by Jenn Burke
“Never was,” Zed admitted. He drew in a shaky breath, then forged onward. “I hardly noticed at first because the episodes lasted a couple of seconds at most. Now they’re getting longer.”
“You need to talk with Fixer.”
“And say what? ‘I’m sorry my brain is giving out’?” He scoffed. “Talking about it isn’t going to change anything, Ness. It’ll just make it real.”
“It is real. Honey, you can’t hide this from him.”
“I’m not trying to hide it from him, I just—” Zed speared his fingers through his hair and tugged. Trying to come up with the right words to explain what he was thinking shouldn’t be this hard. “It’s going to be slow, and it’s going to be painful, and I want to avoid seeing…that in his eyes for weeks, okay?”
“What?”
“Pity.” Zed sighed. “Maybe I should just…go.” Get off the ship somewhere and disappear. That had been his original plan after the AEF tossed him and his team aside like so much garbage—lie low, fade into nothing, wait for the end. It had its appeal.
“Like hell!” Nessa glared at him, her fiery red curls bouncing with her ire. “We are a crew. We’ve stood by you and we’ll be damned if you throw that loyalty aside just because it’s inconvenient to your pride.” She tugged his fingers out of their fist and intertwined their hands. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle. “It’s not going to be easy on any of us, let alone you and Fixer. But we’ve got your back, Zed. Don’t ever doubt that.”
He nodded and squeezed her hand.
“Right.” Ness straightened but didn’t let go of him. “Eat your cake, then we’ll head to med bay. I want to do a full workup on you, get a baseline established, and then we’ll do follow-ups every couple of days to track progression.” Her eyes flashed with determination. “Maybe I can’t stop it, but I’ll be damned if I won’t try to slow it down.”
Zed’s smile felt weak and unstable. “Thanks.”
The fact she wanted to try, that had to count for something—but he doubted any of her efforts would make a difference.
Chapter Four
“Ready for that talk?” Zed stood precisely in the center of the engineering hatch. He’d probably planned it that way to make his direct and pointed question pointy, which was just like him—except, he’d been avoiding this point for days, so Ness must have told him to get on with it.
“Hold on.” Felix dabbed the joint between the two exposed circuits again, making sure he’d connected them properly, then lifted the microspecs from his eyes.
It had taken him months to build his first glove. This one would be completed sooner, but so much of the delicate work required more than one hand—and wasn’t that irony? From a disassembled pile of wallets, he’d been trying to fashion active fingertips—something that mimicked bio-implants without actually being implanted. J-space and cybernetics didn’t mix, but he could try to make his next glove smarter.
A part of him wanted to continue with his project. When he tinkered, his mind roamed free. He didn’t think; he actively sought the places between thought. The troughs between the waves. But he’d been the one pushing for a conversation, so ignoring Zed’s invitation would be counterproductive.
“Okay.” Felix pulled the specs from his head and set them aside, then made sure all his tools had been deactivated.
Zed caught him about the neck as he drew close and pulled him in for a quick kiss. Tucking a hand around the back of Zed’s hip, Felix leaned in. The subtle pressure parted Zed’s lips and the kiss immediately deepened. Idle thought ceased, replaced by sensation—warmth, the ever-present hint of need. Felix’s pulse ticked up and his skin prickled pleasantly as his blood stirred.
These were the best moments. The kisses that just happened—that could only happen with Zed, the only man he felt fully comfortable with. Kisses were intimate and personal. They were promises without words. And, really, who needed words? Felix’s tongue never got him into trouble when he was kissing.
Canting his hips forward, Felix rocked into Zed, nudging them both toward the wall. He used his fingers to steer Zed, guiding his hip away from the edge of the hatch. Zed’s fingers drifted up from his neck, skimming the back of his head. He murmured into the kiss. Felix knew what he was feeling—the soft bristle covering his shorn scalp. He’d been distracted by the tickle against his fingers more than once over the past few days. Tilting his head, Felix deepened the kiss further, the connection between them now essential. The warmth of Zed’s mouth, the slide of his tongue. The quiet breaths whispering between them. Heat rose from his skin, faintly scented.
