Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Life was indoors for most. In a building on the ground or in a shuttle in the quiet of space.

The atmosphere was often pungent with decay except indoors, and in outdoor lanes where fresh air was manufactured. Indoors, he accomplished great things in sports and teamwork. These practices were worthless, but he cared about them. He cared, today and all other days, which made him able to endure.

His first girlfriend was sweet to him. He picked her because it seemed he was supposed to. Most people wanted someone to hold when the fear got too strong, and she needed someone more than most. Random chance gave him a girl from a younger class who was soft and fussy, but smiled and was warm. It felt nice. Holding her felt like holding a kitten, and holding her made him feel strong.

The day her father came home while they studied together, he was not strong. His girlfriend’s father congratulated them on their physics work, wholly unaware of the true thoughts of the boy in front of him. He watched her father’s wide chest and biceps and stubble and lion-like blonde hair and every breath that moved shadows on his collar. He shook the man’s hand and melted.

‘Thanks so much for helping Hitoka with the terrarium lately, Hajime! I’m so glad my daughter found a guy like you. You know, we’ll be at the Forming Conference next week, too. They might like what you’ve got to contribute. Please come.’

No point in stopping, denying. He had wondered before, but now he knew. “Please come,” he had said, his welcoming hand gripping Hajime’s shoulder. Please come. ‘Oh, Christ.’

That night he kissed her goodbye and did not think of her after that. His parents were away and he was a cadet with his own spacious, elevated room besides, so no point in hiding the noise. He lay by himself in bed, gasping. He touched himself unabashedly to the sound in his head of his girlfriend’s father. His head was thrown back, his shirt pulled up to his throat so he might pretend the older man had frantically moved it himself, to touch him and have him while his parents couldn't see, which he acted out for half the night. He lay on his back, on his stomach, found pleasure almost everywhere. He felt like a kitten, being held.

He went to the Forming Conference the next week, thinking vaguely of the Yachi family and the best sprouts in his terrariums. He stood half-dazed in the crowd when a man came barreling through shrieking about engines. He knew. Everyone knew.

Before the man had been tackled, someone had started playing stitched-together videos on one of the big screens. The terraforming engines in Shanghai were on fire, all of them. Their newest Traveler in space above was half-dark. A reading from the Atmosphere Center showed lights at the edge of the Centauri system blinking out. Darkness coming closer, and the newest vehicle for off-Earth travel destroyed. Hitoka fled the room.

‘Oh Chriiiiiisst,’ said Tendou the next day, because he watched endless American dramas. Hajime frowned, angry instead of scared, because Ushijima wasn’t here to yank the mouthy redhead down. ‘My dad helped make the electric wiring on some of those. They were the best. Maybe I’ll end up taking a pill after all, whatcha think, Iwa-chan?’

Hajime told him he didn’t know yet. Only Tendou talked about the pills so easily. Hajime steered the conversation to his progress in the plant lab, which at least Ohira appreciated. They played a game the next day. Shirabu worked with him and Ushijima both for once. They almost won.

‘Hajime, do you want to…turn the lights out?’ No. But he did what Hitoka asked. She was scared, and he was needed. 

He did what he thought she might want. Things he’d read about just in case. Once her skirt was off, he mouthed and licked over the center of her panties, to make vibrations, to playfully tease. She shrieked before and after the panties were off, so she did like it. He liked her returning the favor. She kissed him on his collarbone and lay relaxed and warm against him and was happy to be with him. He liked her. 

The next week Hitoka and her parents were gone for Shanghai to be involved with the rebuilding of the terraforming engines. He worried for her in a city so crowded, where all the most desperate were. No kiss goodbye, either. Just memories of her, and a picture he kept of her father.

He graduated. A planet far away broke into pieces. His parents were forlorn, like always. It didn’t feel like this when they were young, they said. There was more hope about the situation then.

‘Nobody burned the fucking shuttles or sabotaged each other’s Travelers back then,’ his father cursed, with no energy at all. ‘Useless little cunts. Already gave up. And they want to drag everyone with them. They deserve to be stoned to death. Fuck ‘em all.’

‘You want tea, Hajime?’ and he told his mother he did. They sat at the table reading, staring, drinking tea together. He hugged them goodnight while they sat there.

Hajime went into space just after turning eighteen. Ushijima was with him, who had been at least ten times by then. Even in the rocket, perpendicular to the ground and watching the entire earth run away from them, he did not waver or show fear.

Hajime did feel fear, but he sought to emulate his captain. When his fear covered all else, he adhered to protocol. All cadets knew protocol like the touch of their own hands. True navigators knew it even better. Ushijima was a master of it; Hajime followed in his example. He monitored the rocket’s instruments as they ascended. He stopped gritting his teeth and settled his breath.

The ascension ended. Ushijima unstrapped him and he floated out of the seat, just like his classes told him he would.

‘Ready for your first spacewalk?’ his old captain asked, extending a hand. Hajime said he was.

He strapped on the additional gear himself, the small air jets to control your motion and trajectory, but Ushijima assisted with his helmet.

Ushijima floated in the empty atmosphere with him on his first spacewalk. They looked down at the rounded earth, at thousands of miles of life. Beyond it, the infinite dark.

They set their hands on each other’s shoulders and laughed while they floated, surrounded by absolutely nothing. The captain of the mission took a picture while they smiled; Hajime asked him to send one to his mother.

Afterward, the captain floated next to them while the other navigators floated away. Ushijima’s expression bid Hajime to be quiet. Over the radio channel he thought he didn’t have access to, the captain told them what every person on the finite planet knew: there was not enough space or resources in all the Travelers for three billion people. Not even one.

The majority of space on a Traveler, even on the small shuttles, was for supplies and equipment and comforts. Some Travelers and shuttles held resources only and were meant to follow the populated ones. But cadets and astronauts, necessary to run them, had a seat guaranteed for themselves and two others.

Hajime’s expression on the descent back to earth was dark-eyed and far away, just like Ushijima’s. He wondered how long his old friend had known. How he could possibly speak to anyone on the ground who expected a seat, to civilians with no astronaut ties. How he would decide how to feel about it. It was only by chance he became a cadet in the first place. Only by chance had the faraway enemies spotted Earth thirty years before and changed their course to head towards it. By chance, they might all die anyway.

‘I’m taking my dad with me,’ Ushijima said. Outside there was heat blazing around all the windows as they entered the atmosphere once more. It painted his still face with flickering fire. ‘And he’ll probably want to take my mother. So she’ll have to be my second.’

They had known each other since the high school cadet academy started. It was four long years that Ushijima’s family matters remained in the dark. Iwaizumi decided to reach out again and ask about his mother, about why he pulled so far away from her. The question made Ushijima quiet. And he quietly refused to answer.

‘Iwaizumi, if you haven’t picked who you’re taking yet, don’t worry over it. There’s plenty of time left,’ he said instead. Hajime spoke his true feelings to him and said that he knew he would not be taking his parents. Ushijima held his eyes. 

Once they were on the ground they inhaled the warm summer air of the earth. They felt the breeze drying their sweat as they looked at each other. Wakatoshi embraced him.

Hajime pressed his face into that shoulder for as long as he dared. When he had to pull away, they still walked close to each other, shoulders bumping softly. They walked next to each other for a bit, before the captain was taken away on urgent matters and Hajime had to watch him leave. 

The day after that landing, four planets were smothered in a black matter and then broken apart into melting rock. Something moved in outer space in a straight line towards them, as it had been for almost thirty years. It came from beyond Centauri. But from that day forward, it advanced faster than light. The earth was finite. Humanity shrieked for its life.

Above many nations’ airspace floated their Travelers: ships built in space over a decade or more that would last many decades. Far below on the ground were shuttles, which carried either tiny populations or merely ferried passengers on short trips from the ground to the Travelers in space. Whatever was coming towards Earth wouldn’t arrive for almost three years, but already the populace was on the move to claim their seats or to relocate prematurely.

Meanwhile, the cadets and astronauts worked in a never-ending stream to build engines, add resources to the Travelers and shuttles, grow flora and fauna and technology, grow ways to outwit death. Because it truly was death. There were no weapons large enough to guarantee the enemy’s destruction. There was no defense against whatever caused the demise of other faraway planets.

As the coming of the end marched closer, the earth’s fragile calm began to shiver, then spasm. The armored New York island closed its walls. South Africa enacted immediate martial law and neighbors followed within weeks. An astronaut in Chile was mauled to death, then another, then another, then cadets and astronauts cloistered themselves where desperate civilians could not destroy them. Hajime cloistered himself around his parents, who were no longer forlorn.

‘I love you, I love you,’ his mother said. She kissed his cheeks and his tear-filled eyes. It was difficult not to crush her. ‘My beautiful strong son. You’re so wise and good. You got all my good parts and none of my bad, you know.’

His father embraced him till he felt small. Till he shrank into him. He sobbed as he did when he was a child and begged them not to leave.

I want you to live,’ his father said into his hair, while his mother held him from behind. ‘I want you to leave this shithole place and find somewhere you deserve to be. Don’t you give up. Don’t start to sink, okay? Not you. Not you.’

They made him stay inside the astronauts' lodging building when they drove away. His parents drove away in a taxi cab to somewhere nearby, perhaps even somewhere on the base, where people could take the pill. They drove away out of his life and out of their own.

He sobbed alone. He slept for fourteen hours and then for none. He spent days at the gym speaking to no one, lost in easy, mindless action. He sat with in a library where there were armed guards and pretended to read. He worked under Ushijima’s supervision and watchful eye when he thought he could bear the loneliness no longer. And when he truly could not bear it, he slammed his head into a desk. He thrashed like a ghoul, hurting and moaning pain from his hurt, and when he was finished and had left blood on the desk and on his face and nose, the guards nearby respectfully looked away.

He graduated again. He was an astronaut now, a navigator, no longer a cadet in any kind of schooling. Somehow, Tendou was at the ceremony and waved to him. Hajime smiled back at him from the stage in his resplendent, worthless uniform.

For navigators in that time, life was a rotation of going into space and coming back in a routine cycle. They worked for four weeks at a time on preparing the Traveler Canto. Canto housed some of his own plants and algae in its many arbor grounds. Herbivores on board ate them and men breathed the oxygen they made. They would help generate eternal oxygen for this journey, if need be. 

In time, as urban centers began to burn and the Travelers grew bloated, he was able to smile more often than not. Each day, his head was bent to tasks and work and the feel of his own sweat.

When he felt he was being strangled, he went to an arbor ground on board, or a garden on the Earth and felt his sprouts in his hands. Once, he watched a tiny stripe of sweat from his palm be left on the leaf of a tomato plant he had grown himself.

He was sweating at an earthbound gym once when a stranger asked him to spot for him. The stranger was a cadet, falsely blond and legitimately aggressive. Hajime, undaunted, accepted him. He was Kyoutani, a mechanic. He was forever irritated that a dislocated shoulder had kept him out of a game where he might have otherwise have faced Hajime on a volleyball court some years ago. Often he would challenge Hajime to tests of athleticism. Often he would lose.  

One day when there was over a year left, and they were walking a dog in the sunlight, Hajime asked him how he was feeling. To say aloud anything that felt like it was poisoning him. He would not tell. He knew the feeling of poison.

Kyoutani walked close enough to brush their bare shoulders together. ‘I think about taking the pill sometimes. Just go to bed. Just go to bed and get the hell out of here for good.’

Hajime asked him why.

‘Because I’m never not gonna feel like a cowardly piece of shit. Everything that was ever worth anything is over. Every one of us...running away. To fucking what? Why?’

They were running towards their best chance, Hajime said to Kyoutani. It didn’t have to make them feel good or proud. Just alive, and able. Just the choice to keep having choice. Just because I want to, Kyoutani. 

They passed under a tree that painted them with shadows. Then they were back in the sun together, and warm. 

‘It’s Ken.’

They took his bull terrier back home and went to a quiet sector of the gym. Ab workouts, sit-ups, a few lifts, always ignoring the red countdown clock on every wall. Kyoutani, Kentarou usually and Ken today, watched Hajime’s movements as he held the navigator’s feet down for sit-ups. He watched him flop back down onto the mat, panting. He leaned forward between his legs till their faces were parallel to each other.

The intimacy suffused them both at once. Ken had long felt it. Hajime was beautiful and strong and would survive Earth with him, he felt it to be true. He must make it true. Hajime’s eyes were green and welcoming, so he made to take Hajime with him.

He set his arms on either side of the navigator’s head; he felt those strong hands pressing down on his shoulders. They met at a middle distance in a soft first kiss. Hajime licked at the young blonde’s lips; they parted in a gasp of wonder.

What nerves held him back before evaporated then. Ken dropped his torso down to grind their bodies together. He kissed again with an open mouth this time, wanting Hajime’s tongue. Immediately it was gifted to him. He moaned into that open mouth with gratitude. Meanwhile hands were drifting lazily up his shirt, exploring, then drifting the opposite direction. Ken's mouth captured Hajime’s own again and again, suckled at his lower lip, while the navigator’s hands gripped his ass and pulled him even closer.

Hajime asked if this was all right, but Ken's hands were busy trying to force Hajime’s shirt off, or at least up to his collar and out of the way. Like a mad dog, he growled back, ‘Mother fuck, yes, it’s all right.’

At last he could freely explore this body that he admired. The skin, movement from his breath, the firmness of these muscles made him sigh with delight. Finally, finally. The touch was as wonderful as it he imagined it to be. Hajime did not squirm or whimper from the attention, but lie back in repose for the other to touch at his pleasure. He was so willing, so receptive to the touch of a man he so often bested at everything. 

‘Hajime, I’ve—thought about this. If that ain’t obvious.’

His nerves and his esteem for the man he was feeling up were flattering. It made Hajime break eye contact to chuckle, and that made Ken sigh with want and admiration. All of this fed him vigor and drive, the drive to keep piercing the unflappable navigator's veil. He would see even more of this great man that no others got to see. He had to. He had to be worthy of him. He invited his mentor's hands back to the curve of his ass, back to feeling him and showing they wanted him back. He followed Hajime's invitation to rut against his body like he always wanted to. 

Ken rose up onto his elbows just once, to have a better look at Hajime’s face, which was still too content and soft for his liking. He yanked at the hips of his own shorts till they bunched around his thighs. There was one flash of nervousness at pulling his own cock out of his pants, right here in a gym room with an open door, but then it was gone. 

Hajime gritted his teeth when Ken dragged it along his own, started pumping himself in hand right next to him. The teasing pressure of feeling it hard and eager right next to him made his hips jerk. It made Ken grin. 

Hajime was supporting himself on his elbows and starting to pant. It fed Ken's familiar fantasy of taking himself in hand and pleasuring himself while Hajime watched, but this time it was real, and Hajime did watch. It felt like they were on a new planet already, one where this was possible. Being close like this was possible, was here, was truly happening today. 

His pumping motion was asking dor a reciprocal one. Hajime obliged; he could only stand a few more seconds anyway before his own erection demanded touch. He pulled his own shorts down further under Ken's intense watch. The blond’s animal grunting turned to a groan as he watched that cock pull free from under the red waistband. It was thicker than his own and darker. He watched Hajime’s hands on it, then claimed it with his own hand.

‘Let me do it. So I can look at you. Just lemme look at you.’

The response was a nod instead of a word. Ken's hands were paler than his and far too sweaty. But his grip was sure as Hajime’s own hand, as wanting as could be. He curved around the balls tenderly and then up all the way to the dribbling head, and then grabbed their lengths together. With his palms wet, he pumped along them both. His knuckles brushed Hajime’s pelvis with each movement, positioning their shafts away from himself and towards the flat of Hajime’s belly, because Christ he wanted to cum on him.

He wanted to come in his mouth, wanted to kiss up and down his neck display marks of his teeth there. He wanted to press him down to the ground and throw his legs in the air and hear him scream, wanted to grope his tits and fuck him, fuck him, fuck him and hold him and be fucking worthy of him. Some of this, Ken managed to say aloud. Hajime said that he wanted him back, and against that Ken couldn't possibly last. 

In his last few seconds Ken finally managed to coherently say aloud, You better be on my Traveler when we go.’

The fluorescent lighting flickered above them once, twice, glimmering on their muscles and smears of sweat. ‘Or take a shuttle to mine. Once we…take off. Shit—shit! Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi…please come to mine, please.’ Please come.

Oh Christ, Hajime fell suddenly closer to the sweet edge with a helpless gasp, and another and another, till each breath was a little whine.

Ken watched his eyes close and his brows rise up and pinch together. They had the most perfect fucking seconds left. Just pleasure and promise. Hajime’s head curled so far back it exposed his throat. It made him lose control of his voice. Ken almost faltered when he saw Hajime smiling, too. He felt Hajime’s pleasure at being here, at being with him, he felt his hands gripping his thigh because he wanted him to stay close and to know he wanted to be here. It was worth it all, to be here.

The fluorescent lights blinked again like the transformers were going out. Then the countdown clock did the same. Ken noticed both but refused to internalize it or stop his motions. Not now with his mentor finally lying prone in his shadow and shuddering from his hand on his cock. One person ran by the open threshold that led to the rest of the gym. Ken wouldn’t stop.

Hajime swore and then couldn’t speak anymore. His gasps were now moans that he couldn’t tame. Ken nearly salivated.  

Their phones went off in rhythmic, low-toned beeping like some underground alarm. Both of them stopped.

Cadets and astronauts of all ranks knew the language. They heard wormhole over Mars—departure—thi—shuttles immediately to—

Their bodies stiffened up, went hard and uncomfortable pushing against each other. Then they were flaccid. –not a drill. Not a drill. Flight to Travelers is immediate. This is a not a drill.

What pleasure was left on Earth abandoned them. They searched each other’s eyes and neither knew what they saw.

They scrambled up off the floor, frantically rearranged their sweaty and lightly stained athletic wear, and fled together. They approached the flight line where shuttles the size of hospitals took up miles upon miles of runway. There were multiple civilian families camped out near the chain link fence as always, but many more would arrive. A superior already wearing a flight suit approached the men and commanded them to man the shuttles. The protocol of a trained navigator was woven into them both.

Kyoutani and Iwaizumi went to their duties without looking back at each other.

Civilians from outside the base came to board; astronauts and some cadets were there to seat them and fly them up to a Traveler. Hajime grabbed luggage from strangers and dragged it to the storage belts. When they brought too-large containers he threw them on the runway. Clothes and plastic and heirlooms of life all became litter on the tarmac.

He strapped strangers into the shuttle seats to prepare them for spaceflight, counted and secured supplies on the shuttle in their dozens and hundreds—oxygen and water filters, food storage, mechanical accessories, livestock pens, wirings, printers, terraforming cogs, pharmaceuticals—and endless, endless people.

For fourteen hours he ran, sorted, pushed, shoved, shouted, sweated. He piloted Shuttle 4 on half of its trips. Passengers who had never been to space saw the Canto for the first time. For most, their approach to it would be the only time they would ever see their Traveler in its entirety. The Canto was forty miles long, below average compared to all passenger-purposed Travelers worldwide. It was rectangular, armed, stocked, and finally reaching capacity. Only after docking and letting off the sixth passenger load did he and the copilot receive further news.

There lay a hole in space next to Mars, with predictions that another would open even closer to the Earth. Lengthy, loud signals emanated from it. Men had dared to respond to it but were ignored. It wasn’t communication or any entreaty to respond, but hostility, war cries, they said. They’re coming to eat us.

When he boarded the next passenger load onto Shuttle 4, news from the radio said that they had made contact. Earth was invaded. Today.

Iwaizumi gritted his teeth and endured. He did what a navigator must, making the way to safety no matter what.

Iwaizumi grabbed two children that were of no relation to each other and forced them into one adult seat.

The invaders came through the wormhole not on a ship or transport of any kind but in a cloud of many tight-knit beings, a school of fish that consumed metal and flesh without discrimination.

Iwaizumi sprinted down the flight line and had to pilot Shuttle 9 twice because its pilot chair was abandoned and the passengers were screaming to go.

The beings were on the mainland and moving into the sea. Seawater became not only undrinkable, but untouchable. 

Iwaizumi found a crying grey-haired woman who begged to sit next to her adult daughter, who had fled their home without her. He shoved her into an open seat without speaking to her.

The Atmosphere Center did not hide the news that there was a second wormhole as close as the moon. It bled toxic radiation. It sang nauseating cries. 

Humanity shrieked for its life.

He was a man of endurance. He was honed and trained for space travel and engineering, for endurance beyond the infinite dark. But he was nothing. Everything he had ever been was nothing now. Everything that mattered to the future of human life was aboard the Travelers, or held tight in his hammering heart.

Before dawn, after twenty-eight hours awake, he approached Misaki from the agriculture labs to speak for perhaps the third time in their lives. He meant to ask her about livestock, about the population count of cows aboard the Canto and what were the qualifications needed to switch career fields to the agriculture side so he and Ushijima could be dairy farmers together, because he was not in his right mind by then.

A man in even more dire straits than he got to her first. The older navigator nearly bashed his chest into hers as he confronted her and demanded to know why we weren’t all boarding a Traveler right now, don’t you fucking know, you have to know. Are you sleeping with some limp cock who’ll let you on earlier than us? Cause he likes your tiny tits and your little boy body, are you getting on early say something already you stupid spineless fucking cunt!  

Misaki started to cry. She told the nearby astronauts to stay by the shuttles if they wanted to live. Sobbing and not speaking, she unlocked the fence gate and let the next rush through, leaving them without another word.

Kuroo appeared on the edge of the crush of people, his hair hanging in his face even more limply than usual. He panted and struggled up the shuttle’s boarding catwalk but did not stop. He endured till he was near the crowded passenger threshold of Shuttle 4 where Iwaizumi waited to receive him. He clapped a hand on the scientist’s shoulder and yanked him forward so he was standing closer. 

He asked Kuroo for news of the things that had landed on Earth.

‘There’s a third wormhole now. S’like all intelligent life is coming to hunt us down. The ones that landed in China’ll be here by tomorrow morning.’

Oh, Christ. Tomorrow. The last day on Earth. Or was today the last day on Earth?

‘No, today. Today is it for us, Iwaizumi.’

He told Kuroo to not give in to his fear. Endure. We will make it. Look at me, we’ll make it. I swear to you.

They both grabbed at each other’s shoulders, then faces. They felt each other’s sweat on their palms. They were reflected but solid in each other’s eyes.

‘Hope to see you once we’re all up there and flying, Iwaizumi.’

Iwaizumi told him the same—once we’re flying—

Iwaizumi was flying.

He was flying alone.

Shuttle 4 was empty of passengers. He had no copilot. And in his draining reserve of consciousness, he could not remember why.

Below was some part of Hokkaido, but the Japanese Traveler Kitan was not there. It was nowhere in nearby airspace. No Travelers or shuttles were nearby at all. The closest one was Russian, three hundred miles away, announcing its early departure.

An American traveler followed while a second one stayed. There came a bloom of radiation and incredible heat: leagues and leagues away, it had fired upon some enemy and the cloud of flame reached the Sea of Japan. Iwaizumi was blinded.

With muscle memory, he coded a flightpath to Canto, his new home. The console sounded a rejection noise: Canto was refusing all boardings.

A huge swath of Japan was silent and communicated nothing. His base now communicated nothing, even though he could hear the passengers’ cries in his head, like they had been in his radio or standing with their mouths to his ears. While he had let off his final load of passengers to Canto, he had somehow still heard the waiting ones on the ground saying Please come, oh please. Baby, the shuttle’s coming back, don’t worry, baby. We’ll be able to get on…oh navigator, please come. 

Iwaizumi’s hands clasped over his eyes.

Please come, navigator.

But he was alone.

He shouted so quickly and hoarsely that it shredded at his throat. He left the pilot’s chair and fell, then crawled to the metal wall, the only possible balm, and crashed his head into it. Once, twice, some more. Till there were no thoughts and no voices and he stopped crying. Till the pain covered up all other things.

Protocol came back before his thinking mind did. It coded the coordinates of flight path in his empty head: get to a Traveler, from which he could be of use.  

Something knocked against the flight deck’s window. It was a glimmering black shape which retreated from the window and ducked around it to head for the ground far below. After it, a second one crashed directly onto the window like a bug against a windshield. Iwaizumi tried to look at it, but gagged as soon as he did.

It was repulsive and strange to look at. It was made up of luminescent green-black layers that were both inside the flight deck and outside against the window like some optical illusion. The shape was recognizably humanoid, with a torso and four limbs in recognizable places. It looked like it existed in multiple dimensions, he reasoned, half-delirious, but the reasoning was an afterthought, after he’d dry-heaved against his forearm. With the other arm, he coded an initiation for weapons to deploy and scrape the thing off his windshield.

Hammers the size of a human body were deployed from an opened grate at the edge of the huge window. The creature didn’t see either of them coming; they met in the middle of the window and crushed the thing’s torso to the width of an arm. It was pulverized into meat.

Iwaizumi heard its animal scream, saw pointed parts of its reddish innards poking out. He panted with violent desire at the sight. It deserved a greater punishment than that for coming here.

He hammered its ruined abdomen a second time. He roared. Through the glass he called: Out of my way you ugly piece of shit!  

Primal certainty told him he must hit it until it breaks, and he did. The weapons ramped up to such speeds that they generated heat. A drill joined the fray, coming from up out of sight of his window. He directed its angle at the back of the creature’s skull. He saw the drill fall, pierce, hit home. Its blood sprayed all around, glittering black.

Its squeal keened up to an unbearable pitch. Then it suddenly tore free of everything. It fled out of sight, off to easier prey. But Iwaizumi remained prey: he was isolated from any herd or habitat and nearer to death than ever before. He reached for his radio and tried to join up somewhere.

He asked for Canto and was ignored. He asked and then shouted. He shouted for anyone on the airwaves to come to him. He would protect them, he would take them into his own ship, he would give any help or take any. But nobody came.

Across all airwaves there was nothing but an occasional recording: Do not approach Travelers. Do not approach shuttles. No boarding. Boarding vessels will be left behind—

His patience ran thin and disappeared and became a threatening scream instead. He demanded and shouted as though he were a minister of Atmosphere and not an astronaut cog.

Heedless, the recording continued: ‘Exodus Routes 4 through 7 and Route 1 are compromised. Each Traveler to its own journey. Loss of life too great. Cannot stay. Each Traveler to its own journey, stop, don’t lock it, please OPEN THE DOOR!’

The recording stopped there and reset. He tried others. The few that listened now shut him out.

No, please listen, please, I’m over Kyoto—

No, the nearest shuttle shut off its own radio and a second one fled from him.

No, he wished, but his wishes were nothing to Travelers loaded with lives. They were moving in different directions. They were moving into new wormholes where no invaders had spilled from yet. They were taking chances in every direction while he sped nowhere over the curve of the Earth.

No, take me with you.

No, don’t leave me alone.

No, please—

No answer.

Human contact ended.

Canto Shuttle 4’s flight path hugged the Earth in terror, its pilot holding tight to his self-control. As there was no hope or help in the air, he turned planetside and began scouring the surface for other people. He hovered near a single individual near a hillside, but they fled into a building. He found a family at the edge of huge towers of white fire, and they were consumed. West of his flightpath there was a new hole in space above the ocean, stretching nearly as far as his vision could take in. Seawater drained into it, pulling ocean water into an unknown waterfall.

He flew on and his breath was stolen away. Ahead was a Traveler fifty times his size, growing larger each second as he neared. It was rushing and roaring and falling—spiriting straight down in the air to the ground far below. Its engines were failing or its pilots mad. Strange beings with undulating, exposed organs set their puckered mouths over the ship’s many windows. They were seeking the flesh of the visible prey inside.

The Traveler fell, fell, took his life with it.

Don’t go, Iwaizumi begged in his mind. Don’t fall. Don’t— But his own words collapsed and fell. He sobbed as he saw the many predators coming to attach themselves to the ship. Some were burned away by the great fire. When it hit the ground, the fire would eat a city.

The Traveler’s dying roar was so great he couldn’t hear the long-tailed beasts all around it. They were only viscera, only mindless meat like him. They wanted this ship to fall and expose its belly and its meat. It meant nothing to them. Human life was as nothing. The Traveler, it was a creation of twenty years or more. It was nothing.

One of the beings pushed through one of the Traveler’s windows. Air and human possessions went spilling out into the air. He could not hear the cries from within.

Iwaizumi flew towards the great vessel with his tears and his own roar.  

How fucking dare you, the astronaut thought, and without thought or compassion began to destroy the intelligent life.

Some he burned with reverse thrusters or flame jets. One, he tore in two with a drill, innards spilling messily over the wide window of his flight deck. Others he hammered till their broken skulls and bones slopped out of their heads. He killed.

He killed them from the front seat of the flight deck till enough of the massive pack noticed him. Then they turned on him. Iwaizumi engaged a final weapon that blasted a great many of them with electricity. The revolting animal minds were fried to cooked meat as they deserved. But when numerous others took the place of the fallen, when their suckers and arms covered his entire window, he fled. The Traveler continued to fall.

The navigator fled, pursued by a hundred monsters.

