Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/260007.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Original_Work
  Additional Tags:
      Non_Consensual
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-10-02 Words: 4107
****** At least this crumbling castle is all mine own ******
by Pen_Dumonium_(megyal)
Summary
     (from the prompt) The captain of a small ship that makes its business
     salvaging scrap from ships that are lost in space comes across more
     than he bargained for when he uncovers a teenager who's been hiding
     in a ship for weeks.
Notes
     Written for
     [[info]]
smut_fest's Sci-Fi Round, for [[info]]kkscatnip
Oliver glanced up at quick knock at his open door. He felt his eyebrows crawl
up his forehead upon seeing his sister standing at the threshold. In one hand
she tightly gripped the ragged, wide-brimmed hat which had once belonged to
their father. She smiled at him, nervously, hovering there in the doorway and
regarding him as if he was a dragon guarding riches unknown.
"Amelia," he breathed out, rising from behind his desk and stepping around it
quickly. The material of his austere suit crinkled in complaint as he reached
out, pressed his hands to her shoulders and pulled her in. Her gaze flickered
around the office, taking in the neat stacks of plastic files. He closed the
door, letting it slam in the curious faces of his associates and cupped his
sister's face in his palms for just a moment, just drinking in the sight of his
twin. He touched her hair, brushed back choppy black strands and then pressed
his mouth to her forehead, closing his eyes as he did so. He knew without
looking that she did the same.
He hadn't seen her, not physically, in at least fifteen years. Amelia appeared
impossibly young, without the streaks of grey which had begun to appear at
Oliver's temples, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Twirling through
time and space appeared to do a body well, for Amelia looked as she did when
she had taken over as captain for the Miriam.
Oliver called her name once more, not believing she was standing right here.
She kept smiling up at him, but she was unhappy. He sensed that clearly, as
always.
"What...why are you here? What's wrong?" he asked. Amelia made a face, and he
smiled a little at the fond exasperation now emanating from her. Then, he
frowned.
"You're ill," he declared, now holding her at arm's length, and inspecting her
closely. Yes, she was sick. She appeared fine, but he could feel the shadows
under her skin, creeping through her blood like a thief...a fucking thief who
was going to take her away from him. Oliver shuddered slightly. Amelia pressed
her free hand to the side of his face.
"Yes," Amelia echoed and her voice was very much like his, even his mental one:
same cadence and soft tone. "I'm ill. Very ill." Her eyes were wide and very
dark, and there was a brief tremble at the corner of her lips before it
smoothed out into another smile.
Oliver felt as if he couldn't breathe for a moment and then finally struggled
with a shaky breath.
"Let's sit down." He led her to the pair of armchairs in the corner of his
office, watching as she sank down into one before he took the other, perching
at the very edge. Amelia reclined fully in hers, placed her hat in her lap and
gave him a tired grin.
"I'm not going to expire right this instant," she told him, and Oliver bit the
inside of his lip. "It's Sholar's, Liv," she said, a moment before he opened
his mouth to ask. Oliver groaned, and rubbed at his jaw. "But it won't be like
what Dad went through," she said. "There's a cure now, you know."
He rubbed at his nose. "I know."
A cure, yes, but from what he had read, it required years of treatment even at
this point: raising and training specialised nanobots to invade the body and
reconfigure the genetic abnormality. Sholar's affected only one twin in a pair,
and Oliver had always hoped that it would have been him who got affected, for
the painful symptoms of Sholar's was exacerbated by life in space. It should
have been me, Oliver thought. He didn't love the dark quite the way Amelia did,
didn't live for the disorganized freedom.
"It shouldn't be anybody," Amelia said, frowning at him. "Don't be silly. I'll
be better soon."
"But...the treatment is really expensive, Mel," Oliver murmured. "Do you have
enough saved? And what about the girls? And the Miriam?"
"I'll have to dock the Miriam, although she won't like it." Amelia sighed. "The
crew...I can't help it, you know as well as I that Miri won't listen to anyone
else, so I'll have to let them go. Can't be helped," she said again, sounding
lost."We'll manage somehow. I'll get another job, we'll find some way out of
this. It'll be fine, Liv." She reached across and touched one of his knees.
Oliver clutched her hand and pressed it to his mouth; his darling, darling
Amelia. She was the one who had been made for the stars, pushing out towards
the great sky while Oliver, the careful, plodding one, had remained on the
ground and watched her go without envy.
