Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The light in the garden is amber, shimmering down through the leaves and needles, smelling faintly of blossoms and pine sap. Miss Callitoria hums behind you, two voices -- two biorhythms -- woven into the same tune. A new tune, more than either was alone. Victor’s laughter rings out across the yard as he chases a stray flower that found itself caught on the breeze. He stands shorter, now. He’s softer. But when he catches your eye, he still grins that same loving and caring grin, like the universe is in on a big joke between himself and you.

You dip your brush into your paint again and add another stroke to the canvas. Greens, golds, hints of peach and apricot, chestnut and gold. You’re painting your family: yourself, Victor, and Miss Callitoria. And yet, you can’t help but keep repainting your own face.

You haven’t decided whether you remember yourself as you were, or as you are.

Sometimes you think of the girl you used to be. Allo Omelas. Allo the punching bag. Allo the victim. Allo the bunk warmer.

She seems like another person’s nightmare now.

You don’t hate her. You don’t hate Victor. You don’t even hate what Miss Callitoria did to Victor.

They helped him, after all. Just like they helped you.

You just don’t know what to do with her memories anymore.

Miss Callitoria’s vines brush against your shoulder, reminding you to breathe. “Little one?” her voice calls, tones of her older half shining through. “You’re drifting again.”

“It’s okay,” you tell her. “I was just remembering.”

“Good memories, or bad?”

“I’m not sure,” you say, and mean it.

“Hey Allo!” Victor calls out from the shade near the back door. “You wanna help me make dinner?” His voice is shy in a way it never was before, tempered by tenderness and trepidation but filled with love.

You nod and wipe your hands on a towel that lifts any stray paint from your fingers. Your implant hums with your Owners’ contentment as you cross the lawn, a warm, safe, low thrum. It reminds you that you’re not alone anymore.

You’re never alone. Not anymore.

Miss Callitoria picks up the never-finished painting and follows you inside. The brushes clink softly against the platter of the compiler, the bright blue flashes of light contrasting the warm, honeyed light shining through the windows.

You wash your hands once, then again after helping Victor put dinner in the oven. Fresh bread has become one of his hobbies, and you love to help.

With dinner cooking, you head to the living room. Datapad in hand, Miss Callitoria lifts you up to the couch as you approach. You lean over, resting against her, datapad resting on your lap. A tap to the glass brings the device to life, your own words staring back at you. The first line of your story lands like a hypermetric kick.

The chemical haze of the Stellar Vanguard, Victor’s laughter echoing in corridors that never felt safe.

You look across the living room to the easel where Miss Callitoria set your painting to rest. Your face is young, today.

You can almost hear her voice. That shaky, brittle, unsure thing forcing meaning out of pain because that’s all you had. For a long time, you couldn’t bear to remember. Remembering felt like proof of everything you had done wrong, everything you had lost. But now it feels like proof of everything you gained.

Victor climbs up to the couch, lying down with his head on your hip. Slowly. Like he might break you. Your hand drifts down, fingers lacing through his blonde locks as you scritch. He relaxes. You smile.

“Bad memory day?” he asks, hesitating.

“Memory day,” you say. It’s neither good nor bad. Just, memories.

“Mhmm,” he nods against you. You know he doesn’t remember anything that’s in these digital pages, but he’s in them all the same. He settles in as you start to read, scrolling back to the top. It’s not the beginning. Not the beginning of your life. Not the beginning of your life with Victor. But it’s the beginning of your rescue.

｢When Miss Calliope told me that she was my warden, I thought it would be temporary.｣

Miss Callitoria hums from the kitchen, the same song that silently threads through every day of your life now, and Victor’s as well. She comes in and sets two cups of tea nearby, but you can’t smell the pekoe over the musk Victor worked up running around the yard. Not that you mind one bit, his sweaty orange blossoms are a dream.

The words of the story pull you back. The fear. The confusion. The small mercies and new friends made along the way. You want to tell that version of your self, the one you painted today, that everything will end differently than she expects. That one day, she will wake up in the light of a new day and call it home.

But instead, you let her speak. You let her tell it exactly how it happens.

Because sometimes, that’s how healing works in the Affini Compact. Sometimes you don’t erase the story. Instead, you hold onto it and let it bloom into something new.  

Chapter Text

You tremble as you walk up the garden path to the veranda, using your hand to fluff out your skirt. You hope nobody’s noticed your bulge. Your Class-Gs have done a good deal of work already, but Miss Calliope, your warden, says it will take some time for them to shrink that into a size that’s less hurtful for you to look at.

