Shock Therapy, CH 01 (Patreon)

The birds fell silent, following loud pops and hisses that accompanied the utterly foreign smell of burning permacrete that reached Alex sitting on the steps of the vacation hover which had become their home over the last months living in the middle of the forests. He watched Tristan finish cutting the board of permacrete, then attach it to the antigravity sled he’d retooled to hold items under its field, instead of above it, on the sled itself. The Samalian maneuvered it over the large hole that would be their house’s basement, based on the plans Tristan had designed, and lowered it to join Alex hadn’t kept count of how many more.

Alex had…questioned the wisdom of how Tristan was going about building their home, and the Samalian had smiled at him.

If the smile was because Tristan was please Alex hadn’t blindly accepted what he said, or because he was amused that Alex felt their home should be designed by a computer, then built by another one controlling machines that dug the hole, then sprayed the permacrete, slicing it flat before it hardened to the point only military grade tools could make a mark.

Alex knew Tristan wouldn’t trust a machine to build something he was more than capable of making himself, but this was taking much longer that he’d expected. It was probably all going exactly on the schedule his…

He swallowed.

His lover.

Alex was…not use to that.

He still woke up some nights believing this Tristan was a dream, that the reality still had Alex being used and manipulated and he… often wanted that to be his reality.

Along with the pain, physical and emotional, Tristan had inflicted on him, there had been the ease of following orders without questions. Of knowing exactly where he stood, not only in their relationships, but within the universe.

Alex had been a weapon, then a tool, then something the Samalian used for his own relief. Alex hadn’t been someone who mattered the way he did now, and it was…

Terrifying.

Now, not only could Tristan throw him away if he didn’t pull his weight as the weapon and tools that he was, but it could also happen if Alex couldn’t keep his interest. And it wasn’t like Tristan had given him a list of what he could do to keep the Samalian interested. Alex had asked in those first days for one and Tristan had told him there was nothing Alex could do that would make him lose interest.

The last time had come with what Alex had been sure was hints of annoyance, so he’d stopped asking.

He focused on Tristan, watched him move as he used the sled to set up another sheet of permacrete to be cut. The military cutter came on silently, the laser arc blinding even from the other side of the clearing. Then it lost brightness as the energy was used to cut, and the permacrete had a line seared into it, the smaller side falling off the worktable, and Alex let himself react to the horrendous smell. Tristan had his back to him, so he could show weakness.

Another board went down into the large hole, but this time, Tristan paused, turning and smiling at him.

Alex…reacted. How could he not? Tristan might be deadly, but his body was magnificent. His muscles rippled under the dark fur. Not only was he stronger than Alex could ever dream of being, being Samalian, but he looked strong even among them. Alex had experienced that strength in more ways than he could count, bringing pain or pleasure, and often both at the same time.

Of course, his body reacted.

Tristan’s gaze dropped and his smile broadened when he looked up to lock gaze with him, but it didn’t have the satisfaction that had come before, when he saw that Alex couldn’t keep himself from reacting. This time, the smile came with a licking of the lips that exposed sharp teeth and a reaction of the Samalian’s body, his cock thickening and grown hard.

Alex’s breath caught at the blatant response and again, he was reminded Tristan had changed. He was no longer the pinnacle of self control. His body only reacting if it served a purpose. Now he allowed himself to react to what happened, even if nothing came of it.

Well, nothing right now.

Sex was something Tristan gave into often now.

The Samalian turned back to the worktable and Alex’s gaze moved to the ass. The fur that was not quite so dark as appearing black, instead of brown with how much the sun had bleached it over the months spend under it, but still speckled with white. Although the effect of a night’s sky was no longer there.

He’d experienced that ass, and each time Tristan let him take him that way, it was a mix of trepidation and elation. For someone who had not been on the bottom once, in the years Alex had been only his weapon; Tristan was highly skilled in the position.

Reading and practicing, Tristan answered casually when Alex had asked in disbelief. Not every mask the Samalian needed to wear was one of an authoritative male. Some jobs were better accomplished by being meek and subordinate, and some had included performing for the male who needed to believe himself dominant.

Alex couldn’t imagine Tristan as being submissive.

He buried the memories of leading the unresponsive Samalian through the Saratoga prison ship.

Broken was what being submissive meant to him when it came to Tristan.

Even when Alex topped him, there was nothing submissive about his…lover.

He could get the sex he wanted, right now. All Alex needed to do was stand up, and pull Tristan away, push him down in the dirt, or the grass or into the hover, if he didn’t feel like dealing with the cleanup afterward. Tristan would follow his lead.

Probably.

Possibly.

He had before.

But maybe this would be the time he had enough of Alex asserting himself.

So Alex remained seated and admired Tristan’s body.

Sex would happen anyway. Tristan would see to it when he decided to. So it wasn’t like Alex would be starved for it. He chuckled. No, Tristan certainly no longer starved him for sex or physical contact. If it was possible to gain weight from having sex, from being touched, caressed, nipped and stretched and all the other things the Samalian did to him, Alex would be back to looking like the old him, even with all the exercise he got in.

