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“I can’t get it in,” Commander Iverson says.
“He’s tight,” agrees Professor Sanders, with a short little laugh. “You have to prepare him more. Use more lube, stick another finger in-- yeah.”
The lubricant is cool against his asshole, but Iverson is impatient and pushes his wet fingers up hard enough that Shiro whimpers. He tries to angle his hips to make it easier, biting the inside of his cheek, but Iverson’s other hand digs into his pelvis and holds him still. “You do like this, don’t you?”
Shiro shakes his head minutely, but he’s holding his breath and can’t answer. Iverson’s slick finger is forcing him to stretch, and it doesn’t feel good - the angle is awful and the commander is clearly more interested in replacing his fingers with his dick as soon as he can.
Sanders adjusts her grip on Shiro’s arms. “Keep it down,” she reminds Iverson. Iverson grunts in reply.
Shiro isn’t gagged, but shame keeps him silent all the same. The thought of being found like this - folded over a research desk in the back corner of the library, pants and boxers around his knees and uniform rucked up his back, with Commander Iverson three fingers deep inside him - is mortifying.
He doesn’t realize he’s subconsciously trying to squirm away from Iverson’s fingers until the commander’s free hand digs into the juncture of his thigh and hip and drags him back, shoving his fingers in harder at the same time. “Hold still,” he hisses under his breath.
Shiro balls his hands into fists at the discomfort of it, sucking in his breath so hard it makes a noise. “Just let me,” he pleads in a whisper, not sure how he’s planning on finishing the sentence. If he could just shift a little, lower his hips a little, it would be okay.
Honestly, he just wants this over as soon as possible. He usually does, but now more than ever. He’s been cornered in his own dorm room, the senior lounge, and summoned to Sanders’ office for this, but at least there was a keycard between himself and any unexpected eyes. Here, the terror of someone appearing in search of a research book is real and present, and if it happens his entire life is over.
“Begging, Shirogane?” Iverson asks, leaning over his back. Shiro feels wet, sticky rubber against his ass and he fleetingly thinks he understands why Iverson doesn’t want him any lower than on his toes, for the pleasure of rubbing against him.
If he would bother to lower his hand, he’d quickly find Shiro unlikely to beg for anything - completely soft and still against his thigh.
Sanders leans forward too, putting pressure on Shiro’s arms and - maybe accidentally - pressing her crotch into Shiro’s fisted hands. “I think he’s ready,” she murmurs.
“Thank god,” Iverson says; it means he doesn’t hear Shiro’s shaking sigh of relief as the commander pulls his fingers free. His ass aches, and Iverson is about to fuck him, but, Shiro reflects, at least Iverson can’t curl his dick the wrong way trying to stretch Shiro.
This time Shiro is prepared enough; he feels Iverson bump against him, line himself up, and jerk his hips forward, pulling Shiro back with the hand on his hip as he does so. The head of Iverson’s cock is bigger than his fingers by enough that Shiro grimaces at the sensation, but Iverson pushes past his sphincter and sinks in to the base.
Iverson groans. To Shiro’s surprise, he feels wiry pubic hair and skin; Iverson’s pants are down, not just unbuckled and pulled open to let his erection out. For some reason, Shiro feels his face warm; he can’t say why, but it feels more intimate, and thus more violating.
“Good, isn’t it?” Sanders whispers, still bearing down on Shiro with her full weight as if Shiro is going to try to get away. Shiro thinks he feels dampness against his knuckles. “But keep your voice town.”
“Right,” Iverson says, his voice rough but pitched low. “Keep an eye out.” He takes a firm grip on Shiro’s upper thigh and hipbone, pulls back a little, and shoves back in. “Fuck.” Shiro tenses his legs, trying to keep from rocking with Iverson’s thrusts; the bruising grip on his pelvis helps, at least.
Shiro knows Sanders likes to watch. So; he forces himself to lift his head, forces himself to not wander away mentally from Iverson’s short, jerky thrusts or the tight grasp on his arms, and keeps an eye on the gap in the book stacks where any unlucky spectator would appear.
*
Everything after the first time is mostly easy.
The first time there had been three people - Sanders, Commander Mitchell, and Professor Wu, the board of senior instructors who held the hearing on Shiro’s fitness to pilot the Kerberos mission - and Shiro had, he reflected, set himself up for the fall. He’d never infracted the alcohol regulations on campus before, but the evening of the day he received word he was officially slated for the Kerberos mission two years hence, he’d celebrated with friends and a bottle of bootlegged vodka. It had been a Friday night. They hadn’t broken any other rules - it was even pre-lights-out. Everyone except Shiro was already 21, and he only had a few short months to get there.