He fled his mother, Earth, whose blue beauty was already changing. The shuttle’s window was smeared with gore, but through it he saw a surface world in its death throes. Clouds of swirling ash-grey like supercell storms were blighting the planet’s surface and spreading miasma in the air. Technology and weaponry had become only spots of fire and garbage. From this far away, there were no countries, only land and scars. 

Beyond Earth and its death throes there was nothing. One man and the infinite dark. He wanted to flee.

It ran against protocol, and against his own soul, to flee alone. All his life he was one of many, working with many, surrounded by many. He was not meant to be alone. But a cloud of many-armed predators was coming.

He could sink into it, blazing and ripping until death. But his father had told him not to.

Iwaizumi fled into deep space alone. There were no Travelers out here.

-

The shuttle was empty.

The shuttle was empty but for him. Supplies for five hundred for months, or him for years. It would be him alone in the infinite dark now, if no Traveler showed up to take him in or let him follow. But none ever would.

Alone, yes, he had thought once, and then stood up to have thoughts elsewhere on the ship.

Elsewhere he found a way to not be alone: in the passenger bay were many items dropped from pockets, hands and frantic passengers when he’d made his drop-offs on Canto. There were books, photographs, toys, supplies. For now he gathered the toys.

Among that pile was a plush dinosaur. Probably a tyrannosaurus. It was lovingly rendered and with pointed little carnivore teeth and lifelike green coloring and shadows. Holding it made him feel young. It made him feel like it was time to play outside, a pleasure he hadn’t known for a long time. He walked around with it. He hoped he might find a stowaway to give it to. But there was nothing.

He found a blanket, then two, then a pillow. He lay in the confining space between two treadmills in the gym room and covered himself. He curled into a ball around his dinosaur so that its plush head and back nuzzled his cheek. For hours he shivered and slept.

Time passed.

Debris passed.

Emptiness passed.

Hajime sobbed.

Broken rocks passed.

Dead planets passed.

Time passed.

Nothing passed.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

-

Protocol and training made a navigator. They moved his muscles and mind when nothing else was there to hold him. They made him stand up when he was alone. They made Iwaizumi function on the shuttle. They and his pet tyrannosaurus did. Iwaizumi strapped the tyrannosaurus plush to his belt each morning and carried him around. His name was Tory the T-rex.

Shuttle 4 had many rooms he could carry Tory into: a large arbor room with pleasant gardens and vegetables growing, a savory-smelling growery for artificial meat, a cozy library, a bright and inviting gym. No passenger had ever touched any of them before, so he filled them with touch.

In each room he placed residents from his treasure pile: a plastic frog, a green superhero figurine, a cat with light-up eyes. The residents were his coworkers. He saluted them and gave progress reports. And there was much to report on.

He went to Hitoka the cat captain, flicked her switch so that her eyes were lit up, and reported the day. Coordinates of asteroids and planets within immediate view. Trace elements in the atmosphere that day. Observations of far-off stars and their temperatures. A daily lack of Travelers or shuttles. Supply inventories. His own body composition statuses as he exercised and fed himself nutritious meals. Hitoka liked that part best.

He spoke slowly for her, so she would not be overwhelmed. But she was bright and attentive back to him. She said he’d done an excellent job and dismissed him. She bid him goodnight, and he to her.

He read books during break hours, went to bed on schedule. He shaved and kept his jaw professionally bare. He gave himself innumerable haircuts. He kept waking up for each new day.

One day after his supply report to the plastic dog admiral in the growery, the routine was jostled. He had been crouched on his knees tending spinach plants for less than a minute when the stem bowed. All stems bowed, just a little, as a vibration rang through the hull. At the base of his spine the navigator felt a poisonous fear.

Once the vibration ceased, he rose. He jogged, then sprinted. He tore up the nearby metal staircase and past an airlock and down the hall to the flight deck, which looked straight ahead into space.

There was a body on the windshield. The poison turned to stone.

He both recognized and recoiled, because it was a man.

Captain, he thought for a moment, before revulsion stopped his breath in his throat. It was not his captain.

It was not a man, even though he had instinctively recognized it as one. Even though it was shaped like one. He stood with mouth agape there in the threshold, trying to comprehend it

It was a humanshaped thing, or it was humanshaped sometimes—every few times he blinked, there were four limbs sticking out of a torso and a man’s face atop it. And in between those blinks, he nearly saw through its skin to the stars far beyond. And whether he blinked or not, there were more limbs behind and around the humanlike ones: long arms or tentacles, waving.

No man, but an imposter of one. A predator of one. It was the one that struck his window in the sky over Hokkaido. But its body had grown anew like a regenerating worm. The waist was no longer hideously crushed. There was no hole in the side of its skull from the drill. It was whole again, somehow. It had come after him somehow, millions of miles from the last place it saw him.

Once we’re flying—I’ll see you—said Kuroo, who was dead. I—will—see—you.

It had a mouth like a person, even hair. It had a grin like Kuroo used to have.

Without words, its grin said: I see you.

The human eyes were familiar, then sickening. Repulsive. Iwaizumi’s clinging desire to see other human beings writhed like an invasive worm in his chest. And with a choking sound, it came out as though exorcised, supernaturally moved. He could not abide seeing the shape of a human in this being. It was wrong. It was not deserved. It must die.

The revulsion made him sprint to the console, halving the distance between himself and the creature. He drew up weapons as he’d done the first time, millions of miles from here. It watched him click and fumble with unblinking eyes.

Then a drill and hammer deployed, smaller ones than before. The new hammer struck its shoulder and made it collapse inward as though the bones within had melted. The drill speared its abdomen, but the creature tore free seconds later.

Quick as a dolphin underwater, it whirled backward from the window, out of the short-range weapons’ reach.

The eyes were visible even from that distance. Iwaizumi met the glare, panting and wide-eyed. The creature’s eyes had long depths, like they were a cave system extending far beyond the back of their owner’s skull. Perhaps if one of the drills pierced those eyes, they would never push through the other side of the skull.

Its mouth opened in the shape of a roar that could not be heard. The stripes on its abdomen briefly glowed green. Then it flitted away over the north hull and behind him into open space. Infrared readings displayed its fleeing form, and eventually did not display it at all. The navigator was alone again.

He collapsed forward onto the console, feeling like a disembodied spectator to his own body. In a dreamlike way, his head feel forward till it rested on metal and the console buttons glowed from the limp press of his forehead. They were uncomfortable to lean on. They were nothing like the shoulder of a friend, which he had last felt over a year ago ago. They were not a man or a parent or even a comforting toy. They hurt. 

It made him forget the protocol momentarily. It made it plausible for one to even forget it permanently and purposefully. It hurt so much he could drown if he wanted.

The dog admiral and the cat captain were not alive. They would sit on their little fucking tables and chairs that he placed them on and would continue to do so if he was dead.

It was a mighty thought, that he could not be stopped if he wanted to proceed. How invigorating that was. To be unstoppable. He used to feel that way in school, as a cadet. Those feelings grew especially when he walked in Ushijima’s wake. Under bright fieldhouse lights. And on the tarmac, even, when the hours dragged on and he refused to stop moving, because he had to endure. In that moment and that memory, he breathed air of the earth.  

The feeling was a brand in him. Present and true, even now. He could reach back to Earth and those years and touch the outline of what it had felt like to be unstoppably strong.

He was not defeated yet. His mind held him up yet.

But he did code a speed increase on the console, to get the hell out of here, to flee, like a fucking coward piloting an empty shuttle alone.

-

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

I’m sorry, Dad. I love you.

There was a pill on the table ready for him today. It followed him today. He endured each day by looking at it and remembering what it felt like in his hand.

It was by his bed today, closer than before.

-

Today is it for us, Iwaizumi.

Today was the only day Iwaizumi Hajime had ever had.

The day’s work, the day’s input, the day’s sweat and output for the benefit of all. On Shuttle 4 and its course to fucking nowhere, there was only ever today’s business to attend to. The past was burned and gone. There was no future. And no one else to care. Each day, he endured.

Today, he sat in the corner of the arbor room where he could look on the tallest oak tree in the center of the room. He could see at either side of him the rows of flowers that were the color of spring. He watched them and their colors. He breathed their natural air. He listened to passengers in his mind.

There were real passengers whom he’d shuttled from the flight line to Canto and watched get off his shuttle himself. Then there were those strangers on the tarmac who had waited their turn to become passengers next. The ones he had never met. Their lives were in suitcases like his life was in his head. Now spilled onto the tarmac.

They said: Please come.

No protocol held him this time. Nothing was here to hold him.

Baby the shuttle’s coming, don’t worry baby.

He never came.

We’ll be able to go…oh, navigator, please come.

He was flying.

You’ve got plenty of time, Ushijima had once said to reassure him. Ushijima took him to the cold of space for the first time and led him till he could walk. Ushijima told him what must be and took action before others must. He followed that example so much that it made him able to refuse death every day.

Today, which was all days for all time, he followed his captain’s order, so strong and righteous and beautiful was he. 

Ushijima, can I see you today? Please?

…

Did you make it onto a Traveler? Are you okay? I’d cut my fucking hand off if I could see that you were okay.

…

His hands were invaluable when he was a student and a cadet. He was a volleyball player back when there were sports teams in the cadet schools. He struck hard, but Ushijima struck like thunder. And they never faltered.

The sweat keeping his jersey to his skin and the hard press of his muscles as he jumped felt like bliss.

Christ, we’re on fire! Tendou exclaimed, slapping them both on the back. 

When a tie threatened them and Goshiki and Shirabu were wavering, Iwaizumi took the lead himself to show them was must be done, as his captain had taught him was right. When the timeout was called, he asked for their trust. Depend on me, fall back to me. I’ll take us to victory. Ushijima, are you with me?

Yes.

The lost vessel of the Canto was wholly dark now but for the light of Iwaizumi’s eyes, thick with tears. He turned around in the dark of space and the dark of that room, trying to see.

Ushijima was there, immaculate.

Hajime was there, alone.

The flight suit was white and pristine. The face above it was honest and stern.

Today is it for us, Iwaizumi.

What day was today? How long had he been in flight, alone, the only known human left?

Ushijima, are you alive? Are you okay?

You’re not okay, he said back at him. Iwaizumi. It’s useless to feel this way. Get up off the floor.

…No, he decided to say. He decided to ignore the man’s voice and speak aloud his thoughts. He gave Ushijima the naked truth: he longed to take the pill sometimes. Just go to bed. Just go to bed and get the hell out of here for good.

Ushijima asked him why.

Because I’m never not gonna feel like a cowardly piece of shit. Everything that was ever worth anything is over. My life is over. So many people’s lives are over. Because of me. Because I—fucking—

Yes, I know what you did.

I—just—snapped, for a second, I just…I didn’t care anymore. I don’t know why. I swear on my mother’s grave I don’t know why.

You don’t know why you stole the shuttle?

…

Like a thief. A degenerate traitor.

…

What would Kyoutani think of you? He admired you so much. When was the last time you even thought about him?

…

What have you thought about the last load of passengers who were waiting for you to come back for your next trip?

Are you a murderer?

Are you a murderer?

ARE YOU?

Iwaizumi screwed his eyes shut and wailed.

Every moment of endurance was as nothing compared to his final deed on Earth. Every time he was ever a good man was erased and undone. All his sweat and work was nothing to anyone now that they were dead and eaten and broken. Hitoka was a fool to love him, Ushijima was a fool to ever believe in him. Iwaizumi wailed I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry.  

He was imprisoned in a vacuum for all time; he deserved this Nothing.

Ushijima said his name in a strong, sure baritone that was louder than his screams. It made the despair stop cutting him. In desperation he gasped Wakatoshi’s name aloud and reached for him, wanting to touch him. He stumbled forward in the dark till his palms hit the wall. The steel panel echoed from the impact. Then it was quiet.

Iwaizumi. They died waiting for you. And they died when you were in spaceflight. You could not have gotten to them in time. He said this because it was a possibility. It would be unknown for all time. He'd never tried to go back for them either way. The waiting stretched on. Then: So many people died worthlessly, everywhere. Even though we tried our best. So many of us were lost. So many people abandoned each other.

They were both so still.

So many of us were lost. Even you.

The ship hummed.

Listen to me, Hajime.

He did, always.

I don’t want you to be lost for nothing.

He stayed against the wall, breathing.

Iwaizumi, a navigator, a man of loyalty, began to lift his head. His warm breath was so close to the wall it flowed back over his own cheeks like a fond touch. He kept his head against that wall.

Don’t start to sink, okay? Not you. Not you.

Iwaizumi breathed. He asked Ushijima to touch him once. But they both knew this could not be done.  

Endure, Hajime. Take me to victory.

He promised he would.

When an impact sounded on the north hull, Iwaizumi was ready to stand.

He walked tall. He went to the flight deck. The social-outcast creature floated by the window and watched him. Today it was fully solid. As ever, it had long fingers, humanlike hair, and a few thin green stripes around its abdomen and shoulders that had a bioluminescent glow. Yet it looked more human today than it ever had.

More stripe-shapes glowed in the blank space behind it. Colors spread infectiously out of them till they filled the outlines of moving bodies. In time they became solid: companion creatures, humanshaped and floating and with stripes of their own. One had a spiked protrusion on its head like hardened, solid hair. One had marks like thick black eyebrows on its face. The original lolled its dark fed tongue and glowered. It shaped that mouth into a humanlike grin, the eyes above squinted in a conniving glare. It had a spike-ended tail, twice the length of its body. All of them did. All were raised in a threat.

The three were in a line, a union of their species. Today he was outnumbered.

Oh, Christ.

-

They stalked him.

He tracked them by their body heat and by the vibrations they emitted. They floated around the solar panels like eels through coral. Their claws tapped along the hull, their heads butted it. They were curious and explorative creatures. As they discovered more and more of his shuttle, they pushed the limits of what could be done to pester it, or to break it.

When they came too close, the navigator pushed back. With drills, hammers or projectiles, he punished them for their bullheaded pestering by mauling them.

Once their bodies were torn, they floated limply away—for a good while. Weeks, usually. Even when he shot retractable wires into their flesh and electrocuted them till their flesh started to cook, they returned. Once two of them drifted into range of extraneous thrusters that burned them till they cooked entirely. Their crisp bodies floated end-over-end into space while two more flitted frantically around their twitching bodies.

Godspeed, cunts. Hope you die.

They never did.

Each part of the body crushed or torn returned. Even bodies ripped in half eventually grew back or stitched together again, though it took many weeks. And after one period where they clung to the ship for weeks without end, he admitted he could not put off a walk to the water filtration tank any longer.

He kissed Tory the tyrannosaurus and set him on an elliptical, thereby transforming him into a goal for that day. Iwaizumi must complete this mission so that he could return to Tory and accomplish a great workout with him.

He suited up for a spacewalk from the midpoint of the ship to the aft end. The airlock door opened. 

There was nothing around but a drifting comet in the far distance, silent and white. He was safely alone in the infinite dark.

The journey was quick, unfettered. Past the soldier-like battalions of solar panels, past the engine block and heavy storage armor. Three-quarters down the ship by the aft was the main water filter. Its panel came unlocked easily, dispensed easily, took a replacement receptor easily. From this view, the ship’s many dents and scars were visible. Nothing had ever come close to rupturing, but there were dozens of minor dents from impacts with debris and—and predators. His skin crawled under his suit.

A sudden alarm in the helmet told him to run for his life. The predators were coming.

Iwaizumi followed the route faster than ever before: hand over hand on the handholds, nearly requiring the air jets to realign himself when he missed one and nearly floated off. None of the creatures were in sight yet.

Take me to victory, Ushijima had said, so he did not stop.

Iwaizumi instead took himself off the usual route to a different airlock entrance than usual. It was closer, but with a longer code required for entry. While he punched digits into the panel, the alarm in his suit sounded quadruple signals of four unique heat signatures.

He foolishly spared a glanced up. One of them was crawling between the forest of solar panels above. Atop its head was brunette-colored hair. It was the outcast attacking first, pupils shrunk to nothing.  

The airlock opened and Iwaizumi pushed inside with a shout.

Over his head there was metallic clattering and bumping as the being crawled down the hull to him—two of them did. One of them grabbed at his suit as the door automatically closed. Iwaizumi’s mind quit all efforts and tried to faint. It left him to protocol instead of thought.

He could not breathe. He twisted in the thing’s grip, flipping entirely so he could kick the attacker in the belly. There was a vibration pulsing into him like an indignant scream near his head. The force made him rocket into the airlock foyer. He struck a wall. The door closed and sealed but he still wasn’t breathing.

Air was evacuating the suit through a horizontal tear in the arm. Pressure was returning to the chamber at the same time, beating on his ears and throat. Iwaizumi collapsed to the floor. The helmet fell off and hit the tiles with an undignified clank-clank-CLANK.

Outside the little window in the door, a man’s face looked in: the red-mouthed outcast, now with narrowed brown eyes and an open, conniving mouth with lips. It was the face of a rotten bastard who was cheating, was knowing. Finally the navigator, too, became knowing.

How foolish to label this one an inept outcast. How shortsighted, to not see that it danced with danger first and most often, received the most wounds and that it led its pack in these hunting parties in pursuit of him. It had followed him and brought the others to follow him. It knew how to smile. It was truly intelligent life, almost human in its persistence. So close to humanity that it came close to capturing him.  

Take me to victory was such a fucking stupid thing to say when he had nearly been pulled away from the open door and into an open mouth.

The smiling thing twitched its fingers to catch his attention. Its hand briefly seemed to be inside the glass. Iwaizumi squinted his eyes and then averted them. It meant he was beginning to hallucinate, which itself meant he was farther gone than he even realized.

The shaking of his arms and legs was nigh uncontrollable. His heartrate was lightning-fast and nauseating. He gritted his teeth and tried to move anyway, watched by the leader of the hunting pack. He rose by grabbing the nearby staircase railing and pulling forward. With it steadying him, he managed a stiff, horrible walk up the short metal stair steps to the hall beyond.

The walk was short and then the railing was gone and then he could no longer stand. After turning the corner, he fell onto his knees. He sat just out of sight of that window, shaking for hours and then days.

-

Nothing was out there but death. Nothing was in here but inevitable, slower death. 

I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to lie in the sun, he would cry as he held himself. He held Tory, he held a cold pillow, he stood empty in a hall for hours and held nothing, hardly breathing. He endured as he had promised and always held Tory.

My beautiful, strong son.

Iwaizumi sat down to rest and avoid thinking about anything. He righted himself yet again, kept moving.

Sitting in the flight deck, he felt the pleasant ache of his endurance run in the gym. Physically he was washed, warm, prepared to endure the day, but his heart and mind were too tangled to follow. The workout had dragged. He hadn’t spoken a word aloud in four days. He craved respite and he needed to start maintenance in the engine room in fifteen minutes.

He chose to be somewhere else for the next five: five imaginary minutes with Wakatoshi would set him right. Then he’d return to reality, perhaps scramble some eggs for dinner. These thoughts would be smothered by a high tide of pleasure and the destressed wake of it afterward.

He palmed himself over his trousers once, but that pale friction wasn’t enough when imagining Ushijima. He imagined it was a different hand than his, more force, more something he liked. One hand was at his own thigh, pulling the leg forcefully away like it blocked the way to a fine prize. With the other he palmed himself again so teasingly it was painful. A fantasy quickly sprung to action.

In the fantasy, Ushijima was here and understood exactly what he wanted and he even wanted it, too. They were in a closet at the cadet school after a victorious game. Their sweat shone in the near-dark. They fought to wrestle each other’s clothes up out of the way, to make room for their tongues to lave up each other’s skin. In the pilot’s chair, he licked at his fingers briefly. He leaned his head back into the headrest, that his imagined captain could explore his neck and collar.

Instead of sucking at his collar with the impromptu wet fingers Iwaizumi had prepared for himself, Ushijima in the fantasy shoved his jersey up to his collar and held it there. It made him bare from collar to pelvis as he longed to be in front of him. Iwaizumi jerked his hips forward, swaying his whole torso, so Ushijima could know what his body looked like while fucking.

You make me so hard, he would pant, and then asked to touch him back.

Ushijima thumbed at his nipples and told him to wait. Iwaizumi hissed while his body was played with and declared he didn’t want to wait. But he did not move. Ushijima continued to explore him; Iwaizumi let him. He did not move out of turn. Even in a fantasy, he would not act against his captain’s command.

You can touch whatever you want to, he would offer in order to encourage him more, but Ushijima would probably not say anything. The fantasies changed at times, because in truth he didn’t know what Ushijima would say. And he never would.  

He drew up more ideas for the dream. This time, the captain told his loyal spiker that his body was beautiful. Exceptional. He knew this; he cared for this body in the gym six days of the week and fed it savory, healthy food so that it would always be strong. Iwaizumi’s fingers were sweat-stained now and slid over the admirable curve of his pectorals, the nipples tight as Ushijima could make them. Ushijima gave him his tongue, lapping at his nipple once, then a second time, stronger. It rocked his whole body, that tongue. It rocked his whole fucking head thinking of Ushijima’s mouth and tongue treating him the way he wanted to be treated. He must give back, he must love him back. 

Let me suck your dick, he would say, and he would even add please and it would definitely work out so that his captain said yes, and he would be the first man to be on his knees in front of Ushijima Wakatoshi.

He opened his eyes in a few soft blinks, shamelessly wanting to see it in front of him. But Wakatoshi’s heavy cock wasn’t there. There was a tall person standing a short distance ahead of him, staring. After two more pumps along his own wet cock the fantasy bled fully away.

Here in reality the smiling creature was standing in front of him. It seemed taller than usual. Because it was closer.

It did not float before the flight deck window but had the window glass to its back. Because it was standing inside the room.

It made him flaccid and cold and thoughtless. For a moment Iwaizumi wanted to cry. Then his reality changed again when the creature disappeared and reappeared and seemed shorter—because it was farther now. It was outside of the window now and fully solid. Immediately it began to thrash against the window like a rabid beast.

Its hands and head and tail and tentacle arms beat against the glass so quickly he hardly discern one limb from another. It beat into the navigator’s soul till it became a brand that could not be erased. Once he felt that mark, he halted himself from blinking.

If only he had blinked a few more times, it could have stayed where it was. If he had kept it in his sightline, but had his eyes closed, it could have moved to that spot permanently. It was as certain as the need for food, for self-preservation: if he blinked again, it could change its location. It could make itself in the room again.

Its burst of anger died out. The hands went still on the window’s glass. Iwaizumi remained a mess of breathy pants and shivering limbs, focusing his sight on the creature’s forehead rather than its direct gaze.  

His hand was out of his waistband, but his mussed shirt remained caught all the way up his torso. He hadn’t the strength to raise a hand and pull it back down, so he sat with his sweating flesh exposed. Too weak to move, like the gentlest of prey.

The creature knew this about him. Its chance to catch him defenseless was lost. It gazed on his sweet form. The only thing in its eyes was desire. Iwaizumi felt a brainless, confounding impulse to react to it, as he would to a human that wanted him.

Behind it, there were four long limbs swaying slow like the body of a creature underwater. The red mouth was open and moving now. Its pink tongue came out. The tip of the tongue licked the glass with agonizing slowness as tongues in fantasies moved. The tentacles swept up and down with the same intensity. The flight deck was silent as the empty space outside.

Another appendage low on its torso passed in and out of view, caressed by the others. Iwaizumi’s head pulled apprehensively back when he realized the lower appendage was not another tongue.

The tentacles mimicked the uniquely male motion of self-pleasure along the new red organ. Purple veins rose to its surface and then retreated with the pumping of its hands. The tongue dipped out again. It licked at the barrier of glass in lieu of the warm flesh it wanted to taste. What it couldn’t have with its mouth it was absorbing with its eyes, which narrowed and fluttered in reaction to its own touch. Without doubt, without arrogance, both knew its source of pleasure was the navigator and nothing else.

Every man alive in every time recognized those actions, by instinct if not by name. It was a human condition. It was a condition of the creature at the window. It saw the navigator touching himself moments ago, and it reciprocated. It knew pleasure at the sight of him. It thought him compatible for that gratification.

The shape wasn’t quite right, but it was red and fully erect. The other limbs pumping along it were spreading thick fluid around the shaft. The other tentacles batted against the glass in a light mockery of their enraged thrashing from before, asserting that desire to reach through. They batted the glass, they gratified the creature’s cock, they waved and glowed to capture his attention. It grinned like a man who enjoyed being watched, and Iwaizumi did watch.

A flash of Ushijima came to mind, but it was snuffed out like dim starlight. A thought for protocol rose up, but it floated away. There was nothing before him but this creature that wanted him. A new line was drawn in their long-standing chase. Iwaizumi’s breath was shuddering. His body would soon follow.

Carefully and with purpose, he reached for the weapons console. The creature withdrew from the window slightly, all too familiar with the actions that preceded an attack. But it didn’t move far or fast or halt its gratification. Its brows rose up and pulled together, its tongue lolled unabashedly out. It looked like it was nearing a climax of its own. Iwaizumi coded something on the console to interrupt it.

Wires deployed from below the flight deck window and shot forth into the creature’s thighs and belly. It twitched once from the sting of impact, still smiling at him. It communicated to him with its body that it was unhurt and it would not stop.

One tentacle reached for the window again to stroke longingly on the surface. Iwaizumi, stone-faced, slammed the input button.

Electricity shot up the wires and the creature’s lustful expression evaporated. It coiled up from the pain. The extremities twitched. The red mouth was half-open in agony. Sparks streaked over its shining flesh. The other members of the pack were pulling away in alarm as the sparks got longer and their reach wider.

Iwaizumi watched the impressive blue-gold lightshow for only a few seconds more before moving off the pilot’s chair and walking stiffly to the exit. He weakly pulled his shirt down to his waist again. The wires would disconnect and decontaminate themselves. His safety would be guaranteed, temporarily, once more. The creature would skulk away to lick its wounds and regroup with its pack. It would leave him alone for long enough to hope they were gone forever, and return with renewed gusto as always.

Once he passed the flight deck’s threshold, he heard its hand beat on the glass but did not look back.

Chapter Text

He was safe in the engine clearing room, as close to the center of the ship as possible. On a nearby tablet, the leader’s heat signature was fluttering across the screen as it circled the ship. It stopped before many of the windows. It was looking for him. It and its pack did not leave for four more hours. Iwaizumi lay on the floor of the engine room, hiding from them.

Some years ago, hiding would have felt against his nature. He hardly did it even as a child. Not as a cadet, either. And not a navigator. But he was none of those things to the monsters at the window. He shuddered to think of what he was in the mind of the unkillable monster. He shuddered because he knew now, and there was no stopping it. There was no anticipated high tide of pleasurable thoughts of Ushijima to distract him from this. None of his plush toy friends were stationed in the engine clearing room to comfort him. There was nothing for billions of miles but this.

There were no Travelers out here. There never would be.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing—he lifted his head slightly and slammed it back down to the floor to flatten and kill that thought.  

There would never be anything but these creatures, whatever they were.

There was no telling if they were the original predators that turned their sights to Earth some thirty-five years ago now, or some newcomers. There had been many different invaders that day. The race that had been approaching for decades landed first. They came in spacecraft. All the others came later, through black holes that opened around the earth like eager, stealing mouths.

There may have been six or seven types that day, as he remembered. Maybe more. But Iwaizumi had no desire to remember. He placed his wrist both over his eyes and then closed them. He hid.

Underneath his shielding arm, forcing himself to see just darkness, he could ponder things with a greater sense of safety. There were multiple types of invaders, scatted all across the globe without pattern. Seven he could remember...eight...maybe nine, actually. No coordination between them. No visible relation. The ones that came after the first wave might have been drawn there by the...commotion made by the originals. From the promising sound of large predators making a large, bountiful kill. The others might have been scavengers hoping for a mouthful of meat. The long-tailed humanoids’ who were harassing him acted something like scavengers.

So much time had passed since the brown-eyed one first appeared at his flight deck window and started this chase. So much failure to scavenge anything. They wasted absurd amounts of time and risked absurd dangers, just for the promise of a relatively small bite of food. Did they all think they would get a share? Maybe they didn’t view it as a waste if the pursuit was for something to breed with.

This thought was new. A foreign touch on the mind that he could not translate. And it wouldn’t leave. His arm shielded him and covered him, so he felt brave enough to receive the next oncoming thought. The oncoming feeling. 

He saw the smiling creature in his mind’s eye: taking itself in hand like a human male would. Openly touching itself after it saw Iwaizumi doing the same in the flight deck. It curved its body over the gentle arc of the flight deck window so he would behold its strong muscle and the blatantly erect state of its cock, or whatever the hell that appendage was that looked like one. He thought, under his safety arm, that he just wanted it to be a cock.

Oh Christ, he did want it to be one.

Oh Christ.

If only it were a man. Not a conniving replica of one that taunted him with its familiar shape, but a plain earthborn man. If he just pretended it was a man, then attraction to it was only normal; nature had made him that way. If it was just a man, then it wouldn’t want to kill and consume him. If he made it a man in his mind, it could not hurt him.

The doors to the engine clearing room were shut. He was deep within the ship. Iwaizumi uncovered his eyes to see the ceiling. Stared. Breathed. Covered his eyes again. And buried himself even deeper.

