“I don’t know. Can you get Eliza? Let’s redraw the map.”
Jake went to fetch Eliza from her charging station in his workspace and Solomon went to the storage closet to get paint. Blue this time to contrast with the black that Jake and Eliza had used before.
The next ninety minutes were dedicated to outlining what Solomon could see. Of the twenty-three distortions marked on the floor and on the original paper map they’d made together, which Jake had carefully labeled A through W, nineteen had shrunk. Eliza drew new lines to circle their ragged shapes. The remaining four distortions had disappeared, so they switched to white paint and covered up those markings.
“Can the laptop still give accurate readings about the size of the breach?” Jake asked, tipping his head back toward the table. He was leaning over Eliza to detach the used paintbrush from her arm. “Or has the condition of the machine disrupted those?”
Solomon shook his head. “It’s not working, but you’re right that we need that data. We could assemble a new sensor.”
“Tomorrow,” Jake said, yawning.
Their glances collided and then bounced apart at the thought of their shared sleeping bag. Solomon braced to resume the argument they’d set aside.
With the paintbrush he was still holding, Jake gestured at the wet paint Eliza had tracked all over the floor. “All of this, it’s amazing. Kind of like Chávez said this morning—it’s not that I would ever have wanted any of this to happen, especially not what happened to you. But an alien, Lange.”
“Is that why you moved to space?” Solomon asked, relieved that Jake, too, wanted to talk about the lab instead of the bedroom. “To encounter aliens?”
Jake shook his head and laughed a little. “Nope.”
“But you were young when you left the surface,” Solomon guessed. Jake had said so little about his life; guesses were all Solomon had.
“Gotta be eighteen to join up,” Jake said. “I was on my own before that, though. The life I’d led by then—the shitty little towns I’d lived in, the shitty little jobs I’d worked—I don’t think I could really imagine good things for myself. I didn’t come to space to see wonders, I came to get as far away as I could.”
“You’ve stayed for years.”
“Twelve years,” Jake said. “I never imagined I would. Not because I wanted to go back to Earth. I just always assumed the future was for other people. Except here I am. Thirty years old and witnessing an alien.”
Jake smiled, the slight curve of his mouth like one long, smooth bow stroke over a string somewhere inside Sol, drawing out an answering smile. It was irresistible.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Solomon said, and it was an understatement by orders of magnitude—I’m so glad you’re here that the mere thought of you ever not being here sends me into paroxysms of terror—but he could only bring himself to add, “It is, as you said, amazing.”
“I’m glad you’re here, too,” Jake said. “You’re one of the wonders, you know.”
“What?” Solomon had been called a prodigy or a genius plenty of times, but it always carried with it some implicit excuse for the rest of him, and he’d come to resent it. Arguably, “wonder” fell into the same category—something inexplicable, an aberration. He searched himself for resentment and found only warmth.
“I didn’t expect you,” Jake said, as if that explained everything, as if he wasn’t leaving Sol to squirm in the aftermath of this compliment, as if his words hadn’t drawn forth some tremulous note of hope. “Hard to expect any of this. Did you know any of this was gonna happen? The organism, the distortions?”
Still awestruck, Solomon answered, “No.”
“Would you have guessed that it was possible?”
Jake offered his free hand to Solomon, who took it.
“No, I don’t think I could have guessed the existence of such an organism—not until I saw it. That said, if you had proposed the idea to me, I wouldn’t have categorized it as impossible. In an infinite multiverse, even a one-in-a-trillion chance is a certainty.”
Jake didn’t let go of his hand. He pulled Solomon closer. Too late, Solomon realized what Jake had coaxed him into admitting.
“It’s hard to say for sure what’s possible or impossible,” Jake agreed. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Solomon’s mouth. “You can move things with your mind, but you can’t see the future. Come to bed.”
16
Hold On
Jake arrived in their room carrying a large black tool bag, which Solomon found suspicious, alarming, and entirely too exciting. Jake manually slid the door shut behind himself, checking to make sure they had privacy without being trapped.
