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The Perfect Storm

Bruno Hirschkoff

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Main Characters

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Lex Frankston _ - 34 years old, Urssa woman, born in Maenmerth. She's a postgrad/doctoral candidate at Lake Lennox University, Frostfell, in the field of climatology. Like many of her people, Lex is tall and solidly built, and carries herself well. As a native of Maenmerth, the cold doesn't bother her in the slightest. She's also very open-minded, strongly independent, casual and even forward about sex - emphasise her tendency to be able to make a euphemism out of just about anything. She loves making people squirm with how open she is, and while she can be foul-mouthed and even tomboyish at times, she's a gentle and affectionate woman whose intelligence doesn't get in the way of her sociability._

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Marcus Orviese _ - 25 years old, Caprin man (ram), born and raised in Helade, in a small town in the mountains east of the capital, Vinegress. He's slender and small; quietly spoken and diligent. He's good with his hands (mechanically) but his strength is intellectual. He's not sex-repulsed by any means, but he is comparatively inexperienced, and has never worked with anyone like Lex Frankston before. Being from a warm climate on the Mare Internum, he's unused to extreme weather, or cold. His recent completion of a meteorology degree with Honours at Habury University, Scordomna, sees him on a list of graduates selected by the Doregallian Institute of Atmospheric Science for placement at a series of weather observatories and climate outposts._

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Marcus Orviese fiddled nervously in his seat. It wasn't his first time in a helicopter, but even in bright, clear conditions, they made him deeply uncomfortable. Had it been the glittering Heladian coast below, the Caprin fancied he might have been able to distract himself with the astonishing scenery. Not so up here, in the remote, wild north, en route to an isolated weather observatory perched at the top of an icy mountain pass. The helicopter was being buffeted and shaken by powerful, squally winds, and the only thing Marcus could see out of the ice-rimed window was the rhythmic flash of the aircraft's clearance lights in the dense cloud. They'd been in the air for several hours, and the further north they ventured, the worse the weather became. The pair of hulking Urssa pilots were grimly hunched over their controls, all of their focus dedicated to maintaining their bearings in near enough to zero visibility.

"Hey. Doin alright there, kid?"

Marcus caught an elbow to the ribs from Lex Frankston, and nodded dumbly. He held up one hand and offered a shaky thumbs-up, to which Lex grinned.

Marcus was a twenty-five year old ram from the sun-kissed hills east of the Heladian capital, Vinegress. Following his completion of a meteorology degree with Honours from Habury University the previous year, he'd been expecting to work for a weather service somewhere close to home. Instead, the Doregallian Institute of Atmospheric Science had contacted him based on his stellar academic record, and Marcus found himself on a selection list to partake in a graduate program with experienced climatologists. Lex Frankston was one of those climatologists. Thirty-four years of age, Lex was a tall, solidly built Urssa woman - a bear. Like the helicopter pilots, she was native to the frigid Northern Territories of Doregal, although Lex herself had been born and raised in Frostfell, just south of the Territories' border in Maenmerth. Compared to them, Marcus was short, skinny and lithe, and the young Caprin felt well and truly out of his depth surrounded by such people.

Sitting opposite Marcus and Lex in a fold-down jumpseat and gazing moodily out of the helicopter window sat Allen Connor, a taciturn Equid climatologist of distinctly mulish stature. Middle aged and with flecks of grey around his muzzle, he'd barely spoken a word to Marcus since he'd arrived with Lex at the DIAS building in Frostfell a few days prior. Allen was the leader of the trio by virtue of his years of experience, but he'd made it abundantly clear he was not happy about having such a fresh graduate as Marcus on a winter shift to the Mount Ortok weather station.

"The worst weather in the world," was Ortok's claim to fame.

If that had been in any way inaccurate, Marcus might have found the soaring, icy peaks a breathtaking sight, and a welcome distraction from the helicopter he rode in. As it was, the mountains were invisible, and the only thing distracting him from the stomach-churning ride was Lex Frankston.

The Urssa woman was dressed for the conditions - as were they all - but while Marcus shivered convulsively in his two layers of thermals, Polarfleece sweatshirt, woollen coat and arctic puffer jacket, Lex had her parka unzipped and open, revealing the Lake Lennox University hoodie she wore beneath it.

Looking up at Marcus and catching him staring for the twentieth time, Lex rolled her eyes, and fished a bent, squashed trail bar out of the inner pocket of her parka to offer the Caprin. Marcus felt the blood drain from his ears, and swallowed heavily, shaking his horned head to refuse the offering.

"Don't worry, we're almost there... I think," Lex said, in what was probably intended to be a reassuring tone.

Marcus gave a queasy smile, and seemed about to reply. Instead, his cheeks ballooned with the second coming of breakfast, and only Lex's lightning reflexes got the 'emergency' foil baggie into Marcus' hands in time.

"Whoa, chocks away!" Lex laughed, patting Marcus on the back while the Caprin vented that morning's omelette and latte unceremoniously into the bag.

Marcus felt his soul wither with humiliation; his very first posting with the DIAS, and they hadn't even arrived before he'd made a scene. This was looking to be a long-ass winter.

Allen Connor muttered to himself, and after a derisive snort returned to gazing out the helicopter window, as the aircraft banked steeply, and began to descend, guided - they all hoped - by Mount Ortok Station's shiny new Heli-ILS low-vis guidance system.

The helipad was a hundred feet or so from the main observatory building, on what might've been a raised platform beneath a mantle of ice and snow. The helicopter sank to its belly in the snow as it landed, and the visibly relieved copilot announced their arrival, while the captain went through his post-landing checklist, flicking switches and powering down the engine. He didn't shut it off, however. To do so in such conditions for more than a minute or two would have stranded the helicopter there for the remainder of the winter, in all likelihood. A quick drop was all they could manage.

Second-hand breakfast baggie clutched gingerly in his hand, Marcus unclipped his harness when prompted by Lex, and felt the air leave his lungs as though he'd been punched in the gut when Allen opened the helicopter door.

He'd thought he was already cold, but the sudden jet-blast of impossibly frigid, ice-laden air that slammed into the helicopter's cabin took with it any illusions left in Marcus' head. Even Lex had zipped up her parka, and tied her hood around her face such that all that remained visible of her was a twitching, ursine muzzle and her incorrigible smile.

"Hah! Now that's chilly!" She yelled over the howl of the wind and the roar of the helicopter. "Come on, don't linger! It's warm inside the station, I promise!"

"I...I..." Marcus stammered, brandishing his bag of vomit.

"Don't worry about it, more people hurl on that flight than anyone will admit, you're far from the first and you won't be the last! Now come on!"

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Lex grabbed Marcus by one of the Caprin's thick, curled horns and pulled him out of the helicopter into knee-deep snow. The three of them, after collecting their bags from the aircraft's cargo bay, waded to the edge of the helipad. A handrail, entombed in a thick layer of ice with horizontal icicles jutting from it, indicated the presence of stairs to ground level. It didn't make a whole lot of difference; before any of them reached the doors of the observatory, they'd fallen more times than any of them bothered to count, from the treacherous ground and the depth of the snow.

Allen Connor led the trio, and as they approached the door of the station, it was flung open from within by the departing shift. Three climatologists, two of them seasoned and one clearly a total greenstick, emerged from the building to hurry to the waiting helicopter. They exchanged cursory greetings, but everyone was in too much of a hurry to complete the shift change to engage in niceties. There was a storm coming - no great surprise there - and the pilots couldn't waste any time. All of the necessary handover data and documents were neatly laid out inside the station's weather laboratory, but even that could wait.

Marcus quickly found a garbage chute into which to deposit his breakfast, and followed Lex and Allen to the crew quarters, in an adjoining building.

His first cursory glance up into the elevated laboratory had shown Marcus a high-tech weather observatory; radar screens, temperature and wind speed read outs, relative humidity and icing measurements, precipitation data, all flickering and updating on a buzzing array of control panels, screens and gauges. It was utilitarian, but sparkling new.

The crew quarters, by contrast, were like something out of an Enothrondian frontier novel. Half a dozen partitioned bunks lined two walls of what seemed for all the world to be an actual frontiersman's mountain chalet, complete with a rustic chandelier made from a wagon wheel, rocking chairs on either side of a roaring brazier... and a bar. There was also a kitchen and a terrifyingly communal washroom, and overall Marcus got the immediate impression that he was going to struggle for privacy at Ortok Station. His heart did a little mis-beat, but he was confident he could maintain his professionalism and perhaps just masturbate a little less for a while.

Lex caught Marcus' gaze while Allen muttered and fussed around the bunk that he'd clearly claimed as his own - closest to the bar, whether by design or incident - and flashed the Caprin a smile.

"Alright kid. Uh... in the absence of a warmer introduction, welcome to Ortok. Pick a bunk, make yourself at home!" Lex gestured around the crew quarters, and shrugged out of her parka.

Marcus stepped into the partition beside Lex's, and dumped his bags on the narrow bunk. The wall between them was barely Marcus' shoulder height, and the Caprin was only 5'4".

"It's... quite open, isn't it?" He commented, glancing over at Lex.

Lex paused, and turned to face him with a grin. "Yes, yes it is." She offered him a cigarette, which he refused. "Helps the heat from the brazier to circulate, you understand. And when this place was built, solitude meant sin! Idle hands are the devil's playground and all that crap."

Marcus felt his ears flushing pink, and busied himself unpacking his clothes into a very rudimentary chest of pressboard drawers beside his bunk.

"Alright you two," came Allen's clipped, irritable-sounding voice, "Marcus, I'm sure you've noticed by now that this is no holiday in Athon."

Marcus cringed, his ears flattening. Even in the chalet with the brazier churning out heat, his breath was visible. No shit, Connor...

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"We're on the first winter shift, which means we will be here for some of the most extreme weather observable on the surface anywhere in the world. You know that already, though. What I can't stress enough is how dangerous it is. The wind here could blow you off the mountain, if you're outside and a strong gust catches you. If you go over the edge, it's a two hundred foot drop and there is no one coming to find your body. Everything we do must be communicated clearly and consistently. No one goes outside in sustained wind speeds above sixty miles an hour without being tethered, unless it's critical to the success of the mission or the safety of the crew. Anyone going outside must carry a transponder and an alarm on them. If you get into trouble, press the button and the others haul you back in. No one takes any stupid risks, because one of us taking a risk puts all of us at risk. Clear?"