He started with its body, because he had been so cruelly ripped away from his sweet daydream of his captain’s body just minutes before. And also because he liked it. The alien had the look of a man born with a slim frame but had later grown muscular and strong, which he so admired. It spoke of initiative, ambition and familiarity with hard work. When it hunted or followed him, its body moved with practiced rhythm like an athlete, which he appreciated. That unyielding persistence, in a man, he appreciated.

It had a cute smile and hair that looked soft to the touch. That thought of touching it stuck. He liked it very much all of a sudden. Maybe he just hadn’t touched anything with a pulse in five or six years and his standards were now "rock-bottom-and-even-if-it-will-literally-kill-me".

Kill me? Does it want to kill me?

That thought stuck like a burr. Stung. Some other thoughtless lobe of his brain heedlessly, fearfully, swept that away. He swept himself away, out of this room, thinking of a humanlike body.

The thought of its body and fluffy hair remained wrapped around him when he arrived at his bedroom and fell defeated onto his back. Two pillows supported his head and upper back on the mattress. Tory the tyrannosaurus plush was not in the room so he would not have to watch.

Once he lay down, he was so quickly re-aroused that it stunned him, as though there had been invisible, cancerous particles of this feeling hidden inside Iwaizumi’s body all along. Now they were coming to life. Now he was as an animal going into heat.

These dissonant things inside him—agony, terror, thrill, pleasure, a sting like nostalgia for home and for earthgrown grass—all coalesced into a volcanic wave that Iwaizumi could not withstand. So he fell. He let himself be taken.

Instead of barely leaning back in a leather pilot’s chair like he was earlier, he was lying almost fully back, almost as comfortable as could be, in his own safe nest in the heart of his home. Iwaizumi imagined the man-no-no-no beautiful creature wrapping around him and he embracing it with as much fervor, though he had fewer limbs to do that with. He could hold its head softly in his hands and feel along its fine jawline. He could also instead rattle that head with a growl and a chuckle, twist it into a headlock and playfully wrestle with it. That would be nice, since he hadn’t wrestled anybody in ages. It would probably win the playfight because it had six or seven other limbs to cheat with. And with as much physical punishment as it took from his ship's weapons, it was surely stronger than he was.

The charming play lasted only a few seconds in his head. For the rest, Iwaizumi was the creature’s own to play with. For the rest, he was giving and allowed it what it wanted.

He imagined it demanding attention and obedience from him with its eyes and its mute but animated mouth. It openly leered at his body and at his face, because it wanted him to make a face or react. He tried to hide his smile just a little, but it didn't really work. How cute, that it tried to pester and play with him, that it consciously knew how to be cute. 

It explored him as it wished with its hands like any person would. But then came the tentacle limbs. They stretched from its back and shoulders, pulling impossible out from the skin even though there could be no place in the body to store all that length. It was impossible, but it kept happening. He almost laughed, thinking how easily it could wrap them around all parts of him.

The tentacles were warm and a little wet at the ends. Iwaizumi twitched at the imaginary feel of them at first, but then he loved them. They behaved as tongues did towards sumptuous foods, unable to keep from long licks along Iwaizumi's body. One wrapped around his ankle and gently pulled. Another came for the thigh on his same leg and circled, circled, circled it, till he could never pull away. it lifted his leg up. Its end was then poised to lick its wet way downwards along the back of his thigh.

While that favorite tentacle made a show of licking its way to his cock, two more wrapped around each arm. One near his left wrist and one near the right elbow: uncoordinated and unmatching spots because it was a stupid, fucking horny creature like him. He let them take his arms and place them up and out of the way, so there would be no objecting, shy hands to hide his stomach. It would either lift his shirt as far up as it would go, or just tear it off, Iwaizumi couldn't decide because he forgot if he was wearing a shirt he liked and was not opening his eyes to find out.

The fantasy avoided this and gave him one more tentacle and one of the creature's clawed, human hands on his abdomen. It stroked his hips and his chest in admiration and then instantly it knew his nipples were worthy targets because he suddenly wanted that. It stroked one, which inspired Iwaizumi's hips to buck up just slightly. Then it knew to assault both. One was smothered by a tentacle and one toyed with by a human hand that he missed so so fucking much. He pulled his arms and head back so it would know that territory was for its own play.

He moaned like a helpless thing when he remembered that one tentacle was meant to be making its way to his cock and it finally did. It wrapped, wrapped, wrapped around his shaft and balls. A tiny gap opened at the tentacle's end, letting a tiny tongue-like worm out through the slit that reached for his own slit while the whole tentacle rubbed his wet cock and his balls and claimed it all for its own.

Somewhere in the imagined mess of tentacles he felt the creature's actual tongue testing the skin of his neck and collarbone; they both shuddered. One of the creature's hands kept his other thigh, the one not wrapped and captured, out of the way. Iwaizumi remembered the creature's cock, so red and hard now, long since ready for him. Its hand squeezed his thigh in its excitement as it held its cock in his hand between his spread legs, so tantalizingly close to its prize.

Iwaizumi looked slightly down at his own shaft in disbelief at himself for being this erect, at this of all things—are you serious? are you sure?—before he stopped looking. He closed his eyes again.

He knew how to climb even higher than this. He had, with men who were long gone by now. Torn to ribbons or flesh or burnt to ash by now. But he remembered them as they were with him: when they approached him, chatted with him, engaged him, and mounted him against walls or on hard ground while he grunted and growled at them to fuck him already, harder now, oh please. Oh lord.

Those men he knew were all gone now. And this creature, a monster undaunted by any manmade weapon--this creature was greater than any of them.

Finally he reached his arm down to a place he might as well have forgotten by now. But the creature never would. The first finger he inserted into himself to simulate its cock felt like nothing much, and he wasn't spiraling like this to feel "nothing much" so he added the second one immediately. And it fucking hurt. But when he tried to pause the daydream punished him for it. It made his skin crawl and his balls nearly shrivel, to not be touched now. Like the creature was really on his bed with him now, watching him whine and writhe.

He and it together worked at his flesh till his body seemed to remember that pleasure was on the other end of this, then assaulted him with it. He actually scratched himself with his index finger but felt no pain. There was no room for it. The movements came back so easily to him after a time without. It was his own desire and actions, but he didn’t see or feel that. The reality of his own hand performing these motions was armored over with a picture of the beautiful creature, doing this itself, fucking him like it had been denied for years because it had.

The creature's cock tore into Iwaizumi in one full, merciless push and he loved it. In his mind, every stroke on his own cock and push of his fingers came with a matching thrust of the beast’s hips against his, its torso looming over his. It demanded he lick and mouth the tentacles it set before his mouth and he did. It demanded to feel his skin and to wrap his legs around it like he loved it and he did. He fell backward against the pillows in shaking increments. Till he was nearly supine and shouting his pleasure.

He longed for this. The pursuit of this high was unabashedly insane but he kept riding it. There had been very few men who beautifully broke him in this way he was wanting now. People he could never forget. He would never see them again. The man—the thing—in his body right now was a great mountain peak above them all on the lowly ground. He wished it would share his desire to kiss right now, and that it would not have any desire to dig its nails into Iwaizumi’s naked, unprotected stomach.

It would not bear a grudge for the many times Iwaizumi had obscenely gored his body...in this fantasy. It would not want to tear Iwaizumi open with his bare hands like a hungry beast.

This thing would not attack him nor eat him alive, not this man.

But it wasn’t a man. No matter how he covered his eyes or pretended. It wasn't even a man in his dream right now.

In the dream, he pretended that its last thrusts were uneven and wild. Its animal expression melted into unchained, fevered bliss. It groaned and shivered and was overcome, all because his body held its cock so tight and sweet. Its face was such a beautiful sight. Even when it came inside him. Mouth open. Sweat-laden hair falling. Light and sweat dancing on its lovely muscles as it thrust itself deep as could be into him. Fucking him more and more in its last moments, so Iwaizumi would have no choice but to take all of its spend. It drove him to his own peak moments after. It held him down even tighter so there was no escaping, no writhing, nothing but screaming and shaking and crying. Crying because it was so good it was beyond human experience. Yes. It was.

It held him possessively during that conquering bliss. Just past the peak of his orgasm it took its first bite out of him.

Hajime’s jagged moan became a shout and then a rending shriek of agony. It pulled away part of Hajime's chest and abdomen in its mouth. Threads of flesh and blood vessels hung from that piece of meat. It swallowed that piece of him.

It ducked again and bit into him lower, by his hip. A piece of bone from his pelvis gave way and was crunched to bits in its mouth. The creature took it away, took it with pieces of meat. The pain was unknowable. A volcano erupting and melting a flesh body. He had no mind and no humanity and no language but agony. And he was in its clutches still as it dove to take more.

In reality, his orgasm pulsed and pulsed, supernaturally strong, reaching around his whole body. When he came down from its sweet high, traces of the nightmare end to his dream remained. He shouted in alarm, he flailed in bed. He forgot himself and his position and where he was. No longer the navigator Iwaizumi, but lesser Hajime, a pathetic man.

The creature was gone from his imagination. He was alone in bed the way he'd always been.

Hajime writhed there in bed, toes still shaking minutely from pleasure. He desperately felt around his whole chest and hips, where there were no wounds at all. He barely perceived the bedroom cabin for the image in his head was so all-powerful, so real: strings and red smears of his viscera tearing and floating away from him. Parts that carried him through physical hardship and managed his body, pumped his blood and every step he'd taken in life quickly abandoned him and gave themselves to the creature, became nothing but food for another. His own body pulled apart by a demon's mouth. And after he wept so gratefully for the thing coming inside, too.

He considered now that if anything like his fantasy occurred, the consequences of it were nearly infinite. This pathetic, traitorous fantasy would not happen, but anything else could. That they were different species might not matter. The creature could hold him down and force this on him if it wanted to. Its seed might be acidic, might be boiling hot. It might not necessarily need a living body to grow it. Its seed might grow wherever it could attach and eat him from the inside out. The others in its clan might come and eat him after that, too, now that their king had bred. He might die of a violation no human had ever imagined before. He would die crying. 

He did cry.

No matter how his mind bent and how he curled up in shame around his pillows, the truth remained in front of him. The truth was stark as the conjured-up image of his own gore, a ready meal for his beautiful partner. For the fucking animal that stalked him. That creature was not a man, no matter how familiar and sweet its shape. But Hajime was one, a fucking shameful stain of one.

What good sensations he'd conjured were swiftly draining out. Shame was crawling up and spreading in him instead. Breeding.

Hajime tried to roll off the bed, fell, and then shot up with a loud, loud sob. He whirled around and had to look at the little mess he'd made on the ruffled-up bed. He had to remove the sheets and carry them, half-clothed, down the hall to the laundry room. He picked a washing machine he rarely used and dropped them in with enough soap for all his gym clothes. He stormed out, returned moments later to add the pillows to a second washing machine. Then removed what clothes he still had on and added them in.

The two washers began to softly spin and clean the shame out of his bedding. He watched the water move in the two round little windows.

Hajime sat nude on the laundry room floor.

-

DATE-TIME 9.24.2118-0803:

1^st sighting of extraterrestrial since leav ing Earth and it’s the same kind that crashed into the flight deck window. MUST TRANSCRIBE THIS PAPER TO COMPUTER LOG LATER

Bipedal semi inteligent carnivorous regenerative tissue?? Hair and hair folicles on head and nowhere else. Resemblance to human body shope remarkable. Slight difference in skin tone. Or trick of light unsure. Slight green? Abdominal stripes extend from below latissimus dorsi muscles to below pectoral  muscle, three count. Long TAIL extend from human tailbone five to six ft in length. Tapered end. Light shine on skin causes flicker? If you blink it flickers. Around six feet tall or a bt more and slim build. Swimmers body I wish Ohira was here.  Want to go home

-

DATE TIME 11.13.2118-1123:

Seen them 2 more times since last entry. I forgot this page was here in the bottom storage room.

Might keep a few notes like this in paper form rather than typing into computer log. Not more than once in a blue moon am I going to let these things have more space in my head and my life than they’ve already brute-forced their way into. Above entry is also shit anyhow. I was scared. Will return to proper writing protocol. I’ll inform Dog Major Lucky of my failure to adhere to writing protocol tonight at EOD checkin later.

Last entry that I write like this.

Maybe I’ll just add to this page when I come by this room for monthly cleaning or whenever I get to it. I can keep real notes computerized. Like paper notes are even gonna help. Maybe I can draw on these. Pencil is good

There’s eight of them. They do not always show up together, like some get left behind. Or maybe they’re following other things. They a

They are some scary motherfuckers. But I have Tory and Cat Captain Hitoka, under their guidance I will persevere I think

(poor sketch of a cat and a bipedal dinosaur)

-

I forgot about this page for a while

DATE-TIME: 1.1.2119-0748:

Happy new year Wakatoshi. – Lieutenant Iwaizumi Hajime, 44^th Engineering Division

-

DATE TIME 3.30.2119-0803: Outside growery, second south facing window

Number 6 bared teeth at Number 12 and what appeared to be teeth were visible inside the throat but retracted into the flesh. Teeth/bones? Flagella for pulling prey into the mouth?

Wondering how they move themselves through space. Flagella would have no impact in an airless environment. How do they propel themselves forward? Gas expulsion from the skin or the tentacles? Bodily movements rarely match directions the tentacles point or move. Magnetism with particles of

I’m an idiot

Why do I come to this room.

I could type up these notes and trash the paper but I like the New Year line. For his name and the fact that I almost forgot my rank.

Captain Wakatoshi Ushijima

Captain Wakatoshi Ushijima

Major Tory Tyrannosaurus WRECKS

-

DATE TIME 4.17.2119-1134: Piston #34 deployed and pierced Number 6 right through its chest! Bullseye

Impact made 6 swung away towards the aft of the shuttle. Nearly down to rudder plates 1-5.  Number 12 moved in uneven patterns around it, worried? Number 2 and 3 smiling with their mouths open? LAUGHING??

Numbers 1 and 7 continued to float around and peer in the windows by the storage sections. Staring at plastic bins and boxes for god knows how long. Thinking I would walk by I guess.

-

DATE TIME 7.03.2119-1845: Numbers 2 and 3 swam/crawled through the solar plates for almost 3 hours. Maybe seeking warmth. I think I have strep throat?

-

DATE TIME 7.04.2119-1420: Number 1 is a cunt

-

DATE TIME 8.09.2119-2024:

2 – Yukon

3 - ??

7 - Minami 

12 – Rockies plural doesn’t work as a name

12-  Rocky (Better?)  

1 - Fuji

1 - Everest

1 – Rainier

1 - Denali

(Sketch of a snow-capped mountain, sketch of a velociraptor, sketch of another mountain)

(The entire page is crumpled, anyway)

-

REDO

3 Hana (but it’s male? I guess)

3 Hanamaki (this one has bubblegum pink hair there is no god. 3 looks like a guy who would laugh at god)  

13 - Kuni ?? Kimi  Kunimi

Kawa

(Sketch of a curving river in the foreground and mountain in the background. Long, waving lines and small scratches of shadows on grass, on the mountainside, on grass, sand grains and pebbles, the long blurred distance between the riverbank and the peak, a drawing he liked, Hitoka would have complimented it)

1 – Oikawa

What the fuck am I doing

(This page is folded in half)

-

Iwaizumi found these old pages, typed a few of them up into to supplement his official logs, and burned the papers.

-

Iwaizumi endured as usual, against the dark outside and sometimes against himself. He lasted a long time. He lost today.

Today he sat in a chair in one of the mechanical rooms, where spare parts were bolted to the walls and the floor. The window in this room was large enough to drive a few cars through, close in size to the one in the flight deck. He was looking out into an unnamed solar system with twenty-eight planets orbiting an A-type main sequence star. It would burn blueish white if it was close enough to see, but at this distance it was barely larger than any of the typical stars. He had pens and paper and could draw an approximation of it right now if he wanted.  

Iwaizumi retracted the shuttle’s main solar panels, set out the spares for charging, and waited. And he wondered if he was dead already.

He thought on his aliens, with his eyes carefully closed. He thought on one of their last visits, where Number 6, the one with silvery hair, had been carrying an object in its hands. It lifted it up in one hand and it was clearly trying to make him look at it. It appeared to be one of his tablets that he’d thrown out and ejected in the trash compactor some months ago. The screen had irreparably cracked when he’d gotten a little drunk in the cafeteria, thrown the thing up and failed to catch it before it hit the floor.

It was a wonder he hadn’t seen them playing with his ejected trash before like goddamned raccoons. It was strange that he hadn’t seen them interacting with any of it before. It upset him. Gravely. To see these animal beasts lifting up a tablet he used to log maintenance, weather and watch movies. To see them handling an object.

To look into their eyes and, with thundering shock, see not animal hunger and curiosity but expressions he had names for. Questions. Demands.

Is this yours?

Do you want this?

Do you want to come out and get it?

He let them have the tablet; it made no difference to his usual treatment of swatting them away. The creatures were nevertheless opportunistic beasts. They calculated risk and reward, performed coordinated teamwork, recognized patterns, and much more. Like the cleverest of animals. But not just that. 

Iwaizumi wiped his hand over his face in exasperation but did not open his eyes. Just wondered to the blank darkness of his eyelids what the hell he was doing. He could get up and leave and keep swatting the creatures as they came, as ever, into nameless star systems and asteroid belts and years of silence. He had plenty of engine maintenance and fiber repair to keep him busy in the next few weeks at least. The monthly rewatch of King of the Monsters was coming up in three days.

But the idea was loose from his subconscious now and it was so dangerous to not consider it. And yet dangerous to consider it. It would be, or it already was, the greatest danger he had ever encountered.

The creatures floated in the empty ether and looked at each other with eye-to-eye focus and engagement that could almost match human verbal conversation. They would push each other playfully like friends, or harshly like teammates. They had intensely complicated and familiar facial expressions and understood the meaning of them on each other. They understood the meaning of his own expressions. Like the commonest human being.

It begged, rather demanded, the question of whether their minds more resembled animals’ or more resembled his own. Or perhaps theirs was a network entirely different from either one, and he was only seeing it in human terms and expressions because it was the only way a man could. But the most alarming possibility was the middle: that their minds were humanlike, that they were like him. That they may have similar intelligence to a man, but simply lack for man’s technology, equipment and knack for material possessions. Rather than these, they just an infinitely regenerating body, social structure and wits.

Rather than being man-shaped animals, there lay the venomous possibility that they had more humanlike behaviors than just facial expressions. There was no telling what other behaviors they exhibited that he just didn't see. There was no telling if they were smart enough to hide things. To lie.

There was no telling anything about anything about anything about anything about anything abou—

—about anything about anything about anything—

Heat sensory alarms were going off on his watch, and a tablet locked in the nearby wall. Iwaizumi obeyed calming protocol measures that helped him keep still in his chair.

He waited a little longer till there was a little more beeping. Then there was less. Then more. Then he looked.

Kunimi was floating before the window, a little above him. Today he had no tail, but two tentacles rising out from the back of his shoulders. He looked a little exhausted and put-upon as he always did, this rather little one of the alien clan. 

Iwaizumi’s hand under his chin gripped into a fist under his jaw instead. His face twisted into a scowl of hate. At himself. He’d used the goddamn name he made up. Another factor that made him believe he may be dead already, and made an engagement like this necessary for his own safety.

‘Number 13.’  

He did not need to remind himself not to blink. When he had to, he would avert his gaze entirely first so that they weren’t even in his periphery. By now this was protocol.

13 resembled a human male like all the others. It had nothing between its legs, not even any visible slit of skin, and too-sharp claws and toes to be a human being. It had hair in a style he didn’t really like and dark green stripes on both its thighs. It moved slowly. Iwaizumi had seen it punched into empty space by his weapons like a cartoon catapult more than a few times.

From the top of the window came Number 3, upside down, the one with pink hair. It was crawling over the window for a few steps and then it pushed off to float by it. It looked up to the higher floors of the ship, staring up and away with wide eyes. Iwaizumi ignored it. Two more came into view, and Iwaizumi did not bother to identify them or number them. He only sat with his chin resting on his first and his ankles crossed, making himself available to be observed. He had never set himself before them so blatantly, or if he did, he had frantically blacked it out.

Number 1 sped up from below view of the window and paused in its center, where it could look directly at the navigator within. Iwaizumi thought of the name he’d picked for it in a faraway manner, as though he were looking across the room at the thought. Many rooms away, and yet wrapped around his skin, was a more deeply intimate thought than its name. The creature outside the window had been in his bed once, in a dream. In two other places since. And now here.   

Iwaizumi’s fist became tighter and his scowl uglier. He sat where he was, meaning to be observed. He made sure to maintain that face of controlled anger. Nothing else.

Number 1, the leader, floated where it was. Its tail did not move at all. It had three other tentacles today, and these all slowed into perfect stillness till its entire body was suspended in space with neither force nor motion acting upon it. Perhaps it was waiting for him this time. Iwaizumi wanted this encounter over with and stop having to look it in the eye, so he got started.

There were pens and paper by his feet, and a little tape. He picked up all of these and held them in his lap, thinking. But the decision was already made: he would start simply. He took one of the pens and wrote something. Then he took a bit of the tape and stuck it to the top of the paper while standing up from the chair. He walked forward. As he did, the creature floated forward. Its hand touched against the glass as it often did.

Iwaizumi risked one glance up at it and found it wasn’t looking at his eyes, but a little below his face. Maybe at his collarbone. The eyes swung a little left, then right. Maybe it could sense or see bloodflow under the skin, like savory juice running through a steak. Weird thought to have about something you wanted to fuck.

Iwaizumi wanted to kick himself. He set the paper onto the glass, facing them. It just read:

Hello

This drew the leader’s eye.

It kept staring at the paper even when Iwaizumi stepped back, waiting with crossed arms for some reaction. The others all reacted with more animated movements: they leaned in close, pushed or propelled as though in water or by magic, so they could all look at the writing. 6 and 7 looked at each other, and 2 looked at 1. Iwaizumi looked only at 1, for he would not risk being engaged with any of the others, too.

It wasn’t as though they would know what it meant or be able to write a response, or so he told himself. The creatures did not handle or carry physical objects unless they were Iwaizumi's own or part of the shuttle. So if they lacked any writing utensils they might default to something of their own bodies: a display of blood, a pattern in their tentacles' waving, or in their flickering bodies. Or something else he hadn't seen before. Maybe something they'd been hiding up until this point, waiting for a time when he would actually attempt to communicate. It could be simply a different expression or body language. As he waited for a response, Iwaizumi realized he was shivering and had to consciously put a stop to it.

The leader moved away from the paper so it was to its side, no longer obscuring its view of Iwaizumi. Its hand settled on the glass again. And it smiled. And Iwaizumi continued to methodically suppress his shivering.

The black-browed Number 2 looked enamored with the page and gently pushed pink-haired 3 aside to see it. But the leader was temporarily distracted, its intrigue in his writing put away. Now its focus was on him yet again. Now Iwaizumi’s deep-seated paranoia was rising out of its nightmare cradle and into reality, because it certainly looked like the leader knew a secret of his and was very interested in it.

Iwaizumi thought of his secret, the writhing insanity of it, and felt no pleasure from it at all. He wanted to scream from the rotting guilt. He could only bear the humiliation by tackling it, piercing it, head-on.

He tore up a new piece of paper from the floor and wrote his own name on it. He slammed it flat onto the glass with one open hand. Forgot the tape. 

Now they all looked at the new page, even the leader. They all moved a little to get close and make curious expressions at it. A few tentacles were waving here and there, some hands pushed on each other or touched each other’s shoulders. A new hand touched the glass, then pulled away.  

The leader remained a little separate from the others centralizing themselves around the paper. He looked back and forth between Iwaizumi and his handwriting. Every second, it looked like it was understanding something and plotting. Iwaizumi twitched uncomfortably at the sudden flash of cadet memory, of looking across the court at a setter from an opposing school. One of the few times his team lost.

What the hell goes on in your head, he asked aloud, when it placed its open hand near his on the window. And it looked at him again, eyes dark and dotted with stars unseen by all of humankind, but for him.

Your guys must think you’re real brilliant to keep following your persistent bullshit, or else they’re too stupid to try following anyone else.

If you have anyone else. Maybe your whole species kicked you guys out for being such obnoxious shitheads.

You look like you’d be totally up your own ass if you were a human. I’d spike into your fuckin’ face if I saw you on a court.

Are you really gonna stare into my window for the rest of your life?

Really no other options in the whole universe for you, you horny bitch?

It doesn’t do you any good to keep following me for nothing.

Doesn’t do me any good to keep flicking you off my hide.

And I feel like you’re smart enough to get that. But you keep doing it.

I’m real tired of it.

I was taught to endure. Anything. Anything.

I was ready to leave my planet. My kind doesn’t do that, we never have. But we were going to do it, to keep surviving and be free and happy.

And my captain commanded me to stay standing.

So I’m going to. But. You sure love to make it difficult. You never stop. No matter how many times I tear you down, you pull yourself back together and try again. You’re the most persistent motherfucker alive. I think I admire that. Somehow.

Goddamn me. I guess because I’m not as strong as that. I worry eventually I’m gonna fall down one day. I’ll try to stay staying and my legs will just break. And I’ll die a failure. Alone.

God…oh my god. I don’t want to die alone.

I don’t want to die ‘cause of you, I don’t want to, I don’t want to fucking be here! But there’s nowhere else to be! The gym, I can go to the gym upstairs, fuckin’ yahoo, and I can shoot myself out a cannon into space and suffocate and die!

And will you still take my dead body then and use it, you disgusting piece of shit!? You wouldn’t care, would you? One-track-mind-obsessed freak! Leave me alone!

Do you understand me, bastard? I know you’ve got a brain in there, tell me you understand!

I want you out of my head, do you understand that?

I didn’t do anything to you! I don’t want to think about you, I want you out of my head!

I don’t deserve to feel like such scum! I was a good person before this happened!

I liked myself! People liked me! People could talk to me and touch me and I could be outside!

I want to go home for fuck’s sake!

I hate this!

I hate you!

I hate what you’ve done to me!

Stop hurting me, I’ve had enough, if you hurt me again—

Iwaizumi stopped shouting when he realized he’d blinked. Oikawa wasn’t outside the window anymore.

His tears made the room blur; the long rudders and plates and parts around him turned to silvery-black, waving stripes on the dark wall. Nearby he saw Oikawa standing on his toes in the room, one open-clawed hand outstretched and stepping forward. There was two more behind him. With silver hair. And pink.

Iwaizumi stretched his eyes wide and grasped at the chair behind him. He threw it forward, refused to blink, and the metal chair faded through the creatures entirely. They disappeared.

The chair crashed against the wall and broke into two pieces with a ferocious bang of metal-on-metal. The sound stung his ears, vibrated through his whole body.

They were outside again, because he hadn’t blinked again to cement them into their new place.

The creature he had named writhed madly and beat its hands against the glass. Then stopped. There was raw, human frustration in its heavy brows and open mouth. And then sorrow. It mirrored a man wailing in despair. 

Its fingertips bent on the glass as though trying to grasp it. Trying to grasp the navigator inside, always, always, wanting to reach in and hold him like he were its own and it longed to reunite.

Iwaizumi recognized this wanting, and thought of his dreams in the past and deep in the ship, and Oikawa’s animal hunger in the past, and its presence at the destruction of the earth, and all his time rotting alone in space, and his impression that they had all waited for him to let his guard down and ambush him while he was talking to them just now, and could reconcile none of it. But it hurt. It hurt. That in no way did they hear him or care for his own sorrow. Then no one did. 

This time he was the one to beat his hands on the glass. The creature pulled back an arm-length, as though he’d struck it in the chest. His tears had started anew. A heavy pain in his hands had started anew. His fist beat and vibrated pain and he wailed in despair: Damn you, god fucking damn you!

Two of the creatures inched closer to the window, one of them with a placating hand. But he cared not to identify them or even humor the hand gesture as recognizably human. All that was humanlike about them was fake, it seemed. All that was humanlike about them was only for hunting, like animals, like agents of nature and not sentience or emotion. Like nothing.

He roared in the empty room so that his rage echoed inside it. The creatures all felt the vibrations he made. This was certain; this, they responded to. It was why they backed away from the window. 

The navigator whirled around and walked away with his teeth clenched and breath hissing through them.

Even now, he heard one of them hitting the glass at the other end of the room to grab his attention, but he would not deign it with a response. If they were greater than animals and understood him, if they grasped communication across species, then they could grasp his final hateful fuck you goodbye.

-

Iwaizumi felt cool.

He walked at the pace of a foreman inspecting his workers, not because of a slow, careful focus but a slow, careful conservation of energy.

It was imperative to always keep going, but lately he’d been going rather slow. He hadn’t been to the gym in three days. His last electrical report to Frog Lieutenant Jones had been insufficient. Lieutenant Jones punished him by demanding 50 pushups of him then and there. He had managed 17 and then lay down next to Jones till both of them were totally quiet. His checkins today to all his superiors would be late.

He rose up off the floor only because he was cold and wanted warmth. The bathwater for the day was still cycling and cleaning, so he couldn’t run a hot bath. His bedroom was quite a far walk. But he didn’t need to go that far. He only needed to go where Tory was.

