When it came, he couldn’t say what had happened first, the spill of his own orgasm or the swallowing down of Jake’s. A simultaneous burst of sensation, of filling and emptying, left his heart pounding and his body slack.
He wiped a hand across his lips.
“Jesus,” Jake said, his breath frayed around the edges.
Solomon hummed his agreement and carefully extracted himself. He pushed one foot off the wall to flip himself over and landed with his back to Jake. His bare foot touched the cool floor just long enough for him to turn around and face Jake, and then he drifted upward by a few centimeters.
Surveying his work made him smile. Flushed and mussed, Jake looked even better than he had. And he was still holding on, as instructed, which was its own little rush.
“You can let go,” Solomon said, and Jake’s arms came around him instantly—almost magnetically. With his own arms trapped against his sides, there was little for Solomon to do except rest his hands on Jake’s hips. Gravity or no gravity, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“That was good,” Jake said, his voice soft next to Solomon’s ear.
“It was.” Sol pressed himself into Jake just for the pleasure of it, nestling his face against Jake’s shoulder.
He felt Jake shift minutely.
“Did you, uh, bring a bottle of lube in here? There’s one just kinda floating.”
“Oh,” Solomon said. He’d forgotten that. “I thought we might want it, but—”
“For what?”
“Is that a serious question?” Solomon raised his head. Jake might not have experience, but surely he had basic knowledge.
“No, I know it’s for anal sex,” Jake said, and Solomon was both proud of him for getting through the whole sentence and charmed by his little pause in the middle of it. “I mean what specifically did you, Solomon Lange, want it for.”
“To fuck you,” Solomon said bluntly, and had the satisfaction of watching Jake’s lips part and release no sound. “But only if you wanted.”
“Is that offer still open? I could go another round.”
“Yes.” Solomon might need a minute, but he could be ready by the time Jake was. He couldn’t miss this. There might never be another chance. “Put your hands back on the handhold and spread your legs.”
Solomon slicked up his fingers, slid them in, and had the pleasure of watching Jake’s dick swell back to fullness as he worked. It was leaking by the time he was satisfied with his thoroughness—and so was his own. No matter that he’d just come, he felt wild again, need burning inside him. He held it in check so he could kneel down and slip the mag boots off Jake’s feet and put his own pair back on.
“Sol?”
“I’m going to lift your legs,” Solomon said, surprised to hear anything other than a grunt exit his own throat. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
Solomon picked Jake up, holding him so his legs were folded, his calves draped over Solomon’s arms. It was an unusual position, and an exceptionally helpless one for Jake. Solomon ignored his own wants for a moment so he could say, as gently as possible, “Still good?”
“Very. You have a thing for picking me up, you know.”
In zero g, and with telekinesis, Solomon didn’t actually need his hands to hold Jake still. So it was easy to reach between them, stroke one finger lightly up his glistening cock, and say, “You have a thing for it, too.”
Jake huffed. “Maybe I do.”
They were quiet after that, both watching as Solomon braced himself, fitted his cock against Jake, and then slid carefully into the tight channel of Jake’s body. It shocked sound out of both of them, two wordless grunts, and then Jake said, “Fuck. Kiss me.”
Solomon obeyed, plunging his tongue between Jake’s lips as he thrust deeper. With Jake panting and pleading into his mouth, there was no question of slowing down. Solomon gave himself up to desire. Jake felt too good around him, slippery and tight, and he could think of nothing. There was only his need, honed down to a single motion. In and out, in and out, he drove his hips and clung to Jake, licking sweetness from the inside of his mouth and salt from his skin, until his balls drew in tight and he couldn’t hold off any longer. He shoved his hand between their bodies to grasp Jake’s dick. Jake came in his hand, a flood of hot liquid over his fingers, and Solomon lost it, crying out at the rush of bliss. He came in a few fierce, uncontrolled thrusts.