"Yessir," Marcus responded, instantly.

"Crystal," drawled Lex. "Now if you're done being everyone's daddy, Allen, I'd like to show Marcus the lab."

Allen snorted, and before he had a chance to make a biting remark, Lex took Marcus by the elbow and steered him back to the steel stairs that led to the laboratory.

*

"This is... amazing!" Marcus breathed, the Caprin's eyes lit up both with wonderment, and with the reflection from the array of weather-monitoring computers he sat in front of. "It's like... ground control at the Space Agency!"

He was on a fairly standard issue office chair, which allowed him to scoot up and down the bank of computers with ease. The computer bank was arranged in an arc, which mirrored the semi-circle shape of the laboratory building itself. Marcus presumed the wide arc of windows in front of him were built like that to maximise the view - when there was one. Lex was standing behind him, leaning nonchalantly on the back of another chair just like his own while she took him through the instruments and how their readings were to be recorded and monitored.

"You like it, huh?" She quipped. "No more staring at a little gauge for twelve hours recording wind speeds, or going outside to read air temps - it's all right there! Oh, hit that yellow button. No, not that one. Shit, don't hit that one. Yeah, that's the one."

Marcus did as he was told, and a screen slightly to his right went blank momentarily. Line by line over a few seconds, a mess of pixelated colour loaded on the screen. It refreshed every ten seconds, and Marcus swivelled in his chair to cast Lex a quizzical glance.

"Oh come on, what do you think it is?" She asked.

The way Lex was leaning on the back of an adjacent office chair gave Marcus a view straight down the half-open front of her LLU hoodie, right into the Urssa woman's sizeable cleavage. His brain stalled, and he stammered something about radar.

Lex paused, and then laughed. "Yes... you're right, it's a precipitation radar - but you'll find it on the screen behind you, not between my tits."

Marcus almost died on the spot, and Lex chuckled at the sight of the Caprin visibly shrinking in his seat as he turned his back to diligently stare at the spectrum of pixels scudding across the CRT.

"So, combining wind speed, air temp and precipitation data with the weather radar and barometrics, we have an unprecedented image of how storms intensify between the open ocean and the mountains." Lex continued. "Generally we see low pressure areas generated in the southeast over the Maenmerth plains moving north over the Emerald Sea. In winter, we get high pressure zones forming over the western peninsula of the Northern Territories, which funnel the lows into Willibald Sound..."

Marcus turned to face Lex as she broke into giggles.

"Willibald Sound? Willy... Sound...? Oh never mind. Uh, yes. So the highs are met by intense lows and cold fronts from the south. The shearing of the systems and the topography here that funnels the wind right at us is why this place has the worst weather in the fucking world."

Marcus nodded slowly, and then broke into a shy smile. "Uh... did you laugh at Willibald Sound because of..."

"Because she's the dirtiest-minded climatologist I have ever had the misfortune to work with, and she can make an innuendo out of literally anything," came the gruff voice of Allen Connor from behind them.

Lex rolled her eyes at Marcus and straightened, turning to face the Equid. "In _your _endo, Connor! I was just telling Marcus how the highs and lows delicately caress each others' flanks up the Sound, turn each other on something frightful and consequently pound the ever-loving shit out of us up here!"

"So I heard. Try to remain professional with each other, will you? It's the worst time of year for horseplay."

"Like you can talk..." Lex smirked.

Allen blustered, his nostrils quivering, and made a show of shuffling through the handover papers left for him by the departing shift. Lex leaned on Marcus' shoulder, curling her other hand to smugly inspect her claws.

*

The remainder of their first day at the observatory passed without incident, and the following day. The inbound storm that had necessitated the quick handover had blown through a few hours after their arrival, although it had been a mild one. According to Lex and Allen, at least. Marcus found himself warming to Lex's prickly, dry humour quickly, although her constant barrage of innuendo still caught him off-guard. The precipitation radar Marcus had been looking at on the first day was showing ever darker colours over the sea to the west of Ortok Station, creeping ominously closer to the coast. The wind hadn't intensified notably since the frontal system just after their arrival, but was consistently in the high thirties, low forties, with gusts into the high sixties - strong enough to be audible from inside the sturdy buildings of the station. And, as Allen kept reminding him, strong enough that a helicopter wouldn't be able to land safely should any of them do anything stupid.

With the array of new computer technology in the lab, it was no longer necessary for the equipment to be constantly monitored. DIAS protocol dictated that data records be sent to the Institute's headquarters every eight hours, but that the lab needed to be constantly manned only during extreme weather. As such, Lex, Marcus and Allen had plenty of time to themselves to get settled and get to know each other.

Early on their third day, Lex volunteered to refuel the generators and de-ice the exterior instruments, and Marcus tagged along with her, with explicit instructions from Allen to not linger - there was a decent cold front approaching, and they needed to prepare the observatory.

"Alright - do you think you have enough layers on?" Lex chuckled.

Marcus scowled from within the depths of his multitude of garments.

"You'll get used to the cold, don't worry. We're not going to be tethered at first, only for the bit where you climb onto the fucking roof to smack the ice off the anemometers. Come on."

Lex unlocked the heavy observatory door, and yanked it inward roughly. A rime of ice cracked, and a flurry of ice and snow tumbled into the building.

Diligently, Marcus followed Lex out of the building, into the bitter cold. She had quite a shapely behind, he caught himself thinking as she clambered up a small snowdrift ahead of him, eyes glued to her broad hips. Shit, it had only been three days, and he was already... The pair of them sank to their knees in the snow once they were outside and upright, and the sudden icy chill of snow melting inside his boots cooled Marcus' ardour. The air was crystal clear, the sky above violently blue for the time between frontal systems. Looking back, Marcus saw that the doorway into the station resembled a burrow more than anything.

"What do you think? Come over here, Marcus, check this out."

Lex waded off, beckoning for the Caprin to follow her. She was heading towards the western, windward side of the station. The lab itself was in a raised, mushroom-shaped construction not unlike a squat, sturdy-looking air traffic control tower. The windows behind which the computer banks sat were oddly ice-free, at least compared to the rest of the concrete structure.

"Whoa. Look at that!" Marcus breathed.

His eye was drawn not to the laboratory, but west - jagged, snowy peaks soared on either side of a narrow glacial valley that appeared to continue all the way to the sea, itself little more than a dark smudge on the horizon. The wind whipped ice and snow from the peaks, and the western face of the lab was caked with rime ice and blown snow.

"Pretty spectacular, isn't it?" Lex said, planting her hands on her hips and standing behind the Caprin. "In summer, the valley is mostly ice-free, and we get these stunning little pockets of wildflowers in the lee of the wind behind the rocks and such. But this valley is precisely why Ortok is where it is - you can see how it funnels the wind up here right off the sea, and the elevation change is why we get such intense precipitation and icing."

Lex allowed Marcus to take in the view while she waded back to the generators, which were in a concrete shelter built onto the side of the observatory. The diesel tanks held enough fuel for thirty-six hours, with an additional two hour reserve, and Lex filled them all to the brim from the underground diesel tank.

"See what I mean? You're already used to the cold!" Lex quipped to Marcus when she returned, clapping the Caprin roughly on the shoulder. "Now comes the fun bit. I get to stare at your ass while you climb up there and de-ice the instruments..."

Lex pointed up the side of the station, to where a steel platform jutted from the side of the lab, bristling with instruments and connected to the ground by a series of treacherous-looking ladders. Marcus swallowed thickly, his heart rate rising.

"You want _me _to climb up there?"

"Well either way we're both going. Might as well be you first. If you fall on me I'll catch you, but if I fall on you, I'd kill you! Don't worry, we're both gonna be tethered to the stairwell, you won't actually fall."

The valley wind plucked and blustered around Marcus as the Caprin climbed the series of ladders, being instructed from beneath by Lex as he went. The handrails were reassuringly solid, but by the time the pair of them reached the platform, Marcus was breathing hard - more from the altitude than the exertion. The instruments seemed to be in working order in spite of a perpetual rime of frost, but Lex insisted that they go through the motions of de-icing them. The platform was tiny, and Lex was necessarily standing close enough to Marcus that he couldn't help but be in contact with her. That reassured him, he found, and after a few moments he abandoned any attempt to maintain a bubble of personal space between them.

"I can't get over this view..." he said over the wind, clutching at the hood of his jacket to keep it over his head. The gusts seemed to be picking up.

"Right? Never gets old. Today's surprisingly clear actually, there's almost always cloud in the valley. I guess Old Man Sky wanted you to know what you're getting yourself into!"

Lex and Marcus lingered on the platform for a few minutes before beginning their descent - as before, Lex went beneath, ostensibly for Marcus' safety. But every time the Caprin glanced down over his shoulder to get his bearings, he found Lex staring right up at him. Was his butt really that good a view? He found his ears burning even in the frigid mountain air.

As if to serve as a warning, halfway down the ladders they were abruptly engulfed in icy fog, and the wind became squally, gusting haphazardly around them.

"And that's how quickly the weather changes up here!" Lex yelled.

When they reached the ground, Allen was standing in the doorway of the station scowling out at them.

"Hurry up and get inside, you two! The front is coming up the valley, less than five minutes out!"

Between the base of the ladder and the door - only twenty feet or so - the wind intensified into a gale. Snow and ice blown from adjacent peaks stung Marcus' face, and it took all of Allen Connor's body weight to close the door once all three of them were inside.

"Enjoy the view, did we?" Allen sneered, glowering at Marcus.

Lex inserted herself between them. "Hey, steady on, Connor. It's his first time up here, you need to calm the fuck down."

Marcus busied himself taking off his parka and gloves, and kicked his way out of his boots, leaving them alongside Lex's.

"I swear, if this kid puts this operation in any danger..."

"Operation? Allen, we're observing the weather, not disarming a nuclear missile! As I recall, you put yourself forward for this shift knowing he'd be here. Did you do that specifically to bully him?"

