FSE

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Gabriel stared out the small port-hole window in in his cramped bunk room, his attention absolute. He looked down upon the top-sides of clouds, and, where they broke, he saw leagues and leagues of land at once, like looking down upon a titanic map.

He could scarcely understand how the giant ship kept in the air. He'd heard explanations, talk of buoyancy and "lighter than air" components, but these only mystified him further. How could so vast, so huge a thing as an Imperial War Zeppelin be lighter than air? The crew numbered in the hundreds. The whole thing was shod in thick iron plates, and both the gondola - in which the command bridge and the officers' and captain's quarters were - and in the great gas bag compartment, which occupied the vast majority of the warship's bulk, repeating guns, heavy cannon and Howitzers sat poised and ready to deal death.

Thinking of such a thing as lighter than air was not only absurd, it was mind-bending. A thing of such power, such awesome presence and ability, surely must be as heavy as a mountain; where there's smoke, after all, there must indeed be fire.

Gabriel was a young, fawn-colored hare of light build and uncommonly short stature. He'd signed an Article indenturing him to the ship's service for a time not less than five years. It was a way to get out; to see the world. And the pay would not be bad when his service was up. Enough to start a life somewhere. It wasn't until after he'd signed on that he learned that, in a time of war, his service would continue infinitely until further notice. Considering that the Empire was always at war, he had reason to worry.

A lower officer, his uniform still much more elaborate than Gabriel's own simple workman's garb, came in, standing ramrod straight with his hands behind his black-coated back.

"You've been assigned to assist one of our maintenance gangers," the officer said shortly, tersely. He mumbled under his breath, "Hmph, 'ganger'. There's just the one, that weird, unknowable vermin."

Gabriel sat looking at him a moment longer, frozen by the suddenness of this command.

"Well, come on, snap to!" the officer shouted a moment later, cracking his decorative riding-crop against one of the iron bunk-frames for emphasis.

Gabriel rapidly did as he was told, snapping his heels together as he raised a paw to his brow in salute.

"Right then," the officer said, seeming to calm considerably. "Follow me, I'll show you the ganger you'll be assisting."

As they exited the bunk-room, the officer muttered darkly, "If we can find the gods-damned maniac."

After stalking about through various maintenance areas and passageways for what seemed like an hour, Gabriel and the officer (who was becoming visibly annoyed, gripping his riding-crop behind his back and flexing it in barely-contained anger) found themselves in a corridor with a low roof, so narrow they could not stand abreast. A metal duct, for air-circulation, ran overhead. A strange thumping sound from within had made the officer stop.

He stepped forward and rapped on the metal with his riding-crop.

"Damn you, Spanner, get your arse out of there!" he shouted, apparently starting to lose his grip on his annoyance.

The thumping continued a moment, before a little slotted vent in the underside of the duct flapped open. A young, snow-white rat's head popped out, exactly upside-down, looking the wrong way. Accompanied by further thumping from above, the rat rotated one hundred and eighty degrees to look upon the officer and his companion.

"Good morrow, Barnes," the up-ended rat said, pleasantly.

"Get out of there!" the black-coated officer, this Barnes, shouted in exasperation.

Without a word, the rat dropped from the vent, catching himself with his hands. He nimbly somersaulted backwards, coming up on his feet a few paces from the officer. He bowed low, dramatically. The officer bared his teeth, clutching his riding-crop hard enough that Gabriel thought it might break. He seemed to regain control a moment later, taking a deep breath.

"This is our chief - and only - maintenance ganger, Spanner," the officer said. "Spanner, this is a new indentured man. I'm putting him with you. Now you can stop bothering me for extra hands."

With that, the officer stalked off back down the narrow passageway, heading for the command gondola. The rat regarded Gabriel with a smile.

"Hello, there," he said, extending a paw to shake. "My name is Spanner. What's yours?"

Gabriel was momentarily taken aback by the rat's pleasant, courteous manner, before he took his paw and shook it. Everyone he'd met so far on the ship had been surly and angry, seeming to want nothing to do with him. This was refreshing.

"I'm Gabriel," he said, shyly. "Very nice to meet you, Spanner."

