Adrift Collection

by T. J. Land

  Thomas chuckled. “It’s not all that different, Rick.”

  “Hear me out. If we’re going to be doing it again, us four, I don’t want to make an ass of myself. I want you to show me how to do all the…the stuff properly. I’m a fast learner; all I need is coaching. And there’s one more thing. When we’re not having sex, could we get together and do other things? Talk, play cards, watch movies, normal things? Except not in a friendly way, more in a romantic way. Not lovey-dovey, I don’t mean that, I…”

  Words failing him, Rick shrugged. “D’you get what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah…think so. Sounds like you’re asking if I wanna be your boyfriend.”

  By this point, Rick looked so shy and flustered that Thomas felt like a prick for getting snotty with him. In all honesty, he didn’t know what to say. Rick was nice and funny, and for a guy of twenty-one, he was surprisingly generous in bed—far from the self-obsessed horndog Thomas had been expecting. He’d offered them all his mouth, and he kept stopping to check that they were still enjoying it. The problem was that he was nine years older than Rick.

  Thomas’s first boyfriend had been much older than he was, old enough to have known better than to seduce a lonely sixteen-year-old. Ever since Thomas had taken a good hard look at his first relationship in retrospect and realized how fucked-up it had been, he’d been on his guard. He’d slept around for years, but he never embarked on long-term relationships, the sort of relationships where feelings and shit got involved. And he never, ever broke his two golden rules: no virgins and no one more than five years younger. I’m a slut, he told himself with some degree of pride, but at least I’m a goddamn ethical slut.

  He liked the picture Rick was painting—card games and whatever—and the sex had been awesome, but boyfriends? What if he screwed up and scarred the kid for life?

  To keep the silence from stretching any longer, Thomas said in a light, joking voice, “Hey, kid, I don’t know how much I could teach you. As far as I could tell, you weren’t having any problems working all the ‘stuff’ out for yourself. I mean, that thing you did with your tongue, that was…”

  He trailed off. Rick’s throat was working, and his eyes were big and wet.

  Thomas, you asshat.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to be my…” Rick swallowed. “Really, it’s okay. I’m not a kid. If you want to leave it at being fuckbuddies, that’s cool. Or if you just want me to be there when the captain wants both of us there, that’s also…”

  With an impatient huff, Thomas grabbed a handful of Rick’s shirt and dragged him in for a bruising kiss. When they broke apart, he said, “Listen to me. I like you, asshole. I like you a lot. I don’t know if I want to be your boyfriend, or anyone’s boyfriend. I’m not good boyfriend material. But I do like you, and I’d like to get a chance to sleep with you again, whether or not the captain’s there with us. If you want to do other things now and then, we can do that.”

  Inch by inch, a grin made its way onto Rick’s face. Shit, Thomas thought. The tiny bastard was cute as a button.

  “Thanks, man,” Rick said. Then he launched himself forward and gave Thomas’s ribs a squeeze.

  “Don’t mention it,” Thomas said, gruffly, feeling his insides go gooey. “And any questions you want to ask about sex, you can ask me. I don’t know everything, but…”

  “Can I practice blowjobs on you?” Rick asked, his eyes bright and eager.

  Thomas’s eyebrow arched. “Wow, way to ruin the moment.”

  “Please, Thomas? You’ve seen the captain, he’s huge. It took me a hundred years to get him down, and Zachery’s is worse. You’re…um, you’re normal-sized. I think I could handle it.”

  Thomas snorted. “Great, so my cock is your version of training wheels. Look, we don’t have much time before the others notice we’re gone. How about this; I give you the fastest blowjob of your life, and you pay attention to what I’m doing so you can do it to me later when we’re back on the ship.”

  Thoughtfully, Rick said, “Fastest of my life? I don’t know about that. My girlfriend used to get me off in, like, two minutes.”

  “Challenge accepted,” said Thomas, and he slid to his knees.

  The suits were easy to unzip, and it was exhilarating knowing everyone else was a few hundred metres away, that they were hidden from view by the tree’s thick trunk and nothing else. Thomas made Rick lean back against the smooth bark and set to work.