"Guys, I'm right here," Marcus interjected, quietly. "It's true, Allen, this is the first time I've been this far out of my comfort zone - I was expecting to be working in a weather office down south for my first posting. DIAS headhunted _me, _not the other way round. I'd never even heard of Ortok. But we're all here together for the next month, so I'd prefer to be treated as a trainee, not some high schooler you've been burdened with."

Lex and Allen both stared in silence for a long moment - that was the most Marcus had said since they'd left Frostfell. The Caprin squirmed under their scrutiny, and then Lex grinned. The Urssa woman's enormous paw came down on his shoulder hard enough to make him stagger, and Allen pivoted and walked away with a grumble.

"Nicely done. I'm sorry about him," Lex said, once Allen was out of earshot.

"Don't worry about it. I respect how seriously he takes his job. I just... I dunno, maybe I need to prove my worth to him or something."

"Don't go out of your way. I've been working with him for four years and still haven't proven my worth to him," Lex chuckled drily, fishing her cigarettes out of an inner pocket and lighting one.

She propelled Marcus towards the stairs up to the lab, and once the three of them were settled, Allen seemed to have calmed down somewhat.

"This front's going to be rough," he muttered, poring over the radar screen and cross-checking data from other instruments. "This wind speed makes no sense, though, it's not even close to the digital readout. Marcus, how did the anemometer look up on the platform? Spinning freely enough?"

Marcus blinked a few times, surprised at being addressed at least pseudo-professionally. He walked over and peered over Allen's shoulder at the readouts. "Huh. Forty, forty-two... that seems low. The anemometer was fine, yes. Is that a digital or analogue readout?"

"Analogue. It reads vacuum generated by sensor rotation speed," Allen frowned.

"Where's the vacuum measured?"

The Equid pushed back from the instrument bank and rose to his hooves, leading Marcus to a bulky, very weathered steel cabinet built into the wall of the lab. Marcus recognised it as being directly below the instrument platform he'd scaled earlier. Inside it, a bewildering array of equipment_ _turned mechanical inputs from outside into readouts for the older gauges in the observatory - some of them original.

"I can't make head or hooves out of half of this old junk, we'll just have to believe the digital readouts without a crosscheck..." Allen muttered.

Almost before he'd finished complaining, Marcus shouldered his way into the cabinet. His slender fingers rummaged through the array of valves and hoses, and he frowned. "Do we have any soap? Like, washing up liquid?"

Allen blinked, but seemed willing to play along. He returned with a bottle, and Marcus thanked him curtly, his fingers still probing the spaghetti of aged rubber hoses deep in the cabinet.

"If an analogue vacuum gauge is under-reading, nine times out of ten it's going to be a split line causing a leak," Marcus explained, wetting his fingertips with soap and smearing it around a couple of suspect hoses.

Within a few minutes he had bubbles forming, and grinned.

"Allen? How does the readout look now?"

Allen, bemused, reported that the gauge read wind speeds that almost perfectly mirrored the digital readouts with Marcus' finger covering the split hose, and the Caprin grinned.

"Well, can you replace that hose?" Allen prompted.

"Of course I can, if you've got a length of five millimetre laying about."

*

By the time Marcus had the old vacuum gauge working properly, the wind being funnelled up the valley had reached a howl, buffeting and blustering around the lab. Marcus could feel the whole structure shaking slightly around him with the stronger gusts, which Allen dutifully reported as reaching nearly a hundred miles an hour. Marcus was sitting near Lex, peering out the darkened windows into what could have been anything from deep space to the deep ocean, for all he could see. It was mid-afternoon, but it might as well have been three in the morning.

"Is this... a normal storm?" Marcus asked, turning to Lex.

Lex was leaning casually on the desk in front of her, calmly shovelling noodles into her mouth and paying next to no attention to anything that was happening - except Marcus. He was beginning to think she liked him, from how often he caught her just staring at him.

"Uh... what's the sustained speed, like eighty?"

"Eighty five, average," Allen grunted.

"Close. Yeah, this is fairly normal for a cold front here. We told you it would be rough, didn't we? This isn't even what I'd call a storm, to be perfectly honest. This is the kind of weather that creates a light dusting of snow in Frostfell. You wait till we get a proper ice front move up the valley, then you'll know what bad weather feels like!"

"That's... reassuring, thanks," Marcus said, drily.

"Don't worry, I'll be here to hold you tight," Lex replied, matching his acid tone. The Caprin blushed.

"You two should really head down to the chalet to rest up, in case we need to take shifts," Allen said, peering up at them. "I'll be fine observing on my own."

"If it's all the same to you, Allen, I'd like to stay up here and learn as much as I can," Marcus replied.

The Equid grunted acquiescence, and the three of them lapsed back into silence. Lex made no move to leave at first, although after a short while she did stand up with a luxuriant stretch, and announced that she was going to take a shower. She returned half an hour later, in a fluffy dressing gown, cartoon-character pyjama pants and slippers.

"See that black patch on the radar?" Lex said to Marcus suddenly, leaning across him and pointing to an ominous smudge of nothing in the middle of a field of purples and reds. Marcus nodded, and did his best to distract himself from the Urssa woman's sizeable bust right beside his face, unconstrained by a bra, or the steamy warmth that emanated from her fur. His body reacted beyond his control at the thought of her naked, and he squirmed. He found himself wondering how warm her fur was, or how she'd react if he just slid his hands inside her dressing gown. "That's where it's going to get rough. Looks to be about twenty minutes out. Black means it's precipitation beyond the digital radar's ability to display, which up here means we're gonna get buried."

Marcus swallowed thickly, forcing his mind back to the present. "How...bad is that going to be?"

Lex grinned toothily, sat back down and cracked her knuckles. "You'll see. You're not afraid of thunder, earthquakes or jet engines, are you?"

*

"That was a one fifty-four!" Allen called, after a particularly violent bullet of wind hammered the station.

It was eight in the evening, and the ominous, creeping patch of 'unknown' precipitation was right on top of them. Voices had to be raised to be heard above the banshee howl of the wind. Even within a sealed, reinforced concrete tower, Marcus swore he could feel drafts plucking at his ears.

"What's the record up here, Allen?" Lex called.

"Fastest gust ever recorded at Ortok was a two-eighteen, four years ago!"

"Two... hundred and eighteen miles an hour?" Marcus stammered, eyes widening.

"You got it, kid! This storm's a baby compared to some of the systems we've seen."

Allen Connor was more excited, and more animated that Marcus had yet seen him; the Equid was on his hooves, moving from computer bank to computer bank, double checking and cross-checking data and grinning to himself.

"He's really into this, isn't he?" Marcus noted, quietly, turning to Lex.

The Urssa woman smirked, and nodded. "Yeah, you wait till you see him break a record wind speed - I swear he almost shot a load in his pants last time."

Marcus blushed hotly. Lex was just so casual about her innuendos; he'd never met anyone so forward. The way she was looking at him in that moment caused a little flush of arousal, and the little smirk she gave him hinted that she knew the effect she was having. He was thankful for the thick layers of clothing he wore, and his thermals for keeping things constrained - there was just something about Lex that hit buttons the Caprin never knew he had.

With no warning, a strident alarm sounded from somewhere beneath them, and Lex surged to her feet with a curse.

"What's that?" Marcus said.

"Fire alarm! Generator two!" Lex was already moving, leaping down the stairs at the back of the lab towards the rack of coats, boots and tethers. She was all business at the flick of a switch, her dressing gown and slippers abandoned on the stairs in her rush to suit up to go outside.

"Lex! Frankston, where are you going? Get back up here!" Allen bellowed, following her.

Marcus couldn't do anything but observe, and he held back - the wind was still gusting close to one sixty, and seemed to be getting stronger.

"So what are you gonna do, let the place burn down? What if the fire gets to the diesel tanks?" Lex demanded.

"I'm not letting you go out there, Lex! It's thirty below, I don't even want to know what the windchill is!" Allen continued, moving to block the doorway even as Lex piled on coat after coat. "Let me go, I'm supposed to be your supervisor; and I will _not_go back to Frostfell with either of your deaths on my head! And besides, at least I'm dressed!"

Allen's authority won out over Lex's stubbornness only because of the urgency of the situation. The generators were self-contained, but only accessible from outside the building - and if the alarm had sounded, that meant their automatic fire suppression had failed. The only thing for it was for someone to venture out into the storm, shut off the fuel supply, and put out any flames the old-fashioned way. Allen pulled on a ski mask, goggles, three coats, snow pants, boots, gloves and a thermal headscarf, and then tied the hood of his outermost coat tightly around his face. Lex handed him his emergency alarm, and buckled him into his harness, to which a sturdy tether rope connected, anchored within the building.

"Allen?" Lex grabbed the Equid's arm just as he reached for the door.

"What?!"

"Be careful, you idiot. I'm gonna be right here to haul your stubborn ass back in."

The Urssa woman clung to Allen for just a moment longer, worry etched into her features while the fire alarm blared around them, and then reluctantly let him go.

*

The wind hit Allen Connor like a cannonball, immediately sweeping him off his hooves into the drifting snow.

The Equid grunted, hauling himself upright and leaning into the icy blast. He could scarcely breathe, let alone see where he was going. His ski mask and goggles were fogged within moments, and iced shortly thereafter, frozen to his pelt. He was blind, and stumbled against the rimed concrete of the observatory, groping for the handrail that would lead him to the generators, some thirty feet away.

Step by step, breath by laboured breath, Allen hauled himself along the side of the building in pitch-darkness, moving backwards and keeping his head close to his chest. Ice prickled at his skin even through all his layers.

Finally, Allen fell back against the housing of the first generator - the second was right behind it. He turned slowly, cautiously, and felt his way around the first generator, towards the second. Almost there! He could see a dim orange glow through the rime of ice on his goggles now - the fire was in the generator housing itself. The generator had cut out, which probably meant the intake had iced over.

Steeling himself to move from one generator to the next, Allen let go of the handrail. Instantly, the wind blasted him forward. A violent squall of ice-laden air lifted him off his hooves and threw him awkwardly sideways. He landed heavily in deep snow, and felt his right leg snap. He cried out in pain, hands digging into the snow beneath him - but he had to get the fire out. All else was secondary.

