Season Content notes: explicit sex
Foggy. Blurry. Without the constant agony of a parasite-induced erection, Zdenko found it hard to think. He shook his head as his feet carried him to the tiny closet area that served as Meadowsweet’s med bay.
Moira stood there, methodically going through supplies and cursing the day Ezra was born.
Zdenko cleared his throat to get her attention. “Okay, what’s going on?”
“Do you have any idea how badly this station is screwed up?” Oh, he’d missed that feisty green glare. “It’s going to take me longer to set right than it did to set up! Luckily, we’re staying another few days, so I have time to order in everything I need.” She took her paper notebook in hand and made a few more notes on the state of supplies.
Zdenko shrugged, “None of us are medics.” Now for the tough questions. The fog in his mind cleared enough for it to start spinning. Or floating. It was hard to tell. “Why is Ezra clearing out the extra quarters? Why did you charter the Meadowsweet? And,” most importantly, “Why did I have brain surgery, awake, in front of an entire fucking theater of people?”
Moira grinned. “Oh? Is that what Susie wanted? God, that’ll net her a fair handful of favors with the university brass.”
“WHAT??” Okay, breathe, calm down, breathe. The hell-fucked parasite is gone, so just, Zdenko huffed.
“Look, you know how rare it is for anyone to survive Verda without treatment as long as you did. Which, I promise, Susie was incredibly impressed when I told her what you’ve been dealing with. But for a university to host a seminar — even incredibly last minute — on mature verda is a once-in-a-lifetime coup for a neurosurgeon. Susie and her grad students will probably get enough papers for an entire journal out of it.”
Was he supposed to pretend he understood a word of that? “You’re saying I’m a science paper subject? Okay. Fine. That doesn’t answer the other two questions.”
Moira shrugged and pulled her hair aside, “It got you free surgery, so I don’t see what you’re complaining about. Um… damn I lost track. Other questions?”
“That’s why I’m dropping the subject. Other questions. Why is Ezra cleaning out the extra quarters, and why did you charter us?”
“Ezra’s making space for my grad students to bunk in. That’s the pound of flesh the university wanted out of ME for using school funds to charter you.” She took a deep breath and looked away. What the hell could be making Moira, of all people, nervous? “I couldn’t afford it myself, and… um… I figured that if I was your charter, you — youcouldn’tjustkickmeoff…”
Did she…? Wait, kick her off? “Moira… I… You…” Zdenko sighed. He couldn’t put words together right now, and his head hurt.
“I just want a chance.” She glanced up at him, looked away again. “I… I get why you wanted me off, but I took the damn time, and I went to therapy, and I know what I want, okay? I just… want a chance.”
A chance. He could do that. Right? “Okay.” He chuckled and continued, “But grad students? Really?”
The redhead shrugged. “Yeah, well, I got away with a 3-year sabbatical, but the brass wasn’t letting me get away again without a few strings.” She tugged at a stray hair. “I… um… never told you what I was doing at all those libraries, did I?”
“I never asked, either.” Trying not to get attached hadn’t worked out so well with her. And now that she was a charter and not a slave…
“Or about my life before the pirates got me.”
He shook his head. The pain was subsiding.
“I was — am — a sociology professor. Specializing in looking at different cultures and trying to see what they have in common. A new planet every few weeks got me a look at a LOT of different cultures.”
Her grin lit up the small cubby area. “And about 12 research papers.”
It took his foggy brain a minute to process that. “You were doing research papers the whole time? Damn, girl.”
“Yeah, so,” Moira set her notebook aside and smiled as she stepped towards him. “About that chance?”
The hard-on wasn’t a surprise. The feeling behind it, though? The want? That caught him off guard. He drew in a deep breath of her scent and leaned closer without thinking.
“What about it?”
Her hands worked his shirt off, and he pulled her into a long, deep kiss. Had she always tasted this good? He ran his hands up under her shirt, undid her bra. Without the parasite to take the lead, he shuddered, uncertainty soon banished as her mouth worked its way down to his erection.
He’d missed her mouth. Her tongue. Everything. He tangled a fist in her hair as she teased her tongue along his shaft. Her hand fondled his balls as she brought him ever closer to his first non-parasite climax in over a decade.
A half-hour later they had made it into his room – their room now, if Zdenko had anything to say about it. He reveled in the feeling of being done – of being sated in a way that hadn’t been possible the entire time he’d been infected with the damn parasite.
Zdenko rolled over and sighed. He was damn tired, which he supposed wasn’t a surprise. It had been a hell of a day. Moira sat up suddenly, making him blink in surprise. “Moira?” he asked as she started getting back into her clothes. She looked at him and there was something in her eyes.
“Stay.” It was too hard, too much like a command. “Please?”
“You never wanted me to stay before.”
He reached for her hand. “I always wanted you to stay. It just felt wrong, when you couldn’t say no.”
She looked at him and he grimaced. “Look, I know I was an asshole, but if this is a second chance… let it be a second chance for me too?”
For a moment, he thought she would still leave. But with a sigh, she grabbed the blankets and lay back down, letting him wrap his arms around her even as he fell asleep.
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