Finding Yourself on the Other Side of An Old Equation Is Always Interesting
—
“Everything is in order,” Denver said, handing Pax the inventory list.
Pax nodded, scanning it while Nate very casually squeezed Pax’s asshole around his own cock. Everything did appear to be in order, and he hadn’t even gone behind Denver and counted everything himself, because he trusted Denver. “Thank you. I know you found that exercise pointless, but it eases my mind to know that nothing has vanished from the ship in the last two days.”
“I know,” Denver said, patting Pax’s full ass. “There’s nothing wrong with being thorough, and even if there was, it’s not like I opened every crate and barrel and sack, I just counted them and confirmed that they were all where they were supposed to be. Then I compared them to what I counted before we left because I knew you’d ask, and then added all the new supplies we took on just now.”
Pax coughed quietly, blushing. “Thank you, that was very thoughtful. I appreciate you accommodating me.”
“You’re literally my boss and also my best friend and brother,” Denver reminded him, pulling on a tie on the large shirt he was wearing, which Pax thought belonged to Leftie. “You’d do the same for me.”
“Yes, I would,” Pax agreed. He would do most anything for Denver. “Thank you again. Please feel free to return to your various other duties and/or have some rest, we’ve only just left so there’s unlikely any further quartermastering that needs doing and everyone’s morale is quite high from the party the other day, so you’re welcome to take some time off and spend time with Louis or go see Alse if you like.”
Denver nodded, sitting on a crate with a grin. “I’m good, actually. Louis is cooking supper and Alse’s in the middle of some marriage negotiations that it would be slightly bad form for me to barge in on. We can hang out.”
Ah. Pax shifted uncomfortably, but actually very comfortably, as he felt Nate’s fingers up his length, which was a very unfair sensation when that length was also inside him. “Of course we can,” he said brightly. “I do have rather a lot of paperwork to do, everyone has performance evaluations coming up—you’re going to score very high, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried, but if you and Nate are interested maybe I’ll sleep with you tonight and earn extra credit.”
“That won’t be…”
Sounds great, Nate interrupted, and it did actually sound pretty great, so Pax didn’t disagree with him.
“Invite Louis too if you want,” Pax said, because he’d already mentally not disagreed so there was no reason to agree out loud. “In fact, you could go invite him right now, I’m sure he’d appreciate the company.”
“Nah, I’m going to stay and watch Nate fuck you.”
Of course. Pax didn’t know why he’d bothered to pretend that wasn’t happening. Denver always knew when someone was having sex, it was a power of his. “That seems unnecessary if you’re planning to join us tonight.” As he said that, Pax let Nate move his hands to undo his pants. His shirt had gone missing on the island somewhere and he hadn’t bothered to grab a new one when they’d gotten back to the Coral Witch just under an hour ago.
Denver pulled Pax closer and kissed him, running a finger across his nipple piercing. Pax hadn’t taken any of them out yet while Nate decided what he wanted. “Accommodate me,” he teased. “I just want to watch.”
“You do not.”
“Watch and do a little bit of quartermastering,” Denver corrected, lifting Leftie’s shirt over his head and tossing it aside. Naturally, he had no pants on. “And maybe join in on the second round, but just those first two things for now. Cross my dick and hope to cum.”
“That’s not how that saying functions on a rhetorical level,” Pax sighed, figuring that he may as well give Denver the best possible view. So he turned around and bent over a crate that was slightly askew. He was going to fix it, but Nate immediately took control of his hips and started thrusting, using one hand to hold the portal ring in place so that Pax was fucking himself at a pretty hard pace.
“This is so cool,” Denver muttered, audibly quartermasturbating as he watched. “It’s so wild to watch your hole just expand like that.”
Pax nodded. “Y-yeah,” he agreed, as Nate pounded his prostate for him. “You’ll have to let me watch you sometime, I’ve never seen it.”