  “Heh. Hope Antoine doesn’t see us,” Rick said. “He’d give us a lecture on…oh, fuck…on contaminating the natural ecosystem, or something…ah!”

  “’S a good point,” said Thomas, drawing back and lapping up a bead of precome. “Maybe we should stop.”

  The kid tried to kick him. “I will fuck you up, Meléndez. I swear to God…”

  Chuckling, Thomas took him back in again. He was a nice size, filling up Thomas’s mouth without it being uncomfortable, and he didn’t try to pull on Thomas’s hair, which was a plus. Thomas was proud of his hair.

  “Oh…oh, wow,” Rick gasped, his breath hitching.

  Thomas didn’t usually swallow, but he could imagine the face Antoine would make if he found out they’d left come all over his pristine new planet. So, he did his best, although a couple of droplets ended up running down his chin.

  Rick wriggled happily as Thomas licked him clean and zipped his suit up. “You are amazing at that. Seriously, did you take lessons?”

  “All down to practice,” Thomas said, rising to his feet and tweaking Rick’s nose. His own hard-on could wait until later, when they had time enough for him to judge how much Rick had remembered.

  “Thomas! Ricardo!”

  The captain’s voice, echoing like a foghorn across the plains, made them both jump. Exchanging a look, they scampered out from behind the tree and joined the rest of the crew as they continued on their way.

  Chapter Three

  Echo had never liked nature.

  He’d ended up working on The Prayer for one simple reason; the captain worked on The Prayer, and within five minutes of becoming acquainted with the captain, Echo had decided that he would follow him into hell. He had, however, come to love his work on a long-haul merchant space vessel in large part because it prevented him from ever having to go outdoors. Outdoors, as far as Echo was concerned, was a place you went when you had no alternative.

  He could have chosen to remain behind with the ship. His decision to do otherwise had been motivated by concern that the captain might need any number of small chores attended to in the course of the expedition. Who, for instance, would offer him water if he grew thirsty, or massage his temples if he got a headache, if Echo were not there?

  “What are you moping about?”

  For someone so fond of the sound of his own shrill voice, Antoine was remarkably good at sneaking up on people. When last Echo had checked, their first officer had been at the front, walking alongside the captain. Evidently, he had slowed his tread to fall into step with Echo, who had been bringing up the rear, and was now regarding him with his habitual critical squint.

  “You’re dragging your heels as though we’re en route to a pillory,” Antoine continued. “I wish you’d cheer up. You do realize that this is the most important thing that any of us has ever done, yes? We’re the first human beings to set foot on solid ground in this entire galaxy. If anyone on Earth knew about this, they’d name universities after us. In one stroke, we’ve pushed the human frontier farther than anyone in history. Aren’t you excited about that?”

  Echo made an apathetic gesture. He was hot and wished he’d thought to bring a hat to keep the sun out of his eyes.

  Antoine huffed, pulling him into a tight and rather clinical hug.

  “Is this helping?” he asked, a moment later.

  It was a peculiar trait for an extrovert, Echo reflected, but Antoine interacted with other human beings as though he’d read about friendship in a textbook and expected to have to a write an exam on the subject. In ans
wer to his question, Echo nodded and gave his shoulder a pat.

  “Here,” Antoine said, proffering a bottle of water. “Stay hydrated. It’s warmer than I expected.”

  Grateful, Echo swallowed two mouthfuls, increasing his stride as his did so to catch up with the rest of the crew. He was aware that Antoine’s awkward concern was rooted in the fact that Echo was the least physically fit member of the crew. Perhaps their beautiful first officer was wondering why Echo had come, if he was going to hold everyone up.

  “I’m glad you’re here, by the way,” Antoine said, oddly intuitive creature that he was. “You’re the only one of these clowns I can rely on. Half of them should be on a leash, the other half are too busy staring at our mighty leader’s rear to concentrate on where they’re going.”

  Echo’s lips twitched.

  Cocking his head and gazing ahead of them, Antoine added, “It’s not a bad rear, I suppose. The vain old idiot keeps it in good condition.”

