Page 2 of Under Control

“I was hoping maybe you would know. Did the captain take you to any meetings without me? Somebody he might have had as a backup client?”

Her sour expression made sense now. She’d gotten more pissy after Tracht had started leaving her behind for meetings and taking Alex instead. Alex grinned at her and shrugged. “I dunno. We’ve been going to so many meetings…. Hard to keep track of things, y’know?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know you have a terrible memory. Did you write anything down though? I checked the captain’s calendar and didn’t see anybody corresponding to this new container.”

Alex’s eyes tightened at her insult. As if he’d help her now. “Whatever. Do we have time to worry about that right now? Tracht wants to leave in a few hours, and we still haven’t run all the pre-launch checks. Which we can’t do until we’re done loading everything.”

“Right. I just think…” She shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll talk to them. Send Ackerman out with the forklift.”

That suited Alex just fine. He went back inside and yelled at Ackerman to head out there. It was tempting to just leave, but he knew how much Tracht hated being delayed, so Alex walked around the cargo hold and lent a hand everywhere he could. He still got the occasional stink eye from the sailors, but nobody said anything to him directly.

It was weird how different the crew treated him now versus when he’d first joined the Sigrun. Not that he’d been helping out much back then. It worked out in his favor that Tracht needed everybody on board to work to make things run smoothly, and that Alex’s muscles happened to make him pretty useful for all the heavy lifting.

Truth be told, he didn’t mind working on the ship. He liked it more when Tracht took him to the meetings, even if Alex didn’t understand most of what was discussed, and he really liked it when Tracht had Alex deliver orders to sailors. On their last trip, Tracht had even let Alex do the daily rounds by himself a few times. Alex got a kick out of questioning the sailors about what they were doing. If they talked back, Alex just had to threaten to call Tracht.

Most of the crew either avoided or deferred to him, but others had no idea how to treat him. Giehl sometimes hit on Alex, just to go pale and apologize three seconds later. “You get it though, right? You’re just so hot when you’re all dressed up like a lady. I still jack off to you with tits. But don’t tell the captain!”

No, Alex didn’t get it. The memory of having breasts was one that Alex was glad to bury deep. Even the whole shit with Parsons had happened because of the tits.

Speaking of Giehl. The guy was leaning on a container with his eyes closed and his head dipped down.

“Hey, Giehl, if you’re done, get off your lazy ass and get ready for departure!” Alex yelled, thumping the container right next to Giehl.

Giehl startled fully awake. “Yessir! I mean, uh, yeah. Got it.” He paused. “For a second I thought you were the captain.”

“You’ve gotta be really tired to think that,” Alex said, but he couldn’t stop himself from grinning. When Giehl wasn’t being a creep, he was all right.

Alex circled back around to Espinosa. The Stieglitz container had been replaced with this new one, and from the look of things the cargo hold was ready for takeoff. That just left the last checks throughout the ship; making sure everything was properly packed away, that nothing had come loose, and that all the ship’s parts were functioning as intended. Apparently, departure and docking were some of the most dangerous procedures for a ship.

“Did you check all of the containers?” Espinosa asked.

“Yeah. Of course I did. I know the drill by now.”

She didn’t look convinced, but then, she never did. Alex was pretty sure Espinosa’s face was frozen in a pissed-off expression. Resting bitch face, as Nick sometimes called it. Although in Espinosa’s case, it wasn’t just her looks that were the problem. Alex had learned to keep his thoughts to himself by now though. Tracht didn’t check the security footage often, but just in case…

They went over the checklist again anyway, because Espinosa didn’t trust Alex. He felt pretty smug when they got through the list without any issues.

Tracht met them on their way back to the main section of the ship. “Alex, good. Do a round through the ship. Make sure everybody is ready for departure. Ms. Espinosa, if the cargo is finally all loaded, we can coordinate with Mr. Strobel.”

Espinosa glanced over at Alex and frowned, but she didn’t make any comment about whether Alex was trustworthy or not. If Alex thought he could get away with it, he’d kiss Tracht or at least touch him, just to ramp up Espinosa’s jealousy. Not worth getting Tracht mad though.

“Got it,” Alex said and jogged off to do his part for the ship.

Chapter 2

Departure went smoothly, despite the hiccup with the Nilsen’s container. Tracht left the bridge once his job was done and headed back to his quarters, looking forward to relaxing for a while. Alex had gotten fairly decent at massages, and Tracht was more than happy to make use of those services.

When he got to his quarters though, Alex wasn’t anywhere to be found. A quick check revealed that his shoes weren’t in the shoe rack, and the bed hadn’t been made either. The straps on the couch, meant for buckling in during departure, were out, so Alex must have been here at some point.

The stress of the departure only amplified Tracht’s annoyance. Apparently, Alex was feeling cocky if he thought he had free time. Tracht had probably been giving him too much leeway and too many responsibilities.

Well, a massage would have been nice, but making Alex cry would be a nice consolation. Tracht looked through his chest of toys and began planning the punishment.

===

Tracht found Alex in the lounge, talking with Giehl and Bauer. In the past year, Alex had managed to, if not become popular, at least get a tiny modicum of respect from the crew. It amused Tracht greatly that all the new members, like Bauer, received warnings about how to treat Alex. Carpenter and Rodriguez’s dismissal had become a story the crew shared around, details embellished depending on whether the sailor had liked either of them or had been personally present.

While Tracht was, in a sense, pleased that Alex had moved beyond wanting to fuck or fight everybody he came into contact with, Alex did need to learn exactly what his priorities should be.

---