“Definitely tonight,” Denver said, the crate creaking under him as he leaned back. Pax looked over his shoulder and saw Denver fingering himself too. “You need the full experience for your book.”
“My book doesn’t have a chapter on sex,” Pax protested.
It has a whole volume, Nate teased.
That would end up being true if anyone else had their way, which they would not, because Pax was going to write the book himself and did not require anyone else’s input. “You should still have all the details,” Denver decided.
“I do agree with you…” Pax whinged, as he started to feel close. He didn’t know if Nate would let him cum; it had only been an hour since his cock had been inserted into his ass and Nate liked to edge him for a lot longer than that.
Of course I’m going to let you cum, Nate whispered in his ear, nibbling it a little. Because then Denver can join in.
Pax nodded, and with a small sound he filled himself up, cock twitching like crazy as he came up his own ass for the first time since they’d left the ship. As he was recovering from that, he reached one foot back and touched Denver’s ankle with his toe, so that Nate could touch Denver too. Denver suddenly yelped, and the first spurt of his cum hit Pax’s buttcheek.
Sighing, Pax stretched out his shoulders as he straightened up. “Now,” he said, “Let’s take a quick break and we can reconvene in my cabin, where…”
“Nah,” Denver said, wrapping his arms around Pax and resting his cock in the cleft of Pax’s ass. “Let’s me and you double penetrate you right here.”
Pax straightened the crate while he got his mandatory sigh out of the way, and frowned when it was heavier than it should be. This one was empty. He gave it a hard shove and it squeaked.
Denver paused with his hand on Pax’s belly, looking at the crate. “That’s a weird sound for an empty crate.”
“Indeed,” said Pax. “But it’s not a weird sound for an occupied crate.” He lifted the lid off.
Crouched inside the crate was Keone, the Bevian boy who’d been serving drinks at the party. He was just as shirtless as he’d been before, but also had his pants down and his dick in his hand as he looked up at Pax with wide eyes. “Uh. Hi.”
“Hi,” Pax said, crossing his arms. “Welcome aboard the Coral Witch. How did you get here?” The small boats they’d all taken to the island hadn’t provided any cover for him to hide in.
“I, uh, swam.” Keone asked, shrugging. “The ship wasn’t that far out.”
“It was five kilometres from the shore,” Denver disagreed.
“That’s the same thing I just said but with numbers in it,” Keone told him. “Don’t throw me overboard. I’d be fine, but I’m mostly dry and it would suck to get wet again so fast.”
“We’re not going to throw you overboard. We have a policy about stowaways,” Pax said, hauling Keone up by his shoulders and making him get out of the crate. “This is a terrible way to get into a ship, you could have just asked for a job.”
“Yeah, but you might have said no and so I figured there wasn’t really any reason to ask because you also seemed too nice to kill me.”
“That’s a very astute observation,” said Pax, grabbing his pants and stepping into them. “Please feel free to pull up your pants if you’ve finished masturbating.”
“I’ve never finished masturbating, but I can pause for a while,” Keone decided, and he pulled up his baggy pants, which only came to his knees and must have been very challenging to swim five kilometres in. “It’s a habit my mom says is bad but my dad says is good for me. In my defense, I was masturbating before you got here, and then I stopped, but then you started having sex right on top of me, and if you’re going to have sex in a public place, you really don’t get to get mad if someone masturbates while listening to you.”
He’s right, Nate said, sounding amused.
He was indeed right, so Pax nodded. “That’s sound logic. Denver, please feel free to also get dressed so that people don’t think we were down here having sex.”
“I’d rather stay naked so that people think we were down here having sex,” Denver said, grabbing Leftie’s shirt and throwing it over one shoulder and heading out of the hold. “So what are we going to do with him?”
“We’re going to take him to the captain,” Pax said. “We have a stowaway policy on this ship. Come on, Keone. Do you speak Gronnde or Daolo or Kyn? You don’t have to but it would be good to know because not everyone on the ship knows Dekna.”