"You must excuse Barnes," Spanner commented, gesturing in the direction the officer had made his retreat. "The nobs are all like that. I have as little to do with them as I can." The white rat led Gabriel on through this and that section of the ship's workings, gesturing here and pointing there, talking about everything in a few minutes from the mechanisms about, various ways he'd hurt himself repairing them in the past, and his judgments and recriminations of "the nobs", who, for him, compromised just about the entire crew of the ship, apart from the gun gangers, the deck-ratings and the half-deaf, half-mad veteran crewmen. Those were men who'd served under the decks of ships in war - both on the sea and in the air - for decades and still lived to tell of it, plainly marked by their experiences though they were. These fell into the category of "alright lads", "kind folk" and "fine fellows indeed". Gabriel, giggling a bit, asked which of these he fit into. The rat turned, seeming to shift all of his attention to the question for a moment.

"I don't know," he said. "You're cute, though." Seeming to be satisfied with that, he smiled and turned around, continuing to walk and narrate his view of life aboard-ship. Gabriel was further puzzled by the rat, and his amusement with him seemed to dry up like a puddle in the sun. It wasn't exactly common manners to call another man of comparable age "cute" like that.

By day's end, Gabriel was squeezing through maintenance shafts, makeshift paths through running machines and tiny crawlspaces, right along with Spanner. As the rat had explained, there was really no use trying to explain everything around beforehand; best just to learn as he went.

"Hand me the small crescent wrench," Spanner called down from above. He was standing on top of some kind of cooling unit, half-way inside an intricate series of moving parts above. His pair of tough, rawhide suspender-overalls (he seemed to wear those and nothing else, not even shoes) were held about his waist by his tool-belt, cinched up tight. The suspenders hung at his sides, leaving his flat, slightly-muscled chest bare. Gabriel stretched, handing the wrench up to him.

The rat took it and continued working the intricacies of this strange magick called "engineering". Gabriel stared, fascinated, wondering what he could possibly be doing up there. He wasn't staring at Spanner's slightly-lined chest, his pert little nipples. Of course not.

After some time, the rat emerged from the machinery, his paws smeared almost up to the elbows in grease. He handed back the wrench, which went in the large bag of tools (which it now fell to Gabriel to carry; this was, apparently, one of the main things Spanner had wanted an assistant for) kept by the rat. Spanner wiped his paws and arms relatively clean with a handkerchief from one of his overalls' pockets. He then put it away, leisurely climbing down from the cooling machine to stand near his new companion.

"Alright, then," he said, stretching and yawning. "I'm getting tired. Let's go find somewhere cooler to sleep" Gabriel followed him in confusion.

"We're not going back to our quarters?" he asked. The rat stopped and turned.

"Oh, did you want to?" he asked, like a host, afraid he's offended his guest. "We can if you want to. I just usually lay down in one of the crawlspaces for an hour or two here and there. I understand you're probably used to a bed, though."

The rat remained talkative as they made their way through the rat's maze (Gabriel felt a little guilty as he smiled, thinking of the expression) that was this part of the ship's vast engineering departments. The uncomfortable heat about which he'd complained, earlier, did not let up; in fact, it proceeded to rise, sharply. As both of them went on, sweating, Gabriel asked what could be the cause of it.

"They've put the spurs to her," the rat replied, confidently. "Turned the throttles way up. Bloody fools will crack her main prop-shafts like that! Too much torque too soon!"

The rat looked back to the hare, as if only now remembering he was there.

"Sorry, I get excited like that, sometimes," he apologized, wiping sweat from his brow. "This ship's got my blood in it, is all. Mine, my father's, and his father's, too." Gabriel gave him a look, amazed.

"Your family has lived on this ship that long?" he asked.

"Yes, it did," Spanner replied, still walking, looking over his shoulder. "Not anymore, though..."

Gabriel wanted to ask him to explain, then thought better of it and said nothing. They walked, crawled and climbed in silence for a while. After some time, Spanner stopped, wiping his brow again.

"Just a moment, mate," he said. With a swift motion, he undid his work belt, let his overalls drop, and stepped out of them. He re-buckled the belt and hung it from one shoulder. He bundled up his garment and tucked it under one arm. "That's better!" He sighed, relieved.

Gabriel stood, stunned. He'd been right; the rat really didn't wear anything but those overalls. And now he didn't even have them on... The last thing he'd ever expected when he was assigned this job was that there would be young men literally stripping naked in front of him. He stood, embarrassed, not knowing what to say. The rat looked at him, confused by his apparent discomfort.

