Word about the breasts got around, and everybody on the ship tried to get a look. Nobody bothered Alex directly, probably because they were too scared of Tracht, but they weren’t exactly subtle about their staring.
Alex mostly avoided the common areas when he wasn’t with Tracht.
Thankfully, after another week of it—another week of Alex in tight, form-fitting shirts and blouses, of sports bras and open leering—Tracht got bored.
“I do prefer your masculine shape,” he said, and after that there were no more hormone supplements and no more visits to Singh.
It still took a while after Alex’s chest had shrunk back down to mostly normal for him to get up the nerve to head out alone. But he couldn’t really skimp on gym time much longer.
He did his workout as quickly as possible, but he wasn’t surprised that Parsons managed to track him down during that time. He ignored Parsons and went on with his workout.
Or, he tried to ignore Parsons, but that ended up being impossible. He almost tripped over his own feet when he craned his neck to see what Parsons was doing—which was simply lifting weights.
“Fine,” Alex growled. “What do you want?” He got off the treadmill and walked towards Parsons.
“Nothing,” Parsons responded. He set his weights down and wiped the sweat off his brow. “I mean, I said I wouldn’t get involved anymore. I’m—I’m gonna do that. Even if that was clearly a body mod.”
Alex folded his arms across his chest. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I know.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I know,” Parsons repeated. “Look, it’s—no, it’s not fine. I mean, even if he can get away with it, doesn’t mean he should do it. But I don’t want to talk about him.” Parsons sighed loudly. “I’m gonna wash up. You?”
Something about the way Parsons was looking at Alex was weird. Parsons eyes darted in the direction of the gym washroom, and then he raised his eyebrows at Alex.
Oh. He wanted Alex to go along with him.
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll clean up a bit.”
Would Tracht see the two of them walking into the washroom together and think it was weird? Alex hoped Tracht wouldn’t get the wrong idea.
Inside the washroom, Parsons peeked into all the stalls and changing cabinets, making sure the room was empty, and that was even more ominous. Alex’s skin started prickling.
“What are you doing?”
Parsons sighed loudly. “I just wanted to have an actually private conversation. The washrooms are the only places on the ship not monitored in some way.”
Alex looked around uneasily. “You sure? ‘Cus I wouldn’t put it above Tracht to monitor anyway.”
“Yeah. Schultz in engineering, she said so. She had to repair a bunch of the cameras once. That’s why if anybody on the crew wants to hook up in secret, they find an empty washroom. But let’s hurry, before Tracht thinks that’s what we’re doing.” Parsons started getting changed out of his gym clothes. “When you were talking about what you and your brother did, you said that didn’t bother you.”
“Uh…. No? Was it supposed to?” Alex started wiping himself off. He didn’t like the way Parsons said it, like it was a bad thing, and he tensed up.
“Yes? But okay. I wasn’t going to ask you. I was trying to find a way around it. But after what Tracht did to you…” Parsons pulled something out of his gym bag and held it out towards Alex. “I need you to put this in Tracht’s cabin. Preferably under the nightstand or near wherever it is that Tracht usually sleeps.”
“What?” Alex took the device. For some reason, his hand was shaking. “What is it?”
Parsons shrugged. “I got an offer to make a lot of money all at once. All they wanted me to do was get this in close to Tracht.”
There had to be more to it than that. “What does it do?”
“Does it matter? It’s easy, and it’ll hurt Tracht. Don’t you want that? Get some revenge against him for everything he’s done to you? Doesn’t he deserve it?” Parsons started looking angry. “Are you in or out? We can’t stay in here forever.”
Alex looked at the device. He wished Nick were here, because even if Nick didn’t know what the thing did he’d be able to either weasel it out of Parsons or make some sort of accurate assumption.
“Yeah. Okay.” Alex wrapped his palm around the device. “Whatever. I can do it. But,” he looked Parsons in the eye, “are you sure?”
Parsons shook his head. “No. The captain’s an asshole, but then he started teaching you stuff, and I thought maybe he wasn’t completely bad.” His expression hardened. “But then that thing with the breasts. I don’t care what you did; giving you a body mod violated the contract. And he did all of that to humiliate you. He’s a monster.”