“Uh, I know Kyn and a little bit of Gronnde,” Keone said, in Daolo. Now that Nate wasn’t too drunk to observe him correctly, he was short for his age and had thick, wavy hair and a piercing in his navel. He had no body hair anywhere and his smile was crooked, and even through his baggy pants it was clear that he was big for his age in at least some ways. “The captain is nice, right?”
“Of course,” Pax promised, hand on Keone’s arm as he walked him to the captain’s cabin. He knocked on the door. “Captain?” He couldn’t help but think of Pick, who was tying down all the boats and oars, and Peak, whose makeshift funeral Pax had had to oversee, while he waited for Natalie to answer. Nate hugged him briefly, and Pax hugged back.
“Come in,” Natalie called. As Pax opened the door, she said, “There’d better not be a problem, we pulled anchor barely an hour ago and I know you’re worried, but the inventory is…oh.” She was looking at Keone.
“Yeah, we have a bit of a stowaway situation,” Pax explained, gesturing vaguely at Keone, who waved. Among his more negative features was that he was cute in a way that people found endearing, which presented the risk that Natalie would find him endearing.
“So I see,” Natalie said, crossing her arms. “How did this happen?”
“Keone was hiding in a crate,” Pax told her. “A classic strategy.”
At least he was hiding in the hold, Nate observed, mentally looking at nobody. Instead of on the deck. We might have missed him until he came out to eat something if Pax hadn’t tried to move the crate.
Pax mentally affixed Nate with a look that implied he’d have to work hard to receive sex tonight, and Nate mentally looked coy for a second, assuring that he’d probably still get sex tonight.
“How’d you get on the ship, Keone?” Natalie asked, looking at him.
Keone shied away, hiding behind Pax a little. Pax stepped aside, hand still on Keone’s arm. “I climbed up the side.”
Natalie quirked an eyebrow. “We weren’t exactly moored to anything.”
“Well, I swam here first.”
“Five kilometers,” Pax told Natalie. “I told you that you should have parked farther away. Bolt wouldn’t have minded rowing us farther.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Keone promised. “I’m a very good swimmer.”
“With some pretty big balls,” Natalie observed.
“I mean they’re bigger than anyone else my age. My dick too. Not to brag, but my friends call me Tiger, because it’s so…” Keone said, then audibly closed his mouth.
“I can confirm that.” Pax gave a shake of his head. “Well, not the Tiger thing. As much as I appreciate the audacity of a stowaway, I have to suggest that we take him home. We might not be welcome next time if they think we kidnapped one of their children.”
“Hey, I’m not a child!” Keone said, voice squeaking. “I started puberty last month and everything!”
Everyone looked at him for a second. Nate patted his shoulder, which made Keone jump as he didn’t know where it had come from.
“Anyway!” Keone said, puffing out his chest. “They know you didn’t kidnap me. I told my brother what I was doing and I wrote my parents a letter so it’s fine!”
“Sounds like the only person you didn’t think to ask was us,” Denver chuckled.
“Yes, well…” Keone shrugged. “I thought you’d say no, and…you guys are all so cool! You have cool adventures with sea kings and merpeople and princes and dragons and pirates! I want to have cool adventures, not just live on a little island that doesn’t matter. I’m the coolest person on Effa, but I’ve already done everything there, and then done it again with a scorpion in my pants.” He shuffled his feet on the floorboards, looking down. “I want to do new stuff. Please let me do some cool new stuff.”
“You need to understand,” Pax said quietly, “that we’re currently in the middle of something very dangerous. I know you’re excited about an adventure, but we might die.”
“You won’t,” Keone said, shaking his head. “I know you won’t, and if you’re worried you will, you definitely need me. I’m blessed by an island spirit that makes me really lucky. Please give me a chance, I promise you won’t regret it.”