"Are you blushing?" he asked. "Or have you a hip flask you've been hiding from me?"

Gabriel just continued staring, too distracted to speak. Spanner, he could see now, was in fact a rather fetching young man, lightly-muscled, well-endowed... Looking at him filled Gabriel with such... impure thoughts.

The rat stepped forward, a look of concern upon his long, white face.

"Really," he said, laying a paw on the brown hare's shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Spanner caught the hare's eyes dart, quickly, discreetly, toward his naked crotch. He came to notice the tenting of the bunny's trousers. He smiled an understanding smile, setting his overalls down on the metal-grated floor.

"I see," he said, coming closer, putting his arms gently, slowly around the hare's neck, staring deeply into his softly-hued blue eyes. "Why didn't you just ask me, sweety? I told you I thought you were cute."

"Wh... What are you doing?" Gabriel asked, frightened and confused.

"You want to make love to me," Spanner replied, softly, plainly. "That's okay. I want you, too."

The rat closed his eyes, leaning in. He put his soft lips to the hare's throat, kissing, licking and nipping, eliciting soft squeals and stifled moans from his victim. Gabriel didn't know what to do. This was wrong; a dire sin. But it felt so good...

Finally, he shouted incoherently and pushed the naked rat away in a panic. Spanner looked at him, confused and just a little hurt.

"What?" he asked, genuinely wondering what he could have done wrong.

"It's... It's a sin!" he shouted, panicked. He pointed, suddenly turning vicious in his fear. "Sodomite! You'll not drag my soul down to the Pit with you!"

Spanner sighed sadly, shaking his head a little. You poor thing, he thought, looking at the scared little bunny. He didn't deserve to live with fear like that. He deserved to be happy...

"I'm not making any kind of claims of being right or wrong, now," he said, coming back toward the hare with his hands raised in a gesture of peace. "Just hear me out."

Gabriel looked at him, scared, not speaking. "Don't come any closer," he said, his voice almost frantic. The rat stayed exactly where he was, his palms still held out before him.

"My father taught me that it's just natural for living things to want to be close," he said, trying to look Gabriel in the eye. The hare seemed reluctant to do so. "Like flowers turning to the sun. God made us that way."

Still, the hare stood as distinctly apart from his companion, who had stopped to put his clothes back on, for the hare's comfort, as he could.

"We're all God's creatures," he continued, feeling genuinely sad, now. Sad for the hare. Sad about this awful, state-sponsored religious fervor of recent years. "And He just wants us to do what it's natural for us to do. To try to be good to one another. To try to be happy."

As he spoke, the rat advanced, slowly, cautiously, trying to be as non-threatening as possible. Gabriel had, just as slowly, let him come closer, until the rat stood now with a paw on his shoulder.

"God wants you to be happy, too," Spanner whispered, close to the hare's ear. "You don't have to feel bad. He loves you, too, and He wants you to do what makes you happy."

The bunny shook his head repeatedly, faster and faster, as the rat spoke. Tears started to well up in his eyes, and then to fall, wetting his cheeks.

"No!" he insisted, his crying eyes shut tight, his fists at either side of his head in frustration. "If I just get through my natural life without any mortal sins, if I'm sorry for what my body wants, when I get to the Hereafter, God will take pity on my and let me in. I don't want to burn..."

Spanner felt himself starting to cry, too. He slowly, carefully put his arms around Gabriel, resting his head securely, comfortingly on the hare's chest. Poor thing, he kept thinking.

"Whoever taught you those things should be ashamed of themselves," he said, not moving. "There's nothing wrong with you, really. What is, is. All is as God wishes. You're no exception."

He looked up, trying to look the hare in the face. The bunny was looking away, crying with his eyes still shut. Spanner took the hare gently by the chin and turned his face back to him. The bunny opened red, still-weeping eyes. They locked with those of the rat. He saw that Spanner was crying, too. It made him seem infinitely more sincere.

"It's not... wrong?" he asked forlornly, in a tiny little voice. After his previous outburst of religious dogma, Spanner was, in fact, not a bit surprised to hear the bunny slowly coming around. No creature wishes to retain a state that causes it great pain, physical or emotional. No one wants to go through life thinking they have things to apologize for. He was so glad of it.