He thought about his twin nieces, both cadets in that exclusive and expensive
school, and Amelia's partner Protus, a quiet man who taught at that same
academy, nearly all of his salary funnelled into the expense of education.
Oliver's own middle manager job was fine for a single, middle-manager who
didn't do much more than supervise servor rotations, but it wasn't the amount
of cash that the Miriam could pull in; it couldn't help send two bright girls
to school, and it couldn't pay for his sister's recovery.
Amelia watched his face with loving curiosity and then with a dawning
realization that seemed based more on stupefaction more than anything else.
"But Liv, Miriam hates you," she said, as Oliver declared, "Don't let them go
yet. I'll run Miriam for you."
You, they ended together and blinked at each other. Then Amelia opened her
arms, a bright sheen to her eyes. Without hesitation, Oliver went to her,
kneeling at her feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed his
head to her narrow bosom. She smelled like good, strong tea.
"You're an idiot," she said, kissing his brow before settling the hat on his
head. "But you are a wonderful idiot. Thank you."
+
The Miriam did indeed hate Oliver. Possibly, 'hate' was too strong a word. The
Miriam wasn't very large, but what she lacked in size, she certainly made up in
stubborn strength and indomitable speed. She also had a lot of snark for a
salvage-craft of her diminutive stature and nearly all of it was directed at
Oliver.
"I've never really liked you," she told Oliver when he was unpacking a few
items of clothing in his quarters, on his first day as captain. "You were
always the crybaby one."
Oliver hadn't said anything in reply because it would have started an argument
that he wouldn't win. He had cried when Father had brought him aboard for the
first time, but that was because it had seemed so quiet, like a haunted house.
Besides, Amelia had raced away down the curving halls, eager to see the control
area. She had come back when she'd sensed his distress and had hugged him, the
two of them curled into a single ball until their father had found them again.
Oliver never understood why his father used a personality imprint of their
mother as a teenager, for the interactive profile for the ship. Certainly, the
Miriam he knew as a parent had been impatient and her tongue had apparently
been sharpened on both sides, but she had not been overly unkind; the Miriam
was an utter wretch, and Oliver had no idea how Amelia got her to do work on a
daily basis.
"You can't tell me what to do," Miriam sniffed at him when he tried to go out
on his first salvage; in a business such as this, time was of the utmost
importance. He could hardly afford to argue with the ship, and he told her as
much.
"I don't care," was all Miriam said, and had refused to move from the dock-
station. In the end, Oliver had to use cheap tactics: he called Amelia.
"Miri, stop being like that," Amelia lectured from the healing-centre on the
planet's surface, where she was undergoing a preliminary round of DNA terracing
for her nanobots. "You told me you'd be good. I really need you to do this for
me."
"I wish you were here," Miriam said, petulantly. "He's an idiot. He doesn't
know anything."
Oliver felt his cheeks burn, and the heavy gazes of the crew around him as he
stood beside the captain's chair; he hadn't the heart nor the bravery to sit in
it as yet. With some effort, he kept his chin up.
"Of course he knows a few things. Who was your first Captain?" Amelia asked,
and her tone was sharp and cool.
"Captain Alexis Leung," Miriam answered with disgusting eagerness.
"Who is your current Captain?"
"You. Captain Amelia Leung."
"No," Amelia said, voice very tired as it spiralled up from Earth. She sounded
as if she was buried beneath their feet and Oliver shoved that thought away so
hard it felt as if his head was spinning. "No, Miriam. Captain Oliver Leung is
currently your commander and I ask that he is obeyed as such. Do you believe
that Alexis taught me everything I know?"
"Yes, Captain," Miriam answered quickly enough, but she sounded sulky again.
"Alexis also taught Oliver a lot of things. Trust me, and trust him."
After Amelia had signed off, Oliver cleared his throat and said, "Are we ready
now, Miriam?"
"Of course," she responded smoothly. "Captain," she added, and the inflection
was pure spite.
+
Oliver found that the crew responded to him fairly well, more likely due to the
strong physical resemblance between himself and Amelia: they were as alike as
twins could be without being identical, and possessed the same shock of dark
curls, pale skin and large brown eyes. Miriam was still a bit of a problem, but
she managed to keep her ire to a few snappy comments now and again. Oliver
could deal with that. He could deal with a lot of things, he found: the loose
clothing, so different from the well-fitted suits he sported on Earth, the
quiet stretches of time between jobs, filled with space so dark that it seemed
to press in on Miriam's hull implacably.