“Are you ready?” Miss Calliope asks as if she’s given you a choice, leading you onto the porch by your hand.

You don’t know if you’ll ever be ready.

This is the hab where Victoria lives. Your oldest friend. Your only friend. Victoria had been with you for practically your whole life, and you’d like to think that you supported each other. Even when they lashed out, you were there during grade, middle, high school to help them get back up. When you enlisted together you remember tending to their bruises, and spending nights staring at your own. The ones she gave you.

You hadn’t seen each other since the Stellar Vanguard was captured. Not since they walked into a Domestication Center two weeks after the Vanguard’s crew came aboard the Cymbidium.

Miss Calliope kneels down, putting a giant green hand on either of your shoulders. Her vine and leaves are warm. “I know you’re apprehensive, but any good independent sophont needs to be properly socialized,” she assures you. “And you know Victor.”

Ah, right. Victor was his name now. It’s funny how you both came out as trans after you had been brought into the Compact. Fitting, you think, considering your personalities. But for some reason you can’t bring yourself to laugh at the ironic thought.  

You wait patiently for Miss Calliope to do whatever it is when you arrive at somebody’s house. You don’t really know what that’s like. You’ve never been to anybody’s house except your own and Victor’s. But you do know that the handle is much too high for you to reach and you’re much too weak to even think about opening such a massive door. Especially here on the Xenrani hab ring.

Victor lives on the Xenrani hab ring, because that’s where the Affini who domesticated him lives. The gravity here is stronger than the Terran ring by enough for you to notice. Not that you don’t sometimes struggle with the 1 G on the Terran hab ring, given your Lunar upbringing, not to mention all the time you spent on that Navy ship, and the Class G regiment making sure you didn’t exactly gain new muscle quick. You’re pretty sure you haven’t actually gained any weight since you were a teen, anyway.

You give Miss Calliope your bravest face despite your heart pounding in your chest and she stands up straight, barking something at the door. The hab’s AI barks back and the door opens itself. Miss Calliope gestures you ahead with a vine and you step inside.

The first thing you notice about the hab when you step in is that it smells like a home. It isn't musty by any means, but it smells warm and lived in. Tea and flowers, linen and cotton, food and dogs. The second thing you notice is ‘Wow, that is a lot of weights’. It seems like Victor took up weightlifting again in your time apart, and you feel your heart sink at the sight. The weights are smaller than the ones he had back on Luna, but the numbers on the irons are much larger.

Before you can lose yourself too much in the odd, acrid smell invading your nostrils, the affini on the couch across from the door stands up. She crosses the room in three steps of her canine legs, meeting Miss Calliope with a warm embrace. When they pull away from one another, their hands stay in one another’s vines interlacing.

“It’s good to see you, Calliope,” she says.

“Likewise, Platoria,” your warden beams.

You roll your eyes, wondering if this meeting is more about them than it is about you and Victor.

Platoria sets her gaze upon you, still holding Calliope’s hands. “And who is this little cutie?”

You introduce yourself, with your full name and the she/her pronouns you’ve very proudly claimed, just as Miss Calliope has told you is proper etiquette in the Affini Compact.

“Ah, yes, my little Victor’s friend,” Platoria smiles. It’s a completely innocent smile that instills terror in the way she refers to Victor as your ‘friend’. “He’s been so excited to see you again.”

Knowing that Victor has been anticipating this puts a knot in your stomach that won’t unwind. You hope he isn’t mad about how long it’s been since you’ve been in contact.

As if on cue, a door on the spinward side of the room slides open. You’d seen xenrani on the short trip over from the inter-hab ring transfer station, but the one walking through the door is the closest you’ve been yet. They sneered down at you, holding a towel around their neck with both paws as they looked at you with all three eyes. Appraising you.

“Good set, Tsundra,” a terran voice calls from an unsettlingly familiar man you’ve never seen before. He walks around the xenra and pats them on the ass. The voice is so recognizable, even if the pitch is a few octaves lower. “Same time tomorrow?”

Tsundra, the xenra, huffs a toothy smirk. “We’ll see. Got a hot date. We’ll see how long they last.”

Victor grins and pushes his shaggy blonde hair out of his eyes. He locks his eyes on yours and for a split second you see him stare through you, then stare into you, and you know exactly what that look means.

And then he smiles, and your heart skips a beat. It’s a cute, boyish grin and you hate how fucking cute you think he is now, if only for a split second before you remember who he is. It’s genuine, and makes you think that he’s different. Happy. Happier without you, and that the affini actually helped him. It makes you reconsider how you feel about the wardship, if this is what a floret can be.