Oh. Yeah. That was true. Tracht was an asshole. A dick. A monster.
It made sense to want to screw Tracht over.
“Y-yeah. I guess so.” Alex’s voice shook.
“Alex, I could keep Meilin in school for another three years with this payout,” Parsons said. “I’ve tried to find another way, but…”
“Guess that’s good.” Alex put the small device, which was about the size of his smallest fingernail, into his dirty sock. He’d be able to take it off later without Tracht noticing there was anything inside.
But he felt weird about the whole thing.
“Hey, Alex. Thank you. You’re really helping me out here,” Parsons said. He extended his hand for a fist bump.
“Sure.” Alex lightly tapped his fist against Parsons’ and then left.
===
Alex’s gut churned the entire evening. He threw his socks with the device into the laundry hamper. He was in charge of doing their laundry, and Tracht wouldn’t ever search it.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t good at hiding his discomfort. He missed several cues to take food from Tracht’s hand, and Tracht lightly slapped Alex’s jaw to get him to pay more attention.
Even resting his head against Tracht’s thigh wasn’t doing much to relax Alex.
Finally, Tracht pushed away from the table, dislodging Alex from his spot. “What’s the problem now?”
“Nothing,” Alex muttered. He got up, ignoring the slight jiggle in his chest, and crossed his arms. “I’m fine.”
Tracht rolled his eyes. “Do you remember your first few weeks on the ship, Alex? And how you tried very, very hard to hide information from me?”
Yeah. Alex did remember. He remembered not getting food and being locked in the cage and Tracht threatening to rip his tooth out. His hand went up to his mouth instinctively.
He could still make something up. He could say it was the tits, or maybe that Parsons had been a dick again.
But if Tracht found out that Alex had done anything against him—
That wasn’t just a punishment. That was a guaranteed annulment of the contract. That would be Alex going back to the Nilsens, and Tracht going off to be with Dimitri or some other bondservant.
“You said—” Alex stopped because he didn’t know where he was going with it. Then he fumbled out, “You said that friends don’t use each other. Or something like that. I don’t remember.”
“I believe I asked you if you’d ever had any friends aside from your manipulative brother. Somebody who didn’t keep you around just because you were useful. So? Has your friendship with Parsons flickered out again?” Tracht shook his head. “At this point I’m not sure why he continues to try, when he seems to dislike everything you stand for so much. And if he thinks he can save you from me, he’s doing a bad job of it.”
Oh. Duh.
Alex started laughing, and he couldn’t believe how fucking stupid he’d been.
It was Nick all over again.
“Yeah. You’re right,” Alex said through his laughter. “Parsons has no reason to like me. I mean, you’d have to be an idiot to want to hang out with the guy who knocked you out, right?”
He caught Tracht scowling at him lightly. “No, I suspect you need to be naïve. I would have said that Parsons believes you are, in some way, inculpable for your situation.”
God, Tracht was being nice about Parsons? Well, Alex was gonna show him. He stalked over to the laundry hamper and found his gym socks. He hesitated there for a second, thinking about what Tracht might do to Parsons when he found out. But if Parsons hadn’t thought about what could happen to Alex, why the fuck should Alex care about him? Alex angrily pulled the device out and then presented the it to Tracht.
“Stupid or whatever, I don’t care. He asked me to plant this near your bed. Dunno what it does. He wouldn’t tell me. I guess all he wanted from me was to use me.”
Tracht took the device and held it up to the light. Confusion morphed into fury. “Were you—were you actually going to do it?”
“No!” Alex shouted and stumbled back. “No. I didn’t want to. But maybe I wouldn’t have told you about it either. Except fuck him, fuck him, fuck him for even asking me to…”
“Asking you to betray me.” Tracht set the device down, closed the distance between the two of them, and then pulled Alex down into a kiss. Deep and searing, controlling Alex and somehow making Alex feel more than just owned. Making him feel wanted and right.
Alex wrapped his arms around Tracht and started kissing back.
“Alex,” Tracht whispered when he pulled away, “You’re going to help me deal with Parsons.”