Part 22

Gold at the end of the rainbow


“Well that could have been a smoother landing.”

Chris extracted himself from the twisted wreck that was once the ships bridge. He paused lifting a desk that had Justin trapped face down on the floor. He turned the gracile man over and tapped his face. “Justin, Justy can you hear me?”

The alien groaned long and loud and his blue eyes flickered open. “Told you I could land it.”

Chris burst out laughing, relief flooding through him. “Yeah well this was I guess Technically a landing.”

“I never promised that the ship would be in one piece.” Justin countered.

“No, that’s true you never promised that.”

“And I did let you push buttons.”

“Yep Justin you did, you let me push buttons, just before we crashed.”

“And I did say that the ship wouldn’t be able to take off again.”

Chris nodded agreeing with his delirious pilot. “That’s true, you did say that.” He helped Justin to his feet and they made their way to the air lock, Chris blew the hatch and was greeted by the sight of Lance and JC running towards the twisted hull at full pelt. He lowered Justin to the ground then jumped down joining him as JC reached his ex lover throwing his arms round him, littering his dirt streaked face with kisses. Checking every inch of the tall alien making sure that he was ok before pushing him away and strutting off back to where they had set up camp his nose in the air. Lance hugged Chris, then slapped him round the head. “That’s for scaring me and JC half to death.” The blond spun on his heel and scampered after his pregnant friend. “They are like a couple of fucking women, I’ll never understand women what fucking chance do I have with them two?”

Justin screwed up his face and winced as he pulled his bruised ribs. “No fucking chance at all my friend. Wanna get drunk?”

“Oh yes.” Chris watched Lance walking away, he stopped and looked over his shoulder fluttering his eyelashes his emerald green eyes flashing in the sunlight. “On second thoughts Justy , I think I’ll have an early night.” He patted Justin hard on the back and hurried to catch up to his lover. The bruised man sat dawn and watched as the short brunette caught up Lance and dropped a lazy arm round his shoulders claiming a kiss. He got gingerly to his feet and took one last look at the wreck before making his way to the main camp area.

JC was busy dishing out the boys dinner. He paused briefly catching Justin’s eye, a pale blush coloured his cheeks as he dropped his head and concentrated on getting his brood to actually put the food in their mouths rather than each others ears. Jovian sat with Joshua resting between his legs feeding the baby his bottle. “Jovie, let uncle Lance do that honey I want you to come eat.” The little boy pulled a face and stuck out his bottom lip pouting. “I wanna feed Joshy, uncy Lance said I could.”

“Well honey maybe uncle Lance didn’t realise that your food was ready, I did tell you that I wanted you to wash up.”

The JC clone ignored his poppa and took a tighter hold on the feeding child. “Jovian, please don’t make me have to get mad with you, I’m really tired and I just don’t need this right now. So give me Joshua.”

“NO.”

“Jovian, you will do as poppa says now, or I will tell uncle Lance and uncle Chris that you are NOT allowed to feed Joshua again.” Justin said forcefully backing up his lover. JC bristled slightly at the closeness of Justin. The little blue-eyed boy sulked and looked as if he was giving serious thought to throwing a tantrum. He gave an enormous sigh for such a small person and handed Joshua to JC. Justin stepped closer looking over JC’s shoulder at the gurgling bundle. “He’s cute isn’t he.”

“Yeah he is isn’t he, that pretty mix of light and dark.”

“I miss you Josh.”

JC closed his eyes concentrating on steadying his breathing before he answered.

“Thank you Justin for supporting me just then with Jovian, he can be quite a handful.”

Justin placed a kiss on JC’s neck “I said I missed you Josh.”

“I have to finish feeding Joshua, there is plenty of food there why don’t you help yourself and keep the boys out of mischief while I do that.”

Justin breathed out slowly letting his breath caress his ex lovers neck.”

“Stop it Justin. Stop this now.” the usually sender brunette darted away his eyes flashing in anger. “You lost the right to do that when you made a fool of me.” He walked hastily away, shaking with a mixture of longing and bitterness. He shoved Joshua at Lance as the blond doctor came towards him concerned at the vibes he was receiving. “He’s had half his bottle, you need to give him the rest.” He thrust the half empty babies bottle into Lances free hand and carried on to his prefabricated shelter locking the door behind him.

A gentle tapping roused him from his sleep. He dragged himself sleepily from his cot and opened the door a crack, checking who was there before committing himself.

“You going to let me in?”