Natalie crossed her arms and looked at Keone. Keone looked at the floor. Pax looked at Natalie. Natalie looked at Pax. Denver looked at Keone’s ass. “Damn,” said Natalie. “And here I thought I’d never meet a boy who could ask politely for what he wanted. We have a policy about stowaways on this ship.”
“Do you actually?” Denver asked.
Yes, Nate promised. Pax wrote it.
Keone shifted nervously. “What’s the policy?”
“We recognize their bravery and skill in sneaking onboard by giving them well paying jobs,” Natalie said with a nod. Pax nodded too, pleased that she’d remembered the correct wording. “The ship can always use a new cabin boy.”
Keone blinked. “What, really? You’re going to let me stay?”
“No, we’re going to give you a job,” Pax explained, because he had a good feel for Keone and figured he’d appreciate precision and extreme clarity. “It’s very different because we’ll strand you on a cold island if you don’t do said job.”
We won’t really, said Nate, whom Keone probably couldn’t hear, though Pax had thought people couldn’t hear him enough times to be wary of that assertion.
“I’ll do it!” Keone said, eyes bright now. “I’m a hard worker, I promise!”
“So we’ve seen,” Pax assured him. “Don’t worry, it’s not a hard job. All you really have to do is get the captain food and clean shit and run and find people when she wants messages sent and can’t see the person to yell at them. Plus other duties as assigned, which I’ll assign a lot of.”
“Pax could use a cabin boy too, actually,” Natalie mused. “Maybe you can do double duty.”
“That’s not necessary,” Pax told her immediately.
“Sure it is. Anyway, welcome aboard, Keone. Pax will show you around and teach you what you have to do. Stop listening to him after the first few minutes.”
“I…I will!” Keone said, giving a very poor imitation of a salute that was nonetheless very endearing. “I promise to be a great sailor for you, Captain!”
“I’m sure you will be. Get.”
Natalie gave Pax a smile, which he and Nate returned together before taking Keone out onto the deck. “This is the best thing ever,” Keone said, adjusting the boner in his pants. “I didn’t think it would be this easy. You guys are the best. What should I do first? Can I do something with the sail? Sails are super cool. Wait, where’s the galley? That’s what you call a kitchen on a ship, right? I need to know where that is so I can get the captain’s food. What kind of food does she like? Does she have a retired cabin boy I can interview?”
“She does, actually,” Pax promised, while Nate laughed at him for being endeared. “It’s really not that hard a job.”
“Wait, is it you?” Keone asked, eyes going even wider. “You started as a cabin boy?”
Pax nodded his affirmation. “Yes. I’m retired now and am…”
“The cabin man!”
“No,” said Pax calmly, pointing at Keone as Nate absolutely howled with laughter. “Though I must admit the logic of such a distinction is impeccable, you must never make it again. I am the acting first mate.”
“Got it,” said Keone, nodding in such a way as to make clear that he had not, in fact, gotten it and would be demonstrating that at every opportunity.
“Being the first mate’s cabin boy is more work than being the captain’s, though,” Denver put in, hands behind his head. “Cabin men need blowjobs like every day and…”
Pax pinched his nipple to shut him up. “The first rule is that we never listen to Denver, even in the first five minutes. You’ll do a good job and we’ll steadily give you more responsibilities once you’re ready for them.”
“I’m sure I’m ready for them now! You don’t have to worry about me, I’m very responsible.”
“I’m sure you are. But stowing away appears to have been the best idea you had, which means you need better ideas, which means you need more experience before I can teach you to drive the ship. Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone. Nobody introduced me to anyone when I got here and it was very sad. They’re all very friendly, I promise. The first person you need to meet is Nate, whom I think may have drunkenly introduced himself to you the other day…”
Pax and Denver gave Keone an extremely thorough introduction to the ship and answered all of his many questions. If he was going to be a member of their family, it was best to start him off as strongly as they could.
—
How Best to Use a Sword 