Mercury's Orbit

by Lia Black

  “Sorry, Merc. We’re doing this my way this time,” Sean said.

  Mercury had nearly gotten enough breath to say: I know, when it was stolen away by soft lips brushing against the small of his back, and a moment later, a warm tongue sliding between his buttocks. He gasped when it found the tight ring of muscle and pushed through, hot and wet inside of him.

  Mercury’s arms would no longer support his weight. He ended up with his shoulders down on the bed, his hands gripping the sheets as he moaned his pleasure into the pillow that smelled like Sean. The scent was an aphrodisiac. No one had ever managed to turn Mercury into a trembling, moaning mess—he never would have let them—but Sean had accomplished just that. This did not feel like take. This felt like Sean wanting to give pleasure, rather than wield it. It was something entirely foreign. The intensity of sensation and relief that maybe he was more, brought up a sob that stuck in Mercury’s throat.

  Sean sat back on his heels, wiping across his mouth with the back of his hand. “Roll over,” Sean said, his fingers drumming lightly across Mercury’s hip, sliding down his thigh as he turned. Their eyes met, and Sean’s stolid expression softened, melting into lines of concern. “Merc—?”

  “Precious…do I…do I matter?” Mercury’s eyes were stinging but he couldn’t determine why. He felt small, like the broken child tumbling from the crashed escape pod, hiding from the pouring rain. He’d seen the man, reached out to him, and had ended up with Dr. Edward. That’s what trust and vulnerability could do. That’s what it was doing to him now. Sean could destroy him now and it wouldn’t take much—just a word, or maybe no words, choosing to reduce him to something so small it couldn’t be seen.

  “I—Merc…” Sean hesitated, then laid down beside Mercury on the bed. It wasn’t graceful, and the grimace broadcast pain from his shoulder, but he did it anyway. “Right now, you are the one person who matters more than anything to me.”

  Mercury wanted to ask him about later, but his throat was tight and his vision was turning Sean’s features into smudges and smears of colors. He all ready knew the answer. There was no later. This was his last chance to know what it was like to be loved, even if Sean couldn’t be in love with him.

  He closed his eyes, sighing as unexplained tears ran down his temples, settling like cold dew in his ears. Sean kissed him on the mouth, his lips gentle this time, and his calloused fingers grazed a nipple on their descent to his waist. Mercury let himself be rolled over, gathered in. In Sean’s arms, he’d always found comfort, but he’d never before felt acceptance. He was broken. This was something Sean wouldn’t deny because it was the truth. But others, they refused to accept that as being part of him, or lied, pretending his damage didn’t exist at all. It made him angry, because he knew he had a head full of shattered glass, but it was his head, it was a part of him like his genetics, like the chambers of his heart.

  Ultimately, it left him lonely.

  Sean’s hand rested on his ass, squeezing lightly as he pulled Mercury deeper into the kiss. Mercury felt all of his blood moving through his veins, each cell tumbling through the network. He couldn’t keep track of where Sean was; as soon as he became aware of him on one part of his body, Sean was touching him somewhere else. Each sensation stacked upon the next, and the next, multiplying until Mercury began to worry that he’d snapped, and he’d be stuck in this cycle of never-ending pleasure, unable to find release. Relief settled onto Mercury as the weight of Sean’s body covered him. Sean kissed him again, his lips dragging hot and slow down his throat, and lower. He slid down, lips brushing skin all the way to his groin…a kiss to the side of his leaking cock that throbbed, trying to follow the sensation. But Sean was elusive, caressing with his mouth but not taking him inside. Mercury began to wonder if sucking cock was something he avoided, but then he was encased in wet heat as a slick finger pressed deeply inside of him. Mercury raised his hips, unable to control his own body as Sean curled his finger inside, finding that spot that had him falling apart. His brain was being bathed in pleasure chemistry—endorphins surging against opioid receptors. Even the burn when Sean pushed two, then three fingers inside traveled up through his core like a flame to gasoline. If this went on too much longer, Mercury knew pleasure would become panic. It may yet when he came down post-orgasm, because he had a feeling that it was going to be the most powerful one he’d had in his life. He’d let down his guard with Sean and Sean had found the maps of his body, following every one.

