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The Eridian biodome was a masterpiece of benevolent alien engineering. An idyllic, impossible beach cupped between soaring limestone cliffs, complete with an arch of rock that perfectly captured the idle background of his laptop. And fog. Glorious, early-morning fog, cool and damp and salty on the artificial breeze. A tailor-made paradise. It was the galaxy’s most luxurious, most solitary retirement home.
Or it had been, until he’d arrived. His neighbor. Rescued from an unimaginable horror and dropped into Grace’s lap like an abused dog from the pound. Gruff, aggressive, clearly traumatized.
They steered clear of each other, for the most part. Once it became clear that they did not like each other, each tolerated the other’s presence only when necessary. Simon’s cottage was built as far from the beach as possible. His tree was the only plant life in the dome (the Eridians were still working on making any of their native plants compatible with the human-safe atmosphere), but Grace did not go near it.
The beach was his domain, and the tree, Simon’s. That was fine by him.
Grace started his morning climb leisurely. Simon was still asleep; Grace could tell by the blacked-out windows of his cottage when it came into view. He had become an early riser for exactly this purpose: to exercise without a pair of black eyes watching him, mouth turned up at the corner in a sneer.
Finally, after several breaks, he stood atop the highest cliff, panting. The strange, six-sided sand granules clung to his bare feet as he curled his toes around the rough texture of the rockface. The air tasted clean, with none of the metallic tang of recycled ship-air. Just… air. He’d spent months exploring every inch of his gilded cage, and this was his favorite spot. He could sit here for hours with the air and the sound of the waves. Or…
Peace was wonderful, but it was also monotonous. Sometimes, Grace needed a jolt. A variable.
With a whoop that was swallowed by the gentle sigh of the waves, he launched himself into the air. For a glorious three seconds, he was flying—weightless, despite 2 Gs of gravity. The wind rushed past his ears, the artificial sun blurred into a smear of pastel light, and then the water, shockingly cool, enveloped him as he shot down, down, down.
He opened his eyes underwater, watching the wave-maker zoom beneath him, its propeller spinning as it raced along its track. Such genius engineering. Everything in the dome was a true marvel. All for him, one squishy, leaky human.
He surfaced with a sputtering laugh, shaking wet hair from his eyes. The splashdown had been perfect. Invigorating. A good morning jump never ceased to bring him that rush of endorphins. He trod water for a moment, savoring the feeling, before turning back to shore.
That’s when he saw him. Simon. He was thrashing his way into the surf, his face a mask of raw panic. He was using his arm to claw at the water with a desperate urgency, and then dove into the water, splashing clumsily.
Grace wiped the water from his eyes with one hand. That was new. He’d never seen Simon swim before. In fact, he had heard the man curse the waves with a string of colorful profanities and toss handfuls of sand at the water. The man has issues, about water. About drowning.
Oh.
A hand reached out and grabbed Grace’s arm like a vice. “Got you,” Simon gasped, his voice ragged as he resurfaced. Their bodies were closer than they had been since the day they met, when Simon had lunged for Grace’s throat, screaming in fury and terror. “I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.”
His wild, dark eyes were locked on Grace, and his expression was terrifying. He started hauling Grace toward the beach, his movements clumsy and panicked. Grace, caught completely off guard, was too stunned to resist at first.
“What are you doing?” Grace finally managed, trying to wrench his arm free. “Let go of me!”
“Shut up and kick!” Simon snarled, not looking at him, his focus entirely on reaching the sand, as if a leviathan were snapping at his heels.
They tumbled onto the shore in a heap of tangled limbs and sputtering curses—mostly from Simon, though Grace threw out the occasional ‘darn’ and ‘crap’. Grace pushed himself up and away from the man who was now collapsed on the beach, gasping for air, his whole body trembling.
“I was having a swim,” Grace said, aiming for calm and coming across high-pitched and breathless. “A perfectly nice, recreational swim. What part of that looked like I needed to be rescued?”
Simon pushed himself into a sitting position, wiping long, wet black hair from his face.
“Don’t bullshit me,” he rasped, his chest still heaving. “I saw you. You jumped off a fucking cliff.”
Grace’s anger deflated, replaced by a wave of pity so intense it felt like nausea. He saw the trauma clinging to this man like a second skin, the ghosts swimming in his dark eyes. But the pity was quickly followed by a fresh surge of irritation. He hadn’t saved two planets just to be treated like a fragile, suicidal specimen.
“You thought I was trying to kill myself? Here? In paradise?”
Simon let out a harsh, barking laugh.