"No," the rat said soothingly. The hare slowly, reluctantly began to hug the rat back, laying his head on his bare shoulder and crying in earnest. The rat, a little shorter than the hare, rubbed his back, holding him tight and trying to comfort him. "There's nothing wrong with you. You want to be close to someone. You want to be loved. We all do."

Finally, the hare stopped crying. He raised his head from Spanner's shoulder, looking into his eyes and just sharing silence with him a moment.

"I want be close to you," he said, meekly, desperately. "I want to be loved by you."

The rat adjusted his embrace, bringing his arms again up around Gabriel's neck. "I can do that," he breathed, before closing the last few centimeters between them and kissing the hare deeply.

As Spanner finally pulled back, Gabriel and he shared a long, silent gaze. Finally, the rat took a step away, still holding the hare's paw.

"Come on," he said. "Our room is this way. You'll be more comfortable there." The rat led him through another fifteen minutes of crawling through seemingly-incomprehensible series of mechanisms not really meant to be crawled through. At last, they came to an empty loading-area, with a small iron door with a round locking-wheel on its front set into one wall. Gently holding the bunny's paw, their fingers interlaced, Spanner opened the door and ushered his partner inside, a real gentleman.

Spanner closed and locked the door as Gabriel stood, taking in the tiny chamber. The whole thing was of an odd shape, vaguely like some kind of tank or large valve. It certainly didn't appear to have been designed as any kind of living-quarters. The main area (the "den", one could say) had a little round wooden table, and a splintering old cabinet. At the back, in a section even smaller than the primary one, the rat had constructed a mattress of wool, wrapped tightly in old, coarse sheets, with a little knitted quilt that spread its entire width. The "bedroom" was marked by a higher floor (on which the mattress was built) and a lower ceiling. It was tight, and close, and strangely cozy-looking, in its way. It also looked wide enough to accommodate at least three or four.

Gabriel remembered what Spanner had said, about how his family used to live aboard the ship, but "didn't anymore". Given the new closeness that suddenly existed between them, Gabriel decided to broach the subject.

"Did you live here with your whole family?" he asked, in a little astonishment. The place was tight, cozy-looking, granted, but insane as long-term livings for a family. The rat looked at him. His eyes held a guarded, hidden sadness that Gabriel could tell Spanner didn't want him to see.

"Aye," he sighed out. He pulled out one of the squat, wooden chairs at the table, taking a seat and gesturing for his companion to do so. As Gabriel sat, Spanner produced a pipe from a little box on the table. It was a simple little dry corncob affair, ancient and well-used, but it had, as some old things do, a strong air of invincibility, timelessness, like it always had been and always would be. He loaded it with tobacco and asked if Gabriel wanted some. Having no pipe, the hare declined. Taking a few puffs with a sulfur match above the bowl, the rat continued.

"Me, me father, me mum, and me sister, Wingnut. We called her 'Wingy'," he related, the pipe held in his teeth and gingering supported by one paw. There was a wistful note to his heavily-accented voice (which stretched the "A-sound" in "father" and strongly rounded the "U-sound" in "mum"). "All of us worked on the ship together, bunked together - drank together, too! I remember this one time..." Gabriel reached across the table and put a paw over the one not occupied by the rat's pipe.

"Stick to the main part, love," he said, warmly. He felt so much closer to the rat, now; he felt so much better in general, in fact, having talked with some one, with anyone, about his attraction to males. Such a weight off his shoulders - and he didn't even have to feel bad about it! There was still a little fear in him for his immortal soul; nineteen-odd years of harsh religious dogma, taught by a strict, Puritan father was hard to overcome. He didn't know what would happen to his soul, for sure, but he was sure that he didn't want to feel bad anymore; he was tired of always, every single day and night, feeling like he'd failed, like he'd done something wrong. And Spanner was so nice, so caring, so... cute. He thought maybe, now that he was allowing himself to consider such things, that he was falling in love. He tried to banish the idea, on the grounds that they'd only just met, but it wouldn't go away. Not entirely.