Iwaizumi walked slowly to the spare bedroom where he had left his dinosaur best friend. The familiar green shape made him pick up his speed for just a few steps, just enough to fall slowly into the bed and tuck his friend under his chin. Tory had a mouth full of carnivorous teeth and was known to eat triceratops, edmontosauruses, and even other tyrannosaurs. But Hajime trusted Tory even with his mouth pressed up against his throat. Tory loved him, this was unquestionable.

Hajime hummed a tune every couple of breaths, when he could manage it. Once in a while, Tory sang back. He had a beautiful voice. It soothed him to sleep, for a while.  

He left his bed that night one-third through the sleeping shift.

Slowly, taking his time, Hajime walked to the arbor rooms, avoiding any pathways that would take him past a window. He knew there was a star shower in view now, and there were no heat signatures indicating the enemies were near, but he avoided the possibility anyway. He did not want to think about them.

The walk was quiet and cool, with Tory cradled in one arm. After he turned a corner, he began to feel warm. And soft.

Hajime pictured the star shower outside, and the sun of this system glowing blue and white. He knew someone who would know that color by name and number. He pictured her blending it together with cute little pencils on expensive paper. He liked her.

Hajime pictured her there, and there she was. She cradled his hanging arm in hers like she used to, looked up lovingly at him.

Hi Captain, he addressed her sleepily, and it made her giggle. He forgot why he’d chosen to make her outrank him.

‘I’m Cat Captain Hitoka,’ she agreed, and of course she would squeeze his arm. But her grin burst into a wide, worried frown. She asked if ‘captain’ was the correct rank. She never learned all the navigator ranks, she had nothing to do with navigator business except through her father, and of course, knowing him. She asked if that was the right one, was it, was it? He assured it her it was. Several years after he’d last seen her, he kept a glowing cat lamp and named it after her and given it that rank, and she was Cat Captain Hitoka to him now, and that all made sense.

That all made her reassured. Her tension wafted dramatically out of her when she sighed and shook her shoulders. Hajime looked down on her holding him and remembered how fond he was of her. How he liked to keep himself turned towards her and keep his arm protectively around her. She valued the steady weight of that arm so highly, and he valued having someone soft to hold. Both these things pushed back the Travelers above their heads.

Maybe that was why he had asked for her now, when he felt the weight of infinite planets pressing down on him. Hajime took in a breath and asked if her being here was about that.

‘I’m here to turn out the lights.’

Huh—

‘To make you rest. You need rest, Hajime! You do!’

Okay.

It didn’t matter.

He walked down the hall with Hitoka. The last time he checked, she was a cat lamp and he was going to die alone, and this was much better than that.

How long till I get to rest, Hitoka? Do you know?

‘Not long.’

Okay.

‘Please don’t feel guilty, okay? Please.’

Okay.

‘I mean about the dreams you’ve had. In case you didn’t—’

…

‘I mean! I mean it’s a lot like what I would dream of, when we were together! If you didn’t know!’

Oh. Hah.

They were almost at the door to the arbor gardens. He asked Hitoka if she wanted tea. No answer. The arm that held Tory lifted the latch. He walked forward first, leading her in. He walked past the door and beheld his arbor garden.  

The door opened upon a landing, from which the whole high-ceilinged, main room of the gardens was visible. The finest, tallest tree was in the center of this room: an oak already half-grown by the time it was transplanted into the shuttle. It was older now, with branches that spread over the walkways at either side of it.

The branches’ shadow just barely touched the vegetable rows growing beyond them. Iwaizumi slowly descended the long stairway and made for that comforting shelter of its shadow. Each step down that long stairway, he was a little closer to its embrace. Each step he felt a little closer to a friend. This tree stood tall for him and made air for him every day, even when he wanted to wither.

He walked to the left side of the room, to the first vegetable row past the tree. He walked into the row of plums barefoot. This soil was from before the shuttle, too. It was transplanted from Earth and still alive, like him. He nurtured it and its plants like a good friend. They nurtured him in return. They fed him and warmed him and their leaves lovingly stroked his hands. Iwaizumi collapsed in slow motion into the soil.

Drowsy but with great care, he arranged his limbs between the stems and vines, pushing minimally at the dirt that he may disturb as little as possible. He pillowed the blanket into a soft ball by his head so that his extinct friend would not lay his head upon the dirt.

‘You always reminded me of a kitten.’

Hajime looked up at her.

It was soothingly warm in here.

‘Hajime, do you want me to turn out the lights?’

In this warm air, so near the soil and surrounded by green things, he did feel better.

Yes. Thanks.

She pressed her lips to his temple, and then he to her cheek. She blushed and giggled, as she always used to. And she kissed Tory goodnight. Hajime felt overcome with such love that he shuddered from it. He fell backwards into the soil.

The scheduled timer made the lights in the garden go dim. This time he was able to rest.

-

Iwaizumi navigated past two more planets. ‘Take me to victory.’ And he pushed past another. And another. And more. 

Iwaizumi journeyed to victory alone. He carved his way there through an endlessly regenerating barrier of monsters. Such was his past and would be his future. Today and all days.

From the flight deck or spare control panel or even a tablet in bed, he mauled them routinely, and he did not make efforts to acknowledge them anymore. They themselves had long become routine. The creatures wore his scars and minded his weapons.

He would still recognize them by their horrid movements and animal habits. He had an instinctive view of them as familiar, assuring that he was still present in the universe. And separately he viewed them as obstacles to be defeated and pulverized. Torn to a handful of pieces, sometimes. Whatever he needed that day, he would bend them into that role, and so endure. Highly bendable, flexible, unbreakable beings were they.

Some days they floated by the flight deck window peering at him for hours while he stiffly ignored them, and today was another day.

He retreated deeper into the ship and into the reprieve of an ice storm that the shuttle would soon pass through. Ice particles moving at thousands of miles an hour faster than their own speed would pulverize the creatures faster and more effectively than any of his equipment. Perhaps it would pummel them so intensely they could not regenerate. Time would tell. He reported to Frog Lieutenant Jones and proceeded calmly with his day.

At the end of the daily cycle, after he was washed and ready to close his eyes and had bid all his workplace companions goodnight, he sat next to his bed for the final goodbye: to kiss his dinosaur goodnight.

One kiss atop Tory’s soft, firm head. He held the little cloth jaw with his fingers to steady it and kissed him again on the snout, slower. As always, with love.

Tory beeped at him in thanks. Or rather, one of the tablets nearby beeped.

In sleeping shorts still, he reached for the tablet to view the cause of its annoying alarm. The horror froze every piece of him: mind, soul, fingertips.

The tablet clattered out of his hand and onto the floor. An airlock door was open to the outside.

Oh—Chri—

There was no change in oxygen or air pressure. There was no deafening hurricane of ice crashing in from the storm outside, or equipment or structuring being torn asunder in the new vacuum.

The door was open, and everything was still.

The only sound was a ringing in his ears as he trembled on the floor. The navigator whimpered once as he tried to stand, full of tremors and burgeoning nausea. Out of his bedroom and down a connecting hall, there was a long row of red lights pointing him towards the safety hazard.

He ignored the lights and quietly entered an emergency response room, whose contents he only touched during maintenance checks. He came out in a thin white contagion suit worn over his sleeping shorts and zipped up to his chest. It showed his bare collar and the sheen of his sweat there. Its belt and shoulder straps held weapons he’d had nightmares of using. On one wrist was a little tablet slightly larger than a watch, which he jabbed at to turn off the hazard lights.

At his input, the bloodred splashing on the walls faded. The hall turned stark white as unending time.

There were closed doors all the way down to the end, where the hall intersected with another one to the right, making an L shape. Down that way and out of sight was the little stairway by which he had once collapsed. It was a sacred space, now breached. Opened to the hazardous outside.

Iwaizumi was filled—mind, soul fingertips—with an instinctive truth: Today is it for me.

Someone appeared at the end of the hall.

Iwaizumi’s soul left his body.

It was not just appearing where he blinked as its power allowed, but walking in his space. It walked where he had walked. It touched one hand to walls he had leaned on and felt safe in. Its fingers spread to feel the smooth white paneling and violate the manmade place with its skin. When it pivoted slowly at the end of the hall, claws delicately scraping at the wall, an open-mouthed grin of delight spread on its face.

It was standing inside his fucking ship.

Iwaizumi was flying.

He was standing still but melting away, all thoughts vaporizing to nothing. His name and his life abandoned him. His memory of all things all drained away, till he was an unthinking shell who stood empty but for functions of blood and organs. Protocol abandoned him last of all. Then he was as nothing. 

Get up off the floor! Ushijima screamed at his temples.

No, Iwaizumi said simply as he stood there, and banished him with a breath. 

I want—I want to stop, he wished, in a way, without real speech or thought. He was separate from his body now. In his mind he saw himself, or a featureless man in navigator dress, collapse to the floor and break into uneven pieces. But in reality, he stood. In reality he did not fall, because there was a blood-thin layer of a man inside his soul still and that man still wanted.

I want to stop, he wished again. Because I want to. Ken.

The memory stole him away from that white hall. He was flying, flying to the tarmac outside his duty station, where the shuttles were. The last place he had really been a whole person.

Ken had been there manning the flight line, too, even if Iwaizumi hadn’t seen him. On the tarmac with Ken and Kuroo and Misaki and many others, he’d carried and helped people to the last. All the screaming and flailing hands. The shouting and sweating. The faces of people who needed him, branded into his soul. He flew them to safety in this very shuttle in dozens of flights. He gave and created safety for others, because he wanted to.

Years ago, he had gone on his very first spacewalk with his captain where he had floated in the emptiness and seen the infinite dark.

The infinite dark was at the end of the hall.

More of its pack were filing in behind it. The assortment of shapes and names that he had known for so long. 12, the spike-headed adolescent. 3, the one colored pink in its hair and its tail. They stood slightly hunched or crouched halfway to the floor like animals prepared to skitter across the ground. But the leader stood tall with its arms now at its sides. No being alive since Earth’s conquerors had ever stood so tall, so victorious, as Oikawa.

Take me to victory is what his dead captain often said to keep him alive, but Iwaizumi had already braced his knees to stay standing of his own volition. Because he wanted to.  

The navigator flew back home. He spoke.

“Today is it for you.”

Through all of its pursuit, it had never heard his voice. It raised its head at the sound; a quiver of humanlike ecstasy rattled it from head to toe. Iwaizumi recalled its wistful longing from his long-ago attempt to talk to it. He wondered if he was more wrong than he ever thought in believing it had feelings. If it remembered that day, or if it was even capable of it.

There came a deep humming vibration emanating from its very skin that soared down the hallway and rumbled the walls. Iwaizumi felt when it reached him like a physical touch of many probing hands. Or many vibrating voices.

He exhaled jaggedly through his nose. He reached behind himself and removed one of the weapons from its place on a strapped magnetic mount between his shoulders. It was rifle-shaped, full of electricity, modified for assaults. It meant nothing to the alien. It did not react to his clear challenge or the threatening shape of his weapon. It only saw the plain, delectable sight of its human obsession within its reach at last. It drooled. 

Iwaizumi aimed the rifle. All of them were still.

It pounced first with an echoing yell.

The hall came alive with the metallic boom of its footfalls and leaps, so loud Iwaizumi’s eyes squinted reflexively. It was on all fours, then running bipedal with a snap of its spine. Then Iwaizumi fired his weapon, releasing not bullets, but a fat metal payload which opened into a net with magnetic weights on its ends. The net burst open and it became the width of the whole corridor. The weights on it matched its environment: scraped every side of every wall and left no free space to run through or past.

It hit the creature as it ran. For a moment it kept heedlessly on, before the electric charges went off. The shock felled it from midair; it clattered to the floor.

The sparks were blindingly white, arcing off the walls and into doorways. While the leader coiled up in pain under the net, Iwaizumi shot two more charges over its head. The one with a shaved-looking skull ducked back into the hall while the turnip-headed dunce went down in sparks and choking sounds.

It left Iwaizumi with precious seconds to open a panel in the wall nearby and code a simulation he’d practiced since childhood: isolating his ship from invasive danger. Three panels opened in the hall ceiling at spaced intervals. Heavy slabs of metal then began to descend from the openings.

Mirroring rumbles were felt throughout the ship as more and more halls and pathways began to cut themselves off. But another vibration demanded attention a short distance ahead of him. The downed alien was caught in his trap, even its tail coiled and caught in the netting. It looked up at him with awe and determination. And joy. Which was irritating.  

He approached it, ducking under the first slowly descending door. Its eyes were not pupils now, but thin animal slits. Even smothered by the thick wiring and a spray of yet-unhealed scars on the skin, its form was muscular and strong; he felt a thin thread of an old dream brushing past just now. He wondered if the creature had actually guessed that truth of him, or he’d just imagined it. Surely, he imagined it all. He was the fool in trying to imprint human meaning on anything this rotten carnivorous shitbag did.

“I’m sorry for every positive thought I’ve ever had about you. You don’t deserve any of them,” he growled at it. But it smiled at hearing his voice. Like he was telling it some very thrilling news. “And you’re gonna regret coming in here.”

He returned the net rifle to its place on his back and replaced it with a weapon from the opposite shoulder. It had no reaction to this one either, only looking past it to maintain eye contact with Iwaizumi. He aimed it the long, open muzzle at the thing’s face. The hum had stopped; it was starting to lightly pant with excitement instead. It had a strong natural smile like a charismatic leader or an uncaring liar. It smiled like it was stronger than its pain.

Undaunted as always, it raised its head much as it could within the tight net. It licked deliberately at its lips. It showed Iwaizumi a view of its many fangs. 

So Iwaizumi showed his: he fired the flamethrower.

The fire burst red into the white corridor and the alien’s screams tore at his eardrums. Several of the net’s magnetic weights were torn up from the floor as it flailed in all directions. The lesser beings at the end of the hall shrieked their own alarm. Iwaizumi steadied his breath and began to back away, keeping the flame steady all the while. The lowering barricade awkwardly bumped his head as it finally came down from the ceiling, but he kept sweeping the flame left and right in a defensive wave till it was locked in place in the floor.

Seconds after, there was metallic scraping and screeches, a dozen sounds and a half dozen voices overlapping. Other members of the pack must have run forward under the other lowering barricade doors, through fire in order to get to him, bashing into the walls as they went. The other barricades hadn’t stopped them in time. At least not all of them. And now they were separated from him by three feet of metal. Iwaizumi’s palms sweat whole waterfalls underneath his gloves. 

You have plenty of time, his captain soothed him, like he always did.

He thanked him for the encouragement, even though it wasn’t wholly true. There was much more isolating to be done. But the balm was felt; he’d clearly needed it.

Ushijima smiled at him, and Hitoka waved. In step, the two stood aside. Iwaizumi nodded at them both as he ran past.

Chapter Text

The chase went on. He would have to end it today, if he wanted to live. After gathering himself multiple times and having his pieces picked up by multiple people, Iwaizumi knew for certain that he did want to.

From the tiny tablet screen on his wrist and multiple panels on the wall, he defended his home from further invasion.

The ship ventilation system was partitioned into five self-sustaining sections. The water tankards were blocked from any toxic input. He stopped by a random tablet held by a metal arm in the ceiling. He searched its readings for infrared indicators. He must check the status of the invaders in their closed-off section of hall by that open airlock.

They were not there.

Iwaizumi scowled, angered, but it mixed poorly with the cold, tight discomfort that grew in his belly. He shunted these emotions aside and scrutinized the indicators of little sparks and fires. The fire in those sections of hall were being washed down by the automatic water system, but none of the heat signatures were the body heat of living organisms. Somehow, none of them were in that hall anymore. But he’d known that their body heat had always been intermittent. Blinking in and out, perhaps. Perhaps as they teleported within each other’s peripheries. Or some other method they had known not to let him see.

Iwaizumi inhaled, exhaled, trembled. He replaced his gloves with fresh ones and kept moving.

He ran till a man-shaped yellowish blur flashed on the tablet for one second and disappeared. It had been in the central part of the arbor room, he realized with a horrified gasp.

It may have been drawn by the scent of growth, dirt or bugs. Things to eat. It may have been stepping on his tomatoes and plums and spinach even now. It may be poisoning his plants with its very skin and presence.

It may be eating his plants.

Iwaizumi ground his teeth and began to sprint towards the invading demons. If they entered his domain and trampled his last piece of Earth for their own revolting ends, if they felled the oak tree, or if they walked in his garden soil—

“I’ll kill you,” Iwaizumi growled aloud, and it was true.

His solitude-driven dreams and general insanity and uncomfortable regard for the creatures were all thankfully shunted to the side by this. These motherfuckers were not permitted in his garden, stepping in soil and plants he had cultivated since the gardens were on earth. The creatures, whatever they meant in hanging off of him for so long, were no different than the monstrosities that had once brought down that Traveler over Hokkaido. The ones he had not just mauled, but murdered. Murder was no sin. Not here, not anymore. He would not regret it.

The rifle was primed. He was panting with unmatched human bloodlust. He kicked open the door to the main arbor room and paused on the main landing.

The landing looked down the long stair and pointed towards the great oak tree in the center of the room, decorated with loving grass and ferns at its roots. And it was poisoned. The creature with thick, black brows was there with both hands defiling the tree trunk. It was testing the sensation of bark on its skin. It had a tail today, an exact replica of one that Iwaizumi had wrapped wires around and torn almost completely off three months ago.

Its head whipped around when Iwaizumi entered, but its dead-eyed face did not change. Its disgraceful palms remained on his tree. Violating his territory. Waiting for him to react.

“Fuck you!” Iwaizumi shouted. He fired the rifle.

The distance was great enough that it could dodge the shot, ducking behind the tree. The net weights magnetized and sparked uselessly as the net pinned down half in the metal flooring and half in the grass at the foot of the oak. Sparks flew from it and struck the trunk. Still the creature’s body heat was nonexistent on his wrist radar—

He was tackled from behind. His feet left the landing; he sailed in an arc over the stairs, started to fall. But more than falling, more than trapped, he was touched.

Not in a dream or intrusive thought and not by machinery or tools but by a living thing. He was so slow to react that the creature freely wrapped him in two extra, winding limbs and he felt another reaching around him. His first real reaction was to scream. Then protocol.

Per short-term combat protocol, this suit was equipped with two knives on the shoulders. He found one easily as finding his own hand, and then tried to turn in the thing’s grip to identify it: Hanamaki. Number 3. Pink one. It had tackled him like a quarterback taking an enemy to the ground. The ground was at least two stories below from the top of the stairs. 

It had wrapped him in two arms and two tentacles. These ones were softly pink at the ends, softly tapered, one of them reaching up his chest and dangerously close to his bare skin where the zipper stopped before his collarbone. Iwaizumi’s pupils shrank to mindless dots, to see that in real life. Immediately he stabbed downward with his knife before that fucking thing could touch his skin.

They struck the stairs once, bounced up, kept falling. It hardly hurt. 

Time moved slowly for the navigator and his terror. He hurled the knife down into the pink alien’s upper back. It entered a cavity so deep that his hand disappeared inside it, till it hit some unseen beam of cartilage with branches and arms of thinner cartilage. Iwaizumi obeyed combat protocol and flexed his arm back towards himself to messily sever as much of it as he could.

His hand and his knife came out of the alien covered in minty-green blood. Pained, rolling vibrations blasted out of the beast’s very skin. Iwaizumi’s eyes rumbled in their sockets.

Finally they hit the floor and rolled. The pinktip tentacles all went slack, allowing him to slip partially out of their grip and get to his knees. Even after the hard fall, he hadn’t let go of the knife. He changed to a two-handed grip and slammed it down yet again. This time he lost the knife inside the cavity. His hands came out hot, wet, empty.

Iwaizumi tore out of its limp, poisonous grip and up onto his feet like a cat. He found the flamethrower just a few steps away, fetched it, came back. Without thought or preamble he kicked Hanamaki in his nose.

“Eat shit,” he said as he trembled. It lay prone on its back and one of its own tentacles, looking like the failed end of a barfight. Iwaizumi felt much worse. He felt death. Behind him.

He knew his combat protocol: he aimed and primed the flamethrower even before he had fully turned around. The black-browed creature snapped from a four-legged run to a bipedal jump. It had already halved the distance between him and itself. There were six tentacles sprouting from its back and shoulders and one from the thigh. More than there were on its body just one minute ago.

Iwaizumi aimed for its face. There was a ring of its reaching limbs surrounding his peripheral vision: Matsukawa trying to reach for him from all directions. Then the ring of tentacle-tips disappeared as his flames struck it in the face and chest. All its limbs flailed and some caught fire, too. 

Its scream sounded human. Like an injured man whom he must help, or touch. Iwaizumi screamed back so he would not hear it.

“Do not ever touch my garden, you rotten little bitch!” Iwaizumi screeched at the ball of fire in front of him. He got closer and spread his hateful fire all over it. 

The alien had fallen and started scrambling drunkenly on the floor. It finally started scrambling uniformly backwards and then got to its feet. It went back towards the oak tree, taking fire with it. The tree was already burning after sparks from the net projectile found fuel in the bark. The wildflowers around it were burning. A burning line rose up her trunk and into her central branches. Fire flung from Number 2 was nearly licking at the lights on the ceiling. The bare white wall to his right, where Ushijima had stood and spoken to him, and the vegetable bed to his left where Hitoka had bid him to rest, were both awash with the colors of fire.

Iwaizumi’s hateful aggression flagged. The huge, gasping breaths he was taking were only just sustaining him. He stumbled away from the groaning pink alien by the stairs and closer to his beloved tree. He gasped aloud in her air, tasting smoke.

“My—friend, my friend,” he gasped to her. “I’ll put those flames out! You stay strong—”

His tree waved her branches at him and spilled her leaves onto his cheeks, both charred and living.

My beautiful, strong son, she said with her kiss.

He was too weak to weep.  

Breathing her air washed away his nightmare fear, letting other facts and facets filter into his consciousness again. Pain on his hip and left leg from his forced fall down the stairs was pulsing and demanding agony from him. He took instinctive stock of his weaponry and knew there was but one knife left and his net rifle was far away. He did not remember where Tory was.

A hand slapped onto his right hip; Iwaizumi realized almost too late it was his own. Tory was no longer tied to his belt there. At the same time, he heard more hissing voices and a series of echoing chitters and high moans like whales communing underwater. Above all, vibrations from above him. More of them were coming.

The nameless leader was on his way too, from somewhere. He hadn’t laid eyes on the silver-haired one yet, and did not care. Where was Tory?

The sprinklers turned weakly on; a heavy drop of water caught him in the eye.

Unbidden, out of nothing, Iwaizumi heard Tetsurou Kuroo speaking to him.

S’like all intelligent life is coming to—

A monster crushed Kuroo and his voice. It crashed onto Iwaizumi’s shoulders from the ceiling. Shock and pain and some miracle kept him standing. It had one foot on his shoulder and one on his upper back. The clawed toes gripped so tight that they tore through the thin cloth of the contamination suit, till he was feeling its skin. Till he was feeling its warm, searching tentacles along his back and his neck. Till his hearing whined into one long ring and his vision began to fail.

Iwaizumi’s sight turned to shards of broken black like Kuroo’s sweat soaked hair, covering him. The creatures were covering him: surrounding him and securing his limbs with theirs and touching him. It was the touch of death to him. It shut his mental faculties away, erased parts of his very memory, to be actually touched this way. To be actually captured this way in real, breathing life and not in a soft dream he made for himself. 

Parts of Iwaizumi Hajime were melting away under this violent fission. The touch of Wakatoshi on his shoulder and touch of Ken on his arms and his clothes and the touch of his parents on his hair and his head were as nothing. He saw each one and forgot them. He felt each foreign limb grabbing and pulling him and knew with self-preservation-instinctive certainty that they must not have him. 

He was unmoored from himself—flying, again. To earth. To the tarmac. To the infinite dark on a spacewalk outside the shuttle, against every wall that kept him in this place. To nowhere. The creature saw his wild, rolling eyes which could not see. 

“Don’t fucking touch me!” he cried in his mind, but it never left his mouth.

With his right arm he grabbed at a limb on his left shoulder, a leg, and whirled around. He tore the ceiling-jumping creature off his body and swung it like a living club. It struck one creature, or two, he would never know or see.

While its own arms flailed, he swung it downward, hard, till his victim hit the ground and then he planted a boot on its chest. The rest of him fell forward, so that one knee hit the ground hard and the opposite arm easily planted a knife down into the thing’s chest. At last he was able to see that the one that dropped on him from the ceiling was Kunimi. Soft, slow Number 13. The one that clung to the easy protection of the spike-headed dunce. There was no protection now. 

Embers fell onto the tarmac. Iwaizumi held the little one down with one hand at its collarbone. It grabbed at his arm with two thin tentacles and one of its own hands, but he did not stop. He swung the knife down into its chest once, twice, more.

All intelligent life, Kuroo said, with his hand on Iwaizumi’s sweat-soaked face, coming to hunt us (you) down, Iwaizumi. You.

It wasn’t supposed to go this mad. They weren’t supposed to be in his garden, taking his last piece of Earth and life. He was supposed to be on Ken’s Traveler, right now.

The little one was whining submissively at him. It cried for his mercy. He cried with it; he never wanted to hurt this one.

He cried for his life and his sacrosanct arbor room and his parents’ ashes now drifting between the stars. He cried at the sensation of being touched. He could hardly see through the veil of blood over his eyes.

He would have cried till he fell and was subdued in his tears. But movement in the periphery of his vision roused another burst of rage in him: one of the creatures was running through his vegetable rows where Hitoka had blessed him with recuperating rest.

Kunimi's begging ceased to matter. Iwaizumi stopped puncturing its torso and roared at the heedless trampling of his garden. The change was so swift that black-haired Number 2 stopped and started scrabbling in the dirt to get further away.  

A strange arm grabbed him and Iwaizumi used his free hand to crush a bone in this arm. Another one came at him from the side that was bald-faced and big-eyed like a duckling: watchful Number 7. When it knocked him over, Iwaizumi’s back struck the floor first. Then he swung his legs forward and down till the soles of his boots hit the floor. Then his torso rose up after it, so his body all but flew upward from the floor.

Kindaichi didn’t expect him to get up so quick, so daringly. Iwaizumi roared aloud and punched him in the jaw.

His roundabout kick sent Matsukawa away after it tried to reach its tentacles dangerously close to him.   

He threw a small, spare knife in the direction of the Number 7 when it tried to sneak behind its friend and it tore away as though the knife were fire. And then they all kept their distance, walking or crawling in a circle around him like stalking wolves, though they all bled.

The creatures slowed, then stood half-broken and unmoving and surrounding the navigator. He panted, like a man on fire. Little tendrils of steam rose up from his body, like a man on fire.

The creatures surrounding him suddenly all ignored him. They looked away.

Iwaizumi faltered and momentarily considered falling onto his back to quit this effort like a tiresome dream. Instead he attentively followed their shared lines of sight. Past the partially burned central tree, up the long stairs was him, the smiling leader. The navigator fought to keep standing.

The thing tore down the stairs in two long leaps and kicked off the floor at the bottom. In three more it had crossed half the arbor room. It landed on all fours within a stone’s throw of its target, then stood up like a man. It looked at him like a man.

No fiberfill glass or steel structuring separating them now, no long hallway or distance. No electrified net keeping it down. Just empty air full of wandering smoke and each other’s breath. Both sides were at a pause. At the destruction of a second earth, it seemed. The garden was Iwaizumi’s tiny earth, invaded by half a dozen monsters. No escape route into open space this time, just a Traveler about to fall.

Iwaizumi did want to fall. Protocol and thought and humanity all bled out of him. If he collapsed now, he might not care.

Why did the creature care, at all? Still?

“Can you understand me? Do you even care?” he asked it, his voice sore and a little rasping. “It’s not fucking fair. Doesn’t…fucking matter. I will. Split your pretty face in half. I got that left in me.”

The creature was standing in front of him in a casual posture unbothered by his own animal rumbling. The thing he named Oikawa was an almost-man just above his own weight and height, unperturbed by violence or fire or failure. It had humanlike, circular pupils right now. It had humanlike hair, brown and fluffy, stirred by the artificial air running into the room through the vents. It was nude and had nothing between its legs. It had long toes and claws and thin green stripes on the sides of its abdomen. It wore the shuttle weaponry’s scars all over itself.

It said: “Come here.”

Then it waited in content stillness, while Iwaizumi shattered.

Neither mouth nor lips moved when it spoke, unlike when it made its animal sounds. It was not some electronic recording. It was not a dream. It was not a person. Iwaizumi could sift nothing from these statements, had no strength or willpower to. He understood next to nothing about Oikawa. It seemed he would die not understanding. He was just unmoored in space, alone, and starting to fade. 

There was no option left to him but to ask it, like it was a person or something.

Iwaizumi spoke back: “What. Did you say.”

One of its hands lifted up and dragged on its bicep till green-black blood pearled on the skin. It painted its hand with the fluid. As it did this, extraneous tentacles slid out from the flesh of its shoulders and back, making quiet, wet sounds as they pushed out from the flesh. They were longer than could possibly be coiled or contained within a body of its size. They waved slowly, aimlessly in the air as though it stood underwater. Against that wild backdrop it held its hand out to Iwaizumi, now wearing its own blood on the palm and knuckles.