But Shiro received a summons to Sanders’ office for an initial briefing halfway through his third drink. Mortified, he’d cleaned up the best he could and hustled to the office. Still, he knew it was obvious to anyone who knew him he was off. Everything was ruined by his indiscretion, and he swore to himself over and over that if anything short of losing the Kerberos mission was offered as punishment, he would take it.
In the middle of the night, Shiro sometimes wonders if they knew he was drinking and summoned him for that reason. But realistically, it was probably just a convenient coincidence. If he’d been sober, maybe he would have walked away. Maybe he would have contacted Commander Holt, or done the right thing instead of what he did.
He’s careful to never break a rule now, but from the growing ring of instructors he can barely look in the eye, he knows they don’t need infractions as an excuse anymore.
*
It goes something like this:
Shiro is preparing for his senior thesis, so he goes to the library to pick up some research titles on deep space telemetry. On his way to the front to check out his titles, Professor Sanders appears and says hello, and smiles. Commander Iverson is right behind her.
Shiro says hi, it’s good to see her, and Commander Iverson too, sir. He shifts his books to his left arm so he can salute. Iverson nods.
Sanders says she has something she wants to talk to Shiro about. Shiro’s insides shrivel a little. He asks if it can wait half an hour; he just needs to check out his books and return them to his room. Sanders says no: it’s a bit urgent. It will only take a moment. She’s crossing the few feet between them, placing a hand on the back of his shoulder, turning him back the way he came.
Shiro goes, casting a glance at Iverson over his shoulder; the commander follows them. Shiro starts to think this might be a legitimate, urgent discussion that must be carried on in semi-private. He relaxes.
Sanders stops them by a back-corner desk. She take the books out of Shiro’s hands and puts them on the table. She lays a hand on Shiro’s chest. Shiro starts at the contact and looks back at Iverson, taking a step back. Professor Sanders, he begins.
The Commander heard about your talents and wanted to witness them first-hand, she says.
Here? Shiro’s voice cracks. His thoughts start to race; so much could go wrong. He tries to bargain. If they’ll just give him twenty minutes, he can be in Professor Sanders’ office directly. No, ten minutes.
Here. Now, says Iverson, speaking for the first time. They don’t have much time. Stop stalling, Shirogane.
Shiro looks from Iverson to Sanders. He won’t do this; not here, not in the library. He can come back for his books later. I have to go, he says. He pushes past Sanders, goes to walk past Iverson, but Iverson reaches out and grabs his bicep.
Leave, and I bust you back down to cadet, he warns. Shiro’s throat fills with bile. He almost tells Iverson to go ahead, but he hesitates. He hesitates so long that Iverson simply tightens his grip and moves, dragging Shiro two steps backwards.
The gap in the shelves might as well be a thousand miles away. Shiro buckles. Yes, sir, he says belatedly.
Good boy, Sanders says behind him.
*
Iverson is panting through his teeth, thrusting with less and less regularity. Now that he’s no longer being tortured by a bad finger job, Shiro’s cock is starting to react. He tries to not think about it; he’ll calm down soon enough when this is over. He can’t hear anything but Iverson and Sanders whispering encouragement. Her fingers are twitching around Shiro’s limbs.
A face appears in the gap in the bookshelves.
Shiro gasps aloud, jerking his head up. A shock of adrenaline surges through him and he breaks into an instant cold sweat. He can’t even focus his eyes. Sanders mistakes this for enthusiasm. “Did he hit a good spot?” she murmurs.
“Someone saw us,” Shiro chokes out. He recoils from Iverson, jerks his arms against Sanders’ grip. He blinks hard, struggling to focus; the face seems to be gone. “Someone was he--nngh!”
Iverson roughly pulls him back, thrusts viciously one last time, and groans; Through the condom separating them, Shiro feels Iverson come. Thank god, he thinks; at least that’s over.
Sanders is dismissive. “I don’t see anyone,” she says. “You sure you didn’t imagine it?”
Iverson pulls out, but has shrunk enough that the condom gets left behind; he’s is quick to remove it, but Shiro grimaces at the sensation. “We would have heard someone coming, Shirogane.” Iverson steps back.
I doubt you would have heard a tornado, Shiro thinks. But Sanders releases his arms and Shiro pushes upright so fast he makes himself dizzy. He hikes up his boxers and pants with trembling hands. The more he considers, the more he believes he saw Commander Holt. While he’s not sure what that means, he’s certain that he doesn’t want either Iverson or Sanders to know. “Maybe I was seeing things.”
Sanders smiles. “You’re a good kid, trying to warn us,” she says.
