Chapter Text
The next solar day, Meeklo never let John Crichton out of his sight. He became the man’s shadow, always at the periphery of wherever he happened to be or else monitoring him through a security feed. As Scorpius’s second in command, it was well within his duties to ensure the safety and security of their volatile guest—and if anyone should think his interest was too keen, he would swiftly remind them of that fact.
Crichton was skittish. He always seemed to Meeklo to have the bearing of a cornered animal underneath his bravado—it was what made him so dangerous—but there was a different edge to his demeanour now. It was there in the way he hesitated at the door to the workroom, pacing back and forth a few steps before striding in with an air of determination. The Lieutenant couldn’t help but notice the way Crichton’s gaze avoided Scorpius at all costs even as he barely acknowledged Co-Kura Strappa excitedly trying to engage him in the science of wormholes.
“You have decided to join us,” Scorpius remarked, and if Meeklo didn’t know his Commander so well, he might not have noticed the subtle, amused curl at the corner of his mouth.
To anyone else, there wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary about the greeting, yet it seemed to make Crichton even more flustered than he already was. Meeklo watched with fascination the way the human fidgeted, looking over the data displayed with distracted, unfocused eyes. And when he knocked his hand while reaching for a handheld device, his reaction piqued the Lieutenant’s interest.
“That was an accident,” Crichton said, even as the effects of the I-Yench bracelets caused Scorpius’s hand to twitch with the shared pain.
Meeklo glanced between the two. He vividly recalled the previous solar day when his Commander had sent him to stop the human, who was burning himself on a cooking pot. Crichton hadn’t seemed the least bit apologetic for how he had been tormenting Scorpius by proxy at the time, but that had been before going into the Commander’s office. Before his display of distressed arousal.
What had Scorpius done to him when they’d been alone together? What had he done to him before that? Only pain and mutual death were transmitted by the I-Yench, as Meeklo viscerally remembered from his time linked with the Luxan. What had begun as a demonstration to Crichton’s representatives from the escaped Leviathan’s crew had become a shared struggle for survival the Peacekeeper wasn’t likely to forget any time soon.
Perhaps Meeklo had gotten the human all wrong in his imaginings? It was becoming increasingly clear to him that Crichton’s compromised state earlier had to do with those bracelets and the power-play he’d started with the Commander. Thoughts of what that implied flitted through the Lieutenant’s mind, and it took all of his Peacekeeper discipline to banish those distractions until later. Regardless of his potential proclivities, John Crichton was dangerous and in close proximity to Scorpius. Meeklo could not afford to let his guard down.
And so he watched as Crichton discussed the viability of another wormhole excursion with Strappa. He also watched as Scorpius wandered over and, with casual deliberateness, smacked the human upside the back of his head.
“Ow! The hell?” the man exclaimed.
“An accident,” Scorpius replied, with an expression that would be unreadable to anyone else.
Meeklo felt a flutter in his stomach. Whatever game the two of them were playing, it was far from over.
***
“Lieutenant Braca. Meet me in my quarters,” Scorpius ordered as the routine on the Command Carrier ticked over into the late shift.
“Sir,” Meeklo replied, though he couldn’t help glancing over at Crichton, who was himself wrapping up his work before leaving for his guest quarters to rest.
Scorpius smirked. “You needn’t worry, Braca. I have him well in hand.”
Meeklo smiled, remembering the oh, so casual slap the human had received earlier. “Of course, Sir,” he said, readily following his superior’s directive.
Once in the Commander’s quarters, Scorpius settled onto a chaise and placed some sort of receiver device on his head. By now, Meeklo had stood guard while Scorpius delved into mental landscapes of one kind or another often enough that he didn’t need to be told the details of what was happening for him to understand what was expected of him. He would wait, watching over Scorpius’s condition, and intervene only if absolutely necessary for his Commander’s survival.
And while the bulk of Meeklo’s focus was dedicated to monitoring the man reclined before him, the rest of his mind was free to wander.
Once again, he thought about what might have happened if he had followed Crichton into Scorpius’s office, taking into account his new observations of the man.
“Scorpius, you’d better do something about this, or I swear to God—” Crichton would yell, ignoring Meeklo entirely.
“Do something about what, John?” the Commander would reply calmly, causing the human to sputter even more.
“You— this— you know damn well what the frell I’m talking about!”
Scorpius would walk past Meeklo as if he wasn’t even there while approaching Crichton. “Indeed. The question is… what do you expect me to do about it?”
The human would beg. “Either stop or take it to the next level already, just don’t keep teasing me like this, Scorpy!”
At that, the Commander would smile. “Very well, John,” he would say, grasping the man by the back of his neck. “Take off your clothes.”
Meeklo would watch as Crichton’s expression flickered between fear, desire, and disbelief. “You want me to…” he’d laugh. “You serious?”
“Very serious,” Scorpius would say. “You are the one who wanted to escalate this.”
The human would lick his lips and nod, then shrug out of his coat. The Commander would take a step back, watching as his guest stripped down to nothing.
“Lieutenant Braca.” Scorpius would point to a nearby spot on the floor. “Kneel. Hands out.”
Meeklo would do as he was told without hesitation, and his Commander would place a number of implements in his hands as if he were a table. A paddle. A small selection of floggers. And one thin, wicked cane.
“Are those for me or for you?” Crichton would quip.
With a smile, Scorpius would reply, “Given our current connection, it would be one in the same. But it is your flesh that will feel the sting first hand.”