To his surprise, he found he really liked the salvaging operations, a part of
the job he thought he'd be least suited. He enjoyed racing to an abandoned
craft (the only time that Miriam seemed innocently gleeful, for she was very
fast and she knew it), beating other ships that had picked up the job-broadcast
and staking warning beacons. He operated the reclaim machinery with the rest of
the crew: trying his hand at one of the big articulated claws that had been
added to Miriam's sides, using a crusher they called 'Sir Teeth' to compress
the scrap into cubes and placed in the holds; and really, the best part of all
was getting paid.
"Big starcruiser out in Taurus sector," a job-broadcast came over particle-
waves, right after Oliver had completed a fairly easy salvage. "Sixteen levels,
seven years." That information indicated the size of the vessel and the time it
had been floating around out there. That was a big one, and Miriam had shot
through folds in space so fast that she was practically panting by the time
they arrived at Taurus.
"Wow," one of the crew-members breathed out as they all stared through grimy
portholes at the quiet starcruiser, and then glanced at Oliver. This crew-
member, Stephen, was handsome in a rough sort of way and offered Oliver
inviting smiles ever so often. If Oliver was any bolder, he would invite
Stephen to his quarters but he didn't know if he could take Miriam's taunting
if she discovered an on-board relationship. She was so damned nosy.
"Gravity is still active over there," Miriam stated and her tone was slightly
dreamy. Oliver looked up at the ceiling, eyebrows raised. Miriam never sounded
dreamy. "Someone is... I can sense them."
"What? Shit," Stephen said, rubbing his bald head in agitation. "Someone beat
us to it?"
"There are no other salvagers." Oliver peered at the tiny scanner near the
captain's chair. "Unless this thing isn't working again."
"It's working," Miriam snapped. "I fixed it."
"Like you fixed it the last time?" Oliver asked, evenly and repressed a smile
at Miriam's rude noise. He found that if he showed amusement, it would increase
the levels of her anger. "Okay, so it's working. But you said you sensed them,
Miriam."
Miriam didn't answer for a long moment.
"Miriam?"
"I don't know!" Miriam burst out. "It's like when Amelia is thinking of you, I
guess."
Oliver felt the skin of his cheeks warm at that. When on Earth, he would get
the insistent impression that someone was watching him; it wasn't an unpleasant
sensation at all, even though the hair at the back of his neck would lift. He
would always expect a missive from Amelia within a few days, a fuzzy image of
his twin murmuring that she had been thinking about him.
For some reason, Miriam could pick up on that. Oliver wasn't quite sure what to
think.
"We should hail it," Oliver decided and watched Piper, another crew-member,
turn a terminal properly towards herself and stroke the screen in series of
linear movements.
Piper leaned forward, even though she didn't have to, and spoke: "Starcruiser
Belgian, this is the Salvager Miriam."
Oliver didn't expect a response, and neither did the rest of the crew.
Therefore, there was a collective intake of breath when someone yelled:
"What?!"
The feedback was annoyingly high-pitched and immense. Piper flinched back from
her terminal and brushed her fingers across her screen, cutting down the noise.
Stephen leaned over the captain's chair and briefly depressed a few buttons,
transferring the signal to the general heads' up viewer.
Oliver's first impression was that of crazy, frizzy hair, and a lot of it. He
stared up at the viewer as the individual on the Belgian's bridge seemed to
squirm about restlessly, then backed up so that their hair didn't fill the
viewscreen completely. Oliver looked at the long face and narrow nose of what
seemed to be a teenaged male...with no shirt on.
"What the fuck do you want?" this half-nude teenager demanded, and Oliver
blinked at him incredulously.
"You need to get off that vessel," Oliver said, when he'd finally found his
voice. "We're going to start scrapping it in a few hours."
The boy made a face. "You can't scrap this ship. I live here!"
"You're not supposed to," Oliver said. "How did you get there, anyway?"
"Go away," the boy commanded, tilting up his chin imperiously. "Don't bother me
again."
Static filled the viewer and then it blanked completely.
"He certainly told you," Miriam said and cackled gleefully.