"Well," the rat went on, reclining in his chair, contentedly puffing away. "That was how I grew up. Here, on the ship, working on the different systems with all of them, eating whatever mum could throw together for us, having a few drinks - mum and me father drank, anyway, and of course me sister, her being fifteen already at the time. Mum would usually give me a little nip, though, if I'd been good." He chuckled a little, enjoying revisiting this memory.

"Which reminds me!" Spanner exclaimed, suddenly. He leaned his chair back, balancing on two legs, using his long, thin, hairless tail to counterbalance himself. He reached back into an apparently-random collection of junk, lashed together with rope and hanging from the sloped ceiling, and came back with a thick, cloudy glass bottle. It was half-full of some dark brown spirit. The rat smiled at his companion, the pipe sticking out of his teeth at the side. Gabriel giggled fitfully, terribly amused. It was a thing the hare would normally never have done; giggling girlishly won't get you a lot of respect among sailors, soldiers and grim Dwarfish engineers. Now that he was letting himself think about such things (and it was such a relief to; like seeing a whole new spectrum of color, all of a sudden), he thought the rat was quite cute. Adorable, even, with that pipe.

A similar feat of balance produced a pair of chipped, wide glasses. Spanner filled each of them, popping the cork back in with the heel of his paw. He took a thirsty swig, shivering a little bit and smiling wider. He gestured with his glass for Gabriel to drink, as well.

Gabriel took a little sip, and coughed profusely. Standing, Spanner leaned across the little table, his head brushing the ceiling, and patted the bunny on the back, laughing companionably.

"Good stuff, huh?" he asked, before laughing heartily again and drinking more.

Gabriel smiled, taking another little sip. It was by far the strongest stuff he'd ever tasted, but he was nervous, still a little jittery; he was about to do something he'd grown up being told was a mortal sin. At least, he hoped he was. Oh, God, how he hoped. A little something to loosen him up seemed like a good idea. Right now, though, he wanted to hear what had become of the rat's family; he was saddened to see the rat had already finished his drink and was pouring himself another one. He'd seen this: downing a lot of "pain-killer" when asked to talk about something painful. He had a feeling the rat had something indeed to tell him. Something bad.

"Why aren't they here now, Spanner?" he asked, gazing deep into the rat's eyes and reaching out again to lay his paw atop the rodent's little white one. "What happened?"

Spanner looked down at the hare's brown paw, then up at its owner, locking his pink, albino eyes with the hare's dull green ones. As they shared that gaze, Spanner seemed to shift, somehow, internally. Something changed, and he broke the gaze. He took another hit of his pipe, then started to cry, slowly, softly. It was like he was used to crying silently, so as not to bother anyone. It pained the bunny to see it. He got up and moved his chair over next to that of the rat. He put his arm around him, resting his head on the rat's angular, bony shoulder.

"An exchange of fire," Spanner muttered, without looking up. He was staring straight down at the metal floor, still smoking. "I was ten, twelve, I don't remember. We didn't get no warnings; no alarms, no summons, no messages from the bridge. One day, all the damn guns just started going off. They had her engines cranked way up, banking like crazy.

"We took a hit to broadside, right at this level." The rat fell deathly silent, smoking his pipe in silence, illuminating half his white face with the orange glow of the burning tobacco. This was it, Gabriel saw; this was where it got bad.

"We'd been crawling all about, making ourselves useful-like," Spanner said. "Mum and Father got it right away. Real quick. Wingy made it two more days. Then, they'd sewn her up in her shawl and dropped her over the side 'affore I even got to pay me respects." He began to cry, again, sobbing slowly, almost soundlessly. He seemed to notice the hare's close presence, and moved himself against him, a little, accepting the tender contact. "'Affore I even got to say goodbye..."

The rat set his pipe down and began to really open the floodgates. His sobs were louder, harder; his body shuddered much more. Already, tears ran down his cheeks, dripping from his chin. Suddenly, he changed his posture, putting his arms tightly around the hare's nearby body, holding onto him like he thought he'd go somewhere if he let go. Gabriel hugged back, letting the rat cry. He clearly needed this, clearly hadn't spoken to anyone who cared enough to listen, maybe ever.

Eventually, he stopped crying. When he did, he looked at the hare, long and happy. He leaned forward and kissed him, using his tongue, suddenly all passion, using his tongue, practically making love to his mouth. When they finished, he said, simply, "Thank you." Gabriel gave him a look.