Iwaizumi’s fears of the intelligent life circling his ship all were petrifying to certain fact. Even if it was only parroting a noise it had heard, whether it truly knew what it said or not, it was intelligent life like him, if not beyond him. If not beyond all things that he had ever seen. The more beyond him it was, the closer he was to losing this fight. 

It spoke again, the demand vibrating out of it in a rumble: “COME. HERE.”

One of the two essential knives was still in his hand. There were a few spare weapons on the suit yet. His vision was solid, his body ready for more. He had yet to collapse. He wanted to go on, still, at least until that collapse.

He replied to the alien, “No.”

It parted its lips this time to make a serpentine hiss and briefly let slip a large, red tongue. He wondered if it understood “no.” It looked so excited, so—happy.

Iwaizumi did not blink, but the creature was gone. Transported. 

Before he breathed again, he obeyed protocol. Not a navigator’s learned on earth but his own: his own learned instincts against alien predators polished over the past five years. By that supernatural grace, he moved to the side in time to avoid three tentacles, thick as human arms, slamming down into the place he had stood. Instead of throwing him to the ground, they slammed uselessly against the floor tiles with an echoing WHAM.

Iwaizumi did not blink again, but the creature still moved. So did he. He defended himself. Every few seconds it teleported somewhere else, attacked, feinted, tested. Every few seconds his knife bit into a tentacle and once even into the thicker flesh of its forearm, before the body instantly disappeared from around his knife. Every muscle movement and breath was made to evade its grasp first and damage it second, but his body performed these perfectly.

Every evasion and attack of this creature that he had ever done, from the control room or a tablet or from his mind resisting its persistent warfare, was to perfect this. To make it through like he always did. To always endure. He must do this to live. 

It was moving faster. Ten seconds here, one-tenth of one there. Its claws were tearing into the floor tiles as it ran, jumped, pivoted around him and even behind him. All regardless of his blinking and his field of vision. It no longer needed a recipient to perceive it in a field of vision, but could teleport where it pleased. It had learned this. Sometime outside of his notice, it had adapted. Or learned. Or trained. 

Hajime endured to survive, barely. The alien shared this survivorship mentality with him, but bore it even more ferociously. Not just surviving but growing.  

Hajime felt a brief, heart-murmur compulsion to flee: up the oak tree, out of the garden, to his bedroom, anywhere. Though he ran to and fro throughout half the room, it was to no specific point or place much less to safety. This conflict was ultimately all a circle ringing closer and closer to him. He had known for a long while that he was surrounded.

It appeared again, running at his side like a competitor in a sport. Like it meant to win a race against him at last. It did.

The creature caught him in that moment of faltering will because it had made his evasive run falter, too. One serpentine tentacle was close enough to wrap around his knee, and he had been too slow to jump away.

Two more came in the wake of the first and grabbed at his wrists. They forced his arms up and outward, breaking his defensive stance.

Iwaizumi’s teeth clacked together and he very nearly screamed through them when the creature pivoted to be directly in front of him. Its hands grabbed at his shoulders, then held his shoulders, then his free leg had no traction on the floor and he was falling backward. Bearing down like a Traveler on fire.

The creature slammed his back onto the floor with a triumphant scream. The sound of it drowned out Iwaizumi’s own. It was all the sound in the arbor room.

The sound and the impact shattered what remained of him. There were alien tentacles holding his hands down and one of his legs, the body of one hovering above, the silhouette of his favorite tree watching him. All the things he’d been carrying through this long hunt were falling out of his grip. Including the knife--because his hand hurt, because his fingers began to shake. 

The thing he named Oikawa used one of its spare limbs to pull the knife form his and fling it away. Away.

Away. 

Chapter Text

-

At last—said the creature’s victorious gaze. 

He was reflected there in the creature’s eye. As he had always been when it lurked outside. When his back hit the ground, protocol and fury and life all spewed out of him like a burst of blood. The adrenaline that kept Hajime standing upright for this battle began to drain away. 

The holy space of the arbor room was invaded. The sprinkler system had activated at some point and put out the fires his own flamethrower had started. His precious black oak tree was now charred and smoking, her neighbors the little elms and the maple damaged too. Many of the plant beds nearby were torn up by his own boots and the creatures’ clawed, running feet. Now his blood and theirs was seeping into the soil. 

Far to his right in a row of young wheat where his knife had landed after the monster had thrown it. His last hope disappeared into the green. He wished he could look at it, mourn it, feel anger at its loss. But there was no breaking eye contact with the creature now. 

The creature straddled him. Held him. Owned him. Its humanlike hands gripped his shoulders over the thin containment suit he wore. Its thighs pressed in against his own and half a dozen beastly tentacles spawned from its body held his limbs to the ground. The adrenaline holding his pain for him finally let go; now it abandoned him to the invasion’s damage: torn limbs, muscles aching from hard impacts and near-killing blows and too much use for one man. His back hurt. His soul hurt. It all left him wheezing and immobilized on the floor. In his reflection in the creature’s eyes, Hajime was forced to see himself start to cry.

Oikawa’s eyes were a wide, split abyss rising to consume him. The pupils wriggled in its own eye sclera. The smile was just as massive. Teeth. Tongue. Glee. It could see Hajime’s many strengths finally bleeding out underneath it. The great and powerful navigator’s resistance was fading. His tearful gasps were just beginning. 

The creature tensed up. Hajime was too weak to do the same in anticipation of an upcoming strike. He could only manage one ugly grunt of pain as the fingers pressed painfully into his shoulders and every tentacle squeezed his abused body harder and its body shook even harder than his.  

It screamed above him like a beast from hell conquering mortal men—

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAĀ̷̧̨̗͔̙̰͍͈̳̲̝̋̈̔̀̋̃̀̍̓́́̈́̉̿̚̕A̸̢̲͎̽̈́̽̔͂̄̇̑͐̋́͒͐̚̚̚͠͝͝A̶̧̳͖̤̱̜̭̘̞̎̐̀͐̕Ȃ̵͖̟͔̙̖̰̺̬̩͎̲̩̠͖̼̙͔̣̞͍̺̣͖͛͒̐̈́͒̿̍̄͆͋̍̽̕̕͜͜͝͝A̸̺͈̙̝̣̤̲̰̅͐̌̾́̍͐̉̀̐͗̈́̉̈́͛̃̒̄͑̽͌͐̀̽͠Ą̵̢̡̱͇͖͔͕͓̹̤̣̗͇͍̥̖̥̲͓̺̣̺̳̖̳͙́̒̍͛͒͗̔̿͋̄͌̈́͌͛̂͋͐͆͑̃̓̚ͅͅA̶̛̛͉̟̝͐̔̑͊͆̽̅̋͑͂͌̆̊̂̂̾̿͊̾͋̓̄̿̊̃̑̀́͊͗̿̉͒̀́̚̕͘̕̚̚͝͠A̸̧̢̧̡̫̰̭̳̞̱͚̟̮̮͈̭͈̦̻͎̹̙̖̦͙̣̝̦͇̮̲̠̲̙̯̤̠̜̰̰̲̯̲͔͕̗̙͇̞̰̯͆͛̓͑͋̇̊̔͒̈̆͊̇̊̏̓̇͌̅͌̽͂̽͒̀̄̐̈́̕̚̚͘͜͝͝͝͝͠͠ͅA̶̛̘͎͍͈̞̿̎̓͌̓̎͛͐͑̿̀̂̄͗̾̍̀̌̕͠͝͝Ā̶̢̡̡̢̨̢̧͖͇̣̠̺̮͎̘͈͎̮̗͔̖̹̙̯͈̹͓͕̝̼̮͇͖͓̺̜̝̤̰̳̖̜͙̠͔̝̝̘͓̿ͅͅA̴̧̧̢̺̰̤̠̗̣̦̦͉͖̥͇̝̠̥̗̹͕͖̯̱͍͈̩͆̅̓̀͌̅̾̈̄̾͌̋́̇̂̊͌̈̓͂̈̋͆͒̂̆̉̈́̏̎̀͊̂̆̓͗͒͒͑̈́͐̈͒̂͆́͊̂́̚͘͝͝͝͠ͅͅA̵̛̛͓͍͎̳͖͍̪͓͉̝̋͗̽̓̒̊̃̿̾̽̂͆̂͌̓̀̑̎̋̉̐̍́̍́͛́̒̂͐̂̏̑̾̍̊̽̐͛̓̑̿̎́́̐̀̂̉̚̕͘͘̕̚̕͝͝͝͝͝A̸̡̧̡̨̡͓͔̠͕̞̭̦͈̲̠͙̙̩̳̬͓̖͉̖͇̩̪͖̰͓̮̼̜͍̺̱͎̟̤̩̙̪̮̮̩̦͓̠̻̮̪̼̦̙̮͍̙̖̝̤̹̱̮̮͙͉̾͆̊̊͋̊̀̏̈̈́͑̔͛̇̆͐̾̓́͂̓̌͆̄̂͐̑̓́̈́͊̑̇̿͜͜͝͝͠͠A̴̛̹̙͚̗̣̜̭̣͓̖̣͒̐̔͐̈́̍͑̒̉̉̒͌͒̽́̇̇́͂͐̈́͑͛̑̎̅̿̓̾͗̀̕̚̕̕͝͠͝ͅA̵̢̛̛̛̬͉̱̲͖̻̞̝̱̭̫̩̭̭̣̜̝̱͇̘̘̩̺͇̟̝̙̪͔̖̥̪̠̼͇̅̌͗̎̿͌̽́̅͊́̈́̋̈́̈́͆̂̀͒̑̑̅̿̍̔̂͗͛͂̍͌̏́̂̃̏̓͆̑́̀̀̓̄̀͐̽̆̋͑̍̌̌̈́̌̌͒͗͑͆̇͆͆̾̒̄̎̈̍̾̄͌͌̀͌͊͗̈́̾̇͊̋̊̄̃̾̍̆̑̒̕͘̚̕̚̕̚͝͝͠͝͠͝͝͠͠͝͝͝

Somewhere nearby a ruined railing or sunlamp fell onto a walking path. The metal broke into rattling pieces. Branches cracked and leaves tore. A few nearby members of the alien clan rumbled an answering vibration. None of it could penetrate their king’s dominant shriek. 

Hajime squeezed his eyes shut against the violent air and cried, cried, cried. 

He was no longer that brave man on the tarmac who saved lives by taking them to the Travelers that would save them. Now he imagined hoofed animals on earth, prey animals, downed and ripped-open corpses of animals. He thought he was an animal and he thought he was in hell. He thought he remembered his mother’s face, but no, it was some wailing stranger he’d once callously shoved into a passenger seat here on Shuttle 4. She and he were both dead. 

Please come, Navigator, please please oh god in heaven PLEASE COME! 

He never did. He never did. He never would. There would be no justification for anything he’d lived or breathed for up until this day, for it was all dust. Speech, thought, humanity, his ironclad navigator protocol that once guided all these things, melted from him like hot fat from bone. 

The creature looked upon him with a beautiful, terrible smile. Its many teeth were visible just behind. 

‘Captain Ushijima—’  his heart cried, but he stopped that prayer before it could expand. Even the intangible thought of beloved Wakatoshi must not be placed in the evil presence of this beast. He banished the precious thought. He wept instead. 

Captain Wakatoshi Ushijima was long dead, glittering in the heavens where he would never go. His only friends in this sarcophagus were inanimate objects that he spoke to like friends, like he was an invalid. The reptile. The cat, Hiii…Hi-to-ka. Hitoka whom he carried with him only in the form of a plastic toy. She and he, dead. 

Good night, Hajime. 

It set upon him slowly. 

The clawed hands holding his shaking shoulders let go. They began a wondering, halting progress down his torso. It felt the suit’s thin and crinkling white material, meant to protect skin from harmful substances and not the touch of solid hands. It took its new privilege of touching him wherever it pleased. Touching, as it already was with all the tentacles immobilizing him, and touching with its hands. Like a man would. 

It touched his suit only, at first. Hajime was so much white and black now because of the contamination suit he’d donned when the alarm sounded: meager white plastic with black boots and gloves attached. His larger weapons were gone from the little metal grips on the back, his knives used up. Nothing but underwear and skin beneath this flimsy thing. And the suit was bloodied and torn now. Its zipper zipped up to the hollow of his neck but had now drifted down to his sternum. The exposed flesh was smeared with sweat and blood. No part of him was really sterile anymore.  

The creature he named Oikawa dragged its palms down the front of Hajime’s white suit below the zipper. It felt the shape of him through the soft material. Its palms skimmed and then pressed over the curve of his pectoral muscles to feel their solidity. He could feel one of the many tentacles curiously scraping along the textured sole of his right boot. His leg yanked itself back and his mouth made a shout of alarm, both without any input from his brain. This movement jostled Oikawa atop him just a bit, but it remained engrossed in pinching the foreign suit material between its claws. The fingers circled around the occasional tear in the suit from its brethren who had attacked him before. 

It was all curious and admiring and cruelly slow. 

The hands were so cool so long so heavy so strong so so close to his skin so close to his unprotected abdomen with his soft organs so like the dreams he had about men and Earth and touching touching touching—

STOP TOUCHING ME

—he screeched in his mind, and babbled mindlessly aloud, and both did nothing. Oikawa went on admiring his body and all it could take from it. 

Minutes ago Hajime had grabbed the slight, weak Kunimi off his shoulders and beat him nearly to death. He had cut open Hanamaki’s back with a knife and burned Matsukawa’s flesh. For the sin of touching him. Five years now, since anyone had touched him. Oikawa ignored this too. 

Oikawa felt the surface of his hard, twitching stomach. Felt up and down his waist with both hands. Felt the quivering muscles of his arms and its tentacles ever so slowly orbited around his arms and legs like snakes ascending a tree. It hadn’t touched his exposed skin so far, and yet Hajime shuddered from every point of contact. He gasped, cried and gagged all at once at the conscious touch of a living thing. He squeezed his eyes shut. He keened aloud like a miserable dog again. A real man had touched him like this once. A man being here instead would make this all fucking stop. 

A sound came from it: Hhrrrrrrn, like a hum, like a satisfied animal. 

The sound vibrated out of its whole body instead of its mouth, the same as its spoken words had before. It rattled softly into Hajime’s own body. It forced his eyes open in shock. Above him and parallel to his own face was Oikawa’s handsome smile, eager for the meal it had earned—no. 
No.  

‘No, please—’

The part of Hajime’s soul that had tried to melt away from his body was pulled cruelly back inside. Inside, he knew this thing didn’t only see him as food. 

The frenzy of this invasion had let him put it out of mind. Or at least pretend. But inside, he held at all times a clear understanding of this thing’s look of desire. It desired him. It felt arousal at the sight of him. It pleasured itself in front of him. It wasn’t a pathetic delusion or a nightmare but a fact of their entangled life: it wanted him for sex. And it was inside now. 

Now now now in his arbor room, where he’d never touched himself to the thought of this thing before. But he had in the engine room, and the supply room and his bedroom and many other places away from its eyes. In his private fantasies he pretended Oikawa was man, or that its tentacles and claws and bizarre inhuman features were nothing more exotic than a cock, because then he would live. Whatever amount of pretending as needed to drift in the sweet fantasy that it would feel good and nothing was wrong. As many layers of masks as it took to get off to the thought of the creature without crying.

Oikawa’s mouth suckling at his neck and ripping flesh from his stomach. Oikawa making love to him and shrieking with joy as it drove its thumbs into his eyes. Beating its many limbs against the shuttle’s windows because of its unbreakable want. 

Oikawa, Oikawa. 

Hajime felt a mindless twitch in his own cock while he fought to stay conscious. While he weakly convulsed. And yet his lips parted. 

“Stop,” he whispered. 

Oikawa’s lips parted, too. It listened.

“Stop. If-if you can. Understand. P-please don’t. I’m, I, I-I’m—” 

His speech broke into an open sob. He tried to curl his body up, but the tentacles still held him nearly flat to the ground and he could not move and would never move again, and yes, this would hurt like nothing on Earth ever fucking had. Victory. Victory. Someone once said they wanted him to take them to victory. He was supposed to be in bed right now. 

The hands approached and took hold of his skull, one cool and one warm and wet. Both palms touched the tops of his ears. Hajime stared up into a monster’s look of dumb joy. The hands pushed forward past his forehead through his hair. Pushed his sweaty bangs up, pushed so far his bangs fell again.  

“Ugh-hh,” he gasped, or cried. When Oikawa’s hands pushed through his hair a third time, he bit his tongue. 

“Wh-ah,” is all he managed, while Oikawa’s whole body thrummed the sound Aahhhhh—its joy drowned out his dread. 

The fingers of its left hand twirled and pulled lightly at his hair. The right dipped lower and settled on his left cheek. It stroked over his jaw, his mouth, felt his pinched brow. Sharing its skin with him, that texture so like a real man’s. It had warmth and minute divots and scars and wrinkles, all asking for Hajime’s own to meet them. Oikawa crooned and sighed. Below him, the navigator’s brain all but cooked in his skull as the fantasy he used to keep at a distance now lay in the same room with him and was finally, actually, touching his fucking skin.  

The touch of its fingers pierced into his reality as aliens once broke into a Traveler, reaching soft human prey inside. Helpless and warm. He cried at the feel of these hands finally reaching him outside of his dreams. 

Oikawa’s fingers leaving electric warmth where they stroked under the hard line of his jaw—in a dream, right now. 

Oikawa’s powerful and grand body curving over his, right now. 

Oikawa in this dream he was having now pushing its killing fingers underneath the hem of his containment suit to feel the skin of his shoulders and chest, because it was trying to undress him. Hajime opened his mouth and moaned aloud.

Oikawa’s shoulders rose and fell with its breath. Its panting was an ethereal sight for a being that did not need to breathe. It did not need Hajime for nourishment or anything else, it only wanted. But that breath paused at the navigator’s amorous new sound. Oikawa knew what he was feeling, and Hajime saw the moment of its knowing. Glee and pride blooming in its posture, in its face and its softer, shuddering breath as its own hopes and dreams were made true--Hajime's hands squeezed into desperate fists. 

Then the alien chose to descend lower onto him. No longer on its knees but dropping its pelvis too like it meant to lay over him so more of their skin would touch. Hoarsely, too late, he screamed. 

Oikawa held his head in place with both hands again. It forced his head to the side so he had to look to his left, to one of the long plant beds on the other side of a walking path.

There were half-grown cucumbers hanging from a half-circle wooden trellis, bushy carrots and celery. The vegetables were planted next to sunny, bright marigolds and a pleasant rainbow of snapdragons that pushed away the arbor room’s aphids and pests and kept the soil healthy. And pink-haired invader Hanamaki was reclining its body across that colorful spread like Hajime’s plants were its bed. 

It lay on its side held up with one elbow, the other arm buried in long green fronds of celery and brushing marigold petals. Much of its legs, its tail and its back that Hajime had ripped open with a knife earlier were all hidden or facing away. Would that he could only go back to the heat of that battle, where he’d had weapons and a chance to live. Or if he could scramble over and hide in the rows like a field mouse. If only he could protect his arbor room. If only he could wake up and just find it was yesterday still, and he could tend his plants as he always did. 

Oikawa pulled his fleeing attention back once more by pressing its torso down onto his, now fully laying on him. It purred a new, excited vibration into his body. 

“Shit. Shit. Oh, ssshit!” Hajime hissed. 

“Aahhhhh,” Oikawa sighed over his jaw. 

Its lips parted for the joyous breath, and both man and beast shook in unified anticipation. Oikawa nuzzled his cheek and ear, and its tongue made contact with his skin.

“Hahh—” Hajime breathed, and breathed and breathed. He panted at the feel of a mouth that wanted him. 

He yearned for, imagined, remembered—Oikawa’s tongue lolling from its mouth when it would hover outside Shuttle 4’s main deck in cold, empty space. Oikawa’s ferocious tongue taking its place inside Hajime’s mouth in his forbidden dreams and the slick, strong heat of it sliding over his own. The creature playfully showing it off to him and grinning through the shuttle’s many windows. As though it could entice him to just open one and let it in for a secret kiss. 

Oikawa’s red tongue finally tasted him. It was rougher than a human’s tongue but no less hot, no less demanding. Oikawa licked the underside of his jaw. Licked up his cheek and temple and into his hair just in front of his ears, tasting all the way. Hajime gritted his teeth. He fought against the sounds his body made in response to the sliding wetness, the pressure, the weight. All while Oikawa’s tongue delightedly sipped sweat and blood from his skin. 

He felt its lips press an unmistakable smile over his cheek before they closed neatly over a portion of his neck and sucked at the skin. Hajime could not fight the sound too like a moan that fell from his lips, again. Oikawa lifted slightly away, just enough to make eye contact again. Its gaze spoke all it knew and boasted of it: it knew what Hajime’s fluttering reactions to its exploration meant. It knew this desire was in some bitter way, mutual. It wanted him to know, again, he was seen. 

It made a vibration again. It was a feeling, not a sound, but Hajime felt laughter. He could do nothing but bitterly grind his teeth. Oikawa came close again and began to lick at his closed lips. Even now, he wanted to react. 

If Hajime spoke the word please as he longed to, the alien would open his mouth for him and its tongue would be the first of many appendages to invade his body. It would be the start of an avalanche that he would not survive. Oikawa would laugh aloud if it could, and this alluring similarity to humankind would quickly end. It would open him, in every way. 

Oikawa spoke please in its own way by licking at his mouth as Hajime blinked away tears. It licked at the whimpering man’s lips, at his tender jaw, requesting open submission. Hajime would have to give it. 

His eyes fell wearily to the side as his consciousness wavered again. That drifting landed his eyes on the two aliens reclining on his vegetables and flowers a few meters away:

Hanamaki. And some other one, defiling his garden right next to it. A host of their tentacles waved aimlessly in the air and along the plants immediately around them. One tentacle held something green. Something from his garden—

Tory. 

Major Tory Tyrannosaurus "Wrecks," decorated veteran and plush toy. Mottled green, made of cotton, mouth open and ever roaring. His greatest friend in every galaxy. Hanamaki held Tory in one of its tentacles, an appendage whose color was a mockery of sakura-pink at its tapered end, same as the creature’s own hair. It held his best friend in the air like it meant to drop him into its mouth. Like a scrap fed to a dog. Like the invaders ate people on Earth’s last day. 

Tory was in their grasp—

A shout of killing rage came before thought:“TORY!”  

The sound of a navigator’s fury froze the thieving beast instantly. It jerked in place, rose up onto its hand rather than elbow like a cadet caught sleeping. But its face showed inhuman terror at the sound of him, like these vermin fucking ought to feel. They ought to remember that minutes ago when he was fully enraged, they couldn’t best him or capture him even as a group. 

He roared like he had then: “Put Tory down! Put him down! Rotten fucking wolf bitch! Drop him or I’ll cut you and your pack and your children into fucking pieces! Drop him!”  

Hajime pulled on his restrained left hand like a bear fighting a trap. A tentacle held his arm out just above his head but he pulled his arm down to his side. From here he could point straight to Hanamaki across the path with the determined vengeance of a lone gunman. If he had a gun now, he would spare Oikawa and the one he’d beaten with his hands, and blow every bullet into Hanamaki’s head. 

The thieving monster had no understanding that it held up the universe’s only spacefaring dinosaur. A special-order navigator who outranked him and loved him. The one thing on this ship for which he would both start and stop fighting. 

Hajime suddenly mirrored Hanamaki’s grimace of fear. It broke. He broke. He broke some law of humanity by turning back to the alien restraining him for help.  The tentacle on his arm did not restrict him from curling it inward and clapping his hand on Oikawa’s shoulder. Oikawa’s eyes were wide and staring. 

“Make him put Tory down,” Hajime whimpered to it. His grip was iron, but not from strength. “Make him, m-make them leave Tory alone! Do what you want with me, do anything you want, but please don’t hurt him, please let him go—”

Oikawa listened. Slowly, it inclined its head towards its fearful companion and made a vibration. Stuttering and serious. One second packed with many wordless syllables.  

The alien behind Hanamaki sat up. Hajime recognized now that it was Matsukawa, though only by its burns. Much of Matsukawa’s face was gone, stripped to a dark, greenish layer of epidermis below, part of a nose, most of its hair burned off. Its whole chest and right arm was similarly burned away. But it moved like it was healthy and whole: it rose up from behind its friend, leaned out towards Hanamaki’s trailing tentacle and yanked Tory out of its grasp. 

He fell. Hajime cried out, but the vegetable fronds caught Tory. He lay on his side on a bundle of celery. His beady eyes were staring directly at him.

“Turn him,” Hajime breathed. “He’s not going to watch this. Turn him away from me right now.” He mimed the action of turning a dial with his barely-restricted left hand. 

Dumbfuck Hanamaki’s brain finally started turning its gears. It leaned forward and hovered its hand over Tory, but it looked at Oikawa with a face of abject shock. 

“Turn him!” he barked. “Do you see what I’m doing, you dumb bitch? Look! Turn! Him! Around! Do it!” 

Hanamaki made a distressed chittering sound, but it obeyed. Its clawed hand closed over his dinosaur like an ancient prize grabbing machine and dumbly turned him three times in a row, matching Hajime’s final hand motion. This left Tory’s head facing away from Hajime, stuck between celery leaves and pink zinnias. Only his tail and feet were visible now. Hanamaki pulled back and pressed himself down into the zinnias like a scared cat. 

“Don’t you move, Tory. Just close your eyes. And stay there. You’ll be all right, I promise you.” Hajime choked back a miserable sob, for Tory’s sake. For a moment, he hid his face in his forearm and breathed. 

Oikawa invaded his private emotions by grabbing at Hajime’s head and demanding to look at him again. A new tentacle appeared and shoved its way under Hajime’s back, then back around to his sternum to wrap around his whole torso. It pulled him up into a sitting position. Hajime wearily sank into its grip. Oikawa now was on its knees straddling his hips to get as close to his face as possible.

“What.” Hajime grunted at the predator. 

Oikawa stared. When Hajime only stared blearily back, the left thumb and forefinger grabbed his chin and opened it. And closed it. It didn’t even stick its own tongue in, or a tentacle, or anything. It puppeteered the opening and closing of his mouth, twice.   

“What! What’s your problem…” Hajime grumbled. The alien’s glare was tight and expectant, like it wanted something, or was listening for something. “What?! You got the gist. You made him put…down…” 

They stayed still through an uncomfortably long pause. Eventually, Oikawa pressed down on his chin again, enough to just open his mouth. Hajime silently mimed two syllables. 

In the scarred silence of his garden, under Oikawa’s oppressive gaze, he mimed them again. Short, familiar. And impossible. Just as impossible as an alien soundlessly opening the door of a shuttle from the outside. And just insanity. 

“What the hell…no,” he breathed aloud. “Tor…Is your name…Tory?” 

Oikawa face lit up with hope so human and so intense that Hajime recognized it like his own lived emotion. It was the same religious glory a cadet would feel the first time he laid eyes on a Traveler waiting in space. Its focus took on a new form, like the navigator was not just an alien to it, but something divine. 

“No. Fucking way. Tor—” 

Hajime stopped himself as its face brightened even more, waiting for more. His brain shut down in refusal. Or so it felt. “If that is your name I’m gonna fucking shoot myself. I…didn’t name him after you, dipshit. I wasn’t even…talking to…you. I…” 

The hands pushed on his chin again as though asking for more words, more sound, but Hajime elected to loll catatonic in its grip. He gave no resistance and had no thoughts when Oikawa eventually touched their foreheads together. It cupped its long fingers around the back of his head and gazed into his eyes. The hands combed down through his hair. The palms stroked down his cheek. He was compelled to gaze back.

Its made another vibration and Hajime felt it, received it, like a communication instead of raw animal vocalizing. It was slow, quiet, deep. It said something to him, and he dreaded to think that he might know what.  

If the bane of his existence was named Tory, or anything close to it, it meant any odds or deity that he hoped might have been in his favor were absent and always had been. He was doomed, just for a cosmic fucking joke.

But Oikawa was smiling, smiling so sweetly at him. So much like he did in Hajime’s fake-human dreams of him that his heart ached at the sight like a yearning schoolboy’s. In the arms of the tentacle monster. 

Could this all be a dream, too, or simply the purgatory he deserved? Was he dying in five seconds back on Earth and five centuries in his mind as Shuttle 4 broke apart somewhere over the Sea of Japan? What if he woke up right now in his bed to another day of navigating and maintenance? What if Oikawa stood up right now and they all bowed to the arbor room’s cameras and congratulated one another on a great performance? Then they could all exit stage left and this madness would stop. 

But that wouldn’t happen. His dreams of Oikawa were real and the alien believed that he divinely knew its name. There would be no exit from this fate. 

Oikawa’s hands pushed against Hajime’s shoulders and the tentacle around his chest and shoulders took care in lowering him. So he was lain back in the grass gently, greenery all around him but for his boots touching the edge of the walking path. The touch of his back to the ground then was enough to press a soft sigh from him. Oikawa had slammed him onto the ground with its full body weight the first time and borne the viciousness of all his weapons before that. It must have felt his acceptance as it held him now. 