  A sound left Mercury’s chest, getting caught in his throat when Sean finally slid his cock inside of him.

  “Fuck…” Sean murmured, breathing heavily as he paused before he continued to press deeper. Mercury’s body obeyed as Sean adjusted its position, to keep him from having to use his arms for support. Sean went up on his knees, pulling Mercury’s leg up over his good shoulder as he began to move; first pulling out in one slow, steady draw, then pausing before he plunged back in, grinding his pubic bone against that sensitive spot behind Mercury’s balls.

  As the movements became more rapid, Sean stared down at him, holding his gaze—making it clear that he was in control, Sean was fucking him, but keeping Mercury present.

  A rolling wave of pleasure barreled through Mercury, building like an avalanche. He wanted to keep his eyes open, but it was impossible—everything was being drawn into the orgasm building where their bodies met. He saw a flickering behind his eyelids.

  “What the—?”

  Mercury opened his eyes to a shower of sparks as the bathroom light burned out.

  “Did you—?” Sean was still giving small, shallow thrusts of his hips, still keeping him on the edge.

  “Yes,” Mercury gasped. Well, that was new.

  Sean started laughing, and the sound vibrated through him, ricocheting off of every pleasure point. He must have felt it too, because the laughter faded, becoming a steady low chant of “fuck, fuck, fuck…” as Sean began thrusting harder, driving deeper.

  “Yes, harder,” Mercury gasped. He wanted to wear bruises inside of his body, carry the ache of this memory with him into his final moments.

  Sean turned his head, pressing his teeth into Mercury’s calf as he drove harder, deeper, until Mercury became dizzy. It was incredible and excruciating as the current buildup of pressure met the previous one and blew the clamps off. Mercury cried out as his orgasm ripped free. For a moment, he felt suspended in time—like he wasn’t part of anything. It was exhilarating and terrifying to lose so much control, and then every muscle locked, and the existence of the universe spiraled down into the area between his legs. He came, his ejaculate spurting hot across his abdomen and chest.

  “Jeezus—” Sean grunted and slammed into him one last time, pushing so deeply it was as if he was trying to fit his entire body inside. Mercury felt each throb of Sean’s cock as he filled his insides. When his orgasm subsided, Sean brought Mercury’s legs down, still remaining inside, and dropped limp and heavy atop his body. He was breathing heavily, heat rising from his skin. Mercury felt his lips and the scratch of his beard on his neck, and for some reason it made him feel like crying. He wrapped his arms around Sean’s body, hugging him, wanting him to stay close. Normally after sex, Mercury kicked the man-of-the-moment or his current interest out of his room and retreated to the sanctity of his shower. But this was different, and it was heartbreaking. He didn’t know if the sex felt so different because it was Sean, or because of the certainty that this would all end too soon.

  33

  It had been three days now since Mercury had come to the hotel. Sean had worried at first that it was unwise of Mercury to stay in one place, but Mercury assured him that the military and station guards were tied up with events below. They’d had a lot of sex, making up for the time spent arguing before. Sean hadn’t craved a man’s body like this since Evan…no, it was even more powerful than that. Sex with Evan had been amazing but cooperative. Sex with Mercury was more like lion-taming. Any time he sensed Mercury heading back into his habit of
trying to take control by using his body as a weapon of pleasure, Sean would knock him off-balance by turning that weapon against him. Sometimes all it took was a tender touch, sometimes it required tonging his ass and cock until he was a twitching, mumbling mess. Maybe it was unhealthy to enjoy that as much as he did, but Sean liked knowing the held the tiger’s leash. It seemed that after sex was the one time that Mercury became emotional. Their first time he had cried, and as concerning as it was, something told Sean to accept it without drawing attention to it. He’d held Mercury and kissed him, touched him in ways that seemed to soothe him. Maybe it was because he knew their time was finite—that in a few days, Mercury would be on his suicide mission and Sean would have to be doing the best he could to figure out what remained of his life.