Victor and Tsundra walk up to you together. Tsundra keeps walking past you and hands you an oversized business card with her name, pronouns, and chat handle, then she’s out the door with a wink. You’re left looking at Victor and his post-workout sheen of sweat.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” you respond.

His eyes trace you up and down, and you’re sure it’s just in your imagination that his gaze lingers for a split-second on your groin. “You look good.”

An unexpected warmth spreads through your face and the top of your chest. He shouldn’t be able to make you feel this way, not after everything that happened, and yet… “Th-Thanks.”

“Petal,” Platoria says to Victor, “You should introduce yourself, no?”

Victor turns his disarming smile up toward his affini, “Of course, Mistress,” before setting it back on you. “Victor Platoria, Third Floret, He/Him.”

You swallow and look up to Miss Calliope, who gives you an encouraging nod. You introduce yourself, again, to Victor this time.

“That’s such a pretty name,” he tells you. “I always thought you would pick a name like that.” He opens his arms. “Now, c’mere.”

You stand still, looking at his wide arms ready to embrace you. How is this possibly the same Victoria you knew just months ago?

“C’mon, or haven’t you learned the local friendship rules yet?” he teases. “First rule? Friends hug.”

Slowly, you step into range of his arms. They collapse around you like a bear trap, and just as strong. Stars, he’s strong. And sweaty. You crinkle your nose as the potent musk surrounds you. and it’s not long before you’re coughing from the surprise.

“Oh, sorry,” he says as he lets go and steps back. “Should have warned you about the sweat gland mods. Xenrani are all about musk. Mistress says they’ll help socialize me.”

“And what a little social butterfly you’ve become, petal,” Platoria praises.

“Thank you, Mistress,” Victor says, a picture of politeness.

“Speaking of socialization, that’s exactly what this little visit is all about,” Miss Calliope says. “Perhaps you two should catch up.”

Platoria’s eyes light up with greens and gold. “Oh, that’s a wonderful idea. Would you like to show your little girlfriend to your room, Victor?”

Your insides squirm at the way Platoria says you’re his girlfriend, but neither your face nor body show. You learned a long time ago how to hide those feelings.

“Of course,” Victor smiles. He offers you a hand as he looks at you. “If you would follow me?”

He leads you into a surprisingly spartan room and closes the door behind you. There are the weights -- it seems like he compiled sets for each room of the house -- and a bed which looks like the bunkbeds from the Stellar Vanguard, just scaled up to fit a few more people. You guess he was missing home, in a way. There’s a desk with a closed notebook, what seemed like a lockbox under his bed, a punching bag, and. What looks like your pillow from your old bunk. It probably isn’t, logically you don’t think it can be, but it still feels like a reminder you don’t want.

“Victor, I just wanna say, I’m really happy for you. You seem like you’ve really come into your own and--”

“Is this what we’re doing now?” His warm tone is gone, he sounds a lot more like, like how you knew him.

You blink at him, utterly confused at the sudden change in tone. “I’m sorry?”

He takes a step closer, arms still at his sides as he enters your personal space. You try to back up, but he matches you step for step until your back lands against the door. “Do you even still have a cock?”

Your eyes flutter again, your heart picking up speed. “I-- uh-- mm,” you stammer and gulp. “Y-yes?”

“Good,” he leers down at your body, “I’d hate for you to let them get rid of it.”

Your eyes widen and your jaw opens and closes. You’re utterly speechless, though perhaps you know you shouldn’t be. It feels like you’re back in the crew bunks of the Stellar Vanguard as he puts his hand on your shoulder and pins you against the door.

His other hand reaches between your legs, groping you through your thin skirt and thinner panties, drawing a trembling squeak. “Yeah, that’s about how I remember it. Guess they don’t have you on the good Class-G’s yet.”

“Victoria--” you’re cut off as his hand closes down. Hard.

“My name’s Victor now, hon.” Even with a different name, he still has the same predatory smirk that she did. “You know what Victor means don’t you?”

You gulp, feeling your face grow dreadfully warmer as his hand flexes and draws unwanted bloodflow to your crotch.

“It means I’m the winner, and you’re still the same loser you were back in the navy. Back when we were kids.”

“I’m-- I’m--” You want to tell him that he’s wrong. That you’ve changed. That you’re not a loser. But the words won’t come.

“I’m-- I’m--” he mocks, “You’re exactly the same. Know how I know?”

You’re petrified, too afraid to move an inch with his powerful bicep flexing inches from your face as he leans in.

“Because,” he whispers, “You still get so hard for me.”