Years of silence and violence, only to be laid quietly down. The enemy was undaunted no matter what he did or how far he fled. 

Above him the oak tree’s branches spread towards the ceiling. She would live beyond him. She would watch over all his flower beds, his olives and bees and orange trees and all the earth’s plants he’d cared for. Everything else was empty. His family and his people and his planet and the work he gave his life to: all gone. Him last of all. 

He was here in his garden, and here he would remain. 

Above him with its hands in the grass on either side of him was the creature he named Oikawa. A surname, like all the others he’d thought of for these strange hunters. Out of all things in the universe it was named something like Tory—Tor, like a god? Tooru, like a man? It must be pronounceable to a man, else the creature wouldn’t think anything of it. But Oikawa was his special name for the presence that haunted him. The now immovable part of his life and without a doubt, eventually his death.  

Oikawa sighed softly, too. Its breath was always for Hajime alone. Wherever it fled to when he thwarted it, it returned to his ship to look on him again and again. Its second sigh came slower and heavier, from a gently climbing excitement. He wanted to mirror it, to touch it. Revel in it until it was finished with him. When that was over, what was left of him would feed his garden. That was what he deserved.

Hajime closed his eyes one last time, opened them again because he knew he must. What he meant as a confession came out in a weak breath. “Just. Hurry up and do it already. I want this all to…I-I just want…” 

For so long he wanted: an end to the frozen today of existence as a navigator, he wanted death and the pill that his parents took. He wanted life, he wanted sex, he wanted punishment. He wanted Oikawa, Oikawa, Oikawa. 

Hajime collapsed. “Oikawa,” he begged the monster. “Fuck me. Please.” 

It knew. Across species and language and their long mutual torture, Oikawa understood the sound of submission. Its third sigh was the longest of all. A bone-deep vibration rumbled through it, reached into Hajime and pressed him down like a permanent shadow etched to the floor. 

Oikawa moved like a stormcloud settling. It returned its hands to Hajime’s skin. It did not break eye contact. It touched him with no resistance. And no defense. After the first nigh-human hands on his body in years, a touch nearly anywhere manifested a shudder. Hajime stopped trying to hide it. 

The creature must have sensed this, as it splayed its long fingers all around to feel to the most skin possible as the hands moved. The palms were cool, their texture almost familiar.

The fingers dipped down past his collarbone, felt his sensitive neck. Some of them slipped under the hem of the containment suit around the tops of his shoulders again and flicked at the plastic. Hajime whimpered through almost all of it. 

The right hand crept down to the zipper of his flimsy suit, frozen in the center of his sternum. One long claw hooked through the hole in the zipper’s center. And pulled. 

Hajime blearily watched the zipper move down and further away from his eyes. His bare stomach was revealed to the room’s false sunlight. Oikawa somehow knew how to open his last pathetic layer of protection. It looked with blatant, open-mouthed hunger at this new plane of his body. Hajime breathed heavier with helpless fright and arousal in return. Oikawa yanked the zipper down as far as it would go, nearly to the top of his underwear, and it tore off the zipper’s teeth completely. 

Tink-tink-plunk, it went, somewhere on the walking path and into some soil. Exit stage left. 

Oikawa’s left hand pressed down against his stomach. Hajime whimpered. He braced himself for it to press harder. Press through. Take his heart and his bones. Pain pain PAIN DEATH. DEATH FOR CUTTING MY PEOPLE OPEN I’LL FUCK WHATEVER REMAINS—but that nightmare didn’t come. He felt no warlike vibration and the hand only sat in place. He had to look up. 

The alien’s right hand was gripping the side of its left shoulder. Gripping a wound already cut into it. Long, long minutes ago it had sliced that bicep open with its claws and held out a hand full of its own blood towards Hajime. And spoke his language out loud. Now it was squeezing the shoulder for a fresh bloodletting. 

“Wh-what. What are you doing,” Hajime murmured, as though it might answer. 

The right hand had been warmer and wetter when it touched him before, thanks to remains of that first spurt of blood. There must be several smears of it on his body and suit by now. But no part of him was burnt, melted, dissolving. Yet. 

Oikawa held out its blood-painted hand over him, the claws dripping. It came into his ship for this. 

“What do you want?” Hajime said helplessly. The left hand pressed him down. 

Far away, another member of its clan was rumbling a rhythmic vibration. Then two and then more. They were all watching. Oikawa’s mouth was closed, smiling, silent. 

But it spoke: “Come. Here.” 

Hajime could not speak at all. 

The blood-soaked hand came down to his collarbone. Hajime’s shallow pant turned to a long shriek as the first two claws punctured him and SLICED—

‘OH CHRIST—’

—him from above the left collarbone down to the edge of his left pectoral. And then did it again. 

The twin cuts spurted blood. Hajime briefly saw a Traveler in the fat droplets before they splattered down onto him.

His ears rang; his own wail of pain sounded like it had already fled far away. Oikawa’s right hand came down a third time and made a third cut in a mirrored spot on the right side of his chest. Three wide, gruesome cuts into the flesh. Hajime swore and gaped stupidly down at them all. It was an ugly, unnatural canvas of blurred red and greenish-black. 

It pushed its bloody fingers into the scars, stretching them wider. Hajime howled in pain. He thrashed his entire body, kicking his legs, bucking his torso up and sideways, trying to reach his arms to the offending hand and tear it away, but Oikawa held him to the tearing pain until it stopped. Until his cries turned to soft gasps. 

Oikawa descended with a new, animal growl to lay on top of him again and press their naked torsos together. Its mouth was open and grinning, prompting Hajime to immediately shut his own. The hands spread delightedly over his bare abdomen, feeling and squeezing his muscles, rising up to brushing past both nipples, and finally ending up just under his shoulders. Oikawa held itself up on its elbows. It lifted Hajime’s torso from the grass just so, just close enough for its tongue to meet the skin. Hajime was weighed down and his arms still bound. He chose not to close his eyes.

The red, red tongue dipped down to lick the wounds Oikawa had just made. It took long licks of the smeared mess of mixed blood. Hajime convulsed at the shock of it, but the tentacles kept hold so he was forced to remain still for Oikawa’s tasting. It mouthed over their blood and licked. Sucked. Swallowed.

“Ohh,” Hajime spoke, and felt, and melted. 

Its tongue dipped into the wounds themselves. He should have screamed, but the wet, smothered sound of Oikawa’s swallowing overrode his pain with distracting arousal. It was blooming pleasantly from his groin and every spot Oikawa blessed with its mouth. 

A fresh rivulet of blood flowed down his chest and around the edge of his nipple. Oikawa’s lips followed it as it moved. Captured the moving flow in its mouth. Roved its tongue over his blood and nipple both, sipping and then suckling both. Hajime whined aloud. His torso flowed up on its own to press himself further against that mouth. More skin pressed into Oikawa’s face so it licked more, sighed more, spilled more hot breath over the wet skin. Hajime tried to push himself up on his elbows too, but fell weakly back. Oikawa had turned his arms to jelly by taking the whole nipple into its mouth and sucking it gently, forcefully, gently. Playing with it with its tongue.  

Something pressed against his pelvis with enough force and width to push his legs apart. It was grinding against him, slow then forceful, then reverse. It was the mutual friction of someone grinding against his dick, asking to feel it clothed before they touched it bare. A sensation he thought he’d left behind on earth. 

Oikawa did not ask but rocked its hips hard against his, demanding to feel the outline of him. There was nothing between Oikawa’s legs but a flat plane of skin right now, but Hajime’s cock was responding with desperation anyway. Blood loss and being bodyslammed multiple times had slowed the process, but he was finally getting hard from this strange and meandering intimacy. If he could somehow look, there would be a tent in the crotch of the suit, but he didn’t care to even look. 

Instead he only cared to balance on his elbows properly, to better loll his back head for Oikawa’s exploration. It was rising its mouth higher up nearer to his collarbone. It reached his neck. Found a spot between shoulder and ear to suckle. And bite. Its fangs pierced the skin almost immediately. 

“Ah, fuck,” he gasped. It hurt. He let it hurt. 

The feather-soft texture of Oikawa’s hair brushed him as his new lover spoke into his neck, “Commme heeeere.” 

“I am right here, you stupid bastard,” Hajime grumbled back. “Do you even--what do you think you're even saying? Hey. You come here, Oikawa. Come here. Kiss me.” 

“Hmmm,” the alien sounded back. It made a heartbeat-like vibration. ‘Speaking’ again, maybe. Since he was here now and good as dead, now was the time to speak back, in whatever way he could. 

Hajime licked his lips near its ear. “I’ll show you what that is if you don’t know,” he murmured. 

It was a clever and even emotional thing, and it was trying to get him hard. There would be ways to bridge the gap in their ‘communication.’ By the lowness of his voice. By reaching his head closer to its own to ask for its mouth. It must feel the pressure of his erection by now. It must feel his left hand trying to grip its right arm to beg for permission to touch it back. In case it understood softness, he bent his head down further and kissed its temple. 

Oikawa exhaled once onto his neck. A shiver wracked it from the neck down. It pulled back and up onto its knees again. Hajime was about to perform a harrumph or grunt of blatant displeasure when he saw something new: a small gap between the legs, like a split seam. Beneath the skin was a firm, pale red surface, like the skin tear were itself clothing atop red, nude skin. The sight of that red hidden layer spurred Hajime’s heart to a faster, fretful beat. His hand tightened to a fist in the grass. 

The tear expanded like an opening jaw. It split taller and wider, revealing more red underneath. The greenish skin near the split bulged viciously as a thing beneath pressed out from Oikawa’s abdomen against the skin. Fighting to come out. Hajime's breath was quickening. The bulging entity crawled its way down towards the opening.

A red, veined tentacle burst out from the red gap. It emerged, grew, and became fully erect before Hajime's eyes; he fell helplessly back.

“Holy fuck! Noooo!” 

Purple veins on it moved underneath the skin at the sound of his scream. 

Some navigator protocol shrieked back to life in his head. Communication engines went flaccid and configured to escape pods. Hajime tried to kick his leg up and knee the alien in the small of its back to knock it off balance, an old and weak self-defense tactic taught to new cadets. But some other tentacle from it back met his knee and pressed it back down. Hajime then engaged the pathetic but functional maneuver of pushing his hands on the ground to scoot himself backwards. The other tentacle restraints were mysteriously loose enough to attempt it. 

“Hm-hmm-hmmmm,” Oikawa laughed, probably.

Its mouth opened but the sound came from all its skin, like always. The speck of navigator protocol in his mind requested full unconsciousness, sir, but Hajime gave a negative on that due to life-threatening circumstances and kept scooting. 

Before he got far, Oikawa stuck its tongue giddily out: nearly the same red as its own cock. It grabbed Hajime’s calves just below the knee and pulled him right back. He slid back between its legs again and closer to its cock with a yelp. 

Oikawa’s other tentacles, all sprouting from somewhere on its back, shivered from where they grew to their ends wrapped around Hajime’s limbs. The ends began to shift and minutely pulse. Their holds were all looser, but against his skin and even against the suit they seemed to…inhale, grow thicker. Hajime’s navigator mind drummed up a plan to thrash all the loose tentacles off and escape to the shuttle’s cafeteria three halls away. 

Before he could think deeply about this plan, there was alarming motion over his right wrist: the fat end of a tentacle was shoving itself in a small tear in the suit. For a second it worried at the tiny gap, in the next the gap tore and it slid inside the hole.  

“Wha—hey, NO!” he gasped. “Get out! Damn it, damn—” His arm shook with fear and revulsion as it made its way down. 

He still barked in surprise when it popped out of the suit’s arm hole like a shimmying snake. From there, it flexed its whole length and in doing so tore itself out of the sleeve lengthwise: the right sleeve was opened like a cocoon. While Hajime gaped like a fool, a similar procedure was opening up his left sleeve. They even yanked at the fingertips of the attached gloves to pull them off his hands. 

Their invasion of his suit’s arms left his torso fully bare. Two spare tentacles began furtively pulling and ripping the pieces of the suit's top half out from under his back. Before he could so much as gulp, the larger mass of tentacles collectively returned with force. Their now-fat ends split in two, one of them into three. They were thick, warm, molding to the curve of his arms as they pushed along. They were creeping from his bound arms down to his chest. Over his collar, then down his sides.

“Okay, no, uh—shit! Ffffuck, ahhh—” 

They were hounds. They no longer restrained but groped at his body like lecherous hands. Now every unconscious twitch and conscious flex pushed him into the squeeze of one appendage or another. And now each one of them felt wet, sweating something from within that made their movements easy and slippery.

Flashes of sex dreams burst unwelcome in his head. A half dozen, or maybe a dozen, alien tentacles groping him with a touch like muscled men and thick, strong hands. Touching him exactly as he wanted. These real ones touched as they wanted, which was everywhere. Round the tops of his shoulders and biceps. Sliding around his neck. Curving around the shell of his ear. One curved under his ass and squeezed there. Sneaking behind to feel the small of his back. They started from his arms down and now moved everywhere: feeling his body like it was sumptuously prepared only for them. They helped themselves to the taste of his skin like hungry dogs. 

Hajime gagged once, moaned once, swore twice. He couldn’t imagine a menagerie of human men and tongues doing this if he tried. To picture it was too complicated a thought, so he did not try. He closed his eyes and saw nothing, imagined nothing, only felt. Oikawa answered his passivity with a vibration, but Hajime had no mind for ‘communication’ now. He ignored Oikawa to feel its tentacles only, to writhe into their aggressive touch.

One tentacle circled under his chin and licked him with its slippery fat end. Others everywhere else followed suit. One circled his pectoral and giddily set itself over his left nipple where Oikawa's mouth had been. Some part of it folded or changed to mimic a mouth. The tongues roved, explored, sometimes nipped or pressed his skin in a way that almost felt like a kiss. Two parted his thighs wider and felt the desperate outline of his erection, making him shake and groan. More began to pull and bite holes in the pant legs of the suit.

Two branched tentacles felt their slick, slow way down his abdomen and pelvis. They slid over the sweaty, black hairs preceding his cock. They pushed beneath the edge of the containment suit like two greedy hands would push into his pants, like he had needed to feel for years. He helplessly cried out when both of them pressed against his own cock straining against his stained underwear. They yanked the edge of the suit further down his hips to better access him, to expose his underwear hiding behind it. The suit ripped open further in the process. 

The lecherous hounds slipped beneath the underwear’s elastic band. Hajime breathed, “Yes,” as they granted his wish. 

The hounds became tongues, thick as their master’s. Together they wrapped around him and consumed him like mouths. Two, then three thick lengths gripped him together and he was theirs. They moved together, cupped his balls in their width and engulfed his exposed cock down to its base. Their wet lengths pulled backward, popping off the head of his cock and sucking it back in. Hajime’s back lifted fully off the grass. 

“Yes, YES! God—hah—” 

Two, three, four long, lingering sucks and he was crying. On the fifth he slipped out of human morality for good: a climax was already cresting near. He was going to come in the grip of these tentacles, to some other species jacking him off. He would. He must.

He started moaning without shame, gripping the grass and stems behind his head. The whole garden heard his pleasure. 

Hajime gave himself away to the alien’s control and moved as it bid him. He pushed his hips upward into the feeling of multiple mouths claiming him. He was theirs for taking and tasting and sating their bestial desires. Each vicious motion spurred the roiling tide in his groin. He closed his eyes a final time to wait for it. It swelled till he couldn’t gasp in time to their strokes anymore. It grew past what any man could hold. 

Somewhere above him there was the sound of Oikawa humming a low vibration alongside his own cries. It felt everything its extraneous limbs felt. So it felt the navigator undone, the way they both dreamed. 

The rumbling vibration eventually carried into the tentacles, and it was enough to push him instantly over. Hajime’s climax struck hard, ferocious, by Oikawa’s many hands and by his years untouched and alone. The tentacles sucked with fervor at his cock as he spewed seed into them. His body rattled with the sweet arousal, sweet hell, sweet pain of them sucking him dry through it. They consumed him the way was meant to be.

His shudder was long and violent, and so the tentacles felt him vibrating back. Tentacles curled near his throat and his belly while he whimpered. They held him still for a few long breaths, enough for his whimpers to become deep healing breaths. He waited, now soft in their grip. He waited for whatever it would use him for next. 

‘I—I—I—am—’  Hajime thought, and could not finish the thought. 

A familiar humming sound demanded his attention, only a few seconds later. He looked up as commanded. There was Oikawa on its knees, languidly pleasuring itself to the sight Hajime engulfed and writhing. Hand on his hard alien cock, fingers rising along the underside up to the head and over a long black slit there. It was dripping wet already from being inside its own slick innards or its natural lubrication, or both. 

He sat up enough that Hajime would see him stroking his thick cock—His. Yes. That was right.

He, not it. This was his cock and Hajime was his prize to serve it with. What stupidity, what weak-minded desperation to deny the creature’s sex all this time when it was so proudly, undeniably male. 

He was a spacefaring warrior more powerful than an Earth navigator. He defeated Hajime in endurance, in cleverness and in combat. He earned what he now had in front of him. 

Hajime knew this, repeated this, held onto it while it prepared him. An assortment of tentacles gripped at the legs of the containment suit and pulled till the flimsy material till it tore away in ribbons. They lifted his hips and moved him efficiently. They threw all the remaining strips of his suit and underwear to litter his arbor room out of sight somewhere. They daintily lifted his knees to pull his feet from the one attached boot that remained. Then they dragged him closer to his conquerer. Till he was all but in Oikawa’s lap with his legs splayed to either side of his waist. With the waiting alien cock raised between his open legs. 

Oikawa rose up to his knees again. He set his hands on Hajime’s knees, then drifted them down. He felt the inside of soft, defenseless human thighs. Hajime’s hole was bared for him. The creature was panting through parted lips as he aligned himself. 

There was a shiver of old human terror rattling Hajime’s spine and an improbable growing hardness in his own dick and a longing to touch his captor back, but he ignored it all. He would stay still and bound as it wanted, like it was his captain he was bound to obey. 

He would have to obey even if what came next hurt. If it was piercing. Ripping. If it burned and corroded him from the inside out. If it brought forth eggs his body couldn’t hold or if he turned to viscera and so much gore for the clan to eat. But the great king ate first. So he fucking deserved. 

Oikawa was clothed in sweat and scars and smeared marks of their shared blood. The sight of him at the precipice of his victory was so beautiful it nearly stole Hajime's voice. It hurt like something deep and forever gone, like Earth disappearing as his shuttle fled the planet. Like his beloved, real captain whose name he no longer knew, because that throne in his heart was taken now. He mustn't be lost for nothing, that captain had said. No, not for nothing. But for this. 

The pain made him pathetic and so, pathetically, he tried to beg for the king’s attention. “C-Come on. Oikawa, come on. Come here, beautiful creature. Take me as you want.” 

Oikawa listened and held his eyes. He vocalized, vibrated, and something like words passed between them. Hajime felt the greatness of his victory. It hurt. His scars hurt.

This would hurt so much more before he was done.

Two fingers felt the rim of his hole. A thumb pressed in with a little difficulty, a little grunt from Hajime at the first touch of pain. He pretended for a moment, like he used to: pretended it wouldn’t hurt. He could be in the arbor room forever. 

The creature's cock pressed into Hajime. The head inserted slowly, a bearable minor stretch. Then the rest came in full force, too strong, too fast, tearing Hajime’s pathetic hopes of this resembling a dream. He screamed as it entered and still screamed when it sat fully seated inside. He tried to kick the invasive thing away, off, out, but its many appendages kept him writhing in place and in pain. 

He swore, he shouted, he cursed the alien and tried not to cry. But above him Oikawa was deaf from his own ecstasy. He tilted his head back and groaned like a man who had been denied this sensation for years. While his head was lolled back, Hajime’s pain folded into a strange discomfort. The source of the pain was…moving. Feeling. Around. Hajime stammered and choked. He looked aghast between his legs where he could just see the base of the invading dick…flexing. 

The alien had a prehensile penis. Of course it did. As prehensile as every other tentacle. Of course it was, it came squeezing out from inside its body in a space that seemed impossible to hold it, like all the others. Once freed, it took the shape of a hard dick as though just waiting to be conveniently inflated, but it could move or stretch as its owner wanted. The stretching girth of it rubbed upward once against Hajime’s prostate, and his legs jerked backward in the grip of his restraints. His single, zombified brain cell of navigator protocol requested permission to faint again. 

The moving veins on the shaft seemed to press out, like ribbed edges. Where they moved, that slick wet gunk was thickest, but it was leaking from the whole shaft. It was all the lubrication he would need, but it didn’t feel like common lubes he knew and the damn monster had probably already torn him. And it felt so goddamn weird that the passive submissive mood was burning away already. 

Throughout this, Hajime gurgled and wheezed like a faking sick patient. Eventually he squeezed out: “—u-ugh, god, you gross fucking freak!” 

Oikawa smiled in his old predatory way by showing off his many fangs. His fingers tap-danced on Hajime’s hips where he held him. 

“I should punch you in the fucking face!” 

A new sensation punched him first. It struck his pelvis with a force to match one, then simmered as it spread upwards. It was a slow hot fire and an infection. Pouring from his own hole upward, like it moved through the blood. He held himself up on his elbows before, but now fell fully onto his back again. 

Oikawa taunted him with slow slides in and out of his ass. Each thrust squeezed a little more of that thick and clear lubrication its body made and left a little more inside. It had to be in his blood already, whispered his dying speck of navigator protocol, because his own dick was rising up again far too soon. It could be spreading into the tears it made inside him. It could be a wave of living organisms speeding through his blood faster than an infection could move. It could be pumping an aphrodisiac into him, or venom, or disease, or death. 

Hajime lay helpless as it spread compelled desperation in him. He lay panting as Oikawa saw his work taking effect, and took him as he wanted. He moved easy at first, groaning softly at the tight clench. Hajime groaned back, thoughtlessly trying to pull away from this too-sensitive touch, but he was held fast as always. He looked stupidly down when he felt the shaft adjusting inside him again: the ribbed veins moved, one pushed up against his prostate, gentler and cautious now. Feeling with purpose. His whole body tingled from the soft press, ready for more.  

It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair that he could take control of his human body this way. There should be pain and discomfort, but these were stolen away. What else would it change? What else would it take? He had no ideas, no thoughts, no space left for fears. He was hollow and he was now filled. 

More. More. More. Oh, oh, yes. Come on. Come here, Oik—come—

The heat of it was sweet and intense and inhuman. There was nothing in the empty universe but the place he and his lover’s bodies were joined. Every thrust of that perfect cock fed him fire. His cock was bobbing against his stomach the way it was meant to when he was fucked hard and fucked well. It wanted him fucked well. 

The keening and whining in the air was coming from him. Sounds he hadn't made for years, or ever. Sounds no man on earth could pull from him, but the beast from his dreams could. When he thrust his hips to meet its own or lifted his back to feel a new angle, the friction bloomed again and he whined again. He whined, whined, fucking mewled at the tentacle cock taking him as it wanted.

He wanted more, he wanted it endless. He didn’t remember the creature’s name but he loved it. Owner of his body and his life. He was in love, he was in heat by its design, he must give it everything it wanted. 

When he could remember some words, he begged it out loud to fuck him harder, harder. No mercy. Fuck me harder! Please, Oikawa! Please! 

How dare he forget that name for even a moment. A name he feared and worshiped. Did Oikawa fear and worship him in return? 

The wet slap of that body against his felt like worship. The sudden raising of his legs over Oikawa’s shoulders—left then right, his motion or the aliens or both deciding together—felt like worship. Now they chose to look into each other’s eyes with nothing between them but their breath. 

Oikawa’s hands settled on Hajime’s raised thigh and his hip. The movement signaled to Hajime's failing brain that the hands were both close enough to reach. The tentacles round his wrists let him reach. He grabbed at the hand on his own thigh and squeezed its long fingers in his own, held it tight like the tentacles held him. Held it like it was his and he’d earned the right to touch it. 

In return, he felt Oikawa’s other hand and all the many appendages all reveling in the feeling of his skin. The tentacles felt, but their master’s eyes stayed locked on Hajime’s face. When one of them drifted near his lip, Hajime maintained that gaze as he dipped his tongue out and lapped at the thick tapered end. It paused where it was as though stunned, so he gave it a longer lick with more force. The second time left him with a dot of that slick in his mouth. Oikawa’s hips stuttered out of their rhythm. 

You want my mouth, huh, you bastard? Do you? 

I do. 

The tentacles wrapped around his bound left arm and pressing on his chest reached their ends towards his face. One bit his skin so he would gasp in pain and part his lips. Another slid eagerly forward onto his tongue before he pulled coyly away. A third curled just under his chin and pulled, asking for his mouth to open more. What Oikawa asked, he would obey. So Hajime swallowed his lingering scrap of distaste and opened his mouth again. The tentacle slid forward again and his lips closed around it as they both knew to do. 

Oikawa lowered himself down, pushed on the backs of Hajime’s knees till he was nearly bent in half. They were so much closer now. As he was bent, Oikawa too bent forward and groaned aloud.

He wanted the stupid tentacle out of his mouth so he could look up in uninterrupted awe, for he sounded so like a man it brought tears to his eyes. Hajime hollowed his cheeks to suck properly, felt the tip of the tentacle for a slit, took more of it inside. Maybe he’d suck another sound like that out of him.  

Oikawa, don’t stop, I want to hear you. Again, please? Again—

The tentacle interrupted his thoughts by thrusting itself deeper in his mouth. The fattened end spontaneously manifested a slit. The other cock inside him spontaneously pulled nearly out. He felt it make the slightest upward curve, then press hard in again. Hajime’s back bowed up off the grass. 

The motion made his mouth gape open, but a new tentacle pushed his jaw shut to force him to keep hold of the one in his mouth. This time they left his own weeping cock untouched, and he did not care. He stayed still when the demanding tentacle thrusted of its own volition, loving his mouth, fucking his throat. Oikawa found a rhythm again.

Too long since he had a dick in his mouth, or one in his ass. Never had both at once. Never had a man control his body like this. If Oikawa wanted his body torn and used, so it would be. He would end his journey weeping at this creature’s feet. No one in the godforsaken universe would have to know how much he wanted that. Only Oikawa should know how willing he was to submit and give. He would take its seed or anything else it would give, he'd suck this cock if it pushed fully down his throat and beyond. He'd cross his ankles behind Oikawa's shoulders while it killed him. Now, waiting to be fully used, he could only squeeze Oikawa’s fingers as his thrusts grazed and then pressed his prostate without mercy. 

The last thrusts were coming: the strongest and the shortest. Each one punched a short, shallow breath through Hajime’s nostrils. He heard open-mouthed panting from Oikawa. He wanted to keep sucking the single mouth tentacle to please him in his last moments, but couldn’t. Not with the vicious cock fucking his ass faster and faster. He gasped aloud too much to hold it. The one in his mouth and the one up against his jaw both began to droop. It slipped ungainly past his lips and curled up in anticipation. He callously let it drop.

He and Oikawa moaned in one voice, shivered together like one being pulled by the same wave. All this time and stoking of each other’s need, to crest this point together.

Oikawa came first and Hajime followed after as he was commanded to. The alien cock expanding in its last second and bursting hot seed inside his hole took him past human sensation. He became a vessel for shaking and shouting and crying. It swept him from his hole outward: one second of a familiar, human tingling and then a pleasure fierce and alien and unknowable. He cried from the ferocious kiss of lightning, fire from a star forced into his body, brutality not meant for small and puny beings like him. But the tentacles around his limbs even now held him fast. Made him bear it. Made him inhuman.

Sweet hell burned for a long time, or so it felt. He heard himself gasping and catching his breath eventually. Some tentacles eventually began sweeping and licking at the cum he'd spurted onto his own stomach. The three scars on his chest felt...good.

The mixing of their blood did not burn. Its seed did not burn. He was alive yet. Alive. Alive. Alive. Maybe less human. Maybe lost. He forgot the room he was in for a bit.

Sometime, somehow, the energy dissipated enough to feel small things, like the grass beneath him. To feel it almost rustling as he shook atop it. Below was grass, above the fake sunlight and some branches of the arbor room’s trees. Something alien in between. 

The great oak tree’s leaves waved minutely in her breeze of artificial air and gave him her dappled light. Hajime wanted to wave to her. To say goodbye. He blinked up at the winking fake sunlight. At Oikawa above him, sweat-laden hair falling over his brow. His arms shook.

A leaf fell between them. 

Hajime wanted to close his eyes, perhaps never to open them again, only fade away. But he opened them again to see Oikawa. There was a lock of hair falling nearly over his eye exactly as he’d seen in dreams. He reached up, two tentacles spilling dumbly off his forearm and shoulder. He pushed the heel of his hand into that brown hair. Oikawa’s head lifted up. Pressed into him. Blessed him with a smile that infected him even further. 

You're so beautiful. Why the hell are you so beautiful.

You think I am beautiful? 

Hajime’s heartbeat was lowering from a life-threatening beat to only an intense jog. Enough to both have a thought and make a decision about it. He pushed upward on his elbows and kissed Oikawa on the lips, catching a dot of sweat. He licked it away as Oikawa pulled back unsurely and looked down in drunk, delayed shock. 