Solomon, to his own consternation, arrived carrying a bottle of lube. So much for his determination to end things. Jake had smiled at him and said one nice thing—no, several nice things and one astounding thing—and here Sol was. Wanting Jake made him feel alive.
He’d retrieved the lube from the room where Jake had stored all his belongings during the period when Solomon had been throwing objects around uncontrollably. Having to go get the bottle was a strange reminder of how much things had changed.
He rubbed his thumb over the tiny ridge in the plastic bottle cap, watching as Jake rummaged in his tool bag, quietly competent. He was fully clothed and perhaps working on something unrelated to sex, and still the sight set something thrumming under Solomon’s skin. Only his need to see what Jake was doing kept him still. He wanted to strip him, to revel in his nakedness, to put his hands everywhere, to sink his teeth into Jake’s flesh, to slam into him and fuck him hard—no matter that the lack of gravity made that last one exceedingly difficult. They needed the sleeping bag, or else there’d be a lot of useless thrusting and sliding away from each other.
Jake pulled something metal out of the bag. It looked like a flat rectangle, larger than his hand. He raised it above his head and brought it close to the metal panel of the wall. It connected with a thunk. When Jake let go, Solomon saw what his grip had obscured.
A magnetized handhold.
Solomon caught his breath. Of course there were plenty of such objects at Facility 17, in addition to the variety of safety equipment built into the walls. If you relied on a machine to generate gravity, you had to be prepared for that machine to fail.
The other uses of this equipment had not occurred to him.
“This is why you’re the engineer,” Solomon said. “You’re brilliant.”
It was very easy and very satisfying to make Jake duck his head and avert his eyes from a compliment.
“Thanks. Thought of this last night.”
“If you were able to think last night, that’s a grave insult to my skills,” Solomon said.
“No, it’s, um—I wanted to see you. So I was thinking of ways we could get out of the sleeping bag. If one of us holds this, between that and the mag boots—”
Solomon kissed him. Jake let it happen, parted his lips and let Solomon sweep right in, settling his arms around Solomon’s shoulders. Solomon grabbed him around the waist and pulled him close, wishing that they were already naked.
“Will you do it?” Solomon asked. “Will you hold on and stay right there and let me touch you? I want it to be you.”
“Yeah.” The flutter of Jake’s pulse was visible high in his throat. “Yeah, if that’s what you want.”
“Did you want it to be me?” Solomon asked, struck with curiosity. The thought that Jake might have imagined him all spread out and immobilized against the wall sent an unexpected thrill through him. He’d save that for later.
“I think I just—wanted,” Jake said, his breath hitching as Solomon swept a thumb over his cheek. “You or me or—anything. I want to see you. I didn’t get to see you.”
Right. Engineering expertise aside, Jake had a sexual history of precisely one night, and it consisted of Solomon groping him and sucking him off in a sleeping bag in the dark. It had been an excellent blowjob—they all were—but still, anyt
hing they did in full light would be new.
Jake’s pupils had dilated as Solomon had continued to touch his face, a fingertip brushing Jake’s eyelashes. They were darker than his hair and surprisingly luxuriant.
“You are so pretty,” Solomon said. He didn’t mean to. It wasn’t the sort of thing he said to people he fucked. Or at least, he was reasonably sure he hadn’t said things like that before, in his other life. Sweet, slightly stupefied things. Sincere things.
So it was a shock when Jake huffed and said, “You should maybe get your eyes checked, Lange.”
“You are so pretty,” Solomon said again, affronted that Jake would question his judgment. “And I suppose, under the circumstances, you could call me Solomon. Or Sol.”
Jake grinned at him. “What circumstances are those, exactly?”
“Hush.”
“Is it only when I’m yelling your name or—” Jake’s voice cut out as Solomon worked his fingers under the panel of fabric that covered his zipper, found the tab, pulled it down, and sucked a fierce kiss into the skin at the base of his neck.
Modern intravehicular suits were less bulky than their predecessors, and they had the advantage of coming off all in one piece. Jake obligingly stepped out of his, stripped off his underwear, and stepped back into his boots.