"Be quiet," Oliver said and frowned. He found that his fists were clenched
tightly, and took a few moments to uncurl them. "Piper, you and Stephen go get
that kid off the ship."
"With pleasure, Captain," Piper answered. It was a testament to Oliver's
rattled nerves that he didn't realise she called him 'Captain' until the
shuttle was well on its way to the Belgian.
+
Sixteen hours later, Piper returned to Miriam's bridge and said, "That kid
bites, Oliver."
Oliver, who had spent the greater portion of his day fending off other
salvaging outfits from the attractive hulk of the starcruiser, looked up at her
distractedly. "Bites?"
"Yeah. And we had a hell of a time finding him, he had little hidey-holes all
over the place. Like a roach." Piper gathered up her long braids and arranged
them in a loose coil around her head. "Just don't get too near him, though."
"Amelia!" Miriam suddenly whispered and the whole ship shuddered. Piper
stumbled, trying to right herself using the closest chair. Oliver felt a small
painful jab near his left temple. "He's hurting me!"
Without thinking, Oliver reached out and pressed his palm to the closest
section of Miriam's hull. It must have been something Amelia did constantly,
because Miriam seemed to calm down a little; Oliver, who tried not to touch
Miriam more than necessary, did not know this for sure. Something, however,
told him that this was right.
How could he have thought that Miriam was simply a conglomeration of wiring and
steel? Emotion jittered up his arm and exploded in his mind. Miriam didn't hate
him too much; she was exasperated with him many times, but he hesitated as he
brushed against the coiled core of her fondness for him. That...that was
surprising. She loved Amelia desperately, though, to the point where she called
for her rightful Captain in her time of need.
It's alright, Oliver told her, pushing past the great fright that built up in
Miriam like great thunderclouds back on Earth. I'm not Amelia, but let me help.
Hurts, Miriam moaned. Oliver had no idea what to do, really. He stood near the
captain's chair with his head lowered, sensing the spires of virtual pain which
attacked the mind of his sister's ship. Clumsily, he shoved against them,
trying to topple them over.
I've had lots of practice controlling the Belgian! A strange voice informed him
through his toil. You think a teensy ship like this is any challenge for me?
"You leave her alone," Oliver muttered out loud and pushed as hard as he could.
He imagined his hands twirling a knife, cutting through brawny ropes which held
Miriam against her will. Seated in a golden chair, she drummed bare feet
against a dust-filled floor, her teeth bared. In his mind, Miriam looked like a
feral version of Amelia.
Someone knocked the knife out of his hands and grabbed them. He was shoved back
against a cold wall, his wrists pinned to damp stone. It was interesting to
know how his mind translated this mental battle, but he had no time to ponder
over this; hair whipped across his mouth and cheek, then hot breath feathered
across the skin of his jaw.
The boy was here; he was taller than Oliver, and more muscular. The viewer
hadn't properly rendered the deep red tone of his hair, which fell past his
shoulders in a loose braid. As in reality, he sported no shirt, but at least he
had on a loose pair of trousers. He had grey eyes, set slightly wider apart
than usual; they considered Oliver with great interest.
"So, this is Amelia?" he asked, and he licked his lips. "You're very pretty."
"Get off me," Oliver grunted out and tried to push him off. He managed to twist
his wrists out of the hold the boy had, but they were ensnared again within
moments. The length of their bodies pressed fully against each other and Oliver
jerked back at the sensation of a hard cock pressing against his.
"What are you two doing?" Miriam screeched.
"Shut up," the kid said, almost conversationally and large steel plates slammed
up out of nowhere, locking them in a small cage. If this was real, Oliver would
have been running out of air right now, and would not have seen anything past
his nose. Instead, he could glare at the boy's face.
"I'm Michel." The interloper smiled. "Hi, Amelia."
"Stop calling me that," Oliver said.
"What's your name, then? You can call me Micky, if you like. But I prefer
Michel." He rubbed against Oliver without shame. "You really are very pretty,
you know."
"Could you stop that?" Oliver snapped.
"Tell me your name, then." Michel rocked against Oliver, slow and rhythmic.
"Captain Oliver Leung, and...what are you doing?" He tried not to sound too
panicky, but it came out the other way instead: low and hoarse. Sultry. Aroused
with a teenager grinding against him. In his mind.