They freed themselves carefully, Solomon letting Jake stretch his arms and legs, and then leaned against each other, sticky and breathing hard.
“Holy fuck,” Jake said. “That was incredible.”
“Mmm,” Solomon agreed. “Next time you’re doing all the work.”
“So there’s a next time, then? Will it be you holding on, since I already proved that I’m not going anywhere?”
Jake’s tone was teasing, but Solomon still lifted his head to meet his eyes. All the languor left his body. Their earlier argument, which was less an argument and more an airing of all his fears, roared back to life. His life was strung taut between nearly losing himself in the Nowhere and whatever terrible accident came next. Falling in love—because that’s what this was, no matter how much he denied it—meant setting himself up for another loss.
Solomon said, “You can’t promise that. It’s not within your control.”
“You’re right. I can’t promise not to die,” Jake said easily. “But for now, I’m here if you want me to be here, Sol.”
“I do want it,” Solomon said, the confession sliding out of him like the point of a knife that had gone into his back and pierced right through his heart. Painful. Inadequate. There was so much more lodged inside him. “But what I want is worth very little.”
“No,” Jake said, a fond smile creeping into his expression. “It’s worth a lot.”
17
A Drunken Geometry Quiz
Jake left the room the next morning buoyed by having woken up with Sol, who did indeed want something from or with him. It was okay that Sol’s confession hadn’t been more specific. He’d been through some shit and they weren’t exactly in the clear.
Besides, Jake didn’t have any idea what he wanted, either. He’d never been in a relationship before. Maybe that should scare him, but enjoying someone’s company and having great sex seemed like a pretty solid foundation. He really, really hoped they figured out how to fix the breach without massively damaging reality or each other, because he wanted to know what the future held after that.
He smiled at Sol over breakfast. Jake had assumed that Sol wouldn’t be a morning person. Genius scientists had all their brilliant revelations in the middle of the night, either lying awake in bed or staring into the blue glow of a screen in their lab, and in the morning they scowled and grunted until they’d been supplied with enough coffee. Something like that. But Sol’s grouchiness wasn’t confined to any particular hour of the day—not that the hours of the day meant much here in lunar orbit—and this morning, Sol was content to smile back. That was gratifying.
“I’m gonna work on fixing the gravity generator today,” Jake said.
Dax and Lenny walked into the kitchen, preventing him from adding that he’d like to feel Sol’s weight on top of him in bed.
Jake continued, “No sense in fixing the plumbing until the generator’s done, since we can’t run any of the taps with the gravity off.”
“You’re a godsend, Jake,” Lenny said. “You know that, right?”
“Gravity and a shower,” Dax said with palpable yearning. “It’s true what they say, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.”
“Weightlessness has its charms,” Sol said, his expression perfectly neutral and appropriate, but his eyes on Jake.
“Uh,” Jake said, wishing Sol weren’t fixing him with that look, wishing the thought of last night didn’t make his dick swell. Christ, he shouldn’t be enjoying this. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What were they talking about? Repairs to the generator. “Just… trying to be useful.”
/> “Of course,” Sol said, like he wasn’t the multiverse’s worst little shit. “You’re always solving problems. I appreciate that about you.”
The only thing worse than sexual innuendo was earnest praise, and Jake couldn’t tell which that was—fuck, what if it was both—so he stared blankly at the sink to give his brain a second to buffer.
“We cleaned up the mess in the greenhouse yesterday,” Lenny said, oblivious to whatever was between them. “I’ll probably play lab assistant for Emil today, not that we’re gonna discover anything from those samples we took.”
“If you’re looking for work, there are more things that need fixing,” Jake said. Lenny had been an aerospace engineer before he’d come to work for Quint Services and made his home at Facility 17, and he and Jake had taken apart many machines together. “I could use a second set of hands with the generator—should be a simple fix, I have all the parts—and Lange needs help building another sensor in his lab. Our new method of measuring the distortions is, uh, pretty primitive.”