“Paradise looks different when you’ve been in hell,” he shot back, getting to his feet. He was shaking, whether from cold or rage, Grace couldn’t tell. “Fuck you, I tried to do a nice thing. You should be grateful I just risked my life to save your ungrateful ass!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Grace snapped, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. It was a tone he hadn’t used since one particularly trying eighth-grade class had gotten on his last nerve. “What do you want, a medal for your heroic efforts? Should I get on my knees and thank you? ‘Oh my hero, please let me blow you as a reward’?”
The words hung in the air between them, shocking them both into silence. Grace couldn’t believe he’d said that. Cheese on crackers, that was crass. He certainly never said anything of the kind in front of students, no matter how steamed they made him. Something about Simon just drove him up the wall. If there was ever a time to use profanity, it was when speaking with this delinquent oaf.
Simon stared at him, his mouth slightly agape. A dozen emotions flickered across his face—shock, anger, confusion, and then something else, something dark and unreadable. A slow, humourless smirk spread across his lips.
“Would be nice.”
Grace felt the world tilt. It was a bluff. It had to be. A crude deflection from a broken man. But the challenge was there, the look. Simon wanted him to back down, to be the mild-mannered schoolteacher. In that moment, staring up at Simon, Ryland Grace felt a reckless, self-destructive impulse he hadn’t felt in years. He was so tired of being patient, of being understanding. He wanted to push back. He wanted to see what would happen if he called the bluff.
“Fine.” Grace pulled himself up onto his knees and settled back against his heels.
The smirk vanished from Simon’s face, replaced by a look of stunned disbelief.
“What?”
“I said, ‘fine’,” Grace repeated. He felt a strange, cold calm settle over him. “Whip it out. Go on.”
Staying still, his knees sinking into the soft sand, was the most aggressive move he could have made. Simon didn’t move. He didn’t turn around and strut off back to his cottage like Grace expected. Nor did he start cursing him out, or shove him, or have any reaction at all.
“Pants,” Grace said, his voice flattening with annoyance, “tend to get in the way of a blowjob.”
The word (one Grace didn’t particularly like) seemed to jog something in Simon’s brain. His mouth opened as if to say something, then snapped shut. He nodded once. Then, with a jerky, angry motion, he fumbled with the button and fly of his worn fatigues. He shoved them down, kicking them aside into a heap on the sand.
Grace bit his lip. Simon was already semi-hard. His cock jutted from a thatch of black pubic hair, the perfect example of cis masculinity. Grace was relieved to see it was perfectly normal. A part of him—the part that had seen Simon’s mangled, bloody stump of a shoulder, had treated his radiation burns and other injuries—had worried that he might be scarred here, too. He wouldn’t have known what to do, then.
He hated himself for the thought the moment it surfaced. It wasn’t like Grace’s junk was standard-issue. What would he have done? Flinched? Hesitated? Something dark twisted in his gut. He, of all people, had no right to judge anyone’s body.
“Are you actually gonna…?”
Oh, right. He was staring. How rude of him. Simon was digging one toe into the wet sand, his hand flexing at his side.
“Yes.”
Grace didn’t hesitate. He leaned forward, took him in hand, and then into his mouth.
Simon flinched, his whole body going rigid, his hand instinctively coming up as if to push him away. But Grace didn’t stop. He held Simon’s gaze, his eyes half-lidded, and slowly, deliberately, drew him deeper.
And then, something inside Grace shifted. The anger, the spite, the reckless need to call Simon’s bluff—it all melted away, replaced by a purer, simpler impulse. The hypothesis was simple: he enjoyed this. The reality of it, the mechanics, the act of giving this specific, all-consuming pleasure.
He had missed this. The smell of another human. The taste of skin, the warmth, the weight of it on his tongue. He had always had an oral fixation, had loved going down on anyone who would let him. He had always been a bit… awkward, about sex.
He let go of any pretense of this being a chore and hummed with pleasure, his other hand settling against Simon’s tanned thigh. The skin there was scarred, its texture uneven under his palm.
Simon let out a strangled noise, his fists clenching in the air beside him, like he wanted to grab Grace’s hair, but refrained. Grace laved the sensitive head with his tongue, traced the thick ridge of the corona, and then took him as deep as he could, his throat muscles contracting.
“Fuck!”
Simon’s hips jerked a little, pressing the head of his cock further down Grace’s throat. It slid in easily, and Grace had a flash of memory, of being roughly face-fucked by a friend in college. The memory was fleeting, gone as fast as it had come. But he had liked it.