“I’m ok Chris, I’m tired that’s all, I nearly lost the baby earlier, Jewel calmed him down and the contractions stopped.”

“Jewel?”

“Yeah surprised me too, its always been Jovian that was able to talk to the baby, now suddenly he won’t listen to him or talk back, I guess that’s why Jovie got all possessive over Joshua.”

“You’re changing the subject Jace. Let me in”

JC opened the door wide, stepping aside allowing the older man inside. He hung his head and waited for Chris to say his piece.

“Now honey … how are you really?”

“Lonely … I want to forgive him Chris really I do. When I thought that you had both been killed all I wanted to do was hold him in my arms, tell him how much I love him, tell him I forgive him. And then he touches me and smiles that infuriatingly sickening smile. And I hate him, I hate him so god damn much. He knew how scared I was of carrying again, and still he duped me. Am I such an idiot Chris? How didn’t I see that all he wanted was my body, the children I could give him.” JC choked back a sob. “He even told me that was all he wanted from me …. Before he took me for the first time … before he impregnated me with Jovian I asked him, I asked him what he wanted from me …. And he said … your body.” JC’s shoulders shook as he tried to come to terms that all he had ever been to Justin was a breeding machine. Chris wrapped JC in the shelter of his arms, running his fingers through his hair as the younger man wept bitter tears into his neck.

Lance sat by the fire, poking it encouraging the flames to leap and crackle. Justin slouched down opposite him having settled the five boys in his cabin for the night. He gazed longingly at the closed door of JC’s hut. “Do you think I should go over there? Try to talk to him.”

The blond shook his head. “Chris is with him, just let it drop.”

“I need him.”

“No Justin you need a mate, that’s all he ever was to you, just go defrost yourself another male, I’ll alter him, you can impregnate him and with some fertility treatment you can probably get 8 or 9 offspring in a couple of years. You’ll reach your set quota Justin, then you can cast that one aside too, hell you got thirty more to choose from.”

Justin looked at his best friend horrified at what he had just said. “How can you? How can you say such horrible things. I don’t want just any mate. I want Josh. I love him.” He hid his face in his hands wiping dry the salty droplets spilling from his midnight blue eyes.

“I’m sorry, please Justin give him time.”

“Yeah, I’m going to go to bed, Chris and I have to salvage what we can tomorrow, I checked on the storage tubes we lost three males, the other tubes are stable.”

“I’ll check them tomorrow, we may have to defrost them all.”

Justin patted Lances shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning, let Josh know that I have the boys covered for tonight, I’ll drop them by him after breakfast.” Lance covered the younger mans hand with his own. “It will be alright Justin, JC is a loving, forgiving man. And no matter what he says right now he does love you.”

“Night Lance”

“Night”

Twenty minutes later Chris dropped on the ground next to his lover and baby son. “Shouldn’t he be in bed?”

“He was so peaceful I just wanted to hold him, my little miracle, everything says that he shouldn’t exist, but here he is. I can’t believe how blessed I am. I have him and I have you?” Their lips met softly, savouring the spicy flavour of the meal they had shared earlier. They broke apart. The younger man resting his head on his lovers’ chest.

“Are they going to make it Chris?”

“I don’t know baby, I’ve never seen Jace so desolate, so melancholy. Come on sweetie lets go snuggle, we both got a long day tomorrow, I told Jace we’d get the boys but I guess Justin beat us to it.”

“Yeah he did.” Chris helped the alien to his feet and they walked arm in arm to their shelter taking baby Joshua with them.

Justin laid awake on his cot listening to the gentle breathing of his baby boys. He smiled gently as a tiny body clambered on top of him and wriggled into the nook of his arm, bright blue eyes stared at him through the darkness. “You should be asleep Jovie.” he whispered.

“Where poppa sleeping daddy?”

Justin put on a brave face. “He’s tired baby, the baby frightened him earlier, he just needs to sleep he’ll look after you tomorrow while daddy is working on the Big Bird.”

“Poppa doesn’t love you anymore does he?”

“Ohhh Jovie.”

“It’s ok daddy, poppa will love you again.” The little boy put his hand on his daddies belly, when new baby is born and, and you put nother baby in here, poppa will love you. You see.” The baby boy kissed his daddy pushing his rosebud lips on those of his father before settling down to sleep. Justin’s mind whirled, his hand resting on his belly. Lance had a baby why couldn’t he. Maybe if he offered this option to JC he would take him back. He kissed the softly snoring baby in his arms and started to doze off feeling for the first time in months that there was gold at the end of the rainbow.



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