“This isn’t talking.” Zed’s words washed across his mouth in a soft breeze.
Felix chased his lips. Nipped them softly. “This is better than talking.” He rocked his hips forward again, bringing his groin into contact with Zed’s. As suspected, a hard ridge met the bulge behind his fly. He pressed the palm of his right hand to Zed’s crotch and shivered as a groan reverberated through his chest.
Zed’s fingers trailed across his cheek. “I thought you wanted to talk.”
Right now, he didn’t. Suddenly and surely. The realization hit him physically, a blow to the solar plexus, a weird pain just behind. If they talked about Zed’s headaches, he’d learn what he didn’t really want to know. Nessa had already defined the horror, hadn’t she? After learning about the AEF’s experiments, she’d stated the obvious: Zed’s condition wasn’t sustainable. The headaches were just the beginning. Zed was being careful—he wasn’t pushing the envelope with chemical cocktails the way Emma had. But daily headaches had to be a symptom of his decline. How soon before he began blanking out?
Worse, how soon before he lost himself altogether?
Felix shook his head. “I changed my mind.” He couldn’t avoid it forever. But they didn’t have to talk about it right now. Not when he had his hand wrapped around the bulge at Zed’s crotch. “Day by day, right? That’s how we’re doing this, and today I don’t want to talk.”
Felix sucked on Zed’s lower lip, pulling it out before releasing it. Nipping the same lip, he closed his fingers around Zed’s erection. Zed’s eyelids fluttered down and his head dropped back with a soft thump. The smart fibers in Zed’s pants were working overtime, combating the heat emanating from his cock and the friction of Felix’s hand. The fabric twitched beneath his fingers, smoothing as he applied pressure. Zed groaned, the sound oddly breathy for being so deep.
Standing up on his toes, Felix made a bid for Zed’s mouth again. He started at his ear, tonguing the lobe, the dark hollow, then kissed his way along Zed’s jaw. “Let me make you feel good,” he whispered.
“You always make me feel good.”
Felix tasted his lips. “Then let me help you forget everything. Just for a while.” If Zed was going to go blank, it would be because Felix had sent him over the edge. Snagging his fingers in Zed’s belt, Felix tugged him away from the wall and encouraged him to turn around. “Hands on the wall.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
Felix could hear the smile in Zed’s voice. Moving in behind him, Felix ground forward, thrusting the aching hardness at his groin into Zed’s firm buttocks. His quarters were on the other side of engineering. A bed, lube, a door with a lock that would hold the rest of the galaxy at bay for long enough. The thrill of the more public space had caught him, though. He wanted to fight the fear knotting his gut with adventure, a hint of danger.
He pulled at the zipper on Zed’s pants and barely waited for it to ease down before tucking his fingers inside the placket. He traced the ridge of Zed’s cock, root to tip, and thumbed the damp spot on his shorts. “Already?”
With a groan, Zed rocked his hips, thrusting into Felix’s fingers. “Are you going to tease me, or get me off?”
“Tease.” Felix coasted his palm up and down the warm, fabric-covered length.
“Ass.”
“So they always say.” Felix snapped his hips forward again, enjoying the frustration of being trapped
in his own pants—and the way Zed’s cock pushed into his palm. Then he eased the waistband of Zed’s shorts down and wrapped his fingers around silky hot skin. Took a turn at groaning.
Zed hissed something that might have been a word. Sounded more like a groan. Felix extracted his hand for long enough to spit in his palm, then reached around to grab Zed’s cock again. He grasped the base, hand nesting in the folds of fabric. After a squeeze, he stroked upward, swiped his thumb over the head, collecting the bead of moisture he found there, and stroked down again. Repeat without the rinse. Again and again. Zed’s hips bumped forward and back. His groans echoed off the scarred metal bulkhead. Felix met every thrust with his hand and hips, grinding into Zed’s buttocks. He was going to make a mess in his pants. He didn’t care.