Grabbing both of Simon’s thighs, Grace relaxed and blinked his wet lashes up at Simon. Giving him permission, he hoped. Visual confirmation of consent. Go on, he thought, pressing his face further into Simon’s pubic bone.
A low, guttural sound was torn from Simon’s throat, an involuntary noise. His hand, which had been hovering near Grace’s head, finally made the leap to tangle in his hair. It wasn’t a gentle grip. It was tight, desperate, his knuckles white. He was holding on for dear life.
Grace felt a thrill of victory, of pure, unadulterated power. He worked faster, his head bobbing in a steady, merciless rhythm, his mouth slick and greedy. He could feel Simon’s climax building, the way his hips began to buck, a frantic, helpless rhythm.
Simon’s breath was coming in harsh, ragged pants. His eyes were squeezed shut, his face a mask of agony and ecstasy. He was losing control.
“Don’t,” Simon gasped, his voice a strangled plea.
It was probably a ‘don’t stop’ kind of noise, but Grace couldn’t take the chance. Yes was yes but no could look like anything. He pulled back with a wet sound, a string of spittle connecting his mouth to the flushed head of Simon’s cock.
“Don’t what?” he panted, his hands squeezing Simon’s thighs. The thick, corded muscle was trembling under his hands.
Simon whimpered, his hips stuttering forward. The head of his cock pressed against Grace’s closed lips before glancing off and sliding across his cheek.
“C’mon,” the man said finally.
Verbal consent. Grace nodded, his mouth falling back open as Simon guided himself back into its wet heat.
The brief pause, the ragged plea from Simon, had shifted the entire dynamic. This was no longer a dare; it was a desperate, mutual need. Grace’s own body, long dormant and neglected, roared to life.
A low moan rumbled in Grace’s chest, a sound of pure, selfish pleasure. He began to rock on his heels, a slow, rhythmic motion that ground his groin against his foot. A jolt of pleasure, sharp and distinct, shot through him. He could feel his own small cock, hard and aching, rubbing against the rough fabric of his shorts. Below, a familiar, welcome heat bloomed, and he felt a slick wetness begin to gather, a testament to his own arousal that he had almost forgotten was possible.
He was lost in it, in the rhythm of his own pleasure and the steady thrust of Simon’s hips. He was making a mess, making noise, and he didn’t care. Grace lapped and sucked greedily, chasing the frantic shudder of Simon’s thighs, the tightening in his stomach.
His own hips moved with more urgency, a small, rocking circle that was entirely for his own benefit. He imagined the wetness soaking through his wet clothes, mixing with the saltwater and sand. The thought was humiliating and intensely arousing.
He could taste the tang of pre-cum, and it spurred him on, a signal that the end was near. He wanted to drain him, to take everything. He took Simon’s cock deeply, swallowing him down to the base, his throat muscles clenching tight right as the first powerful pulse of Simon’s orgasm hit. The release was violent, a hot, copious flood that filled his mouth. Grace swallowed, taking every last drop until Simon’s body went limp, his hand falling away from Grace’s hair as a final, shuddering groan escaped his lips.
The taste wasn’t unpleasant, especially after choking down coma-slurry and Taumoeba. More nutritious, too, his brain supplied. Nearly as much protein as half an egg white, plus trace amounts of calcium, vitamin C, potassium. (Why did he know that?) After everything, the taste of another person was so overwhelming it made his eyes water.
Grace stayed still for a moment, his cheek resting against Simon’s damp thigh, the sound of their breathing and the crashing waves filling the silence. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a profound, aching hollowness. He felt exposed. He had just shown this angry, broken man a part of himself—the hungry, needy part—that few had ever seen. Slowly, he pulled back and rose to his feet, feeling unsteady.
Simon didn’t look at him. He was staring out at the impossible turquoise sea, his hand covering his mouth, his chest heaving. After another moment, he fumbled blindly for his pants, hauling them up with shaky, uncoordinated movements. He didn’t say thank you.
“Did you, uh…” he grunted, and Grace wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Swallow? Yeah.” Grace wiped his mouth with his wrist, smirking. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m not gonna…” Simon made a vague gesture toward Grace’s crotch, still not looking at him.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
And without any further rambling or awkward pillow-talk (beach talk?) he began the short walk back to his cottage on the bluff. His smirk fell away not five steps into the walk. There was no victory here. Just two incredibly lonely, broken people thrown into each other. He didn’t look back at the man on the beach. He tried to ignore the heat pooling between his legs and the deep sense of emptiness burrowing there, calling out to be filled.