick up the pace.
"I said no genitals, and then when I showed up, he wasn't wearing pants," Phial groans like he's in pain as he points at Adam, who's lounging on my spot on the couch. Adam's still amped up from what we did earlier and wants to pick a fight, but he's being petty about it, so I'm being even pettier and pretending I don't notice him purposefully trying to antagonize me. "Humans don't have pocketed genitalia, so he wasn't even modest by any standards at all."
"Pocketed genitalia?" Seth asks, his attention fully snagged on that piece of Phial's whining.
No one else is really listening to Phial except for Avery, who's bright pink, either in embarrassment at her male being so dramatic or because she's thinking about his pocket. My face screws up at the thought.
"Human males just have their cocks hanging there, between their legs. It's foul." Phial pretends to faint in his beanbag, falling on top of Avery, which has her giggling.
"Wait, where's your cock then?" Seth turns around on the couch, looking at where Jovi's whispering something to Sloane as she sits in his lap. His question catches them both off guard, and Jovi sputters something before Sloane saves him.
"Varon cocks look like yours but bigger and better in every way."
Sloane shoots my male a wink as she says it, and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the confused worry on Seth's face as he looks down at his lap and then over to me. I'm surprised Adam hasn't snapped to tell us all that his cock is perfect for Seth and me. But he's too focused on watching me to see if I'm going to react to him.
"No more talking about cocks," Alik sighs as he enters the entertainment room.
He told us to meet him here but took his sweet time joining us. I'm about to say as much when the look on his face tells me that we're about to have a serious conversation.
I sit down, using my strength to push Adam out of my spot. He grumbles something about me not playing fair but doesn't try to cause more of a scene than that. Although, his hand does find its way to my lower back, where he teases the base of my tail because he's an evil male.
"I've heard back from the Intergalactic Alliance," Alik says, his face serious, his tone giving nothing away.
Technically, our mission to destroy the human research facility wasn't legal. It was illegal in many senses, but we were careful, besides the intercourse afterward. Not to mention, the research facility was off-record, not attributed to any government agency, and they were conducting illegal experiments. If anyone tries to come for us, they'll have to admit to what they were doing there. We should be safe from legal ramifications. But Alik's making us sweat, making me wonder if we messed up somehow.
"Tell us now if four of us are going to some prison planet," Phial hisses. His blunt words pierce through whatever fun Alik's having at our expense because his stern expression softens into a small smile.
"I've heard nothing about the explosion on Earth, but we were just asked to complete a contract for the Sentient Smuggling Department."
"Wait, they're finally giving us jobs again?" Jovi asks, the smile in his voice evident.
We've been floating around in space, trying to keep ourselves busy for the last few months because we haven't been allowed any jobs. We visited K'Vella and her new babe many times, but other than that, we haven't done much of anything other than be with one another.
"They're giving us jobs again," Alik confirms, his tone lighter than I've heard it when he's not talking to or about Sloane. "I just needed to confirm with all of you that you still want to do this."
It takes no time for all of us to agree that we want to return to work. It takes even less time for us to be on our way to the nearest port station to grab supplies. Then, we're on our way to a rendezvous spot where we'll meet a crew of smugglers who are transporting creatures they should not be.
One day, we'll all settle down, but for now, our purpose is to be out in the universe doing what we can to make it a slightly better place. And now I have two males to share that with, not to mention the crew, all of my human friends, and Holoth and K'Vella's growing family. There is much to be thankful for, and I'm the most grateful.