  They’d ordered room service a few times. Sean knew better than to ask how Mercury was footing the bill. He’d either get the truth or a convenient change in subject and neither one would have made a difference. Just like with the blood on Mercury’s clothes, or questions about where he’d been and what he’d been doing the last several days. The answers didn’t matter.

  Sean took vitamins and electrolyte tablets to help keep from getting worn out and to keep his shoulder on the mend. Every six hours or so, Mercury pumped his own veins full of narcotics. Although it was troubling that Mercury had to resort to such extreme measures to keep his brain under relative control, the least Sean could do was to make sure he was eating despite the drug’s appetite-curbing side effects.

  “Where did you get that?” Sean asked as Mercury finished emptying a syringe into a vein under his jaw and set it aside on the nightstand.

  “Underbridge—the community in the lower holds,” Mercury answered. “There’s a man down there. Used to be a pharmacist.”

  Sean was familiar with Underbridge and places like it. During that earlier drug investigation when he was still a cop, seeing it had been an eye-opening experience. It was an overwhelming network of crime and criminal contacts, so he wasn’t the least bit surprised that Mercury had found himself a good chemist. Still, as good as the chemist might be, Sean knew there was no way to fix Mercury completely. He was okay with that; he was getting used to the forays into Flutterby Forest and Mercury’s occasionally obsessive and narcissistic behaviors. It was the headaches and Mercury’s blood rages that worried him. The drugs seemed to help, so Sean wouldn’t balk when Mercury shot himself up with enough chemistry to make ten grown men hallucinate for days. They seemed to have the opposite effect on Mercury. The drugs helped him focus; when combined with sex and sugar, Mercury was subdued and sounded almost sane.

  “Tell me about Evan. Where did you meet him?” Mercury’s change in topics was something Sean could bet on and always come out a winner.

  “Why do you want to know that?” Sean chuffed, holding Mercury as he settled back beside him.

  “Call it lover’s rivalry. I want to know how I compare.”

  “Merc, you and Evan are like night and day in different galaxies,” Sean said, but saw no real harm in answering the strange question. “Evan and I met at a CSD processing facility, of all places.”

  Mercury perked up his head. “Was he a criminal?”

  “Not hardly. He was—is—an attorney. Back then he was pretty fresh out of law school and was working for the DA’s office, defending indigent suspects so they could have a fair shake in court.”

  “That seems very noble of him.”

  Sean shrugged one shoulder—the one Mercury had his head on—making it bob slightly. “I guess. It’s just been a law on our books for centuries. Even when all the evidence points towards guilt, the accused still has the right to have somebody at least explaining to them what it all means…making sure they are treated fairly.” As he said the words, it brought his mind back around to his earlier speculation that Mercury’s trial had been rushed. He wasn’t even certain Mercury was conscious for it after being shot and losing so much blood. Knowing what he knew now about many of the people involved in Mercury’s criminal proceedings, it didn’t seem likely he’d had a trial at all. Luna Max had just been a holding cell until he could be handed over to Sol Labs.

  Mercury didn’t mention anything about his own trial and continued his line of questioning. “Let me guess, you ended it when he got a criminal you had been pursuing for years off on a technicality.”

  “Nothing so simple,” Sean sighed. “He wanted to have kids.”

  “You didn’t?” Mercury asked.

  Sean shook his head. “No. I’m not a nurturer. I’m not good at taking care of fragile things.”

  “But you are very loyal.”

  “I’d make a better dog than I would a parent, then.” Sean sat up, his body stiff from too much laying around after too much sex. His skin felt sticky and the bedding needed changing, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he was gone too long from Mercury’s line of sight, Mercury might just disappear. As crazy as it seemed, Mercury, with his vast array of emotional instabilities, was the most solid and stable thing in Sean’s life right now. “Come shower with me?” he offered, glancing over his shoulder at Mercury.

  “Of course.” Mercury got out of bed, following him to the bathroom.