Heat spread beneath his fingers. Zed’s cock jerked as it hardened further. Felix squeezed and Zed’s breath hitched. Felix pressed his thumb to the slit again. Ringed his fingers just beneath the glans and gave a subtle twist. Stroked down to where Zed’s balls were caught in the press of fabric. Up again. Thrust forward, imagining himself buried inside his lover, the dark heat and exquisite pressure.
Zed climaxed with a shudder. His cock stiffened and jerked, warmth spilling across Felix’s fingers and no doubt making a mess of the wall. A grunt bounced back, a soft and strangled sound. Felix used Zed’s release to slick his palm, and kept stroking, driving his hips forward until friction and the press of Zed’s ass got him to the same point. He gripped Zed’s cock and held on while he came, shuddering and gasping. With his pants still securely fastened, his climax almost hurt, but the hint of pain seemed to drive the point of his pleasure higher. When his knees threatened to buckle, he curled his fingers into Zed’s flesh and held on just a bit tighter.
Zed whimpered quietly in response. Felix pressed his forehead between Zed’s shoulder blades and breathed in the funk of sweat and sex that the smart fibers hadn’t had a chance to deal with yet. As he came down from his high, the scent of Zed wrapped him in a warm embrace. Felix breathed deeply, as if he could gather the scent, store it somewhere inside him.
He let go of Zed’s softening cock and wrapped his hand around his torso. Hugged him from behind and rejected the idea he needed to store any of him. Zed was right there, right in front of him. As long as he had that, they didn’t really need to talk, did they?
*
Zed waited until the crew was asleep to head for the shower. His daily agenda wasn’t so full that he couldn’t sneak in a few minutes to wash during the day cycle, but he never knew when Flick or Ness or Elias would get the same idea. Qek didn’t bathe often—not with water, anyway. Apparently ashies preferred using a fine powder to scrub away grime or absorb oils or…damn, they’d talked about this over dinner once, but the details wouldn’t come to him. It wasn’t important information, but it was interesting and it was relevant. Zed always made a point of knowing his team, even if some of that knowledge was just pieces of trivia. He could fucking picture Qek clicking in amusement and contentment that her human crewmates were just as happy to learn about ashushk customs as she was to learn about humanity’s. But the words? Gone.
Maybe he was just tired. Maybe he should just forget this whole idea, turn around and crawl back into bed with Flick. Let the warmth and rhythm of another living, breathing person soothe away his worries.
Zed scrubbed a hand over his face. No, he had to know.
He shucked off his shorts and SFT and draped them and his towel over the half wall that delineated the shower area from the sinks. A wave of his hand called up the holo interface, where he selected the temperature and chose not to override the time limit for the water. Ten minutes would be long enough.
The water was hot, just shy of scalding. It felt good beating down on his scalp, tracing lines over his shoulders, across his pecs and down his abs and lower. His fingers followed the trail and curved around his flaccid dick. He caressed himself, calling to mind the kisses he’d shared with Flick only a few hours before—how heated they’d been, how absolutely perfect. Closing his eyes, he lost himself in the memories. Flick always smelled so damned good—metal and circuits, with a spicy tang that was unique to him. And the way he never hesitated to take charge, at least in the bedroom—or engineering—God, that made him hot.
Zed spread his legs and reached his free hand between them to tug at his balls. His cock was fully hard now, fully invested in the race to the finish line. He edged a finger behind his balls, stroking his perineum. The hint at ass play had his balls drawing up, drawing tight. No one had ever fucked him like Flick—filling him, possessing him, owning him…but caring for him too. Sex wasn’t just sex between them. Never had been. No matter how hot, no matter how good…
His finger brushed against his hole and he couldn’t help the soft whimper. So good, so—
Zed blinked at the shower. Water still beaded on the metal above the inactive holo interface, but the steam had dissipated—that and the fact that the holo was no longer asking him if he wanted to extend his shower, but had switched off, said that the water had been finished for…a while. He looked down, unsurprised to see his cock was flaccid again. There was no evidence of his climax on him or on the walls of the shower stall, but his vision was rainbow-hued, a sign from his fucked-up brain chemistry that he had, indeed, experienced an orgasm. Just like he had earlier, with Flick.