Shiro feels nauseous. He tucks in his undershirt, strangely aware of how his motions echo Iverson’s as they both return their uniforms to military presentability. Sanders is corking the bottle of lube. Shiro’s nausea increases at the premeditation its presence implies. Did Iverson specifically ask to fuck him in a public place?
He can’t stay a second longer. The moment his jacket is straightened and tucked, he says, “Excuse me,” and, without asking permission to go, salutes Iverson, nods to Sanders, and departs. If Iverson doesn’t like his attitude, Shiro will weather the storm later. He leaves his books behind; he can come back for them when he’s not afraid he smells like sex and sweat. Sore and exhausted, all he wants is a shower, and to find Commander Holt.
*
Shiro has no intention to talk to anyone or do anything other than walk directly to his dorm room - but before he’s even out of the library, he almost literally bumps into Commander Holt.
Commander Holt is a thin, tall man who has a cheerful word for everyone. He has a Master’s degree in Evolutionary Biology. The primary objective of the Kerberos mission - alongside stress-testing various equipment, collecting geological samples, and studying the effect of solar winds - is to take ice core samples and determine if any life exists, or ever existed, on the tiny exoplanet. Shiro doesn’t know anybody more enthusiastic about the idea of alien life than Commander Holt.
The Commander emerges from between two shelves just as Shiro is walking past; Shiro, jolted by the sight of the only person he wants to see now, jerks back a step, and the Commander straightens. “Shiro,” he says, not unpleasantly, and smiles.
Shiro salutes half a beat late. “Commander.” He licks his lips; he wants to continue, but the impossibility of broaching the subject of what Holt must have witnessed tongue-ties him. He hasn’t gathered his thoughts or figured out what he wants to ask and he can’t tell if he’s imagining that Holt’s smile is strained.
“Here to work on your thesis?” Holt asks after an awkward pause.
“Oh. Yes. I was here for that.” Before always feels light years away, afterwards. “I was just on my way out.”
Holt nods. “Then I’ll see you at the briefing next Monday.”
Shiro nods. His chance to talk to Commander Holt is slipping through his fingers. There is a terrible pressure behind his eyes, a strange terror that if he walks away, there will never be another chance. The normalcy shakes his faith in what he saw. Did he see Commander Holt? Was it someone else?
“Shiro?” Holt’s voice drags Shiro out of his thoughts. “Are you all right?”
Shiro forces himself to stop panicking. He reminds himself: they’re in a public place. Professor Sanders and Commander Iverson are still in the same building. Even if Commander Holt saw something to concern him, he couldn’t very well talk to Shiro about it here, now; he might also be gathering his thoughts, trying to decide how to react.
“I’m afraid I’m a little scattered,” Shiro says, forcing a little laugh. “Could I meet with you later today, sir? I could use your advice on something.”
Holt drops his gaze. “Of course, Shiro,” he says. “Come by my office in an hour.”
Shiro nods, thanks him, and says his goodbye; that’s enough time to shower, change his uniform, and maybe even come back down to the library and check out his research books before they get moved to a retrieval cart.
*
Shiro cleans himself the best he can, but he’ll probably be uncomfortable going to the bathroom for day or two; Iverson was not gentle. Nonetheless, the shower revives him. Feeling more human, he emerges from his room in his second uniform, fresh-pressed from the dry-cleaners, ready to face Commander Holt again.
If Commander Holt saw something, Shiro thinks, he absolutely must talk to him. He’s a good man, the best man Shiro knows. His silence in the moment - his decision to walk away - was probably a reaction of shock. Shiro tries to imagine how he would react if he saw such a scene and isn’t sure he wouldn’t walk away as well. He thinks about how much more mortified he would have been if a spectator interrupted them and even believes himself grateful for Holt’s initial silence.
But because Shiro trusts in Holt’s goodness, he knows that even if the commander was hesitating on what action to take, he would, at length, go to the authorities, or to another instructor. Before that happens, Shiro needs to talk to him. He needs Holt to understand why he did it; he needs to warn Holt which instructors to avoid confiding in or reaching out to.
Shiro isn’t sure of his own fate, but he trusts Commander Holt. It’s the last thing he has, now.
An hour after he first left the library, Shiro takes a deep breath, lets it out, and knocks on Commander Holt’s office door.
“Come on in,” Holt says. Shiro enters; he closes the door behind him, saluting casually as he does so.