Get out of me. Pull out, now. I wanna kiss you before it’s too late. Out, fucker.

It was already too late; he was well infected inside and out with whatever it wanted to spread. There was no telling when it would change or activate or when the alien would decide it was simply done with him. Hajime wasn’t done with him. He shoved his palms against Oikawa’s collarbone with a fresh urgency, since his legs were too weak to use.

Oikawa looked drowsy after finishing his needs, but did heed Hajime’s request. Hajime had to help manhandle his own legs neatly off of the creature's shoulders as Oikawa nearly fell back. The extra distance made the tentacle restraints all lengthen and droop between them. The invasive cock dragged out of his hole almost lazily with a layered squelch of spent seed. 

Oikawa didn’t seem to expect Hajime heaving himself off the grass after him. Oikawa let himself be pushed ungainly onto his rear. He sat there while Hajime fumbled with his twitching legs enough to get up on his knees. 

Hajime planted a leg on either side of the creature’s own. His ass leaked heavily and the alien dick coiled to and fro like a live worm beneath them both, but they looked only at each other. Hajime shoved one remaining tentacle off with an impatient grunt. He clapped both now-free hands against Oikawa’s face. That seemed to wake him up. His hands felt Hajime’s sweaty, stained chest. He made appreciative and very slow strokes over his abdomen. 

“Stay still and don’t bite my tongue off,” Hajime breathed over him. “You get me? Stay. Still. Oikawa.”

Oikawa never heard him through the windows of the ship, but he seemed to look at him through one now: with the same intensity and drive to reach something that was tauntingly close. He must have understood in some way, because he waited. 

Hajime’s heart still beat fast; his toes still twitched. He still wasn’t thinking anything nearly rational. The scars on his chest no longer bled, but they pulsed. He gripped the hair on the back of Oikawa’s head with one head, gently cupped the blood-dotted jaw in the other. He would keep him still and tilt his own head, make their lips meet the right way. Be slow first, savor the feel of him. Treat him like the king that he was. 

Open your mouth a little. Don’t bite my finger here…yeah. Like that. 

You'll like this. Promise.

Hey, keep your tongue in your mouth for now. In!  

Yes. 

Yes…

He tilted his head so Oikawa would not have to. Hajime kissed the monster as he’d always wanted to, with the dreamy gentleness of a lover in bed after waking. A soft touch of the lips and a grateful sigh. 

When he opened his eyes he found Oikawa still staring like he was the one doing something alien this time. But Hajime refused to stop or feel shame or care about being cut by fangs. He kissed it a second time with an ounce more force to slide his lips over its own. They were strange and familiar, warm and a little coppery with blood. The tongue was much hotter than the rest of the mouth, but its taste was something natural or green. Something that ought to be planted in an arbor room. 

Use your tongue just a little. Feel what I’m doing with mine…Ohh, you feel so…you feel…

…I…feel…feel like I’m on fire. Yeah, that’s it. Fuck….like that, Oikawa. Haha, good job—Mmm—

I’m, I’m—I can barely think. I’m not…ahh…you poisoned me, didn’t you. Infected me. Something. Rat bastard, what did I expect? 

I’ll die in my own garden. 

That’s more than I deserve. After this. All this. 

Oww! Bite me after I’m dead, jackass!

You were doing all right before. I’ll show you again. 

No, move your tongue this way. Look at mine, look. Ahh. You see? Yeah. 

Okay. Let me show you. Let me please you. 

Now…just…

…

…

…Yes.

Touch me. 

Touch me. 

I’m yours. I know. 

Don’t let go of me. 

Don’t fucking let go of me. 

I don’t want to die by myself. 

Soldier. 

Huh?

…

Wh-what?

Soldier.

Oh. Shit. 

…

Are you…talking to me? 

A̸̢̺̫̍̋͊r̸̖̆̐́e̷͎̔̿̓ ̶͉͈̂ÿ̶̧̻́ǫ̵̩͔̎̈̐u? ̵͕̄H̵͇̒e̵͓͐aring? Me? 

I. I. I’m hallucinating. The poison. T-taking oxygen from…from my blood. Or—

You ̴͖̊ḓ̵̃e̴͎̓ḟ̶͔e̴̬͠n̷͔̂d̵̮͋.̵̟̎ ̶̢̎A̵̪͊ ̵̞̅f̷̟́o̶̲͠rtress. 

…

…

…This isn’t…a fortress. I’m not a soldier. 

You figh̵͖͒t̶͙̊.̷͈͒ ̵͚͘ Ǒ̴̺n̷̹̒ ̵̢̕y̷̼͝ò̸̼u̵͝ͅr̵̻̄ ̶̻́h̷͎͗o̶̬̕m̷̠͐eworld.

An̵̘̐d̷̡̀.̸͖͆ ̵̤̎A̵̺͒l̶͈̽o̸ne.

Ḿ̷̼̙̫͖̿̌͊y. Soldier.

They were laying in the grass together on their sides, his right leg held up at the knee by Oikawa’s own sure hand his other arm and every long tentacle pressing him back tight against Oikawa’s front he looked back over his shoulder pulled the alien toward him with his right arm so their eyes would meet and they would seek each other’s mouths with each new breath each one punched out of him by a new thrust of Oikawa’s cock needing needing needing every one every second of fullness and friction inside bliss unknown on earth and only to him given by a god from beyond whose limbs held him prisoner held his body sipped at his sweat massaged his leaking cock the guttural pleasure of his lord behind him served well fucked well his new mate in heat and in motion with him like he 

   Was
           Meant
                      For
                               It 

…so that’s the name you call me? Really? 

Yes yes ̶y̸e̵s̴ ̵y̸e̷s̵ ̸̞̬̞̟̈͠y̴̙̲̪̯͆͘ë̴̤̻̰̮̍̄̇s̷̟̟̱͓̒̽͘ ̴̩̼̭̩̈́̉̽̑ỵ̸̧̝̹̔͐̌͌e̵̛̗̽͘͝s̶̰̬̰̀̈́͊

Why?

Why—

Why. Did you follow me. 

For so long. 

From Earth to here, to nowhere, for what? What could be worth all this? After I’ve nearly killed you. A hundred times now. You’re the soldier, Oikawa. 

He answered again in vibrations, in the way of his people, in the way that pulsed into Hajime’s body and made his three scars pulse back. 

He pulsed(pulsed((pulsed̸̮̥̗̙̼̥̘̻̠̻̎͐͌̌̈́̇̀̉̄͠(̶͔͍̩̜̰̖͎͕͔͖̙̯͚̺̀̎̋̀̐̄(̷̡͍͈̘͔̯̖͉͔̯̮̯͚͛̐̍̾̐̕̚͜ͅ(̵̺̀p̶̧̢̫͓̤͚̻͈̣̟̭͙̟͉̈́̀̓̂̑͒̈́̽̈́̾̔̆͒͋̕͝ů̴͔͍͍͔͓̞̺̦̹̼̥͔͊́̂̎͋̀̽̅̇͊͒͘̚͝ļ̴̢͉̀s̵̙̉̂͊͊͐̆̀̾̈́͘è̸͙̯̮̺̜̥̖̀̌̍͊̑͛̎́́̇̕d̷̢̧͇̺̥̣̱̎)̶̜̝̘͓̫͙͌́͌̈́͐́̒̎̎̚͠)̸̛̦͎̙̥̲͙̖̖̣̤̔͐͒̈͋̉̇̂̉͒̽́́͝)̵̡̨̧̦̠̠̞̹̪̦̜̦͓͔̏͒̈́̀͋̅͠

I want. Life. 

Hajime’s heart slowed, raced, stopped. He spoke aloud as he pulsed.

“Then take it. My life is nothing. My life is undeserved. I should have died at home.”

̸̺̾Y̴͗ͅo̸̘̽ū̸̼,̴̲̍ ̶̱̌ã̸̘n̸̞͑d̵̟̏ ̷͉̊y̶̒ͅour life. Here. 

“Take my life if you want it so badly! It’s yours!”

The life ̷̰̃ÿ̴̢́ö̴̝́ȕ̶̧ ̷̺̓a̶̚͜r̵̬͝e̶̙͠ ̶̲͊g̷̘̓r̶̥̀ò̴̱w̶̯̓ỉ̷̬n̸͎͊ĝ̸̮.̴̢͝ ̵̩͠

̴Ȉ̵̜n̴͍̂ ̴̻̇t̵͙̃h̶͍̆ę̵̌ ̶̼̀ẖ̶͛e̸̲̐ą̶̽r̴̭̉t̷̤́ ̴̞̅o̸̩͘f̸͕͋ ̷̤͒ý̵̜our fortress. 

Oikawa clutched his fragile right hand in his own, then held it aloft so their hands stood dark against the ceiling’s false daylight. Oikawa’s grip was strong and Hajime’s was sapped to nothing. He could not fight the alien opening his hand so the fingers were lifted up and away from the palm. 

Reaching into his peripheral vision were the silhouettes of his beloved black oak near the center of the arbor room, the younger, small elms, the maple that had been a knee high sapling when he left home, and the highest reaching flowers he had nurtured since the death of planet Earth. His captured hand that grew each one held limp in the center of them all. 

A blade cut through the green and white vision. A tail, a tentacle, a brush painting one stripe of living red. The red fell to earth, to the arbor room floor, spattering Hajime with a new stripe of his own blood. 

Four severed fingers dropped into the grass: two human, two inhuman. 

The changed shape of his hand gaped down at him. Clutched in the monster’s still. Their red and black blood pulsing, making a river down their fists and knuckles and arms. It had cut off fingers from both their hands.

Hajime screamed at the loss. At his body unable to perceive the pain. At the gore staining his garden. 

Oikawa made a sound, a deep-reaching vibration, which was nothing at all to Hajime but the vocalizing of a dumb animal. He kept screaming, started crying, heard only himself. 

Which parts of his body were really still whole and hale, for him to see such nightmares at his end. What horror was his mind hiding from him as he died? Were his ribs open already? Did the rest of the clan finally gather and come to feed? What a self-loathing brainless prey animal he was, pretending his predators wanted him to live. He was a fucking traitor and deserved this and more. But he was a lost human being so he wept undeserved. 

“Let me go. Let me go! Let me go, I wanna goooo—” he spoke to his arbor room, to Hitoka, to his dead captain and his parents, who might all carry him away from here once he finally faded. 

Oikawa held his ruined hand and his life. He let both of these gently reach the ground and lay in the grass to rest. Hajime choked on a sob at the sight, forced to hold hands with death, who naturally would never let go. He watched their ruined hands bleed together. Pulse, pulse, pulse. Into the living grass. 

The arbor room was fading around him. He would leave her soon. She would mourn him quietly but continue to grow. Beautiful garden, your caretaker will miss you. 

Hajime was fading. Past their entwined hands was a path he’d walked on a thousand times when the ship knew no invader. On the other side of the path, beyond a skinny row of vegetables, his plush, inanimate friend still lay hidden in a thick nest of celery leaves. And beyond him was another invader, reclining in a flowerbed like an angel upon a cloud. Tortured Hanamaki with his eyes sweetly closed. Arms buried to the elbow in marigold stems. 

With effort and pain Hajime’s eyes climbed just above that invader to another, sitting up just behind it in a row of snapdragon flowers. A dark cloud set in the rainbow. 

Matsukawa, not just tortured, but burned. Burned but living, which was no great burden to his kind. Burned but—less.

Matsukawa had half a face last time Hajime saw him. Minutes ago. Hours ago. However long he was trapped having sex with an alien. His face, chest, most of his arms had been shriveled and red. Hajime had torched the creature half-bald. But there was less damage than before, when Matsukawa had dropped Tory into the rows. It was like a great ugly oil spill had retreated, been mopped partially away. 

The skin and even the hair was healing, as it did, but faster than it ever had before. Matsukawa pressed his burned face and hair into the snapdragon stems, his eyes glazed over. Resting and...regrowing. Like a new green stem sprouting up from beneath ash.

Hajime’s eyes fell closed once. He forced them open once more to look at the the stumps of his index and middle fingers. They pulsed, pulsed, pulsed their blood into the grass. Even as that blood flow decreased, they pulsed like his new scars. But if they hurt, he could not feel it.

Behind him was a soft vibration. No words, no meaning, nothing but a strange sound. Nothing but a strange dream, where he could feel and understand another being’s language of vibrations. Where he could hear the message that he was not dead, would not die. Today was not the end. You have more of this to live through. Much growing to do.

The alien held him still and made him wait. The others continued to rest. 

At last, Hajime fainted. 

Chapter Text

-

The night entered the early digits of a new day Shuttle 4, in its preserved Earthly scale of time, in its meticulous records and schedules and electronic minutiae which operated on despite the invasion.

It was the earliest hours of Friday morning. Much too early to wake or work. Too early to even see the sun in summer. On earth, it would be summer. Disgraced navigator Iwaizumi Hajime lay in his garden cocooned in a dream about summer. In it, he forgot what he had done.

The dream held him gently. The sun, the wind, the grass growing at the edge of the beach, were all loving and warm. He'd gone to a similar beach with his cadet friends. And with his parents. And alone.

The grassy patch at the end of the beach, near the road and the snack kiosk, contained plants he had grown in years past for the eventual purpose of transporting to the Canto. Grasses, reeds and algae for the on-ship rivers and wildflowers that helped sustain pollinators. A few varieties of wheat and rice were growing here for some reason. Hitoka was there too, drawing warm little houses and cats and cutesy pastel-colored things that she liked and suggesting to him that he might like to draw landscapes. In the dream, his attempts to follow through didn't look like shit. He could draw mountains and rivers and unpolluted fields. He ran freely through a field of wheat. His chest was bare and bleeding and infected with—something—pulsing—

It was in his arbor room. The king of empty space. He felt nothing about that, not while he was jogging on this warm beach, or fixing this thruster brake rotor here on the Canto's 18th level engine deck. He picked up the heavy, greased rotor that was larger than his torso and spiked it down into Earth's atmosphere. Nice kill, someone should have said to his great spike. But it was quiet.

...Is it behind me right now? Is it...is he deeper in the grass? Looking at me?

It was looking. It was here.

This invasion was deserved. It was not so great and terrible as what you did on earth. Did you forget?

Hajime not scream himself awake. He simply was. He lay flat on his back and unmoving. Staring up at the sunlamps on the arbor room ceiling, greatly dimmed to simulate earth's peaceful, starry night. Hearing the caress of a calm seaside breeze...and then quiet. The quiet of his apartment on the navigation base. The silence of Hitoka studying a page of her sketchbook. The silence of infinite space.

Only the slow turning of his head rustled the grass. There was blood in the moonlit grass at his side. There were a few tatters of his ruined contamination suit on the path beyond that. In looking that far, his gaze skimmed over an unnatural scar in the nearer grass. It pulled his eyes back down. Closer.

Hajime did not breathe.

He was in the southeast quarter of the arbor room. He thought about the tarmac on the navigation base, where all the shuttles were, where he'd sweat more than any day in his life running through and between them. But he wasn't there. He thought about vacuuming Shuttle 4's empty cabin last week, looking blankly at the thousand-capacity seats which had been full many times before. But he wasn't there, either. He was in his garden, on his back. A man lay him down in the grass to--

COME H—

In the grass at his left side were four severed fingers. Two were his. For certain. Two were strange. Too long. Too close. His—severed--fingers—

Hajime tried to control his breathing and could not. Tried to ponder what to do next and could not think of any ideas at all. He did not know what to do. The protocol for how to calm his breathing and respond to emergencies and everything else was...gone. Gone?

Gone.

Where was his mind? Where was he? No protocol? No guidance. No sound, no thoughts at all.

His life and body for years and now his mind too: Adrift. With. Nothing.

Hajime whimpered in the grass.

He did not remember which hand suffered the carnage. With his eyes on the severed pieces of himself, he felt his own chest with his left hand--five fingers--and found strange, long divots in his chest, partially filled with dried blood. As though he'd been sliced or cut cut CUT OH CHRIST.

Protocol was gone and he was alone. He was alone on a dark beach. A hand appeared in front of his face—his right, lifting itself without his doing or thinking—and its misshapen silhouette screamed at him in the dark. He remembered that destroyed silhouette. The creature had cut off his first two fingers right at the first...knuckle, that was the word, knuckle.

He'd wept when it happened. He'd screamed. It made him lie there looking at his own bleeding stumps. The rivulets of blood were still there, now dried along his palm and wrist and even past the elbow.

The knuckles were not just there, they were there again. The finger stumps were slightly taller than they should have been because of it, like they were—

Growing.

"H-help," he choked out loud, to no one, in the dark room. Garden insects chirped.

No help. No protocol. Nothing to save him. Hajime's intermittent whimpers flared into unchecked panic like a terrified civilian.

The stumps were a little taller than when they were first cut a few hours ago. With his legs and left hand, he pushed blearily backwards over the grass, but his right came right along with him and stayed close to his face. The two stumps demanded that he look into them: he had to see their specks of red and unnatural black and the white dot of finger bone in the center of both. It's the proximal phalanx, something told him. The proximal phalanx, the flesh and skin around it were all growing, and he was infected with something.

It was impossible. It was inescapable and floating in front of his face. Hajime wheezed hard enough to curl his torso and all his limbs. As the room around him all drunkenly bent, he was forced to notice one thing nearby that did not move or bend: a man in the grass.

The man was made visible by the lamps' artificial moonlight painting the curved outline of his skin. The reflective surface of his eyes there in the dark scarred Hajime's vision like a glimpse of the sun. The whites, the strange pupils, and the whole of those eyes were looking up at him. An alien shaped like a man. A creature that he had given a name to, who lay here with him because—

Because it found a way in. Because he mated with it like an animal. Because he let it.

The room bent in half around him like a hand had reached from the dark of space and crushed the shuttle. He fell. He caught himself poorly on his forearms, looked down at flattened grass. His stomach heaved. His skin crawled. His weak mind lit on fire as he remembered what he'd done. All of it, willing. On Earth, before. And today.

The dream's last clinging haze burned away. Hajime felt the fullness of waking like a physical impact. This grass, this room, this floating coffin he lived in--and spreading his legs to have sex with an animal. He chose it all. Did it all on purpose.

There was a voice inside that wasn't himself, wasn't the captain or the blonde girl or the last man on Earth he'd ever touched but the Truth: Remember that you begged this creature to fuck you. You wanted it to be in love with you. Men who fuck dogs or children deserve to live more than you.

The pill. Hajime tried to speak and ask his father for the pill. His father was long dead. His father had said don't sink, but he had. He sank to bestial sex and he loved it. He missed it already. A nausea was cooling, boiling, reaching inside him like a new bacteria man had never touched before today.

Dad, help me, I shouldn't have—

His father and mother and fellow navigators and the jury of civilians he had allowed to die all gripped his throat.

Their combined hand was on him, all over him. A man's shame was stronger than any alien tentacle or shuttle's defensive steel. It threw him back into the same dark hell of when he'd first fled Earth.

When his isolation was still new, it had burned a hole in his mind every day. It gutted him worse than any alien invader could. It was in every thought and action and task. It was the pill he used to keep right on his nightstand. And all around him in empty space with Travelers either downed or gone, he knew there was nothing, Nothing, Nothing,

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing

Stop please! STOP! he cried, like a man who wanted to live.

The death mantras ceased in his mind, but not in his body. In his body there was something growing. He felt it now that the room was almost coherent around him. There was something wrong-feeling, something undeniably sick. A mass? A tumor? It was in his chest primarily, where those long scars were. Of course he was infected with something; he'd exchanged bodily fluids with an alien organism, said Truth. But whatever the new infectious presence was, Truth weighed even more.

Traitor said the Truth, as it clamped around his head and squeezed. Truth saw it all: his nude body, the slow undressing, then the most debauched sex imaginable made of animal tentacles and slick and how he cried with joy during their mutual passion. He saw himself in the suit, carrying his flamethrower. Oikawa baring its fangs through the thick capturing net in the long hallway and then those fangs on his bare neck and making him its lover all while he heard the beeping of that beat-up inventory tablet in his bedroom: airlock breach. Breach. Breach.

Oikawa breached his ship and his body. Oikawa watched him with his head lying on one arm, lying in repose and radiating cool satisfaction while Hajime hyperventilated in the dark.

A garbled noise squeezed out of Hajime's throat as he tried to say something, beg for something, but he heard no words from himself and understood none. He had no protocol. No thoughts of his own. Nothing but tears and the Truth of what he'd done squeezing his body to death. Again.

He fled.

Oikawa made a soft vibration while he rose up on shaky hands and knees. Hajime did not understand it. Did not remember how. He looked away from it.

He made for the walking path a few steps away. He crawled like a child over the four severed fingers in the grass and did not touch them. He stood like he'd never done it before, wobbling, pathetic, falling to floor twice before he could push fully off the ground.

Now he stood on the path. Barefoot. Nude. Something rustling nearby. This time he looked. In the false moonlight, past many other plant rows and peaceful trees there was another pale outline: one of the smaller aliens, the one with the shaved-looking head. It looked like it had given itself an undercut and Hajime didn't remember that. It sat cross-legged in the dirt before his sunflowers with both hands reaching up. It sat frozen, fingertips barely touching the high leaves.

Hajime found himself mimicking the position of the creature's hands for no reason. He stopped. Two more aliens were in his sight line. He could not understand if they were near or far, what nearness or farness even were. But they sat at the edge of one of the ponds. They were both looking at him.

They shouldn't be here.

He shouldn't be here.

Worthless fucking whore.

He fled somewhere his muscle memory knew the path to. His legs walked for him. They walked carelessly over rows and rows of his own garden. Trampling his own sprouts. Stepping on something thorned. Incapable of walking in a straight line towards the south wall. Wobbling. Stumbling. Hugging. Hugging his shoulders the way he liked and missed. The wall hit him in the face and he remembered to stop walking.

Wall. Cool metal Earth-made Earth-galvanized steel flat flat flat. His hands slid along the flatness. His hands found a thing he could parrot the name of: Shuttle 4 Enclosed Arbor Room Lead Control Panel. No more flat. He felt into a square alcove in the wall where the panel's many buttons and dials and screens were. His hands knew what to do with them. The rest of him did not know anything anymore.

Oikawa was standing behind him.

The all-clear release code flowed from his fingertips into the central keypad, so the shuttle did his bidding. A thunderous noise rang throughout the ship. The useless protective walls he'd lowered hours before began to rise.

Outside the arbor room, in corridors and doorways and ventilation shafts, three-foot-thick walls of metal began to lift up from their locks in the floor. Their vibrations were overpowering, greater than any the alien clan could make. Retracting them would clear the path to his safe place. The nearest barrier was fifty feet outside the arbor room's south exit, the ground-level exit, which was right here near the panel. Clear across the room was the north exit at the top of the staircase, where he'd been tackled and rolled down the stairs by another alien whose name and face he could not recall. But the feel of alien tentacles—many tentacles—oh, he remembered.

Hajime whimpered and gulped as he felt the storage shelves built into the wall nearby. Supply bins, small lockers, first-aid materials and junk he'd forgotten. And clothes. He'd put clothes in here at some point. Black underwear, black basketball shorts. When did he last play basketball? Why am I here? When will the shuttle come back for us? Why didn't any Travelers let me in?

'I should not be nude in the arbor room,' said Truth in his voice. That was the only thing driving him to dig around in storage bins right now. A thing that was like protocol. Hajime obeyed.

Hajime leaned his forehead against the wall for balance and tried to put underwear on himself. While he took the heaviest breaths he'd ever felt. Each lungful of air begging for the unearned right to have another. He stuck one foot into the right leg hole and it was the most difficult thing he'd done since leaving planet Earth. There was no way he would manage loose, long shorts that reached the knees if tight cloth going just a few inches down each thigh was too much. He was too weak to even dress himself. Too weak to be a worthy navigator, and yet he did this.

'I'm sorry I did it Dad. I needed love I needed him—

When doomsday zealots had broken into a naval base and burned Traveler engines, his father wanted to stone them to death.

Hajime covered his head with one arm to protect it from the stone his father would throw.

I'll take the pill Dad I'm sorry.'

He ran away. Felt his way to the south exit door. Pushed his way through to the fully lit hallway outside it. The light blinded and scarred him like he deserved. He deserved to be thrown into hell for abandoning humans and choosing the otherworldly. Letting one into the ship and not the other. Remember that. Remember that.

He remembered the otherworldly before anything else. He remembered the alien's ferocious strength and how desperate the grip of all its limbs felt. How he loved the feel of its inhuman cock inside him. How they both wanted to hold each other. Any humans left alive would skin him alive if they knew.

'BUT IT'S TRUE IT'S TRUE IT'S WHAT I FUCKING WANTED.'

The force of the nothing nothing nothing that was strangling him suddenly reared back away with a wail, as though he'd struck an enemy with a wave of his flamethrower.

But there wasn't anything that could burn the infectious presence he now carried. The invaders did hate fire, but it never kept them away for long. He remembered that, too. Still struggling to walk in a straight line, he stumbled into a wall. Pushed off of it. Stumbled on. Past a seed storage room. Past a supply room and a mechanical bay. But his legs walked on for him.

It was so hard. Being infinitely alone. Walking with shitty balance while trying not to look at his hand. At what he'd done with it. There was no walking away from it. No escape from it. From anything.

'I did it! I'm sorry I did it I'm not sorry I can't be sorry I don't know anything anymore.'

Nothing nothing nothing stalked closer. It threatened to strangle him again. But his real flamethrower was in the arbor room. How would he defend himself? How would he live? It was following him even now.

Hajime looked for his captain. It made more sense in his boiling brain than looking straight ahead. Or at his hand.

Ushijima, Ushijima Wakatoshi, said Truth for him, because he couldn't remember on his own just then. A master of protocol. Master of his heart for many years. Stardust now, said Truth. Even so, he reached.

Please help me. Wakatoshi, please...please forgive me.

Behind him there was a soft tap of something upon metal. A footstep. Some object sitting in the hall, gently moved. A creak. Tap. Step. Step. Step.

Hajime stepped forward, too. To Wakatoshi. He had been in the arbor room once, at least a year into this voyage. His captain could be here in this hall, too. As a man of Captain rank, he had walked in many similar halls in many similar shuttles, long before Earth's last day. They had walked in halls like this together.

They walked together now.

They were there again. In another shuttle, another time. Immaculate.

'No, we are on your shuttle, Iwaizumi. Shuttle 4 was always yours to pilot.'

Not 'another time,' then. Here.

You're here.

'You have bangs now. It's a good look on you.'

Wakatoshi's smile was as warm as the earth's beloved sun. When they were younger, there could be weeks in between each one on that deep and stoic face. But Hajime always waited to see them. It was Wakatoshi who taught him patience, as a boy and a cadet and beyond. Against the infinite dark. Now both of them were within it.

Wakatoshi. I loved you. I did.

Truth alone knew if Wakatoshi had been aware. Truth did not say. But Wakatoshi had already smiled at him.

They walked down the hall wearing their old uniforms, stark white with a stripe sloping down each shoulder and another down each side of the torso, like a sports jersey. Destined for scuffs or oil or sweat stains later, but pristine now. He didn't have this fine suit minutes ago. He didn't imagine these clothes for himself. It was a gift from him. Truth had said nothing, but Wakatoshi gave him a gift from their old life for this moment.

Hajime held the gift close to his heart, which gave him courage to meet Wakatoshi's eyes: Thank you for coming to see me. Can you take me to where I left the pill? I don't remember what room I keep those in.

'That's not where we're going.'

That's where I need to go. I'm dying now. I should die.

'That decision is not within your authority, Lieutenant.'

But Captain. I have committed...a-an ever greater sin than the last time you saw me. I allowed—

'I saw what you did.'

...

'...'

...I...wanted it. Captain. I didn't black out or lose myself or anything, like...before. I chose that creature of my own free will. What I did with it...I longed for that. I won't pretend I'm a better man than I am.'

'You're a different man than you were on Earth.'

I know.

'Go home, Hajime.'

What?

'I told you that I don't want you to be lost for nothing. Do you remember?

Of course. Of course.

'You aren't lost. You know where to go.'

To...'victory'? Like you asked? It is the navigator way.

'The navigator way is to create and maintain vessels that can find a new home for us. We learned this first semester of cadet school, I believe you were there.

Hah. Yes sir.

'So go home.'

Is that where you are? I'd love to go. I will do whatever you want me to, Wakatoshi. Help me not be lost, please.

Please?

Captain.

...

God, please...

...

...

A vibration. It hurt. Then it stopped.

Something stung deep, deep inside his chest, so Hajime scratched at his chest with his two finger stumps, then immediately felt faint. He salivated thickly as though bile was threatening to come up his throat. It took time to notice that Wakatoshi no longer walked next to him and he no longer wore his fine old uniform. He was nearly nude again. That hadn't been enough time, they hadn't said enough, how could his captain leave him? Without Wakatoshi to hold him steady, want and nothing began to mix and boil once again. His legs continued their mechanical route to somewhere, while the body atop them rolled like a sick man at sea.

After a time, he paused in his walk across the metal desert of his shuttle. His left hand was flat on a long table nearby, keeping him steady in place. The fluorescent lights were harsh here, shining on a lot of reflective, metallic surfaces. The air smelled of cleaning supplies. And a little bit like curry. Hajime was standing in the middle of the cafeteria.