He was on Solomon in no time, kissing him and unzipping his suit. Jake got the zipper all the way down to Solomon’s waist before Solomon pushed him back against the wall. Jake’s bare skin was hot against his hands, his body solid and welcoming where Solomon collided with him. He was hard already. Solomon should’ve let Jake strip him, then they’d be skin to skin, but they’d made a plan. He hated to deviate from a plan.
“You agreed to hold on,” Solomon said.
“You’re gonna get naked and not let me touch you?”
“There will be plenty of touching.” Solomon leaned in and kissed him deeply, nipping his bottom lip. “Put your arms above your head and both hands on the handhold. Let me look at you.”
Jake obeyed without question despite the faint bloom of pink in his face and his neck.
Solomon stepped back to enjoy the view. Jake was a sight worth studying. With his arms lifted and his feet in boots, he looked more exposed than he would have lying unclothed in a bed. There was nothing casual or accidental about this posture, and Solomon didn’t intend to be casual or accidental in his appreciation. Jake’s thick, uncut cock jutted out above his thighs and under the soft curve of his belly. His chest hair, concentrated over his pecs, was a shade browner than what grew out of his head. His nipples had tightened to small, rosy points.
Solomon couldn’t hear Jake breathing, but the rapid rise and fall of his chest was visible with the rest of his body so still. Whether it was nerves or excitement or a potent combination of both affecting Jake, Solomon couldn’t say. The thought that Jake had never let anyone else study him like this made Sol’s own breath come shallower.
He stepped forward and kissed Jake again. There was nothing to stop him. Jake was just there, waiting. His mouth was as sweet as it had been a moment ago, more so now that Solomon knew how willing he was.
Solomon snaked a hand between their bodies and wrapped it around Jake’s cock, velvet-smooth to the touch. Jake exhaled sharply, but his hands didn’t move.
“Perfect, just like that. You’re so good at this already. I’ll make it good for you, I promise.” Solomon shrugged out of the sleeves of his suit, stripped the whole thing off along with his underwear, and put his boots back on, just in case he needed to stick to the floor.
A series of practical choices, not a performance, but from the wide-eyed way Jake looked at him, it might as well have been. Solomon couldn’t recall ever having felt so naked. In his previous life, he’d had the naturally unselfconscious bearing of someone whose partners had always admired him, but what he’d mistaken for unassailable confidence in himself was inextricable from his disregard for their opinions. He’d known he was beautiful. It hadn’t mattered whether anyone else thought so—until now.
It was cruel that he should find himself longing for Jake’s approval when there was so much less to approve of. The grace he’d once prided himself on was long gone. A catalogue of flaws spiralled through his thoughts, every complaint he’d accumulated since his return to life, and he wondered if Jake could see all those things. It was awful to stand naked in front of another person and not know if you were enough.
Jake’s gaze slid down his body, slow and hot.
Oh.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous. You gonna touch me or what?”
There was an advantage to caring what other people thought of you: it meant a great deal more when they licked their lips like they’d never seen anything better.
Solomon smiled and went to him. He wanted to press so close, so deep into Jake that nothing could pass between them. To fuck him, yes, but also to stay right there, touching from hips to chest, with his face buried in Jake’s neck and Jake’s pulse louder than the sound of the universe.
It had been a mistake to ask Jake to grip the handhold. He could be holding Sol instead. The regret Solomon felt was almost enough to stop the game, but no, not before they’d gotten an orgasm out of it.
Solomon lifted his head, dragged a series of open-mouthed kisses up Jake’s neck, nipped at his earlobe, retraced his steps, and went lower, caressing with lips and tongue, letting his teeth graze Jake’s skin. Jake whimpered. He squirmed a little, too, especially when Solomon ground against him, rubbing his cock against Jake’s thigh. Solomon could tell he wanted to respond in kind, and Jake made the most beautiful, frustrated little sound about it. Between the mag boots and the handhold that made him stretch his arms over his head, he could barely move.