You recoil flat against the wall as he pushes off of you and pulls his sweat-stained tanktop over his head. Your eyes are drawn to his new muscles along with the scars accenting his chest, glistening in the light. Back on Luna you were both equally frail from the moon’s gravity, but Victoria used to play up just how weak she was compared to you. Now, Victor drops all pretense and flexes his newfound strength over you flagrantly.

He keeps smirking at you, drawing a line with his eyes to where yours stay on his scars. “Funny thing is I had to ask for them, I wanted people to know.” He huffs a bigger grin, shaking his head as he looks at your chest in turn. “I’d say you should get your own top surgery, but I don’t think it would do you any favors. Besides, I like them smaller, so you won’t mind keeping them that size for me, right?”

You continue to stutter, looking down at yourself. You’d imagined that you’d have a fuller figure one day, but you were cute, you supposed. It wouldn’t be terrible if you looked like this for a little while longer.

You’re knocked out of your hazy self-appraisal as he barks at you again. “Take off your skirt.”

Your jaw tenses and your eyes go wide. It’s the exact same way he used to tell you to take off your uniform. The same intonation, the same demanding tone. And, you fearfully understand, the same intention.

“V-Vic,” you try to reason with him, though it never worked in the past, “Please. I’m-- I’m really not--”

“Oh, boo hoo, you’re not in the mood?” He tilts his head derisively. “That little tent you’re pitching would beg to differ.”

It wasn’t, you’re not, you swear, it’s, it, it was supposed to be different this time.

“Shhh, sh, sh. Don’t cry so loud,” you didn’t know you were, “We’re just silly terrans playing, alright? If they hear you, if they see you crying because your friend touched you, then we’re both in trouble. I'd be on probation a few months, handful of privileges taken away, and you… Well, you’re a ward. You’ll speedrun the domestication process, sweetie.

“Oh, you’ll try and talk about what’s happened between me and you, and end up in a week-long stay at a J-cafe, listed among dozens of other girls like you, shipped off to some nowhere corner of the galaxy so high you’ll never manage to remember your own name, much less your Affini’s.”

“That… That won’t--”

He laughs softly. “You remember Captain Tabari?”

You gulp and nod. “O-Of course I do. She’s-- she’s always around. She checks up on everyone from the Vanguard. She’s… nice.”

“Yeah,” he says, with a little tilt of his head. “She is nice. Mila’s a real sweetheart.”

He pulls out a tablet.

“But she’s not Captain Tabari anymore.”

You stiffen as he turns the screen toward you. There she is. Mila Oakley, Fifth Floret, smiling dreamily in her floret dress. Same jawline. Same eyes. Same warmth in her face. Just softer, quieter, evened out under the Class-Gs and whatever has to be in those candy canes she carries everywhere.

“She still visits the old crew,” Victor says glibly, “but that’s because she was trained to. It’s comforting, right? Seeing someone familiar who’s already been broken in. Like how Miss Calliope brought you to see me.”

“That’s not-- she’s not broken--”

“Isn’t she?”

You want to say she isn’t. You want to scream and shout and tell him he’s wrong. Captain Tabari-- Mila held everybody on the Vanguard together. She’s strong. She’s kind. She’s not like you.

“And that’s just one example.” Victor taps the screen and Mila’s picture collapses into a line with her name. It’s one among many, and you instantly recognize some of your former crewmates like Abigail and Mason. “Who knows, maybe some plant will see how many are from this one ship, try and get a set.”

Your eyes dance around the screen as he flicks his finger up and an entire list of names flies by. From what little you can tell it’s nearly half of the Stellar Vanguard’s duty roster.

“You see the pattern now, right?”

Your breath catches in your chest as you nod.

“And you’d hate to end up on that list, wouldn’t you?”

You gulp and nod again.

“Good~” he gives a jockish purr, “Now, take off your skirt. Dummy.”

Your hands shake as you hook your thumbs into the waistband of your skirt. As you pull it down, a part of you dies inside at how it gets caught your bulging panties. Working it past, you let go and allow the flimsy fabric to drop to your ankles.

“Awww, still the same old prude you always were, huh? Take off the panties too.”

Your face twists, but you comply all the same. The same as you always did. You grimace as you pull them away, a deep shame coursing through you as the wet cotton clings to the tip of your cock. When you get them peeled off, he picks them up off the ground and runs a thumb over the wet spot. “A part of me will miss when your cum was white, made it look nice smeared on your face.”

He wipes your panties on your face, the fabric feels soft, but the situation as hard as it ever was. “Yea, not the same.” He studies how it looks on your face, turning you by the jaw to inspect you like an animal. After a certain point it just seems like he's taking you in. He holds you there, uncomfortably long, looking through you.