"That was quick," he commented, plainly. Spanner chuckled a little and kissed his lips, a quick peck.

"I don't want to cry anymore," he said, and kissed Gabriel again, quickly on the lips. He proceeded to punctuate each statement like this. "I want to make love you to you. I want to show you what it's like to be loved. You deserve that."

Together, they rose, still trading little, playful kisses. They headed awkwardly toward the bed, finding the rise in the floor with their knees and falling sidewards into the mass of cotton, wool and feathers, giggling. Spanner worked at getting Gabriel's clothes off. In the end, he wound up almost tearing his trousers, popping off a few of the shirt's buttons, and throwing it all across the room. The hare lay shyly on his back, his knees together, pointing up. He blushed heavily as he made a conscious move of adjusting his posture to let his partner see him. He was decently-endowed, a little less-so than Spanner. His member stood up, already glistening and quivering. Spanner quickly slipped out of his overalls, tossing them away. He crawled on all fours over to Gabriel, until he straddled him, gazing long down into his eyes. He leaned down and kissed him again, deep and slow.

"You're beautiful," he said, quietly, meaningfully.

He crawled backward, settling down above the hare's standing cock. Putting a thumb and finger around the base, the other paw gently holding his balls, Spanner slowly began to lick at the member. Gabriel moaned wildly, his paws over his mouth, mewling and moaning. Gently, Spanner took the cock into his mouth. He sucked it, gently, slowly, not wanting to make the hare cum yet. When it was well-enough coated with saliva, Spanner let it go. He put a paw on the hare's shoulder, and shifted his weight back, until their positions were changed; now, Gabriel straddled the rat, who lay on his back. Spanner opened his legs, scooting up closer. He took each of the bunny's paws in his own, and pulled him down close to him.

"Is this your first time, sweety?" he asked, gently, tenderly. The bunny just nodded, blushing still. Spanner pulled him in for another kiss, slow and long.

"It's okay," the rat told him, when they'd come apart for air again. "Just do what feels right, and if you think you're going to cum too soon, tense up your tummy." Reaching down with one paw, Spanner helped the hare line up his glistening wet member with his entrance. Kneeling over him, still holding each of his paws, Gabriel waited for some kind of signal.

"Do it, sweety," the rat breathed, husky, throaty. He was fully hard now, too. He clearly wanted this a great deal.

The bunny slowly began to push. The rat threw back his head, breathing deep and slow, concentrating on opening himself for his lover. It doesn't take long, the rat being rather experienced. Within minutes, the two had hit a steady rhythm, breathing and moving together, kissing again and again. The rat stroked his cock slowly, distractedly. He moaned as the hare, while inexperienced, still managed to hit his prostate a fair amount of the time. Finally, the rate of the hare's thrusts as well as the volume and pitch of his moans, began to increase sharply.

"I think... I'm going to..." he gasped out, evidently focusing on not cumming too soon. Spanner guided him in moving his angle a little, so as to hit his spot as often as possible. He nodded to the hare, still stroking himself.

The bunny went mad, thrusting fast and hard, moaning fast, high and sharp. His partner joined him; this new assault was well-targeted, and the rat found himself nearing his peak already. With a high little screech and a final, fully-automatic series of thrusts, the bunny came, shooting his lover full. That was just the last straw Spanner needed, and climaxed himself, moaning along with his lover. Finally, spent, Gabriel pulled out and collapsed on the rat's chest, panting. Spanner put his arms around him and held him, almost possessively. Mine, he found himself thinking. My bunny.

Tiredly, lazily, Gabriel planted a kiss on the rat's lips, slowly bringing his arms around him. The rolled, together, onto their side, their bodies right up against each other.

"I think I love you," he murmured into the rat's ear. Spanner chuckled, but found himself feeling a thing he hadn't in a long time. He looked at the bunny, who was already falling asleep. He stumbled into a realization that he really might love the little hare. He'd known him only one day, but hadn't he felt something when he saw him? Hadn't everything with him seemed different, somehow? He wasn't about to pass up a chance at love, real, genuine love.

"I think I love you, too," he cooed into the bunny's (his bunny, his) big, floppy ear.

Together, they drifted off , lulled to sleep by the sounds of the ship's giant parts working.