Holt’s desk is covered in stacks of paper; Shiro knows from a short stint T.A.-ing for him that there’s a method to the madness. Holt seems to have fully engaged himself in some bit of work or other since Shiro saw him in the library, a pen behind his ear and three folders spread open, propped against his computer screen. “Come in, sit down,” Holt says, his eyes still on his computer screen. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Shiro sits in the seat closest to him. His heart thuds in his ears. The thirty seconds Holt spends finishing a sentence is a torturous year to him.
“And, done. Well.” Not bothering to minimize the window, Holt twists his chair to face Shiro over his desk. “What can I do for you, Shiro?”
Again, the indifferent normalcy of the inquiry throws him. Shiro stares before forcing himself to rally. Holt probably doesn’t know Shiro saw him. He may be acting normally to spare Shiro’s feelings, or still undecided on how to act. Shiro will have to be the one to broach the subject.
Even with the time to gather his thoughts, Shiro is still nervous. He thinks about what will happen if Sanders finds out he talked to Holt. No; it’s too late for that. Holt has seen. He must speak up.
Shiro clears his throat. “I - wanted to talk to you about what you saw in the library.” It’s all he can manage; his face turns hot with shame.
Holt frowns. “What I saw in the library?” His gaze flicks down to his desk, where he spreads his fingers over a report. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
It had taken so much effort to say in the first place that Shiro doesn’t immediately know what to do with the prompt denial. “But I saw you,” he protests. “You were there.”
The commander’s frown fades into a look of worry. “Yes, I saw you in the stacks. You said you were on your way out.” He glances up at Shiro. “You looked rather pale. You’re not looking good now. Are you sick?”
Shiro gapes. “No,” he says, shaken. “I’m not sick. I - are you sure you didn’t, uh …” he trails off. “I thought I saw you in the back of the stacks. Before we ran into each other,” he finishes, watching the commander for a reaction.
He sees Holt’s shoulders tense. Shiro clenches his fingers in his lap. Surely that’s a sign of the truth; maybe Holt just didn’t recognize him. Shiro’s skin feels hot and prickly at the thought he just outed himself, but it’s too late now. The short pause that follows is terrible.
“No,” Holt says. He puts down the paper he’s playing with and catches Shiro’s eye. “I was pretty far back in the stacks at one point, but I don’t think I saw you.” He holds Shiro’s gaze, face abnormally flat. “Nobody was back there.”
Shiro is thunderstruck by the blatant, forced lie. He stares, trying to comprehend what he’s hearing. “What?” he says.
“I didn’t see anyone,” Holt paraphrases himself. “And I didn’t see you before you spoke to me. It was empty in the back of the library.” He sets his mouth in a grim line; he looks almost pained.
“But I was there,” Shiro protests. “I was-- you--”
“Shiro,” Holt says, his voice going as flat and hard as his features. It’s a voice Shiro has never had the commander use on him before. He falls silent. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” The words are short, clipped, snapped with the air of a superior officer; Shiro flinches at the force of it. “Now drop it.”
With a sinking heart, Shiro begins to understand what the commander is saying: Don’t talk to me. I saw nothing. Don’t drag me into this.
He feels as if the floor dropped out from under his feet. Mortified, Shiro drops his gaze to his knees; he’s bouncing one leg. He makes himself stop. “Yes, sir,” he says. “I must have been mistaken.” He holds his voice steady, but a bubble of emotion rises in his throat and chokes him.
Another terrible pause follows. Holt looks down to his paper again. “Is there something else I can help you with?” he asks. Shiro thinks he sounds sad. “I thought you said you needed advice.”
Shiro swallows. He’s feels too vulnerable and unnerved to think of something else to talk about. “No. That was all.” Having not even a pretense of a reason for staying, Shiro gets to his feet. “I apologize for taking up your time.”
“Shiro,” Holt says. Shiro stills. “Take care of yourself. Get some rest.”
“Yes, sir,” Shiro says. He tries to force a smile, but the attempt is sickly at best. “Thank you, sir.”
He turns and leaves, Commander Holt’s expression of pity burned into his mind’s eye.
*
Shiro retreats to his dorm room. It’s a private room; he frequently wishes it wasn’t, but now the silence suits him. He even contemplates barricading the door shut, but decides against it. The only people he wants to keep out have the authority to get him in trouble for daring.
As the shock of the commander’s complete denial begins to wear off, Shiro feels confused. He can’t contemplate Holt’s words without tightness in his chest. Why is he saying he saw nothing? How is it possible?
“I’m not sure what I expected,” Shiro murmurs, crossing the room to his desk. He has more than enough work to do, even if the books he wanted are still somewhere in the library, waiting to be reshelved so he can find them again tomorrow. Maybe they’re still on the table where he left them; the thought makes him grimace.