Within seconds, snow and ice were drifting against his body, and Allen hauled himself hand over hand, his right leg trailing uselessly behind him, closer and closer to the generator. Thankfully, the fuel valve was near ground level, and he reached in and shut it off with relative ease. The generator was destroyed. Ice had been ingested into it, shredding the filter and shattering the engine block. Oil stained the snow around its base, and it was that which had held the fire. Allen pulled the extinguisher down from its mounting inside the generator housing, and emptied it into the generator. And then he rolled over, positioning himself with his head towards the observatory, and pressed his emergency button.

*

"Marcus! _Marcus! _Get down here!"

The Caprin jumped, and ran down the stairs to where Lex stood beside the open door, snow piling up around her feet.

"Connor just hit his button - grab the fucking rope and pull!"

_ _

Even with their combined strength, it took ten minutes to haul Allen back to the observatory. The Equid was unconscious by the time he was dragged inside. Lex forced the door shut behind him, and then dropped to her knees beside him, hurriedly pulling off his goggles, mask, hood and outer coats. The Equid's facial fur was pulled out as she did, frozen as it was to his goggles, and Lex winced. It brought Allen back to consciousness, at least, and he groaned in pain.

"There you are. You fucking idiot, you told us not to do anything dumb and what happens? You go and take a stupid risk. What did you do?" Lex asked, hovering over Allen. Her voice was husky and strained with concern.

The Equid took a breath, and then tried to sit up. He whinnied in pain and fell back, gripping his right thigh in both hands and gritting his teeth. "Shit! My fucking leg's broken."

Lex frowned, and instructed Marcus on where to find a stretcher, and to prepare a medical bed. The Caprin hurried off, and Lex got to work cutting Allen's boot and snow pants away from his broken limb.

"Fuck. Now we're going to have to get you outta here, there's no way you're staying up here all month with a busted leg," Lex muttered.

"No chance of that any time soon, the storm's just settling in," Allen grunted. "Fire's out, though."

Lex's face softened, and she cupped Allen's cheek in her hand, blinking back tears. "You big dumb donkey. You know if you wanted to be a hero you could've just made us all a coffee, right? You didn't have to nearly die."

By the time Marcus hurried back with a canvas field stretcher, Allen had begun to shiver convulsively.

"Okay, lay it out, Marcus; he's going to be hypothermic after that little adventure, so we're going to take him to the chalet and set him up right in front of the brazier while we fix his leg. Alright? Allen, can you haul your ass onto this stretcher for us please? You don't have enough limbs for us to pick you up."

Allen attempted to laugh, but it came out as a shaky bray. Awkwardly, he winced and shuffled his way onto the stretcher, and between them, Lex and Marcus carried him into the crew quarters.

With his clothing cut away, the severity of Allen's break became apparent. His leg was bent at an unnatural angle beneath his hock, and Lex swallowed heavily. Marcus caught her reaction, and bustled her off before she could be sick.

"Go contact DIAS, get them to send a helo up," he said, in what he hoped was an authoritative tone. "I'll splint his leg and get him warm."

Glad of the distraction, Lex nodded silently and disappeared. She was immensely grateful for Marcus' ability to take control in that moment - if a little surprised to find the scrawny Caprin had it in him.

*

"Delta Echo Eight-Niner, Ortok, emergency, come in."

Static.

"Delta Echo Eight-Niner, Ortok, respond!"

Lex cursed. She shakily lit a cigarette, and adjusted the radio frequency yet again.

"Delta Echo Eight-Niner, Ortok, declaring emergency, respond!"

"Ortok, De--- --o Eight N---, repeat!"

"Fucking... Ortok, emergency! Request medical evac, one package!"

Lex twiddled with the receiver again - the heavier gusts of wind cut her reception out completely, and the intensity of the blizzard made it choppy at best. It was close to midnight; she'd been trying to reach DIAS for almost three hours, and had recently given up, instead trying to contact the helicopter pilots directly.

"Ortok, state your emergency."

"Delta Echo, request medical evac ASAP - one crew member injured."

"Roger that, clarify injuries?"

"Hypo, broken leg. Time sensitive, non life-threatening."

"Roger. Helo will dispatch as soon as safe. We'll contact DIAS on your behalf."

"Roger that, Ortok out."

Lex threw down the headset, and slumped back in her chair. Marcus appeared behind her, and moved up to tentatively rest his hands on her shoulders. It was clear he'd been there for some time. She leaned back into him, her head against his belly, and peered tiredly up at him.

"What a clusterfuck of a day," she muttered. "How's Allen?"

"He's better. I splinted his leg as best I could, but he'll need that evac sooner than later, I think he's busted up his nerves too. I've got him on nitrous and oxy to dull the pain, and he seems to be warming up alright. Uh... I think he needs your help though. He uh..."

"What?"

"He needs a piss, and I can't lift him."

"Oh for fuck's sake," Lex clapped a hand over her eyes, and burst out laughing. "So I get to hold his dick for him because he broke his leg?"

"Well... no... just uh... he'll just need someone to hold him up..."

"I know, I'm being facetious. Ugh, that means you have to stop rubbing my shoulders though and I _really _don't want you to..."

Marcus gave her no choice, stepping back with a smirk. Lex growled, and moved past him towards the stairs, her hand lingering a moment on his hip. The Caprin let out a soft breath. The sexual tension between them had been revealed to be mutual in that simple moment, and in spite of everything that had happened that day, Marcus couldn't help but be pleased.

*

"Alright, Marcus said you want me to hold your dick for you," Lex drawled, looming over the semi-conscious Allen and patting his cheeks to get his attention.

"Oh shove it, Lex... Just need... a hand to... get to the bathroom."

"Alright, whatever you say, boss. Come on."

She looped her arm gently under his shoulders, and helped the injured Equid to stand on his one good leg. Thankfully, with both his arms intact, Allen could take care of the finer details on his own, and Lex only needed to be there to take his weight and keep him steady.

"Do... you mind?" Allen prompted, acidly.

"Hm?"

"Look away?"

"Oh! Sorry. Sure, I get it, some guys can't piss with an audience."

Allen snorted. "How far off is the evac, anyway? I can't wait to get away from you."

Lex laughed, and deliberately looked down at him mid-stream, causing him to falter. "Aww, it's smaller than I thought it would be! Cute."

"Fuck you, Lex."

"In your dreams, asshole. Storm should be passing us by in the next few hours. Helo's about six hours out, weather pending. You get to catch the red-eye back to Frostfell. Lucky you."

*

The storm blew itself out as abruptly as it had arrived. It was an hour before dawn, and the icy stillness of mountain sunrise stood in ludicrous contrast to the ferocity of the storm they'd just weathered. Allen drifted in and out of sleep. As far as Marcus could tell the immediate danger of hypothermia had passed, although his broken leg had swollen up alarmingly, and the Equid complained he couldn't feel anything below the break.

Marcus and Lex had exchanged a glance at that - nerve damage in a hock-break like Allen's was unlikely to be repairable. He'd probably walk with a limp for the rest of his days. Neither of them had slept that night.

The distant, rhythmic thump of the approaching helo caused both Lex and Marcus to relax visibly, and the Caprin to peer out of the observatory window down the valley, where he knew he'd see the aircraft approach. Lex, staring into a flickering CRT at the precipitation radar, caught Marcus' attention with a gesture. The brief respite, the moments of sunshine that glinted spectacularly from the accumulated ice and snow, were apparently the calm before the _real _storm.

"Holy fuck - take a look at this..." Lex said.

Marcus dragged his eyes away from the stunning view, and moved to stand behind Lex as she zoomed out on the radar screen, and switched it back and forth between precipitation and millibars.

"The fuck is that?" Marcus asked lowly.

The screen was an increasingly dense mass of pixelated white lines on a black backdrop. Marcus was, of course, familiar with synoptic charts, but he'd never seen isobars as dense as what he was looking at in that moment.

"That, kiddo, is a _real _storm," Lex said. Even her voice was tinged with apprehension, and that caught Marcus' attention sharply.

"How real is real?"

_ _

"Well, you know how we were discussing that fastest-ever wind gust?"

"Fuck."

"Yeah. I studied that weather system specifically. Looked a lot like this. You've got two highs, one north and one south, squeezing in on the same system that just gave us a little taste. There's a second low in there too and they're forming a trough that's... easily the deepest I've ever seen. Look at the variance. Ten-thirty on the high side, eight-eighty low. My lad, we are about to get fucking smashed."

"Fuck," Marcus repeated, slack-faced.

Lex turned to him with a characteristic grin, and calmly sack-tapped him to break the tension. The Caprin made a strangled noise and doubled over, and Lex chuckled. "Watch your fucking language," she said, ruffling his hair.

"Did you _have _to do that?!"

"Nah. Couldn't resist though. Sorry."

"No you're not. Ow. That was... worse than it should've been!"

"Oh? And why's that? Pent up, are we? Nearly five whole days, Marc!"

Lex giggled, and swivelled on her chair to hug Marcus apologetically around his waist. The Caprin tensed as if expecting another attack on his manhood, but eventually gave in and hugged her back. Lex relaxed into him, and it was a long minute before Marcus started trying to extricate himself.

"Uhh... Lex?"

"Mm?"

"The helo just landed."

"So?"

"Could ya... I dunno, gimme a hand to get Allen outta here before we get fucked again?"

"I guess... but you're warm. Although you really need a shower, I think I can smell your..."

"Lex!"

"Alright alright, fuck. C'mon."

The Urssa woman stood and stretched her legs, looking Marcus up and down, and between them they managed to wake Allen up, and get him at least semi-upright and moving towards the station door, to be evacuated.

The medivac helo that had been sent to them had capacity only for its own crew and two medical beds - so any other crew exchanges were out of the question at that point. And that left Marcus and Lex alone at Ortok Station for the foreseeable future. The crew hurried out, loading Allen onto a hospital stretcher. Within minutes, Allen was gone, the rhythmic thump of the helo's rotors fading into the distance.