The computer in the hover let him know the satellite was on schedule and Alex pulled himself from drinking in Tristan. He, too, had work to do.

“Give em an update,” he asked, walking through hover to his workstation. The hover was large, designed for a family to enjoy the wilderness for months without missing out on comfort. Tristan had torn down on room and rebuilt it as Alex’s workstation, using only the best equipment available on the planet. He had contracts out to get him better parts, but even without considering how long it would take those mercs to reach those manufacturers and then come to Samalian, it would still be months before they saw those components.

“The satellite sounds the same as on the previous pass,” the computer replied. “Which should indicate the programs you added to it are functioning as intended.”

“Contact it.”

Alex sat, then he was looking into the satellite’s programing. Lines upon lines of code moving and interacting.

“Hello, Crimson,” it greeted him.

He remained silent. He sent query programs to ask the questions they were programed with, and only if the code he’d left behind, hidden among that of the satellite, was untouched, would he get the appropriate responses. An isolated personality that couldn’t remain the same if its code was altered.

The responses were what he needed them to be.

“Hello, give me a status report.”

“Everything is minimal, as expected.”

“Show me the hot spots of activities.”

Code strung before it, and his implant translated it into an image of the planet. None of the zones of activities were centered on the large cities. It wasn’t what this satellite was programed to notice. It existed to find groups of Samalians among the wild that showed a higher level of activities than the primitives LeisureTek allowed them to be.

A glance at the map showed close to a hundred such center of high activities. Unrest was building among the natives against the corporation that dominated their world. Alex shifted the map to focus on a specific region, large enough one center of activity would register, if he hadn’t made the satellite blind to it.

Tristan had asked him to make that Samalian community disappear. Both that he’d asked, instead of ordered, and that the reason was to protect them from reprisals of what Tristan and Alex had done, had showed that more than Tristan saying he loved Alex had resulted from the….

Alex wasn’t sure what had happened. But he’d done what he’d been asked, and once Tristan had asked him if he minded remaining on the planet so he could learn what it meant to be Samalian, Alex had set about making sure that the community remained hidden from all other ways they might be discovered.

The second area, he wasn’t certain it would register, since the work needed to build their home was certainly not on the level of Samalian gathering and arming themselves in preparation for some hoped for retaking of what was theirs. But it was a marked change in this part of the forest, where nothing had taken place for over a century, if he ignored Justin’s kidnapping of Tristan and attempting to kill him, but that had been quick enough to have happened between passes from the satellite. This work had been ongoing for months.

If he’d allowed the satellite to notice anything taking place here, they might be dealing with corporate security.

Not for the first time, he considered letting his code slip. An attack would bring the old Tristan back. It would set the world right and remove the uncertainty.

But to do that would be to fail at a task Tristan had set him on.

And Alex didn’t fail. Tristan had trained him hard enough that he wouldn’t fail unless the task was beyond his capability. And Tristan never asked him for what he couldn’t do.

So, he confirmed his code remained untouched by the antibodies and slipped out of the satellite, watching it travel out of range. He could still get into it if he needed, but that meant going through the corporate systems. And while doable, and not particularly difficult, even with the caliber of coercionist a corporation like LeisureTek employed, it was best to keep that for emergencies.

He stepped out of the hover to Tristan climbing out of the hole and smiled as more of the Samalian became visible. Even when Tristan considered him nothing more than his weapon, Alex always enjoyed watching him.

“The satellite’s still blind,” Alex reported. 

“I know.”

“And how do you know?” Alex asked suspiciously. He was confident Tristan hadn’t hidden a computer in the hole, nor had one hidden on his person. As good as the Samalian was, there were limits as to where someone could stash a datapad when not wearing anything.

“You did the work, Alex,” Tristan replied, as he crossed the clearing, sounding amused. The birds and other wildlife no longer fled of fell silent each time either of them spoke.

The Samalian stopped before him, and Alex looked up.

“You,” Alex said, “are a mess. Did you roll around down there?” He knew there hadn’t been that much dirt in his fur, or any.

“Setting permacrete sheets in place is messy work.” Tristan smiled. Not the human smile of tight lips, the Samalian one of open mouth and showing teeth. Alex suspected he was the only human who could look at that, and not only not run away screaming in terror, but get hard and the danger represented in that at. “You should come help clean me.”

The erection promised more than cleaning would happen, and Alex was on his feet before it registered it hadn’t been an order, but it wasn’t like he would have hesitated, regardless. Still, he decided to do something against the instinct screaming at him to remain behind Tristan, where he belonged.

He took off running. “Last one at the stream bottoms!”

Tristan was at his side in a few paces. “See you there.” Then he was many paces ahead of Alex.

At least, he got to watch that firm ass for a few seconds before it vanished among the trees and Alex could imagine the coming ecstatic mauling.