He sits. There’s no point to torturing himself with the questions he has about Commander Holt’s behavior. If anything, Shiro thinks, this is the best possible outcome. If Holt had even the smallest inclination to bring what he’d seen forward, there would be inquiries. An investigation would be started. Shiro would undoubtedly lose his seat on the Kerberos mission; he might even be kicked from the Garrison for misconduct. Shiro’s fate would have been left to flap in the wind along with that of the instructors who were using him.
I could have weathered it if Commander Holt had my back. The thought is immediate. Shiro tries to push it away, but it persists. Even if Commander Holt had despised him, Shiro had trusted he would do the right thing. He would give good advice. He would, at least, give Shiro a fair hearing.
He never foresaw Holt would pretend blindness. Shiro closes his eyes, leaning forward until his elbows are on his knees, and presses his face into his palm. He relives the shock of seeing Holt’s pale, agape face in the shelving gap, the horror of recognition, the sensation of fear mingled with relief that everything would be, for better or worse, completely over. His feelings seem wasted now; it gives the last two hours a sense of surreality, as if someone else had been living in his skin from the moment he saw Sanders in the stacks to the moment Commander Holt made him understand his position. He feels invisible. Insignificant. Beneath notice.
His eyes sting. Shiro sucks a breath through his teeth and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees spots. The pressure seems to work; the urge to cry fades. He holds his breath a few seconds longer until the pain in his chest eases, then releases it.
He surely has no right to feel betrayed. He’s only thinking of things from his own perspective. What must things look like from Commander Holt’s seat? Shiro wonders. Professor Sanders is Holt’s friend; they’ve known each other for over a decade. Shiro has seen them laughing together at any number of Garrison functions; she goes golfing with him on weekends, sometimes. Commander Iverson is severe even at his best, and seems distant from the professorial staff; nonetheless, on the military side, he has significant influence. He has numerous connections within the space flight program; Shiro owes Iverson his acquaintance with the engineer who designed the ship he’ll be flying to Kerberos. He and Commander Holt overlapped time in flight school many years ago. These are, Shiro thinks, people that Holt has known and trusted for years - many years before Shiro came to the Garrison, and more still since Shiro was placed under his wing in preparation for their landmark mission.
Shiro tries to imagine knowing someone for so long, then seeing them with their pants around their ankles in a dark corner of the library, balls-deep in one of his tutoring students. He tries to imagine what he’d tell himself.
Maybe the kid wants it. Maybe they started it. Are they trading sex for good grades? Maybe he should keep an eye on that. Maybe he’s seeing things. Surely he mistook what he saw. It’s just one kid. He’ll talk to his colleagues, tell them that’s unacceptable, and maybe they’ll be so alarmed they’ll stop. If he tells someone, the investigation will involve the kid and that would be awful. What will happen to the Garrison if this gets reported? Can it be handled internally? Should it be attempted? It’s an isolated event. It’s not his business. These are his friends; if he’s wrong, he’ll have ruined them for nothing. If not, he’ll still lose them. They’re good people, other than this. What will happen to him if he says something? Will he be believed? Will he lose his position? Will he lose his seat on the Kerberos flight? Is it worth it to maybe lose everything to fight this?
Excuses of every kind spring to mind. Shiro thinks of a dozen in a moment; many of them he recognizes as half-formed reasons he gave himself for not speaking up, not walking away, not saying no. And, he remembers, there are more motivations to keep silent: the Commander has a family; his own son is a Garrison graduate, one year ahead of Shiro. He’s their likely third team member for the mission.
How can Shiro demand Commander Holt keep to a higher standard than Shiro himself?
And yet, Shiro admits, he had hoped for something different. Something better.
Shiro rests his head in his hands and tries to be selfless. He may feel trapped, but the trap is of his own making; he deserves no rescue. Rescue would, in fact, be disastrous to everyone, including himself. The Kerberos mission is less than a year away now. No one is being hurt except Shiro, and Shiro can endure it; he had expected to do no differently until this afternoon. He can’t even say he’s really being hurt - just humiliated, perhaps. It’s simply an injury to his pride. It will be over soon enough.
Everything, he reminds himself, is exactly the same as it was before he saw Commander Holt in the library.
He doesn’t know how long he spends hunched over his knees, taking controlled breaths, his thoughts chasing themselves in circles, but when he lifts his head his neck aches from the change in position. He’s more exhausted than if he had swam a mile for a workout but his struggle with his emotions has finally quieted, as if the sensations of disgust and fear have assaulted him so long he’s become immune.
In six months, Shiro will graduate from the Garrison; in ten months, he will take the pilot seat on the longest-distance manned space mission in history.
Maybe in space he’ll feel free.