He would then put the human in cuffs and chain him up with his hands above his head, giving Meeklo a perfect view of the man in profile, stiff dick trembling in front of him. Scorpius would pick up the paddle without even acknowledge the Peacekeeper holding it. He would circle around Crichton, inspecting his target, before delivering a hearty strike to the man’s naked ass. Scorpius would let out a low snarl in reaction, but Crichton would gasp and moan.
Meeklo would watch, enraptured, as his Commander would spank the human repeatedly with the paddle. It would be clear from their reactions that both men were enjoying their shared pain immensely, yet Scorpius would remain calculated and in control in contrast to Crichton’s undisciplined howling.
With Crichton’s buttocks now red and quivering, Scorpius would set the paddle aside and take the first of the floggers from Meeklo’s hands. He would tease the thick, heavy falls over the human’s as-yet unmarked back before laying in with a steady rhythm of increasingly powerful strikes. Crichton would groan, body jerking with each hit, while the Commander’s eyelids would grow heavy and relaxed.
Meeklo could almost feel the thuddy sensation of the falls on his own back, and he had to pull his focus a little more to the present to assure himself of whether his charge needed attention. Scorpius’s breathing and heart-rate were elevated and his tongue kept darting out to lick his black lips, but everything was still well within tolerance, so the Lieutenant allowed himself to drift back into fantasy.
With the man’s back well warmed up, Scorpius would take the next flogger held in the Peacekeeper’s waiting hands. The falls on this one would be narrower and more stinging than the first, and this time the Commander wouldn’t give any warning before delivering a ferocious lash across Crichton’s shoulders. Both men would gasp and with a snarl, Scorpius would let himself go, painting the human’s back with vicious red stripes.
Then he would toss the flogger aside and grab Crichton by the hair, pulling his head back.
“Is this what you wanted, John?” the Commander would hiss in the man’s ear. “Is this what you were hoping for when you started playing your little games?”
Crichton would laugh, or try to. “Is that… all you’ve got… for me?”
It would be all Meeklo could do not to flinch as his Commander snatched the third and final flogger from his hands, this one made up of numerous falls of knotted cord. His strikes would be delivered with absolute precision now. It would seem as though Scorpius had calmed himself from his earlier outburst, but the Lieutenant would know better. This would be the iron control of Scorpius using his rage to fuel his ambition, and in that moment his ambition would be to make the human suspended by the wrists in his office come utterly undone.
And it would work. While a low growl would escape from between Scorpius’s pointed teeth with each impact, Crichton would be sobbing. He would be whimpering a constant stream of “please please please please please” punctuated by cries of ecstatic pain, and Meeklo would watch the display with rapt attention until the final blow.
There would be the slightest tremor to Scorpius’s hand when reaching for cane. He would stand behind Crichton and swing it sharply through the air, making the human flinch at the sound of it.
“Have you had enough?” Scorpius would ask, tone clipped. “Because I must say, I am enjoying myself immensely.”
“Just… finish me, Scorpy,” Crichton would pant.
Scorpius would smile. “Very well,” he would say, striking the human across the ass with the cane.
Crichton would let out a strangled cry and the Commander’s own legs would nearly buckle. A beautiful red welt would already be rising on tender flesh before Scorpius could deliver the next blow just below the first. He would work his way down the backs of the human’s legs, leaving a ladder pattern of welts in his wake, reacting and clearly enjoying each strike.
During his caning, Crichton would be desperately chanting, “I can’t— I can’t— I can’t— Ahhgh!” and on the last strike, he would come, spraying the front of himself and dripping his mess onto the floor.
Scorpius would take a moment to admire his handiwork, the human hanging limply from his bonds, before unhooking his cuffs from the chains.
Crichton would collapse into a puddle on the ground, landing in his own ejaculate. “Thank you,” he would mumble. “Thank you.”
Scorpius would kneel down next to him and grab him by the face. “Do you really think I’m done with you?” he would spit, his voice edging into his Scarran register. “I’ve given you your pleasure, John. Now it is your turn to give me mine.”
“Whu…” would be all the human could utter before Scorpius would be hauling him to his feet once more.
“Braca. On your hands and knees. I need somewhere for this to sit.”
Meeklo would obey his Commander immediately, offering his back as a bench for Crichton. Scorpius would drag the man to him and make him sit. He would then open his codpiece and force Crichton to suck his cock. The Lieutenant would be able to feel the rhythm of it, hear the sounds of both the human’s desperation and his Commander’s pleasure. Then, when he’d have enough, Scorpius would pull out of the man’s mouth and come in his face—
Scorpius sat up flailing and gasping. With barely a thought, Meeklo leapt into action, opening the compartment in his Commander’s head and swiftly swapping out the overheated cooling rod for a fresh one. With the press of a button, the whole contraption spun back into place where the new rod could do its work regulating the half-Scarran’s temperature. The first time Meeklo had done this, it had been in a panic that had caused him to burn his fingers. But now the process was familiar to him, and he took pride in how efficiently he could perform this duty.
He watched Scorpius closely as he steadied his breathing and lay back down.
“Well done,” Scorpius said, and Meeklo couldn’t quite suppress the smile his Commander’s praise brought to his lips.
After a moment, Scorpius took the receiver off his head and said, “You may leave.”
Meeklo took a long look at his Commander. Perhaps he was projecting his own agitated state after his vivid fantasies, but there was something… unsettled about the way Scorpius was dismissing him. Something that made the Lieutenant a little too aware of the slight discomfort in his own trousers—a discomfort he hoped his Commander was too distracted to notice.
Without a word, Meeklo nodded and left.