  Without preamble, they entered the steaming cubicle and Mercury kissed Sean, forcing his back against the glass wall. Even with the drugs, Mercury seemed to keep coming back to sex, and Sean willingly went with him. He wondered if it was the same poor coping skill that he used—fucking instead of talking. Trying to ignore imminent problems or difficult things by smothering them in a post-orgasmic haze. But Sean didn’t have the stamina to go another round right now, and he felt the heavy weight of dread settling upon him. Mercury’s future without him was predetermined. But his own future was chaos. He had no idea what to grab onto when the ship finally ran aground.

  If Sean went back to Earth, he wouldn’t even have a job to go back to. His work had been his compulsive habit, something to keep him from becoming a complete hermit. At work he could joke with his squad and peers, all the while realizing how empty his life was—how empty their lives most likely were as well. People often referred to police work as a lifestyle—they probably had no idea just how true that was.

  Mercury pressed a lingering kiss to Sean’s temple. “I have something I need to do before I go find my father. I’ll come back as soon as I’m able.”

  Once again, Sean didn’t ask what it was. Knowing wouldn’t change anything. “You’re leaving again?”

  “I have to make preparations. I won’t be back for several days.”

  Sean’s expression must have clued him in to what was going on in his mind, because Mercury gave him a little pout and held his face between his cool hands.

  “I’ll still be on the port, but please don’t try to find me. You will not be successful.”

  “How long?” Despite the water flowing over them, Sean’s throat felt dry.

  “Maybe three days.”

  Sean was all ready aware that Mercury had been stepping out while he’d slept. He’d woken up a few times, tangled in REM sleep with a sensation of emptiness all around, and tried to fool himself into believing that Mercury was just in the bathroom. Every morning so far, he’d open his eyes to find Mercury beside him—Sean holding him, or being held in Mercury’s arms—making it easy to deny that Mercury had left at all.

  But he couldn’t deny this.

  Sean pulled Mercury closer, feeling the way their bodies fit together under the warm spray. He just wanted to stand here, like this, for as long as he could, because despite what Mercury had said, Sean had a feeling that he might not keep his promise to return.

  “There is something in my head,” Mercury said softly, laying his head on Sean’s shoulder. “I’ve seen it.”

  “Something in your brain?”

  He felt the movement of Mercury’s head as he nodded.

  “It looks like a data chip. Sol doesn’t want me. Only what’s on the chip.”

  Mercury’s earlier
questioning about whether he mattered now made more sense.

  “This thing in your brain… earlier you talked about being the recipe. Do you think that’s what’s on that chip? Your blueprint? Your father’s research?”

  “I don’t know. It could be.”

  If Dr. Frederickson Sol was still alive, and mentally aware, why would Sol Labs be making such a huge effort to capture Mercury? The recipe might not be perfect, but Sol would have his memories to guide him. It was something Sean hadn’t really ever thought about before; but Sol Labs had been around for decades. It could be possible that Dr. Frederickson Sol was dead, and may have been for some time. “Have you ever met your father?”

  Mercury was silent for a moment, as though he was sifting through memories. Finally he said, “Well I must have, he’s my father.”

  “What if…what if your father wasn’t alive anymore?”

  Mercury leaned up on one arm, his gaze moving over Sean’s face. A little smile tugged at his lips, hiding a frown, but his forehead was lined, his eyebrows pulled too high, arched the wrong way, and his eyes were distant, cold. “That’s silly. It would mean that I have no destiny to fulfill, and everyone knows a life without purpose is pointless.”

  “What about finding a new purpose?” Sean offered. He touched Mercury’s cheek, hoping he might understand the meaning behind the gesture. Something Sean was too chicken-shit to explain.

  “Like what? This is what I have worked for. This has a known end point. Anything else is too far out of my control. I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen next.”

  “But isn’t that part of an adventure?” Sean was grasping at straws, trying to fight Mercury’s logical answers with passionate ones and knowing he had no hope of changing his mind. Even if Sol was dead, it seemed Mercury would not be swayed from his path of destruction.

  “Precious, an adventure is only an adventure if you have a place to call home.”