Despite your revulsion, you can’t help but feel your cock twitch as he wraps his hand around it, possessively as ever.  He looks through you and you feel every bit of animal terror as he stares at you like a wolf eyeing its prey. Or maybe a xenra. Would explain why every warm breath he blows across your face seems to make you fall just a little deeper.

It feels like he’s been staring at you forever, but just as you fear he’s about to go even further, you hear Miss Calliope call your name through the door.

Victor huffs as he rolls his eyes and releases you. Then, he bends over, grabs your skirt, and yanks it back up your legs. You cringe at the waistband forcing your cock to smack your belly and leave a little dab of clear, sticky fluid on your blouse.

“Tch, such a girl,” he scoffs as you shove yourself back into your skirt, “Worried about stains.”

You fluff up your skirt to hide quickly-softening stiffness as much as possible, but when you turn to open the door he holds it closed. “Not a word, or you can kiss your chance of getting through your wardship adios. Got it?”

You give two quick nods.

“Good,” he says. You watch as Victor takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and lets it out. Your stomach churns as he opens his eyes with a placid smile. It’s like he’s wearing a mask as he opens the door and leads you out by the hand.

“There you are, petal,” Platoria sings.

Victor’s hand lingers in yours, his fingers trailing against your palm as you slip his grasp and return to the safety of Miss Calliope.

“Did you have a good time with your friend, little one?” your warden kneels to ask you.

You glance around your warden to look at Victor nuzzling into his owner’s vines. He briefly turns to you, flashing you a smirk. To them, it just looks like he had a good time. But you know that smirk. You’ve seen it more times than you can count. He’s telling you to keep quiet.

Looking back at your warden's gentle, inquisitive face, you nod. You smile. You don’t wince and whine or fidget. You make yourself okay. Because you’re used to it. Even if you haven’t had to make yourself appear okay around Victor for months, it’s still automatic. Still a reflex. Still second nature.

And you’ve had a lot of practice.

“It was sooo fun!” Victor practically cheers. “Can I see her again tomorrow? Please, Mistress?”

You watch in disgust as he puts on what you’ve come to learn is a prototypical floret begging face. And, the worst part is, it works.

“Of course, Victor!” Platoria strokes Victor’s blonde mop and turns to Miss Calliope. “Assuming it’s okay with her warden.”

You look up at Miss Calliope with a placid smile and eyes that feel dead. She doesn’t understand. She just turns to Platoria with a smile of her own.

“She’d be happy to.”

Your teeth feel like they’re going to break for clamping your jaw so hard to not scream, but keep up that polite smile. You have to. You know you must preserve your wardship at all costs.

“Wonderful!” Platoria claps her hands together as Victor hugs her leg even more tightly, flexing his muscles. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Everbloom be with you until then!” Miss Calliope takes your hand and leads you back out onto the veranda.

With a final glance back, you aren’t sure, but you think you see Victor laugh.

Your mind tumults, tumbling over itself as you stare out the window of the transfer pod between hab rings. You’re distantly aware of Miss Calliope speaking to you, but you can’t hear the words. There are so many stars out there. You can’t help but wonder which one you’ll end up near if you piss off Victor and he ruins your wardship.

“Little one?” Miss Calliope gently lays some vines on your shoulder.

You shoot up straight in your seat, turning to look at her. “Huh?”

“I asked if you were alright. You’ve been unusually quiet since we left Platoria’s hab.”

“Oh, yeah,” your body sinks back down to a slouch. “Just… thinking.”

“Good thoughts, or bad?”

“I don’t know,” you say, lying.

“I see,” she gives you a slight pet as her vines withdraw. “As your warden, you can speak to me about anything that may be troubling you.”

As nice of a sentiment it is, you know that you really can’t. You can never trust authority figures to do what’s best for you. Not your teachers. Not your parents. Not the Affini. Before it would lead to detention and grounding. Now, the stakes are even more dire. Now, your independence hangs in the balance. So you stay silent. You can’t let them know anything’s wrong. Not if you want to avoid ‘speedrunning the domestication process’.

“I know,” you tell her.

You sit in silence a while longer, watching as your pod aligns with the Terran hab ring side of the transport station and starts to slide inside. As the doors open and you walk out to see a handful of affini, all with florets, you swallow the lump in your throat.

“Miss Calliope?” you ask softly, looking down at your own chest.

She slows her pace to match yours as you depart the station. “Yes, little ward?”

“Can I be put on a less… aggressive… Class-G?”