*

Little was said between Marcus and Lex for the first hour or so that they were alone at Ortok together. Two storms, a generator fire, a crew member injured and evacuated, and the looming threat of a much bigger, stronger storm was a lot for anyone to take in, especially within the first week of a month-long posting.

Lex appeared troubled, and for lack of anything comforting to say, Marcus announced he was going to take a shower.

"Good idea. If anything else should go wrong, mechanically, there's a chance we'll lose power, so make the most of the hot water while you can," Lex replied.

The shower block was reasonably large, and had immediately reminded Marcus of a public change room. Obviously designed for significantly more people than the typical three stationed at Ortok these days, it had six showers - all of them terrifyingly open, but separated by tiled partitions that weren't quite high enough to provide total privacy. Typically, with only three crew members at Ortok at any time, it was easy enough to use the facilities one at a time, and that alleviated at least some of the privacy concerns. At first, though, Marcus had felt dirty and uncomfortable about masturbating in a shared bathroom. So he hadn't.

Now, though, with only Marcus and Lex there, the Caprin's mind quickly turned to less than professional thoughts about the Urssa woman. He'd been at Ortok for almost five days, and hadn't yet found an opportunity to relieve himself. Lex's continuous innuendo and pseudo-sexual forwardness definitely hadn't helped, and almost as soon as he was naked, Marcus felt himself rising to attention.

He ignored his erection for a few minutes while he washed, relishing the sensation of the hot water soaking through his fur and washing out the sweat and stink of the last couple of days. His cock throbbed angrily at him, and he knew there was no way he was going to be able to ignore it any longer.

The Caprin was decently sized, he thought - perhaps a little slender, but a solid six and a half inches. He was uncut, although when erect his foreskin retracted on its own, sitting neatly behind his head. Marcus started slowly, gripping himself and enjoying the thrill of his heightened sensitivity. The hiss of the shower covered his elevated breaths, and the Caprin allowed his eyes to drift closed.

Lex was in his mind instantly.

She was a stocky, heavyset woman, but strong and sensual at the same time - her heavy bust and wide hips played on Marcus' fantasies. Picturing her naked body in his imagination, he began to masturbate in earnest, facing the wall with the shower cascading down his back, his free arm leaning on the tiles. His balls swung rapidly back and forth beneath his stroking hand, heavy and hanging low in the heat of the shower.

He paused only to gather a handful of fur conditioner - it was the closest thing to lotion in immediate reach, and wouldn't dry him out the way soap would.

Smearing it around his tip, he resumed. Firmly twisting his hand around his glans caused his knees to shake, and was almost too intense.

Almost.

With a sharp gasp and a muffled bleat, Marcus bucked his hips against his hand, rapidly pumping his shaft a few times. Several heavy jets of seed blasted the tiles, the remainder drooling over his fingers onto the floor between his hooves.

Shit, that had come outta nowhere.

At least somewhat relieved, the Caprin finished up in the shower, and after vigorously towelling and blow-drying his fur, dressed in a fresh pair of sweats and a hoodie and rejoined Lex in the chalet.

*

Lex was sitting at the bar when Marcus entered, moodily staring into a mug of coffee. She brightened visibly when she saw him, and slid a second mug in his direction.

"Feelin better?" She asked.

He grinned, and sipped his coffee. "More than you know!"

Her muzzle split into a wide grin, and she swivelled on her stool to face him, leaning an elbow on the bar. "Oh? Do tell..."

"I'm sure you can work it out, Lex."

"Thought so. You and me both, kid," she quipped, flashing him a wink.

Marcus snorted. Had she just...?

"H-how's the weather?" He prompted.

"That big storm is a slow mover, we're already getting sustained winds north of seventy, and it's still clear outside. Looks like the worst of it won't hit until tonight. And I don't know about you, but I am fucking exhausted already," Lex said, updating him.

Marcus nodded agreement, and drained his coffee. "Yeah, you and me both - although I'm kinda perked up now, so if you wanted to catch a few hours' sleep, I'll be fine on my own."

Lex smiled at him, suddenly appearing as tired as she felt, and stood up to hug him. He was still sitting down, and Marcus found himself with a face full of Lex's tits, her cleavage spilling out of her half-unzipped hoodie. And for the first time, he made no attempt to complain, nor to extricate himself. Instead, he hugged around her waist in return, and subtly inhaled her scent. Fur shampoo, cigarettes, and her own gently earthy smell. Nice. His penis agreed, even though he'd just beaten it into submission, or so he thought.

"Yeah, I think I might do just that," she said, briefly resting her chin on his head between his horns. "You smell better now."

"Uhh... thanks, I guess," he mumbled, hurriedly adjusting his sweatpants when she stepped back.

Her eyes flicked downward, and she raised an eyebrow. "Really? Didn't you just...?"

Marcus nodded, feeling his ears burning. The tent in his sweats was obvious, and there wasn't a lot he could do about it without some serious adjustment.

"Huh. Cute. Feeling's mutual. Hey uh, don't hesitate to wake me if something happens up in the lab, yeah?"

Marcus nodded again, processing the casual admission of the mutuality of their attraction, and let out a breath he hadn't quite been aware he was holding when Lex turned away and walked across the chalet to her bunk.

*

Marcus spent the next four hours alone in the lab, recording observed wind speeds in real time into a computer, which by some feat of electronic wizardry was connected to a terminal in DIAS headquarters, hundreds of miles away in Frostfell. That meant that in addition to weather charts, DIAS had a real-time record of maximum wind gusts, air temperatures, and a variety of other parameters.

It was exciting work, and while this storm wasn't yet any stronger than the one they'd already weathered, it was much, much larger - and slower, meaning it would hang around for possibly days. Marcus tapped in a one thirty-eight and sent it to DIAS, the fastest wind speed recorded so far in this storm. Five minutes later, he recorded a one-forty. Shortly thereafter, a one forty-four.

When Lex came up the stairs to relieve him, mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she stood watching Marcus work for several minutes before announcing her presence.

"Hey. Sleep well?" He asked.

He was still in the same sweats and hoodie he'd put on after his shower, although the chill of the laboratory had prompted him to also don his parka. It rustled as he turned to face Lex, and the Urssa woman stepped up to sit in a chair beside him.

"Yeah, fuck me I needed that."

"You can go sleep for a while longer if you need it, I'm fine up here," Marcus said.

"Nah, I got the feeling you were missing me," she replied, smirking at him. "You hungry? Need anything?"

"Starving, actually."

"Well, in true mountain-chalet style, we've got dry biscuits, spam, pickled onions, a whole bunch of tins without labels, instant coffee, instant noodles, frozen mystery meals and shitloads of whiskey. What'll it be?"

Marcus laughed. "Surprise me."

"Oh you're gonna regret that."

"Please no..."

Lex, happily, was only teasing, and returned shortly thereafter with food that was at least palatable, if not gourmet. They spent the next couple of hours working quietly together, until Lex insisted that Marcus go and sleep.

"Go, dude, please. This storm's only going to get worse over the next few hours, and I'd prefer you to be at least a little rested by then," she said, after Marcus refused for the third time.

Reluctantly, the Caprin nodded. Lex's tone brooked no further argument, and he left her alone in the laboratory.

*

Marcus and Lex changed shifts several more times over the remainder of that day and through the following night. The storm was turning out to be an absolute howler - by midnight the sustained wind speed was approaching a hundred and thirty miles an hour, with gusts into the high one-nineties. Marcus had never heard nor felt anything like it. It was, as Lex had suggested, like an earthquake, a continuous thunderclap and a jet engine all rolled into one - a raw and merciless onslaught that shook Ortok Station to its foundations. On his fourth shift, twenty-six hours into the storm, Marcus was recording and transmitting wind gusts well in excess of two hundred miles an hour to DIAS.

By that stage, the initial shock of how powerful the storm was had begun to pass, and Marcus, cradling what felt like his hundredth mug of bitter, acrid coffee, was almost on autopilot in the lab.

The super-cell took him entirely by surprise. So deep into the black 'unknown' precipitation levels were they that it came almost without warning.

Lex was asleep in her bunk, but when it hit, she came running. It was like a bomb had been set off right outside the laboratory window. But the explosion was continuous, a menacing roar that battered and buffeted the concrete tower like a sentient force - a demon, perhaps. Marcus heard the building creak, and something outside snapped with a metallic twang, sending debris clattering along the roof of the chalet and off the edge of the mountain into the void.

"Fucking hell, Marc! What did you do, pray to the wrong gods?" Lex demanded, rushing up to take a seat beside him.

She'd hurriedly pulled on a coat, but Marcus fancied that was all she was wearing, aside from her sweatpants.

"Two twelve!" Marcus shouted, from the anemometer station. Digital and analogue readouts matched, still, but he knew the digital anemometers were unreliable above two hundred. "Sustained speed one-ninety!"

"Fuck, here comes a record, I can feel it..." Lex yelled back. It was the only way they could communicate, even though they were only six feet apart.

"Two fourteen!"

"Two four zero?!"

"Negative, two one four!"

Lex tapped away at the DIAS terminal. They operated seamlessly as a team in that moment, and Marcus felt his excitement growing by the minute. Surely they were about to record an all-time record wind speed - the storm was nowhere near over yet!

Abruptly, the lights in the lab flickered. Marcus jumped, and Lex uttered a string of curses that would've made a sailor wince.

"Leprous goatfucker's weeping cunt, the fucking generator!"

"Wh-what about it?"

The lights flickered again, and then dimmed to an eerie brownout. Around them in the lab, various screens and instruments began to shut off, garbled lines of code crawling across darkened screens.

"With all the fuckery getting Allen off the station, we didn't check the fuel level or top up the first generator. It's been our only source of power since the fire, and it looks like it's running on fumes. The tanks are good for 36 hours and I'm pretty sure that's our lot!"

No sooner had she spoken, the lights flickered once more and then died completely, plunging the pair into darkness while the storm of their lives hammered its fury against the station.

"Can we refill it?" Marcus ventured, nervously.

"Like hell you could! What was that last wind gust? 214? Either of us step outside into that, we die."

"Oh..."