  A small smile marred Echo’s blank expression. Antoine returned his attention to the surrounding landscape seemingly satisfied. Then he squealed like a ten-year-old. “Look! Look! Over there!”

  What had drawn his attention was a tree, no different from any of the surrounding trees. However, when Echo looked closer, he saw that it had one distinguishing feature; from its lower branches hung several swollen geoids, red-brown in color.

  “Fruit,” Antoine said, although his tone of voice would have been more appropriate for an utterance along the lines of “Hark! The grail!” He went up to one, peered at it, prodded it, and plucked it. “Four years of synthetic garbage and now we have fruit.”

  Echo sniffed it and found that it smelled a bit like pineapple and a bit like paint.

  “Obviously, we’ll have to run tests to determine whether they’re edible. But there you are. That’s something to be cheerful about, isn’t it?”

  He placed it in Echo’s hands, and they continued their march in peace.

  ✩✩✩

  Thomas. Zachery. Khali. Irene. Rick. Echo. Mehtab. Antoine… Wait, where is Antoine? Ah. There.

  The captain exhaled. Everyone accounted for. No casualties. Not yet, anyway.

  They’d made it to the mountain by midday, and the crew had settled down to exchange water canisters and eat some protein strips. A light breeze had picked up, and the sunlight was muted by threads of cloud. He wasn’t unduly concerned. While this region of the planet was host to ferocious storms two or three times a year, they’d timed their landing meticulously. The window of good weather would hold up for another week at least.

  While Antoine made contact with The Prayer and reported that all was well, Echo checked everyone’s breathing apparatus. It was a task the captain had assigned him in a fit of exasperation. Perhaps it was his way of apologizing for lagging behind the rest of the crew on their march, but Echo had been fussing over him ever since they’d stopped walking. Most of the time the captain was all too glad to have the younger man following in his shadow. But throughout the weeks they’d spent in the planet’s orbit, the captain had endured a bout of claustrophobia, stuck on his vessel with all those miles of ocean and grassland stretched out below him. Now that they were here, he wanted to savor the open space without anyone breathing over his shoulder.

  So, naturally, that was when Thomas wandered up. “Hey, Captain. Whatcha doing?”

  Oh, well, the captain sighed to himself. Discoursing with Thomas was never taxing. Of all the members of the captain’s newly fledged quintet, he was the most easygoing conversationalist.

  “Admiring the view,” he said, beckoning the younger man closer. “Tell me, Mister Meléndez, what do you see?”

  As Thomas came to stand beside him, the captain slid an arm around his waist. He liked to maintain a certain level of formality in front of the rest of the crew, but the memory of their recent tryst was in the forefront of his mind, and besides, Thomas smelled nice.

  “Not a lot. Nothing moving, at any rate,” Thomas replied, squinting into the distance. The mountain loomed overhead, its sides covered with the same grass and shrub that covered the plains, although higher up the slope the captain could discern a field of tangled vine-like things. The wildlife they’d encountered so far had been limited to tiny invertebrates moving through the soil, and a range of winged bugs, none larger than a fingernail.

  “Does that strike you as odd?” the captain asked him. “We’ve determined that the oceans are home to an abundance of life. That the land should be so starkly depleted seems incongruous.”

  Thomas scratched his head. “I’m not a biologist, but yeah, I guess it’s weird. Maybe the critters are all hiding.”

  “Maybe,” said the captain, rubbing his beard. Taking another look at Thomas, he added, “By the way, whose semen is that on your chin?”

  “What? Oh, Jesus,” Thomas mumbled, wiping it away. “That…that’s Rick’s.”

  “Honestly, Thomas. What would Antoine say?”

  “Sorry, captain.” Glancing over his shoulder, Thomas said in a quieter voice, “Maybe I could make it up to you?”

  His hand glided up the captain’s thigh to brush against his groin. With some difficulty, and much regret, the captain shook his head. “Later. I need to remain alert.”

  He ducked his head and licked up a spot of cum Thomas had missed. “To atone, you can go see if Antoine needs help with his samples.”