Unless he let go. A simple thing, entirely within his power, and one he would not do. Because Solomon had asked.
“You are so good,” Solomon told him, maybe more earnestly than he’d ever said anything in his life. He moved back up to kiss Jake on the mouth. “And so pretty.”
“Yeah, but are you ever gonna do something about it?” Jake asked.
Solomon laughed and kissed him again. “So you admit I’m right.”
“I’ll admit anything you want if you’ll touch me already.”
“I am touching you.” Solomon’s fingertips met the short fuzz of his hair and the smooth shell of his ear. He ran his hands down Jake’s sides then slid them back to squeeze his ass, sinking his fingers in.
Jake groaned. “Sol.”
Oh. That was—that was good. His lips curled in a smile. “What did you have in mind? Do you want me to suck you off?”
“I mean, I don’t not want that,” Jake said. Fuck, it was delicious to watch him work his way up to talking about it. The contraction and release of his muscles, the way his teeth briefly sank into his lower lip. “And if we did that again, I think I could do a better job this time around.”
“It was already perfect,” Solomon said, drawing a finger along the stubbled underside of Jake’s jaw. It hadn’t mattered that it was a little hesitant—no, it had mattered. He’d had a shattering orgasm last night simply from knowing that it was Jake touching him. And there was nothing more characteristic than Jake wanting to figure something out so he could do it better. Solomon hadn’t even asked him for anything; Jake had offered.
It was so sweet that it made something in his chest ache. That kind of generosity—no, Solomon couldn’t think about that, about how rare and precious this felt, about how even if he lived, he’d probably never have this again.
Solomon brought his focus back to Jake’s face. Those reddened, bitten lips. He said, “I notice you’re assuming whatever we do will be reciprocal.”
“Is that not how this works?” Jake’s brows drew together.
“Reciprocity is an excellent idea,” Solomon assured him. “We can put it into action right now.”
He stepped out of his boots, held onto Jake’s hips again, and kicked off the floor. Maneuvering himself
into position—upside-down, his mouth level with Jake’s cock—was easy, though he had to take some care not to knee Jake in the face.
“Whoa.”
“Is this okay?” Solomon asked. He wasn’t concerned for himself. Upside-down was a malleable concept without gravity, just as wall and floor were interchangeable.
“Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. You weren’t kidding about reciprocity. You sure we can make this work?” Jake asked. “You’d be better stabilized if I held onto you with one hand. I don’t want you to float away.”
“Keep your hands on the handhold. Use your mouth.”
Jake muttered “oh” very quietly and Solomon could hear him blushing. He craned his neck. It was comically awkward for a moment, and they both laughed, but then Jake got his mouth around Solomon’s dick, and it was hot and tight and perfect.
“Fuck,” Solomon said, exhaling. And then he wet his lips and reciprocated, as promised.
He couldn’t exercise much finesse like this, distracted and halfway to bliss, but it didn’t matter. He loved it anyway—the slippery, salty fullness in his mouth, the loud, hot slide of Jake’s lips against his skin, the intensity of feeling that they were trading back and forth. It was these things, the smells and tastes and textures that would have been the same here or in his bed in the cabin, that made him wildest.
Jake made little noises, panting and gasping around Solomon’s dick, every time Solomon took him particularly deep. Stuttering and irregular, desperate, pleased, they were better than music. Sol never wanted to hear anything else.
He had both hands gripping Jake’s massive thighs, all the tension in his body focused into the tips of his fingers so he could relax his throat all the way open. The skill had come back to him quickly—or maybe it was easy to do this for Jake. He trusted Jake. He wanted Jake inside him, just as he wanted to be inside Jake, to thrust until the heat of Jake’s mouth enveloped him to the root. Their interlocking closeness was heaven. It ought to last forever.
It couldn’t—he could already feel the end barreling down on him—but there was sweetness in that, too. He craved the ending just as much as he craved the repetition, that slick, slow circling in and out. He wanted to do this again and again, to do other things, to do everything, to repeat this feeling in all possible variations, always with Jake.
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