"The wind alone you might survive, with proper gear and harnessed to the building. But it's also fifty below, and no one knows what the wind chill would be. Irrelevant, because it would kill you before you got anywhere near the generator. And winds at just on a hundred, at thirty below... you saw what that did to Allen. No, fuck that."

"Analogue gauge just recorded a two-eighteen!"

Lex wrote it down - they couldn't transmit any more, without power.

"That's a record-equaling gust! C'mon, we gotta break this record..."

Marcus fished hurriedly for a flashlight, training it on the ancient analogue anemometer that he'd repaired only days previously. The two of them huddled around it, watching its white needle bounce around on a pitted face.

"The gauge only goes up to two-forty," Marcus observed.

"Only."

"Yeah - anywhere else that would be ridiculous."

"Fuck yes, there it is! Two-twenty!" Lex shouted, hurriedly recording the time, wind speed, vector and air temperature - the old way, with a pencil, into a notebook.

Lex and Marcus remained there for another two hours, recording ever higher record wind speeds. They broke their own observed record another three times, eventually recording what would - if verified - be the fastest surface wind speed ever manually recorded anywhere on the planet - 224mph.

But then the recorded speeds started to drop away. Gusts that felt even stronger were showing on the old analogue gauge as being well below two hundred. The two of them exchanged a grim glance. Each of them knew there was either a mechanical fault, or the anemometers had iced up beyond their ability to function.

Marcus took the flashlight and returned to the instrument cabinet, fishing around for signs of another split vacuum hose - but to no avail.

"Dude, it's no use. We've done enough," Lex yelled, finally.

"I think you're right, it must be the anemometer itself!"

"Which is outside - so it might as well be on the dark side of Hadriel, for how likely you are to reach it!"

"So now what?"

Lex shrugged, and flashed Marcus a grin. "I dunno, but there's something a bit special about being cozy and warm indoors together during a storm, don't you think?"

Marcus stopped, and just stared at Lex for a long moment in the dim, indirect light of his flashlight. Her coat had fallen open, revealing that she was wearing a t-shirt under it, at least - but the peaks of her nipples revealed her lack of undergarments. Marcus swallowed heavily. In that moment he felt so intensely attracted to Lex, but in a way he'd never experienced before. It was a sleepy sort of attraction - the kind where all he wanted was to cuddle up to her, feel her arms around him, her soft body against his own... to allow his hands to wander in darkness over her body, up her shirt, down her sweatpants... to hear her make sounds of pleasure against him and push into his touch...

"Hey! Ortok to Marcus, you there?"

Marcus snapped back to reality with a start, to the sight of Lex waving her arms at him.

"Well?" She persisted.

"Well what?"

"How... Fucking hell dude. I said, do you want to head down to the chalet! It's warmer there and there's little more we can do up here until this thing blows over!"

Marcus' heart slowly returned to resting rate, and he nodded. "Sure! Lead on!"

*

The chalet was dark. Not quite as dark as the laboratory, but close. The only light was a flickering orange glow that leaked out around the slightly ill-fitting door of the brazier, but their eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom, and once the door of the brazier was cracked open it became somewhat welcoming.

Both of them were exhausted, and while Lex rummaged around in cupboards for something to eat and to occupy the time, Marcus flopped heavily onto his bunk. Sleep was out of the question, with how intense the wind was - it was just too noisy. Or so he thought.

The Caprin jolted awake suddenly with a panicked bleat. A blanket he didn't recall pulling over himself pooled around his waist.

"Welcome back, sleepyhead. You alright?" Lex asked, calmly closing the magazine she was reading by torchlight. She stood, walking over to Marcus' bunk, and sat beside him. "You were out cold!"

"H-how..." Marcus licked his lips, and swallowed thickly. "How long was I out?"

"Like, two hours? Not long."

Lex yawned hugely, and stretched. As her spine arched, the hem of her hoodie lifted, and Marcus got a glimpse of soft tummy, which he hurriedly looked away from.

"Hey, you hungry?"

"I could eat a bear..." Marcus grinned.

Lex grinned slowly, and looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow. "Oh you could, could you? Hope you know how to play your cards, then!"

With that, she stood up again, and made her way to the chalet's tiny kitchenette. Marcus joined her moments later, and between them they rummaged through the pantry in search of something that didn't require cooking. There wasn't much.

"What's this?" Marcus said, reaching deep into the cupboard and picking a dusty tin from the very back. "Spam. Ugh."

"I'll have that!"

"Really? Do you know what's in it?"

"Nope. Don't tell me."

"Hooves and brains and eyeba..."

_"Dude! _Fucking hell!" Lex laughed, shoving him aside.

"Well it's true!"

"I don't care, it's tasty! Oh, here's one for you. Proper mystery food!"

Lex grinned, bending forward and reaching right to the back of the pantry. Her little tail wiggled above the waistband of her sweatpants, and Marcus bit back the sudden urge to hug her from behind and...

Lex's arm emerged, and then the rest of her. She turned, and presented the Caprin with a couple of tins, their labels lost to the mists of time.

Marcus took them gingerly, turned them over and over, shook them, and then looked up at Lex expectantly.

"Well?" She said, ripping open the can of spam and digging into it with a fork.

"Oh this is gonna be something gross, isn't it..." he muttered.

A brief search turned up a rusty can opener, and Marcus held his breath. Air hissed into the tin, and instantly, a foul stench unlike anything the Caprin had ever encountered filled the space.

Marcus dry retched, and even Lex coughed, between fits of laughter.

"What the _fuck _is that?!"

"Oh fuck me, I think... it used to be fish!" Lex said, backing away a few paces.

Marcus quickly disposed of that tin, and took a few minutes to collect himself. Lex stepped up behind him, and rubbed his back comfortingly. "Y'alright kid? Not gonna hurl again?"

Marcus scowled at the gentle barb, but leaned back into her touch. The second tin sat menacingly on the counter in front of him, beside a small puddle of slightly chunky fluid that had leaked from the first. Its edges were rusty, although the tin itself was mercifully intact.

"Don't we have any uh... noodles or anything?" Marcus asked, shakily.

"Of course! But you need hot water to make those. How're you going to boil it?"

"Fuck."

"I mean you could always do it in the brazier, if only we had a saucepan that wasn't teflon coated."

"Do we not?"

Lex shook her head, and grinned. "Sorry kid."

She was enjoying this far too much, Marcus thought.

Mercifully, the second tin contained beans. Marcus' relief was palpable, and Lex even found a packet of exceedingly stale crackers.

"Shit, I could really go for... an apple. A nice fresh crunchy one," Marcus said, chewing slowly.

"Oh yeah, me too. Or blueberries. Or both. In a pie."

"Oh shut up, that sounds amazing. Custard or cream?"

"Both?"

Marcus snorted. Of course she'd have both.

A quick rummage by Lex produced a bottle of brandy, and a couple of jam jars. "Alright, if we're gonna be in the dark for a while longer we may as well enjoy it. C'mere you."

Lex smirked, and carried the brandy, jars and her half-eaten tin of spam back to Marcus' bunk. He followed, and his heart rate ticked up a little.

"Grab a few more pillows and blankets, would you?"

"Aye aye, cap'n!"

Lex giggled, and between them they constructed a nest of pillows and blankets. She wriggled back into it, propped up with pillows against the wall behind, and dug out a space right beside her for Marcus.

Oh hell yes.

He felt his ears burn with something between excitement and apprehension, and gingerly clambered into the cozy nest alongside her. The storm outside showed no signs of abating any time soon - although the supercell that had smashed into them earlier had passed, the wind was still devastatingly strong. But in here, a whole new world of comfort was opening up between Lex and Marcus, and the Caprin couldn't bring himself to care about anything more than that. In his head, he sent a quiet prayer to Old Man Sky to keep this storm raging for just a little while longer...

Lex's arms enfolded the skinny Caprin, and Marcus finally gave in to her affections, nudging his muzzle up beneath her chin and laying an arm across her waist, beneath the warmth of the blankets that half-covered them. Their food was forgotten, but not the brandy. Lex half-filled their jars, and set the bottle carefully aside.

"Drink up. Might take the edge off the cold," she said, and then tipped back her entire jar in one gulp.

Marcus sipped nervously at it to begin with, and then sighed. Fuck it. He downed the brandy, and held back a cough as it burned down his throat. Lex chuckled throatily, and refilled him.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" He quipped.

"Why, can't you handle your liquor?" She countered, drinking her second jar a tiny bit more slowly than the first.

Marcus didn't reply, but drank what she gave him.

"Fuck me, is that brandy or engine degreaser?" He said, his eyes watering.

Three more jars of brandy each, and the bottle lay empty on the floor beside Marcus' bunk. The gentle banter between them had continued, becoming comfortable and forward. His head spinning with a combination of tiredness, arousal and alcohol, Marcus nestled in more closely against Lex, and tentatively slipped his hand beneath the hem of her hoodie, to rest on her fur. She tensed momentarily, but didn't pull away, so he began to gently toy with her thick pelt. Her tummy was soft and warm, and he sighed softly against her neck. The heat was definitely rising, and Marcus felt Lex's legs shift against his beneath the thick covering of blankets. He could hear her heartbeat. His own very nearly stopped when her hand lifted to his cheek, cupping it and tilting his head backward. His eyes opened, unfocused, and a soft bleat escaped him as Lex's lips met his own.

That first kiss was soft, slow and tender, barely more than their lips brushing together, sharing breath. But it had an electric effect on the both of them. Lex could feel Marcus trembling against her, and the arm around his shoulders tightened. The other moved to his chest, fingers splaying outwards over the outside of his hoodie. Their legs tangled beneath the blankets, and Lex could feel... was that... she pressed sideways a little, and was rewarded by a gasp from Marcus at the increase in pressure against his groin.

Yeah, he was enjoying this.

Lex pulled the blankets higher over them both, until only their heads were out in the open. It was incredibly warm. Marcus drew his fingers slowly side to side through Lex's belly fur, around to her hip and back, and then boldly upward until his fingertips bumped the underside of her breast. His head was resting comfortably on her shoulder, and she could feel his shaky breaths against her jaw. Experimentally, she set her hand exploring, fingers moving over the outside of his hoodie over his chest, until she felt him suck in a sharp breath and tense up when she found a nipple.