“It’s simple and effective,” Sol countered, his stare equally as intense as when he’d been speaking in innuendo.
“You took measurements?” Dax asked, their ginger brows drawing together. They’d been essential to all of Sol’s work at Facility 17, so they were understandably perplexed by news of progress that had happened without their presence.
“Not really,” Jake said. “We were in there last night after dinner and Lange noticed that the distortions had shrunk, so we repainted the floor to reflect the new arrangement. Didn’t get close enough to the breach itself to tell what’s going on there.”
“Well,” Dax said. “I look forward to throwing a tennis ball in. Science at its finest.”
“You say that as if I didn’t spend hours yesterday playing guitar at it,” Sol said, and when he offered a wry smile to Dax, their face froze in shock.
“Symphony in WTF minor,” they said, once they’d recovered.
“I’ll make you second author, just for coming up with the title,” Sol promised.
“Do symphonies have second authors?” Dax asked, their eyes crinkling at the corners. “Anyway, I’ll meet you in the lab in just a sec, I’m gonna go clean up a bit.”
“I should do the same,” Sol said, and then they both left.
“Don’t get me wrong, I do wanna help you,” Lenny said once he and Jake were alone. “But I also wanna see the lab. Your masterpiece.”
“It’s not exactly museum-worthy. But sure,” Jake said. He and Lenny cleared the air of empty drink pouches and protein-bar wrappers from breakfast. Jake’s plans to fix the generator and the pipes felt mundane compared to the day Sol was about to have, in which he would attempt to communicate with an alien through music and then perhaps together they’d repair a rift in the universe. But people lived in this facility, and they needed to eat and wash. He could make that happen. He could be useful.
And if he fixed the generator, then maybe later he could sit in bed, pull Sol into his lap, and feel the weight against his thighs.
Next time you’re doing all the work.
Jake set that thought aside and led Lenny out of the kitchen and toward Sol’s lab, wondering what Lenny would make of it. Jake had been honest—the paint lines crisscrossing the floor didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen framed and hanging on a wall, but he didn’t exactly frequent art museums. When he and Sol and Eliza had finished painting last night, the floor had looked like a nonsensical diagram, just a scattering of polygonal forms laid over each other. Walking down the hall, he amused himself with possible comparisons: a drunken geometry quiz, a chessboard he wasn’t advanced enough to play, a series of road signs for alien traffic.
The hallway seemed longer than usual.
Jake stopped. Nothing in his surroundings looked different. Ahead, he could see the brown paper covering the windows to Sol’s lab, and the grey door that had been purposefully left ajar so as not to trap anyone in the room while the electricity was unreliable. The lights were on, and he was grateful he’d spent the time to make them that way, so the empty corridor in front of him was bright white and non-threatening.
Or at least, it would have been non-threatening if he didn’t have the distinct impression that something was fucked.
“Lenny,” Jake yelled.
No answer. Shit.
Cautiously, Jake turned around, hoping to catch sight of Lenny behind him. He kept his feet exactly where they were and moved as little as possible, recalling Sol shouting “not that far to the left” at him when they’d navigated the maze in his lab together.
Lenny wasn’t there. Worse, the kitchen wasn’t there. The hallway behind him looked exactly like the hallway in front of him, including the door to Sol’s lab. It was empty and bright white and very, very threatening.
He’d walked into a distortion. Last night they’d charted what they thought was shrinkage and disappearance among the ones in Sol’s lab, but maybe none of the distortions had disappeared. Maybe they’d just moved.
Sol was the only one who could see them, and Sol hadn’t been here to tell Jake not to walk down this hallway.
Jake hadn’t thought it would be like this. When Emil had walked through the breach, into the Nowhere, and out the other side, he’d gone to some alien planet. Jake had assumed that the distortions in Sol’s lab would work like that—step into one, you’d end up in the Nowhere, or maybe on the other side of it if you were lucky. The void was, after all, a membrane that touched all of space. That was how runners could use it to get anywhere.