He couldn’t remember that, either.
Shivering, Zed restarted the shower with unsteady fingers. He angled his face upward so the not-quite-scalding water nipped at his cheeks. His head ached and his eyes burned, either from the water or the tears sneaking past his lashes, he didn’t know and didn’t care.
He’d hoped—he’d fucking prayed—that what had happened with Flick that afternoon had been a fluke. A mistake. Non-repeatable evidence of his deterioration.
Apparently not. Of all the things that could’ve been stolen from him before the end…
Chapter Five
Humanity’s colonies were few and far between. Venturing out into space had proven just how unique Earth was—so few planets had the necessary elements to be truly viable for human habitation. Too hot or too cold, too much water or not enough, strange chemicals in the atmosphere and so on. Sure, there were plenty of planetary establishments—mining companies, for instance, didn’t give a fuck if their workers had to wear three layers of heavy-duty SFT temperature-control gear, as long as they managed to pluck their quota of minerals from the rocks on a daily basis. True colonies, though, with families and farms were rarer than the number of solar systems in the galaxy would have you believe.
Particularly after the war.
Nine years ago, humanity’s territorial dispute with the belligerent stin—the bullies of the galaxy—had exploded into full-out aggression, leading to a devastating war that, despite ending half a year ago, still echoed across human space. Countless human lives had been lost, along with sixteen colonies and seven space stations. During the war, the ashushk had stood firm at humanity’s side—offering technological and moral support, but not much more. If the omnipresent Guardians had not stepped in to halt hostilities, the stin might eventually have made it all the way to Earth—a thought Zed tried not to dwell on.
Like many human colonies, Risus had not escaped the stin’s swath of destruction. There’d once been a space elevator extending from the surface to the small hovering space station in stationary orbit, but that had been shot to pieces, if Zed remembered his reports right. There’d been a fierce space battle above Risus as the AEF fought to prevent the stin from landing on the planet. Avoiding ground battles and the stin’s ability to phase-shift had been priority one, so the AEF had put everything into the fight. Eventually, they’d driven the stin away, one of the few clear, decisive victories of the war.
“Penny for your thoughts.” Flick nudged his shoulder and Zed glanced at him before turning back to the view outside the shuttle’s window.
No space elevator meant a turbulent, unpleasant ride
to the surface—all because Elias insisted on giving Qek the opportunity to see a real live human colony. Qek had become a pilot for just this purpose, to see all the stars and all the planets, inhabited or not. Inhabited would definitely be her preference, though. She always relished the opportunity to learn more about human culture. Fertilizer unloaded without a single mishap, they’d contacted the colony to secure payment. The colony’s reeve—Vinchy or something—had mentioned there was a local festival/feast thing happening that evening. The details had gone over Zed’s head but the clicks from Qek had drowned out all words for about fifteen minutes. So of course they had to go.
She was the only one happy about the impending visit. Her face was so wrinkled in anticipation that her large unblinking eyes were nearly invisible.
“I’m not really up for socializing,” Zed admitted.
“Tell me about it,” Flick grumbled.
Was that a comment on Flick’s own state of mind or Zed’s aloofness over the past couple of days? Since the shower that had revealed the truth to him, Zed had come to bed late and left early, allowing closeness only when Flick wouldn’t want anything more.
Guilt gnawed at his heart. He should tell Flick, tell him everything, but that would make it real. It would change how Flick looked at him, it would make him less in his eyes, and Zed…he couldn’t stand for that to happen.
“Hey.” Flick lifted a hand to rub Zed’s forehead gently. “Headache?”
“Always.” Zed sighed. The confession had just slipped out, its appearance lubricated by the truth—a low-level ache had set up residence between his temples and didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He held Flick’s gaze, wondering at his reaction. Would he rage? Zed had seen the sparks of anger before when he’d mentioned his pain or made reference to the project that had poisoned him. Right now, though, he didn’t have the energy to deal with it. He started to shift away from Flick, but Flick caught his shoulder.