"Mm. Sensitive?" She murmured.

He just nodded, and his soft, grabby ungulate lips sought hers for another kiss, which she obliged. Marcus was in his own little heaven in those moments. He was painfully aroused, and Lex knew it. The way she kept flexing and rolling her thigh against him told him that much. He retaliated by grinding against her slowly, his brandy-fogged mind focusing in on how easy it would be for him to slide his hand further up inside her hoodie, or down inside her sweatpants...

"Do it..." she whispered, suddenly.

"Do what?"

"You know exactly what."

Marcus shuddered with his surging arousal, and obeyed. Further north his hand ventured. Fingertips parted and splayed over the warm, soft mound of Lex's right breast. It felt heavy. His thumb circled up and over, trapping her nipple between it and the first joint of his index finger. She let out a throaty groan, and he felt her claws digging into his shoulder. He rolled her nipple slowly between his fingers, feeling it harden to his attention, and tilted his muzzle to kiss the side of her neck. In doing so he shuffled downward just a touch and rolled onto his side, and Lex retaliated by reaching down and grabbing a handful of his ass. Her hands were bigger than his, and each of his buttocks was a solid handful for her. She kneaded and groped him with the same slow, lazy affection as he lavished on her. After a while, Marcus transferred his attention to her other breast, and her reaction was just the same, all over again. Hearing her moan softly and her breathing deepen made Marcus' heart race, and he responded by grinding hard up against her leg briefly.

Slowly, using his lips, Marcus captured the zipper of Lex's hoodie, and pulled downward. She giggled, and he took that as a sign to continue.

"Oh very good," she complimented him, once his head was level with her diaphragm.

He murmured something unintelligible, his head mostly beneath the blankets by that stage. The tiny pocket of hot air that surrounded them both was filled with the scent of them - Marcus could smell his own arousal even through his sweatpants, and the warm, alluring musk that rose from Lex could've made him cum on its own, if he focused on it hard enough. As it was, Marcus forced himself to focus on her breasts instead, now exposed to him beneath the blankets' warmth. Her hands were all over him, although she hadn't gone for the obscene tent in his sweatpants yet. He returned to laying alongside Lex, pressed warmly against her, and put his mouth to good use.

With her right breast in his hand, Marcus lipped at her left nipple teasingly at first. But what really spurred him on was the feeling of Lex sliding a hand down the front of her own pants - the hand that had been around his shoulders. She moaned softly. Marcus could feel her shoulder tense, her arm shaking with an unmistakable rhythm, and her legs parting slightly, pressing rhythmically outward against his groin.

"Fuck..." he murmured into her chest, and received just the same back from her.

His lips captured her nipple then, and his hand moved to her left breast to accentuate his oral affections. Gripping her softness, kneading it tenderly, he sealed his lips around the peak of her breast and sucked. His teeth grazed it, and his tongue circled it firmly in a rhythmic procession of pleasure that sent Lex's head back against the wall behind her. His other arm was draped around Lex's shoulders, and he brought his hand up, fingertips caressing delicately up and down the far side of her neck, out along her collarbone, and back up to her ear. Over and over, a slow, rhythmic dance, punctuated every so often by a rough thrust of Lex's hips into her own hand, and a convulsion of her leg against his aching, trapped cock.

She built herself up quickly. Edging over and over, drinking in the body worship Marcus laid upon her. His hand left her breast, sliding down over her tummy to join hers inside her sweats. She made no attempt to stop masturbating, nor to evict him. So he trailed his fingertips down over the top of hers, reading her actions, and then further, down the inside of her thigh. Boldly, he pulled it against him, grinding his hips roughly against her and exhaling hotly over her breast.

"Gods... fuck... I'm gonna cum..." she gasped. "Do that again..."

He obliged, playing the part of loyal servant to her desire. His hand gripped her inner thigh, nudging up against her groin. He was so close. So close to touching her, feeling her wetness, the soft heat of her pussy... he could feel its warmth, and hear how slick she was. Her fingers rubbed with practised precision over her clit, and he took note, for future reference. And then she came. He humped wildly against her thigh a couple of times, and she shuddered, her body overcome briefly by the rhythmic contractions of orgasm.

Minutes passed, and in the darkness all that passed between them was heavy breathing. A weighty, hedonistic silence that seemed to communicate on a far deeper level than speech.

And then Lex chuckled.

"Fuck... I got carried away there huh?" She murmured, her voice low and husky against his ear.

"Nnnh. That was incredible. Nothing like that has ever happened..."

"Uh... did you...?"

He shook his head against her, his muzzle still buried in her chest.

"Oh you poor little fucker. I wouldn't have objected if you... ya know, pushed things a bit."

Marcus shook his head again.

"You're amazing."

Those words echoed in his mind, and in the darkness he felt her lifting his muzzle to hers, and her lips against his once again. Her hand moved over his chest once more, and she pushed him over to lie on his back beside her. Marcus' heart raced. Anticipation tingled along his spine.

Slowly, painfully slowly, Lex's hand wandered down along the Caprin's body. At the last minute, she diverted it, running her fingertips down his thigh, and up its inside. Her hand was so teasingly close to him that she could feel the fabric of his sweats being stretched and distorted by the strength of his erection. If Lex knew one thing and one thing only, it was the true value of a tease.

Her fingertips, just two of them, danced upward along the belly of Marcus' constrained shaft, base to tip. And then her thumb and forefinger moved from tip to base, one each side of him.

"Mmh... nice size..." she murmured into his ear.

"Fuck..."

"You wearing underwear?"

"Yes..."

"Good."

Her hand withdrew, only momentarily. Only to move to Marcus' waistband. A little wriggle, and Lex's hand wormed its way downward, between Marcus' sweatpants and his cotton boxer-briefs. She could feel the warmth, and the shape of his penis far better, while maintaining the tease, through only one layer of fabric.

Exhaling warmly against his ear, Lex hooked a leg over Marcus', pressing her groin firmly against his thigh under the blankets. His hand slid downward, easily and naturally coming to rest on her butt. He squeezed it firmly, and as he did, Lex retaliated by curling her fingers around his penis, and squeezing right back. Her grip engulfed almost all of him, only his head peeking past her fist. He ground firmly upward into her touch, and she growled lustfully, twisting her grip around him and tugging downward against his thrust. He pulled back, and she milked upward. Precum spilled thickly into his briefs, and he whimpered.

"Oh fuck...fuckfuckfuckfuck... oh no... fuck..."

Lex's eyes flew open, and she held her breath. Had she hurt him? There was a split second where Lex was completely confused, but then it became... quite obvious.

Marcus suddenly let out a guttural bleat, and his hips bucked firmly up into her hand. His cock throbbed heavily, rapidly, rhythmically in her grip.

"Oh fuck me, did you just cum?"

He groaned, and covered his face with his hand.

Her hand wandered upward, until her fingers were softly probing around the tip of his shaft. His briefs were saturated.

"Oh my goodness..." she giggled.

"I'm sorry, I..."

"Nah nah nah, don't start. That," she paused, "is fucking hot. Adorable, and incredibly fucking hot. I take that as a huge compliment."

Marcus processed that slowly.

"You...do?"

"Uh huh. Did it feel good?"

"Only the best fucking load I've ever blown..."

"Mission accomplished then, huh?"

She released him, her hand sliding back up along his body to his chest. Nothing more was said between them. Marcus briefly thought about getting up to find a towel to clean himself off with. Briefly. But with everything that had happened between them, all the disasters of the last few days, and a bottle of brandy on virtually empty stomachs, sleep took them both before any further thoughts crystallised into actions.

*

The storm lasted all through the night and into the following day. A relentless, thunderous roar that seemed to hurl itself against Ortok Station with a rage that bordered on sentience. The station itself, plunged into darkness when the one surviving generator ran out of fuel, was getting colder by the hour. Already, ice was forming around the edges of the lifeless computer banks in the laboratory.

But in the chalet, the radiant heat from the brazier kept the chill at bay. And tangled within a nest of blankets, pillows and soft, comfortable clothes, Lex and Marcus were oblivious to the outside world.

Lex stirred first. Her head throbbed gently, and she blinked rapidly, sucking on her teeth to get some moisture into her mouth. Memories of the previous night flooded into her mind, and the Urssa woman focused her gaze on the sleeping Caprin entwined in her arms. He was snoring gently, obviously still in a deep sleep. Lex grinned, and a childish thrill of excitement ran through her. She knew from experience what happened to guys in such a deep sleep.

Tentatively, taking care not to wake him, Lex's hand moved down Marcus' body, until it bumped into the telltale bulge in his sweatpants. Working by feel alone, Lex slowly wriggled her hand down the inside of his pants, and then into his underwear. The latter was stuck and matted to his belly fur with the previous night's indiscretions, and Lex wrinkled her muzzle briefly as she navigated through it. Curiously, she curled her fingers around him. He was warm and hard, and through his nocturnal erection she could feel his heartbeat, slow and steady. She gave it a soft squeeze, and moved her hand, feeling him out.

"Hmm, uncut," she mused, almost silently, to herself.

Her fingertips explored him, sliding delicately over his glans, which seemed surprisingly dry and exposed for an uncut guy. Then she pulled downward on his skin, feeling it tighten and stretch. His frenulum was loose, and she found she could pull his foreskin back smooth with his shaft.

She wasn't sure exactly when he woke up, but when he cleared his throat quietly, Lex recoiled, pulling her hand out of his pants.

"Having fun there, Lex?" Marcus murmured, sleepily.

"I... was just... Oh, you know it."

"So... were you going to keep going, or what?" He drawled, raising his arms to lace his fingers behind his head.

"You cocky little fucker!" Lex laughed.

"Hey, I'm completely innocent here, I just woke up with your hand down my pants!"

"Yeah yeah, alright. I do feel kinda bad about how uh... quick... you uh..."

Marcus' ears flattened back, and he squirmed against Lex. "Not my fault you're so fucking hot, you know."

Lex was silent for a minute.

"I'm... you think I'm hot?"