"You're very responsive," Michel observed and licked his ear. "Is your sister
like this, too?"
Fully enraged now, Oliver gave a mighty push, and Michel stumbled away. Oliver
leaped unto him, hands scrabbling to pin his wrists the same way his had been
trapped. Michel laughed and evaded him happily, rolling them over. After two
dizzying turns, Oliver was naked on his back, legs spread wide. Michel settled
comfortably between his thighs, just as nude, sweat dripping off golden skin.
Oliver gripped his shoulders, rocking up against him almost unwillingly.
"That's good," Michel crooned, cum oozing out of the slit of his penis and
dribbling over the length of Oliver's. It was warm and sticky. "You took my
house away from me. You owe me, Oliver."
Oliver took a deep breath and then wrapped his legs tightly around Michel's
waist. When Michel gazed down at him in confusion, he smiled, teeth-only. "I
don't owe you a thing."
"Now?" Miriam asked from the other side of the steel barricades. "Now, Liv?"
"Now!" Oliver yelled, even as he and Michel rocked frantically together. When
Michel turned his head, trying to see what Miriam's attempts at taking down his
barriers, Oliver reached out and pulled down his face, claiming his mouth in a
hard kiss. Michel moaned and jerked against him, spattering his release over
Oliver's hot skin; even as his own orgasm raged through him, Oliver sensed the
wavering of that massive will.
Miriam finally tore down the farthest wall with a battle-cry. She stomped in
and yanked Michel from where he was curled limply atop Oliver.
"Hey--" Michel started, but Miriam tossed him against the wall. Oliver expected
him to crumple against the polished surface, but he simply passed through it as
if it was made of smoke, laughing weakly. The entire cage faded away and Oliver
blinked as he found himself standing, fully-clothed as before, his hand pressed
against Miriam's hull.
"Captain?" Piper asked and Oliver jerked his head towards her, strangely
hypersensitive to the low query of her tone; even the low lights of the bridge
seemed far too bright. "Are you...uh. Okay?"
Oliver looked down at his trousers; a damp patch darkened the crotch in an
accusing fashion.
"Oliver, that was gross," Miriam said from the speaker over his head. She was
giggling. "You were naked!"
Oliver laughed weakly. "Have you started salvaging yet? Good," he said at
Piper's slow nod. Then, he fled the bridge.
+
Michel was locked in a small storage room, shackled to a cot just as Piper and
Stephen claimed. When Oliver opened a small window set in the top of the door
and looked in, Michel was indeed reclining in the cot; a metal cuff was around
his ankle, connected to the railings of the cot by a short chain. He was also
masturbating lazily.
"You asshole," Oliver said after he had ducked out of sight as if Michel had
aimed a missile at his head. The image of Michel's long cock seemed burned into
his mind, and he realised that Michel was reinforcing it, somehow. Oliver tried
to block him out, and succeeded only part of the way, because he could still
imagine Michel's thumb wiping over the thick head.
"I'm seventeen, I can't help it," Michel said in a tight voice and sighed,
coming. His orgasm was much quieter in reality. "And you're gorgeous even in
reality, that's nice."
"I should leave you with the authorities," Oliver mused. He wasn't sure which
authorities would apply to this situation.
"No, wait." There was the soft whisper of clothing against skin and suddenly
Michel's face was at the window. Only the top of his head and his eyes were
apparent, since it seemed that the length of chain only allowed him so far.
"Hi," he said, and even though Oliver couldn't see his mouth, he was sure
Michel was grinning.
"Hi," Oliver answered, slightly dumbfounded.
"Look, uh, I'm seriously an asset to you right now. A technopath? I can talk to
machines, that's what that means. And I'm a telepath too, that's two for one.
You know that, right?"
"So I've realized," Oliver said, dryly. "You're also kind of annoying. And you
assaulted me in my mind."
"You didn't seem too cut up about it," Miriam put in, sotto voce.
Oliver glared upwards. "Could you shut up?"
"And you're really pretty," Michel stated. "You don't hear that a lot. But you
are. You can keep me, and I'll tell you that every day."
Oliver spun on his heel and stomped out of the storage area, Michel's loud
laughter following him out.
Can I keep you too? Michel murmured. His mental smile was a soft sensation in
the back of Oliver's mind. He started laughing again as Oliver realised,
unwittingly, that he'd replied yes.
fin
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