Jake felt stupid, having done the fucked-up physics equivalent of falling into a hole, but in his defense, he couldn’t see the damn thing. Sol had never really described his perception, and before this, Jake had idly imagined the distortions as windows hanging in the air, as if he might glance down a hallway at Facility 17 and suddenly find himself looking at a moonlit ocean or the surface of some unknown planet. But it had all just looked like hallway.
A new landscape would almost have been reassuring. The sameness of his surroundings made him doubt his own perceptions. Creepy as shit.
Nothing was actively trying to kill him. That was good. He could just wait here. Lenny had probably already gone to tell the others about his disappearance, and in just a second, Kit would come get him out.
Still, it was worth examining his surroundings one more time to see if he’d missed some detail. Maybe there was a way to rescue himself. He turned back around, expecting the funhouse-mirror setup from a second ago—infinite, identical hallway in every direction.
Mere meters from where he stood, the walls and floor begin to melt and stretch, their edges collapsing into each other. The white-coated metal panels that made up the walls of Facility 17 vanished, revealing no sign of the wiring he’d spent all of yesterday fixing, or the rough surface of the asteroid. There was nothing but a pool of featureless white, oozing closer, shrinking the space around him.
Well. That wasn’t good.
He searched his spacesuit pockets and came up with a screw. He’d stuck a handful in there, since the ones in the grav generator were all corroded and he’d meant to replace them today. Experimentally, he tossed one into the whiteness. It was instantly swallowed.
Jake turned and ran the other way, hoping the hallway would hold out.
Catching sight of Lenny in the bathroom mirror sent a foamy mouthful of toothpaste down Solomon’s throat. He coughed, wiped his mouth, and blurted, “What’s wrong?”
It was clear from Lenny’s expression and the way he hovered in the door that this was the appropriate opening question.
Before Lenny could get a word out, Solomon added another. “Where’s Jake?”
A waste of time to ask. His heart was pounding with the answer he already knew. The wreckage of his disastrous experiment had cost him yet again.
“Show me,” Solomon said, shoving his hygiene kit back into its bag, and Lenny nodded and led him to the hallway between the kitchen and his
lab. Dax followed.
The new distortion—or perhaps not new, but newly migrated to this spot—snaked through the middle of the corridor. From this angle, the glimmer took the form of an integral symbol, a stretched-out S wavering between the walls. It was wide enough that it would be almost impossible to walk around—and Solomon could see it. No one else would stand a chance.
Jake had walked into that.
Solomon didn’t realize he’d taken a step toward it until he felt Lenny’s hand clamp around his shoulder.
Lenny was a large man, bigger than Jake even, and he wasn’t afraid to make that clear with the strength of his grip. It was at odds with his easy demeanor. “No. Not letting you run headlong into a mysterious hole in reality. We’re not doing that today.”
“Jake’s in there,” Solomon said, and it was the most evident and the most urgent thing he’d ever said in his life. He could think of nothing else.
Jake. Trapped. His fault.
“He was in there,” Lenny corrected. “Look, I’m not a physicist, but I did have access to the Nowhere for a little while, so I know you can’t always count on space to work like you think it will. It’s a whole thing. You wrote a book on it? At least I think that’s what your book’s about. Anyway, I’m gonna vote that you don’t hurl yourself in there.”
“I am a physicist and I agree,” Dax said. “Let’s retreat to somewhere space isn’t making a mockery of everything we perceive.”
The soles of Solomon’s shoes were attached to the floor with something stronger than magnets, and even in zero g, his body was an immovable weight. He peered into the distortion, aching for a glimpse, for anything, some flash behind the smoky ripple in the air.
It had happened. He’d feared some terrible accident would end his relationship with Jake—yes, relationship, having sex with someone you cared for was a relationship, to call it by any other name was foolish—and here it was. Fearing the worst had left him no more prepared for it than he would have been otherwise. Indeed, it had left him less prepared.
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