There was such vulnerability in her voice in that moment that Marcus' heart melted, and then skipped a few beats when their eyes met. He rolled towards her, and cupped her cheek.

"Yes. Yes you are. What, did you think I just popped boners around you every few hours because I can't control myself? You're fucking gorgeous, Lex."

Lex's eyes flicked back and forth between his own, and she chuckled. "You're just sayin that so I'll suck your dick, aren't you?"

"No no, really!"

"Cos I will anyway, you..."

"Lex!"

"What? It's a nice dick!"

Marcus snorted, grappling for words. "I... really like what we did last night..."

She giggled, and snuggled up against him with one leg draped over his. "Mm, that was intense... really cute, too."

Marcus wrapped his arms around her again, and grunted quietly when she slid her hand right back down his sweats, casually groping and squeezing him through his sticky underwear.

"Do you uh... always cum that much? Feels like it was a lot..." Lex murmured.

"I... not really, no... I was... really really turned on last night... I'm not always so quick either, I promise..."

"Pff, no no, don't make excuses for that. It's hot, and I mean that."

"Right. Well if you'll believe me when I say you're hot, I'll believe you when you say _that _was hot."

"Deal."

Lex grinned at him, and pulled away. "Don't move. I have something for you."

With that she wriggled out of their nest of blankets, and around the partition that separated her bunk from his. He heard her rummaging through her luggage, and she returned moments later with a small bottle in one hand. She was also bottomless. Marcus' eyes widened, and he stared unashamedly at the dim outline of Lex's curves in the glow of the brazier's remaining coals.

"I was getting a bit hot, hope you don't mind..."

"I... I d-don't... no, not at all, I... fucking hell, Lex."

Marcus wanted nothing more in that moment than to bury his muzzle between her soft thighs, breathe her in and worship her curvaceous hips. But before he had a chance to vocalise that, she'd slipped back into the blanket nest with him.

"Take yours off too," she instructed him, gently.

He obeyed, and within moments their bare legs slid and caressed each other, and Marcus rolled towards Lex, exhaling shakily as the tip of his cock pressed and slid against her bare fur.

She grinned, and pushed him gently onto his back again. "I get it, you wanna get it wet. Didn't I tell you I had something for you?"

Marcus groaned, but didn't say anything. Lex chuckled, and uncapped the bottle in her hand with a soft snap. Her hand dropped once more to his cock, and the Caprin sucked in a surprised gasp at the feeling of warm, slippery wetness surrounding him. Lex smeared the lube generously around him, focusing on his glans, and grinned at his reaction. Heat began to seep into him, a warmth that went beyond the simple touch and friction of Lex's hand.

"Warming lube," she murmured, in response to his surprised noises.

He rolled his hips firmly upwards through her grip.

"Good. Just relax and enjoy it, Marc," she said, nestling in alongside him.

He immediately felt Lex's other hand wriggle down between her thighs, and a soft huff washed against his chin. The simple knowledge that she was right there, masturbating while she fondled and stroked his cock was incredible, and even hotter now they were both sober. He slid one arm around her shoulders, and with his other, pulled hers out of her groin, replacing it with his own. She sucked in a breath, and lifted her thigh up slightly to grant him access. His touch was soft and deliberate, but somewhat aimless at first. His fingertips caressed her fuzzy lips, and wriggled between them. The feeling of her wetness seemed to arouse him all the more, and Lex twisted her hand slickly around his cock, milking upward on it firmly and causing the Caprin to shudder and lose focus.

But Marcus was nothing if not a quick learner. He dipped two fingers inside her just for a moment, circling around her entrance and dragging the slickness he found there upward to coat her clitoris. Deftly he discovered her rhythm - a firm, rapid circle elicited a firm buck of her hips and a breathy moan, and he knew he was onto something. He rolled towards her just slightly, and with his free hand pulled the blankets up over both of their heads, immersing them in a bubble of their own sexual musk, and the spicy tang of the warming lube.

His free hand moved to unzip her hoodie again, freeing her breasts, and she released a needy growl of lust as his fingers explored, recalling the skill he'd shown the previous night. Lex momentarily felt like she'd ceded control of that situation to the Caprin. Until he suddenly gasped, and batted her hand away from his cock. He grit his teeth, and throbbed heavily a couple of times.

"Fuck... that was...close..." he whispered, hoarsely.

"Why'd you stop me?"

"You're not done yet."

Lex was silent, and then simply kissed him in the darkness. Her teeth grazed his lips, and her tongue brushed his own - a much more passionate, needy, lustful kiss than the tentative one they'd first shared. And his hands were never still. He rubbed her with such a consistent pace that told her he was serious about making her cum first.

And finally, she relented.

"Get down there," she breathed. "I'm close..."

Marcus nearly came on the spot. But he responded with such eagerness that she couldn't help but giggle shakily. She lifted up the blankets for him, and spread her thighs wide. He wasted no time on foreplay.

The feeling of Marcus' breath shuddering against her was divine, but it was only the prelude. His soft, tactile lips were unlike anything she'd ever felt before, and his tongue! She'd had a brief taste of it the previous night, albeit on a nipple, but downstairs he was skilled well beyond his years. His lips grappled and grasped to her fuzzy, slick pussy, and his tongue pressed hotly between her lips, sliding upward against tender flesh, over and over. One of his hands wandered up to her breast, and she guided it to her right. The other... well at least she was sure he wasn't masturbating. Two of his fingers slid inside her, and Lex arched her back, bucking upward roughly against his face and instinctively grabbing onto his thick, curled horns with both hands.

He bleated into her pussy, but attacked her with renewed gusto. His lips grasped, his tongue flicked, and his fingers curled within her - and at the same moment, his other hand gripped and rolled her nipple just like he'd done the previous night... and that was curtains for Lex.

She gripped his horns _hard, _bucking and grinding urgently against him as the familiar clock-spring of orgasm tightened and tightened in her lower abdomen. Her breaths were short and hasty, her abdomen tight and quivering.

"Fuck!"

It was just one word, but the guttural rush of air that accompanied it set it apart, and Marcus suddenly found himself a lot wetter than he'd anticipated getting. Lex squealed, fluid gushing messily several times past his fingers to splatter the Caprin's chin and neck as she climaxed. He stayed with her until he was sure she was done, timing his movements to her contractions, and then slowly, very gently disengaging as she collapsed back in a panting, quivering heap.

"Fuck," she repeated. "Fuck. Fuck!"

_ _

"Did I do alright?" He chuckled.

She gripped his horns again, and yanked him upward over her. "You. Can do that. Every. Fucking. Night."

He bit his lip in the darkness, and leaned down to kiss her. To his surprise, she returned it with gusto, licking her own emissions from his lips and chin. Her hand slipped down between them, gripping his cock once again and picking up where she left off. He was raging hard by that point. Harder than he could ever remember being. Not to mention more sensitive.

"Shit... Lex... I'm really sensitive..."

She growled quietly in the darkness, and with her free hand groped around for something, transferring it quickly under the blankets.

"Cum on my panties, Marc," she murmured, wrapping the soft cotton around the tip of his cock, and milking him steadily with both her hands.

He whimpered, and shuddered over her heatedly, his weight propped up on knees and elbows over her. She kissed and mouthed at his cheek and ear, and just to be an awful tease, she pushed his cock downward, brushing his tip along her groin with only her panties between them.

"Good boy... show me how hard you can cum..."

"Fuck, Lex..." he breathed.

She brought up one hand, trailing her fingertips over his hip, and grabbed a handful of his lean, muscular butt. To her surprise, that was what set him off.

Marcus bleated throatily, an otherworldly sort of noise to Lex, and convulsed violently over her. Like a wild stallion he bucked and hammered his cock through her hand, gasping for air and emptying his nuts in a rapid-fire series of powerful jets, mostly captured within the cotton of Lex's panties. She milked him firmly through his orgasm, and when it passed, she stopped, simply holding him in her hand while he collapsed over her.

"Guess you really needed that, huh?" She chuckled.

*

The storm blew itself out in the hours that followed. By mid-afternoon it was calm enough for Lex to venture outside the station to refill the generator tanks and get some lights back on inside the place. With the power back on, Lex was blasting a terrible mixtape on the cassette player. The electric heating was back on, too, and after the incredible chill of the previous night, even Marcus was getting around in little more than his boxers and hoodie.

Marcus was sitting, staring at Lex as she danced and bumbled about the chalet with a coffee in her hand. She was wearing the cutest pair of fluffy cartoon-character pyjama pants he'd ever seen, when suddenly their eyes met. Marcus simply rose to his hooves and walked up to Lex, placing his hands on her hips.

"Were you planning on radioing DIAS at any point today?" He asked.

"Oh, how romantic," she chuckled.

"Well - I wanna know just how much longer I have alone with you before we have to be all professional again."

She raised an eyebrow, and calmly slid her hand down to grope him. "Fair point..."

*

"DIAS, Ortok, come in, over."

Static.

"DIAS, Ortok, come in, over."

"Ortok, DIAS, by all the gods it's good to hear from you! We thought we'd lost you! Report status, over?"

"We lost power, DIAS - after the generator fire that injured Connor, we were hit with that monster system before we could refill the tanks. We're both fine. What's Connor's status, over?"

"Allen Connor is doing well, he's in hospital but will make a full recovery. As soon as possible, please send through all your data recordings of the storm, over."

"Affirmative, DIAS. How long will it be before a relief crew can ascend, over?"

Static.

"DIAS, come in, over."

"Ortok, repeat, over?"

"How long until a relief crew ascends, over?"

There was a silence that felt to Lex almost to be apologetic.

"Ortok - Heli-ILS is non-functional - storm damage. Next crew exchange will not be possible until clear weather and visual landing is safe. We're very sorry. Over."

This time, it was Lex's turn for silence. Although she was far from displeased. She turned to Marcus, who grinned back at her like an excited teenager.

"DIAS, apology accepted. All is well here, please advise when crew replacement is expected. Over and out."

Lex hung up the headset, and swivelled on her chair to face Marcus.

"Looks like it's just you and me for the foreseeable, kiddo."

No one on the face of Asantrea was happier in that moment than Marcus Orviese.

*

_ _