  Watching Thomas depart, the captain willed his erection to subside. Then he stepped up onto one of the smooth, white boulders dotting the plain at the base of the mountain. One hand shielding his eyes from the sunlight, he gazed out over the landscape and attempted once again to discern any moving shapes. After a few minutes of fruitless scrutiny, he moved to step back down, and as he did, a short but intense burst of pain issued forth from the middle of his back. He nearly screamed. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he kept still—dead still—until it had subsided, and then he carefully stepped down from the rock.

  Damn. Damn! Not now.

  Despite his crew’s apparent belief that he’d been formed in the primordial ooze and had spent his youth hunting the mammoth, the captain didn’t look a day older than forty—forty-five at most. Hardly ancient, given that the average lifespan of a human being living on a developed, well-governed planet was now two or three centuries. Like most people, when he’d hit thirty he’d started taking rejuvenation pills (a misnomer; they slowed, rather than reversed the ageing process), and had barely noticed any decline in his physical or mental prowess in all the decades since. Most of his men had no idea, though he would have told them if they’d asked him directly. As it stood, his true age was known only to Antoine, who had known him since long before he’d started the pills, and Echo, who used to regularly purchase them as one of the many hundreds of sundry chores he performed for the captain. He’d presented him with a new bottle on the day they’d set out for Pluto, four and a half years ago.

  Ever since their encounter with the enemy that had flung them countless light years from Earth, the captain had been rationing the pills. One a month instead of one every week, and even with such austerity he now had enough to last him another year at most. He was dreading life without them. Already, he’d begun to notice a range of ominous aches and pains—sometimes in his fingers, sometimes in his wrists. His eyesight was worse than it had been one year ago. But all those were minor irritants compared to his fucking back. For six months now, it had been betraying him on a regular basis, although not to the point of impeding his mobility.

  Not until now, anyway. Damn. He was still standing, but he wasn’t sure he could walk.

  With a growl of annoyance, he considered his options. He had two emergency pills in his suit. They’d allow him to get back to the ship without a stretcher. But he’d no desire for the crew to see their captain swallowing medication in the middle of a dangerous expedition. He wasn’t ashamed; he simply valued a degree of privacy in these matters. An unusual trait for a—to use Antoine’s charming termi
nology—“brazen whore,” but there it was.

  Surreptitiously, he glanced around. No one was looking his way at that moment. And…ah. There was a pile of boulders at the foot of the mountain, not twenty metres from where he now stood. If he could just get to it unaided, he could take the pills without being seen.

  Cautiously, he took a step forward, wincing as the pain flared again. It was bad—as bad as it had ever been—but it wasn’t insurmountable. A few more steps…

  When he was in the shade of the boulders, fully hidden from view, he relaxed a fraction. Cursing his body under his breath, he dug into his suit until he had located the tube containing his pills. He tipped one of them out into his hand, bracing himself for the taste.

  Both the tube and the pills flew out of his hands as something hand-like, but as strong as a steel cord, wrapped around his ankle. The ground gave way beneath his feet, and before he could even cry out, he plunged into darkness.

  Chapter Four

  “Hey, Zachery? You got a minute?”

  Zachery sat on the ground, watching a tiny ten-legged bug he’d coaxed onto the end of a finger scurry downward into his palm. Looking up, he found himself faced with another freakish-yet-cute thing, in the form of Rick.

  “Probably not. Why?” he drawled.

  “I sort of…um…wanted to talk.” The kid was hopping from foot to foot like he needed to go to the bathroom.

  Not so much a “kid,” really, Zachery corrected himself, liking the way Rick’s suit clung lovingly to every inch of his body. When they’d first met four and a half years ago, Rick had been the most dorky pipsqueak he’d ever laid eyes on. Zachary, being a natural born asshole, had had trouble taking him seriously, even when said pipsqueak had dealt him a vicious kick to the shin after being referred to as “the ship’s mascot.” Since then, Zachery had built up a decent reservoir of respect for the younger man; he was good at his job, and he didn’t stand for any bullshit, character traits Zachary valued above all others.