The food queue and kitchens were to his left, the entrances behind him and ahead of him. He stood with his palm on the end of a long metal table bolted to the floor. One of thirty, all around him, to feed and serve a passenger load who might be present in a shuttle like this for an hour or a day. He'd eaten dinner at the table next to this one earlier tonight. Last year, it felt like. It felt like time itself was long and far behind him. There could not be much of it left to go.

Wakatoshi and his father were nowhere, as they had always been.

Behind him there was no sound. No more steps.

With his hand steadying him, Hajime was able to turn his head back to the cafeteria's main entrance. The two sleek steel doors were held mechanically open by his recent all-clear code input. The wide threshold space was occupied by a strange body, a strange man--Oikawa. Truth didn't need to tell him that name.

Oikawa stood there in the transitional space with a companion on each side of him. Kindaichi crouched near the edge of the left door, peeking nervously in. Watari, who had been touching sunflower leaves, stood by the right. All of them wore a similar shocked expression, a near-human one, a wide-eyed blaze of awe. They saw Hajime standing alone in that wide, bright space. They saw a great fluorescent emptiness where only one alien ever walked.

Hajime turned away again, wiping a dried tear from his cheek that must have appeared when his captain did. The unnatural dark blood and the strange infection, he had no chance of wiping away. He pushed off the table and kept walking.

A new hall appeared that he didn't recognize. His automaton legs turned him into it. His breath came laboriously again without a steady surface to hold and rest on. There was no one to rest on, no one to hold but a haunting alien and the nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing. He deserved both. He wanted both. Both of them felt too big to hold.

"God, please..." he murmured aloud again.

No answer. The ship hummed.

Muscle memory stopped his march. He'd reached the place his legs been fleeing to: his bedroom.

No key or hand-eye coordination required. He'd left the door open when he got the alert about the open airlock. He breathed harder, harder, harder. Go home, his captain told him, but he'd already been on the way. He was going to bed.

His bedroom had been a sanctuary before this night. It had a bolted-down bed with a frame high enough to fit storage bins underneath. It had a generous mattress and soft white sheets that he remembered. It had a stern grey dresser with a little bookshelf space built atop, contents half tidy and half forgotten. The desk was small, the chair stolen from elsewhere, the reminder board pinned with star charts and bad drawings. Back home at last, he had a real thought for the first time in what seemed a long time: shove the dresser to the side so it can block the door. But first, shut the door.

Shut the door. The airlock door. The bedroom door. The door to his home.

Hajime turned around a few steps into the room, gaze passing entirely over the dresser and bookshelf. The menace of his life stepped just into view from beyond the door's threshold: one second a partial figure and in the next one fully framed by the open bedroom door. Like it stepped into sight out of a dream.

The sight of Oikawa turning towards him was beautiful and harrowing. When the alien turned to face him, life and death both were looking through the door. His unending pain for lives lost on earth was following him. His lust for an otherworldly being was coming closer. The infinite dark that all navigators fought against, and lost against, was here.

Hajime could not bear the weight of all this creature carried coming into his room. The unnatural mix of it all, crushed into one black hole in his doorway, was incalculable. Truth said nothing now because not even it knew what he faced.

His ruined hand reached up to grab the edge of the door. He slammed it in Oikawa's face.

A ghost of old protocol reminded him that he must not blink. He obeyed.

The door locked automatically upon shutting. Mechanical bits whirred inside the door frame, a piece of metal pushed from the door into the frame of the wall. The electronic component around the knob beeped to signal completeness. The barrier was in place, so he might live. He could live even now. Despite this strangling pain...he did want to.

The air in front of his face blurred. Something floated there. Blurred reality there. A black hole, forming?

Reality changed—Oikawa winked into existence in his room. An entire creature in the bedroom where there had been empty space half a second before. Teleported.

Hajime shouted in dumb surprise, even though he should have known. Oikawa had entered his ship this way, because now he could do it without someone's eyes to perceive him in the new space. He knew that in the arbor room earlier. He knew it again for about one second, before his legs crashed painfully into the metal bed frame a few steps behind. It threw out any last thoughts he had, it bashed the side of his knee with hard metal, it turned his shout into an undignified yowl of pain. And then an angry gasp. Then a final, painful "FUUUUCK!"

He collapsed to the floor against the bed frame and started to cry.

No soft dainty little gasps. He breathed in quick and hard and exhaled something like a wail. A long wail of misery while he pressed his palms over his eyes hard enough to see shapes against his lids.

It was in his vision and it was everywhere. The black hole's crushing force moved from the heart outward: abdomen tightening as he wheezed, toes curling and then cramping, eyes hurting from how hard he pressed both hands into them. It hurt too much to live. To do what he'd done. Even the bed frame had scraped his bare back as he fell down, like it just wanted to fucking hurt him.

Hajime wanted there to be a pulse or a vibration, but there was no sound in the room but a grown man crying. Nothing but suffocating misery and the black weight in his chest that would kill him eventually. When the stump of his right index finger pressed against his brow too hard, it began to bleed again. It left a dot of blood over his eye. He hated it. He hated it with the fury of his lost flamethrower.

When he raised his head to look up, Oikawa was still standing exactly where he'd arrived. Hajime couldn't perceive his facial expression through the blur of tears. He wished he had the flamethrower to aim at him again. He shoved his right arm and ruined right hand up at Oikawa like that alone would set him on fire.

"What is this!? What did you do me! I let you have me, and you've fucking killed me," he had to pause to spill more hurt gasps and collect scraps of breath. The accusatory hand trembled in the air. "Wh-why did you kill me, I wanted you--I wanted you."

The angered hand retracted back towards himself. Both hands lay limp over his knees. He reverted from a grown man yelling to a grown man crying again. There was no crying hard enough to mourn his desires not mattering in the end.

A hand touched his bowed head. Hajime jolted slightly, made another undignified sound, but he stayed where he was and let the alien do what it wanted. Oikawa's hand roved slow and lazy through his hair. Slower than when it had first touched him. Slow enough that it felt soothing. That hand stroked from scalp forward to the nape of his neck, then back, and then again, and then forwards off the top of his head to where his hands curled over his knees.

Hajime grabbed the creature's hand in both of his. It was barely warm. It did not resist him.

"I'm sorry," he said with his head still bowed. He choked on the black hole inside. "I'm sorry, Oikawa, I'm sorrryyy."

There were vibrations. Hajime could not parse any meaning from them. He hoped Oikawa would parse something from his.

"I'm sorry...for what I did to you. I should have let you in to do whatever you wanted. It's what I deserve. I'll never know how many people died because of me. If I killed them or not. I did my duty and then I just stopped. Why? Why did I do it. Why did I fail. Why did it have to happen. It's all gone. Everything is gone. I'll never...never..."

Hajime held that creature's hand to his own forehead. "B-but I don't...I still don't want the pill. I don't want the easy way out. I want you to do whatever you want with me. I'm so sorry, Oikawa. For torturing you. For making you waste your life on me. I promise I won't fight you anymore. If I lived this long, it's only for you. I'm here now, for...for whatever you want."

The march through the halls into a black hole landed him at Oikawa's feet. There was only a slow death inside this shuttle, but now that a new life invaded it, something different would come. Something deserved. Oikawa's hand pulled out of his grip; Hajime obediently let it go.

A moment later, both hands returned. The long fingers settled around Hajime's right calf and pulled it slowly outward. Half of the spot where he'd been hiding his face was suddenly gone. He sat up slightly and felt the perplexing texture of a tongue on his leg.

There was blood seeping from a long scrape midway down his calf. From thorns in the arbor room, a cafeteria table, or just some supply cart in the halls. And there was Oikawa on his knees in front of him, holding the scarred leg between them and carefully licking that blood away. Savoring and swallowing it as he had before. And now that he was looking, Oikawa was meeting his eyes.

The blood was gone, but he made one soft little lick higher on the calf. Another one higher up, barely a press of tongue and lips. Not a lick, but a kiss. Gentle as Hajime had first shown and given him. He came a little closer, a little higher. Oikawa kissed the top of his knee. And then stopped.

It didn't seem right or real. It seemed like a moment glimpsed on a TV screen he didn't intend to watch. Like a bride and groom together in bed as the newly married man held his new wife's dainty leg between them and kissed her in a way not meant to be seen by their guests. On the screen in his head, the groom reached under her skirt...no, he reached for something near the top of her thigh. A thin band of cloth placed there for a groom to see and to remove. A ring made of lace or something--a garter, that's what that was called.

Hajime held his breath. Oikawa held his calf in both hands and held his eyes. There were no vibrations.

It was only minutes past his mental breakdown, past the hallucinations of his captain and of burning away his sentient guilt with a flamethrower. Hajime's thoughts still came through an infection-addled haze. But he thought in that moment that the creature might be in love with him. He thought he should hold his breath for just a little longer.

Oikawa was the first to move and break their mutually frozen posture. It curled its fingers around Hajime's leg a little tighter, then made a vibration. It radiated from all of its body, as usual, and it was gentle. It touched Hajime like the gentlest wave of lace. He exhaled, finally. Swallowed.

"I can't understand you," Hajime said in a tight voice. A frown spread on his face. "Why can't I understand you now?"

Another vibration. A little longer. And a pause after, like the alien thought he might hear or respond this time. Or maybe he spoke just for himself, with as much expectation of Hajime understanding as he would a dog.

It was tiring, deciphering this creature. It was all the meaning left in his life. It was the only thing he wanted.

Hajime reached again for one of those hands. It let him take hold. It—He, he remembered—watched him with intense and unblinking eyes. Hajime held that hand between both of his, again, and then just one of his. He needed the other to brace against the bed frame. He pushed himself up from the floor and took that hand with him. Moving up and backwards, quickly, before too much rational thought returned. Hajime stood himself up with effort, shoved his bedsheets down and away with his spare hand, and sat back on his mattress.

He pulled Oikawa into bed with their joined hands.

The creature surprised Hajime by half-stepping, half-crawling over him and falling on his side behind him, now laying against the wall. A real alien laying in his bed, bunching up his good sheets. Oikawa kept himself lifted on one arm while Hajime laid himself down and leaned back to look nearly up at him. They had been in a position like this not long before. Oikawa surely remembered. What else was he thinking? What else did he want?

Hajime lay his head onto one of the two pillows, feeling and hearing the alien getting comfortable behind him. It pushed down against the mattress to feel its firmness, batted his pillows several times, even scraped a claw along the wall. Its foot pushed under his sheets. Fine and good. Let it do what it wants. It's his bed too, now. Everything on this ship was his now.

Oikawa reached over and pulled him roughly backward into his chest with one hand. So maybe it wanted to hold his body again. Also fine and good. His left hand came slithering under Hajime's left side too, startling him. That additional hand pressed him closer still. He set his mouth in a firm line, tamping down a flickering instinctive fear to get himself free. No need for that now.

Without warning, Oikawa's warm tongue came out to taste his exposed skin. He licked underneath Hajime's ear when he wasn't expecting it. It wasn't exceedingly gentle like the soft kiss on his knee. There was pressure and a little more wetness. It lingered. The alien tasted the curve of his neck, down further away to his bare shoulder, journeying back slowly to his ear and even into his hair. Soft lap, soft press. Soft, hard, hard, long. Sweet.

It felt animal and it felt loving. It felt like it was grooming him. Like it was settling down and enjoying the taste of his skin without the urgency of long-awaited sex. All the while it vibrated consistently, or purred, almost. Oikawa purred and embraced him in his own bed. Like he was asleep and dreaming already.

The bedroom lights would dim in half an hour or less. Whatever time he had left when he woke, was Oikawa's.

Whatever came in the morning, would be what he deserved.

Good night, Tory. Stay in the garden.

...

--̸̜̓̽m̶̩̮̄n̶̢̯͐̓͐ẽ̴͕̏͝.̵̠͉͕͘ ?

...

t̷̲̆e--m̶̪̥͑e̷̦͐̀

Sleep was inches away. Hajime slid towards it even now, while an alien's language prodded at his skull. He leaned his right shoulder backward, pressing into Oikawa. He felt Oikawa's hand stroking his scars.

"What?" he rasped weakly back.

Oikawa's tongue groomed against his shoulder and began to come towards his neck again. But his eyes were closed.

...

--̸̏orȑ̶̜ ̷̼̉ ṉ̸̐a̸̛͜aaame...

Wha̵̪͔͒͑̈t̸̗̼̮̃

i̵̺̿ṣ̸̛

your ̵n̷ame?

The sound, the desire, drained the air from Hajime's lungs in a long, long sigh. Oikawa tried to leave a kiss on his shoulder.

The creature never knew his name.

It knew so little of him. It knew only what it could observe through spaceship windows. It gave endless time and energy to the pursuit of an intelligent, aggressive alien, whose name it could not know. To ask for his name now felt even more relentless. It—He, rational thought prodded again—had already won everything. He captured Hajime in his own home and made him his bestial mate and infected him with bestial contaminants. He walked anywhere he wanted in Hajime's domain. But he still wanted something more from him.

Was this all a dream in the arbor room still? Did he think about lace of all damn things because the 'veil' of sleep would lift away soon? This just felt like one of the many dreams that he'd had right here in bed: Oikawa conquering him and still wanting him after.

Here in bed there was nothing to make him self-conscious or ashamed about it. There were no stones thrown at his head. Only two warm bodies sharing space and closeness they both wanted. The fate he deserved. He wanted more of it. He wanted to savor the feeling of these arms not letting go of him. And of that tongue pressing him into his own mattress.

When one of the clawed hands drifted near his own, Hajime reached out and gripped it rough and tight, gripping the alien's attention with it.

He leaned his head back, eyes also closed now. It would see him smile, if it was looking. It could hear him whisper, "I'll tell you later."

In moments he fell into unconsciousness still wearing his smile.

Without the answer it wanted, the alien would have to wait. It would have to stay with him.

-

Friday morning passed on the shuttle without its navigator to mark the rituals of the day. The hour the sun would rise in summer on Earth did not find Hajime's feet beating against the treadmill of the gym, and no smells of cooking food emanated from the empty cafeteria. The plastic, wind-up Sergeant Frogger in the library heard no morning navigation report. The arbor room doors had opened once in the night, then stayed closed into the morning.

Outside a pair of comets crossed into view of the ship's control room, trailing their capes of stardust and ice. No living creature saw them.

Hajime woke in bed with fluttering eyes and a soft groan. Like so many safe mornings. He lay on his stomach, but his head was turned to face the closed door and the dresser. He took note of the digital clock above it. 10:49am. So late. So still.

From the first gentle movements of his arms and legs, mind and body floating back to consciousness together, the weight on the mattress next to him was apparent. It didn't move. That was all right. For now, it was all right.

Hajime pushed off the bed with his left hand and sat up—briefly glimpsed a pair of legs next to his in bed, human shape, inhuman color—and moved his own legs off the bed. Set his bare feet on the bare floor. All movements very slow, just in case. His right hand remained out of sight. Just for a little longer. For now, he sat on the edge of his familiar bed and breathed new air.

It was the same recycled, re-sanitized air he'd breathed for five years, but this morning it felt almost earthly, like he was somewhere natural. Somewhere he'd never been: out of the mouth of guilt. He didn't fear stones being thrown at his head. He didn't feel quite solid like a stone would be, or a regular living body. He sat still but felt like he floated, like liquid in anti-gravity, or a loose drifting body in space. Maybe this was part of the infection. A hazy mind made for easy prey. Or maybe he now floated past the event horizon of a black hole.

Something moved behind him, just barely rustling the mattress and sheets. Even through a black hole, he couldn't shake the damn thing.

It could have been an innocuous stretch or a quiet request for attention. Hajime would have to puzzle that out. He was the only human who knew any protocol for this particular alien's behavior. Yes, protocol. If he had that, he could make it. To wherever the fuck this was going.

Hajime turned his head just enough to confer his attention to the alien invader. He didn't know what the hell to say. But that was all right. He settled on, "You awake?"

Oikawa hummed back to him. The sound ended in a chirp, but Hajime didn't react to the new sound. It was all sound, rather than words. Again. He sighed.

"Still can't hear you. What the hell," he muttered back. "I'll keep trying to understand. Give me a minute, all right?"

For one second he feared being yanked back with a tentacle or five, but he stood up unmolested. He still looked away, as far from eye contact as could be, because it seemed easier. For now. Just for now. Just to have time to shove his melted brain chunks back together for the day. He could face whatever came next if he washed off some of the blood and alien cum first.

Hajime walked six steps to the attached bathroom, slowly turned its doorknob, and walked in. He left the door fully open.

No sound came after him, so he got to work. Maybe the creature didn't understand him either and thought he was making a clever getaway. He might have ten seconds to himself before it barged in. This had to be done quickly.

Underwear he'd worn for half a night and partial morning: off. A glance in the mirror at his familiar self: uncanny. There was his usual face, but it had seen things no man had seen before. His first look at the scars on his chest, long and--black. Red and black, dotted with black like sepsis like fucking mold what the shit is THAT, then his right hand popped up in the mirror too and the stumps had both knuckles. Only fingertips missing now. The inside of his finger stumps had deep green dots now--stop. No more of that shit. Proceed to the showers, lieutenant.

"Proceeding," Hajime muttered to himself as he stepped into the shower. There was no door, only tall, skinny panes of glass sticking slightly out from the wall to imply a border to the showering space. Anyone could simply walk in.

Hajime proceeded to slap on a liberal amount of body wash and scrub like he had a time limit. He decided to use shampoo as well. Probably had alien saliva in his hair. Christ alive. Christ alive, there's an alien in the next room and it wants something.

It wanted his name. But what else?

Life.

Your life--

Not yet. Not yet.

A shiver wracked his whole body, starting from base of the neck and rattling a cold threat down to his toes and hands. The warm water was only a mild comfort against it. The stumps of his fingers were almost in his field of view, but he covered them and squeezed them with his left fingers instead of looking at them. He gripped his own hand to keep it still. He stared at the tiled shower wall.

When he was rinsing off the shampoo, there was motion by the door. Oikawa stepped silently into the bathroom.

No dramatic and foolish attempt to stop him this time. He seemed to float in, shower steam or movement of air fluttering his bangs as he walked. Hajime tensed up instinctively and didn't bother to hide it. But the alien did not looked bothered, or impatient, or angry. He met Hajime's eyes and watched him scrub and scrape at the dripping lines of soap on his body. Hajime let him look. The creature knew his body already. He turned to face the tiled wall again so it would look at the backside of him as the water drained down.

Several long seconds passed and there was no intrusion into his shower. A glance back found Oikawa still at the other end of the bathroom, running two long fingers up and down the grip of his razor that sat on the ledge of the mirror. Maybe the silicon texture was strange to him. Maybe he saw the tiny blades and thought it was a tiny weapon. He poked idly at other random objects by the sink, as though he had nothing better to do. Nothing more interesting here for Tory the tentacle monster than feeling up some toothbrushes, while Hajime was literally right there and naked. A few hours ago there had been nothing more important to it in the known universe, but now it acted as though that need was...done.

Hajime scowled suddenly and turned away again. There was no sense in being offended at its mysterious alien priorities, and also, crucially, its name wasn't actually Tory. Fuck calling that thing his best friend's name. Apparently its name just sounded very similar. And that was offensive.

He had some guesses, but refused to think on them. For now.

When he slammed the knob sideways to turn the water off, Oikawa was gone. The clear emptiness of the room made him shiver. It couldn't last much longer. Hajime walked speedily out of the shower space, enacting protocol for calmer, slower breaths and efficient cleanup.

There were clothes left in here recently that he could wear. Athletic shorts, not as long as the flowy basketball ones he'd dismissed last night. Non-sweaty underwear. Barely sweaty, sleeveless grey shirt that advertised a gym he'd never been to. Oikawa had seen him in that shirt before and salivated when he walked past windows with sweat on his skin.

An extra press of the towel on his wet hair. An extra squeeze of the cloth in his hands. Another long breath. An extra minute in front of the mirror. Maybe these clothes would only last a few minutes before being ripped off. Maybe his fingers would sprout something from their tips. Maybe he would never shower again.

Another shiver was rattling at the base of his neck.

Hajime cricked his neck, then pushed away from the sink to face the beast.

Three steps brought Oikawa into view again. He'd moved over to near the door, holding a green, shimmery object from the shelf on the dresser: a forgotten petri dish of algae from one of the labs. Oikawa looked over with a pleased smile. He set the dish down neatly back on the shelf with hardly a sound. Hajime's hands warped into fists, tightened by old protocol and old fear. But the sight of those fingers moving over the dresser evoked his recent memory of watching its fingers moving over the zipper of his contamination suit. The hand pulling back towards its body was a reverse motion of the blood-drenched hand reaching towards Hajime to slice his chest open. Those hands had held him down, had wanted his body and his life, and he felt that they still did now.

The shivers were lighting up his neck and shoulders now.

Hajime stepped closer into the cloud of fear. Oikawa stepped forward too and reached for him with one hand. It came close, closer, no blood dripping this time but aiming for his face. Hajime gritted his teeth. Moved forward.

When the palm touched his face, he did flinch, but did not resist. Oikawa stopped with just a hand's breadth between them. He rested both hands on Hajime's cheeks. They were cool and familiar and now wanting; they pressed on his skin as though they'd missed it. The long fingers gently held and pushed through his hair, subtly tilting his head up so their eyes had to meet.

One hand remained on Hajime's head, the other stroked its palm down his cheek and jaw. Instead of reveling in touching him for the first time, now it moved slowly to luxuriate in the fact that it could touch him freely. The roving hand drifted lazily down his jugular, then to the quivering back of his neck. Hajime did not step back or cringe away from any of it, even while the alien stared unnervingly, unblinkingly at him. Predators just naturally did that.

Hajime tried to stare back, breathing in a controlled pattern while the predator did not breathe at all. It drank in the sight of him. It liked the sight of him, Hajime corrected himself. So maybe it would give him an ounce of patience.

Hajime dared to break eye contact and look at Oikawa's hands instead. He took the alien's right hand in his whole, healthy left, pulling it from where it stroked his collar, and gently moved it a little down his shirt. This hand had cut three gashes into him last night. Hajime lay two of its fingers neatly as he could atop the two scars on the left side of his chest.

He let it feel him breathing. He, not it, quit saying that already—but fuck, he was still afraid.

"Iwaizumi Hajime," he told it, finally. "My name. Hajime. Hajime."

His creature's lips parted. The understanding was clear, instant, glowing from his widening eyes. The thrum from last night that felt like the gentle touch of a veil of lace returned.

Oikawa smiled with an open mouth, but no sound came from the mouth. His whole body hummed. He was trying to pronounce the name 'aloud.'

It must feel his heart beating under its palm.

"Talk to me," Hajime pleaded. "Please tell me how. I want to talk to you."

They had to. No matter his lingering fear, they had to connect again. Last night's connection was so limited and painful, but now they could try freely. Maybe set a protocol for 'translation' practice. What if they could talk about their planets and knowledge of space? A curious species like his might like games. Maybe they had a rudimentary version of sports on their planet. Or he could share his own. Or they could talk about how they pissed each other off. What if Oikawa would have him not only as a lover, but as a friend?

Hajime reached up with his free hand, the one whose fingers Oikawa had cut off. "My fingers are...growing back. My species can't do that. W-what is--please tell me what's happening to me."

Oikawa did not even look at his raised hand. He felt the back of Hajime's neck with his left hand's knuckles, where the fearful shivers all seemed to come from. The one held up to Hajime's chest pushed slightly in, wrinkling his shirt.

"Are you...hearing me?" he tried. "Am I going to die?"

Oikawa crooned at him. Closer to human vocalizing than his common vibrations. But still no words.

The connection wasn't...connecting. Hajime huffed and awkwardly lowered his hand a little. He made a random humming sound--maybe gibberish to Oikawa--but he didn't react to that, either. He just wanted to stand there staring dreamily into Hajime's eyes and ignore him. Like he wasn't even speaking. Like he was talking to a dumb animal after all.

Another little explosion of shivers ballooned at the base of Hajime's spine. Oikawa's sharp fingertips passed over that spot again.

Hajime shivered yet again, a minute natural vibration.

He heard, from the base of the spine:

D̶͍̰̩̄͑̒̀͐̓͐͋̕o̴̡͔̮͑̒͆̋͘ yơ̵̩u w̸̛͇ą̵͗nt to̴ live?

The quivering hand and heart both dropped. Hajime's quick intake of air was the only sound.

With one breath and one sentence, the chemistry of the room was changed to a chill, threatening unknown. There was no protocol for hearing an alien speak a question he'd already asked himself and thought already answered. Or parsing why he could understand its vibrations as words at all. His shock seemed to be nothing to the alien. Oikawa revived that familiar question and held it against his neck. It was cold. Hajime felt sick, again.

The alien's stare weighed him down. The sight of it in front of him, the knowledge of what he'd done with it, was a weight that would never leave him now. Hajime chose not to cower from it.

He told the alien, "Yes. I want to live."

The thought, the word, the intent, p̷u̷l̶s̵e̵d within him. It was alive in the scars on his chest where Oikawa could feel that he meant it.

Oikawa's lips parted to make way for a long sigh that raised and lowered his shoulders, a great release identical to when Hajime begged to be taken. The intent was there, clear as heat or cold: Oikawa wanted to talk, too.

T̶̨͖̣͉̰͐́̌̄̈́̑̑͛̉͑̃̅̓̽͠ͅà̴̪̉̊̚͜ą̸̛͉̈́̈́͑͒̆͑͝͝l̴̫̖͌̃l̴̮͓̠͉̙͖̮̞̤̭͓͙̱̂̄̉̊̎͂̒͘͜͜ͅḳ̶̛̲̮͙̟͓͚͖̺͉̭͕̾̀̈́͊̍͊͂̇͋͜͝ͅķ̶̢̢̫͇̰̘͎̻̼̼̈͐̾̌̇͐̅̌̐̓̍͛̒̌̊̚͘͜k̴̛͎̤͎͕̬̓̒̈́͆̓͆̓̀͆̍̉̃͜ḱ̷̡̪̖͉̹̳̖͙̹̾̃͑̿̿̀̔̉̊͛̈́, , echoed from its body to Hajime's.

It rattled into Hajime's spine and back which shivered now at the slow roving of his fingers. But the intent was cut off just after. It seemed possible--obvious?--likely--that some words and ideas were not transferring. Not being heard. For a few seconds Hajime looked with furrowed brows into Oikawa's frozen face. He didn't seem frustrated at not being heard, but maybe that was only a generous, human way to read that face. 

Like this attempt at conversation, the times that Oikawa and his clan showed human-like emotion on their faces or a blank, animal gaze sometimes seemed...random.

T̴̞̙̝̃͝a̵̝͇̟̓̇͋ͅĺ̴̡͔̱̤̱͂̊͑k̸̳͎̻̤̤͊̀...T̵̻̬̓̏͗͜ȁ̵̡͙͖͋͊lk...a̴̜̅l̵̼̽o̸̹̓n̷̫̅é̴̱ ?

Y̴͍̮͓̔ö̷̜̻̗̪́̽̎ṳ̴̗̻̱̌́̕ ̷̻̮͋̀͘͝ ? A̶ré̴̱? A̶͍̚l̸͇͂ō̵̳n̵͖̊e̵͉̕ ?

A quiet beat. His heartbeat, marching on. The only sound in the quiet room. 

Quiet.

Quiet...

...

Is̷̘͐    ̷͔͠i̸̡͘t ̵  agȍ̴̢̔n̶̄y ?

T̶̲͒o̶ ̸̥̀  b̷e̸ ?

A̸l̷o̴n̶e̵ ?

This is not what he wanted to talk about. This hurt, suddenly. Why was the alien just saying shit he'd already thought of himself a thousand times before? What did this creature know about being alone, when it always traveled with friends? The shuttle's weapons had torn Oikawa's clan to pieces time and again, but it was not the same pain as a man walking endlessly through these halls with his own soul as the only light.

Yes, Hajime said back, somehow. His mouth did not move.

Feà̷̢̨̹̠̥̬̤̠͕̘̐̈́̐̆̀͛r̷̛̘̬̹̘̖͔̟͕̻͎̤̆͊̾̅̇̇̊̈́́̂̈́̿͆̍̍͠? F̷̨̛͈̖͕͍͔̗̻̺͎̟͇̣̹̬̎̀̈̊̐͋̽̊̅͗͘̕͝e̶̛͕͓̦̦͈̫̫̼̞͚̙̺̅̔̽̒̀͑̉͌̓̅̈́̎̅͠ạ̵̖̅͑͊̈́̄̋́̓̒̚ṟ̵̛̂͗̈́̀͋̉̌͝͝?̸̨̢͉͈̝̺̲̩̩̞̫̙̠̹͌̐̍̈́́̂́̊̽̔̿͊̎́̋̎̕͜͜ͅ ̶̤̥͈̦̠͖̜͛͊̏̅͒̑̆̎͜͝ͅF̸̞̩̭̰͆̄́̒̌̿̄͐̔̒̈͗͐̕̕ë̵͉͙̳͉̤̻̤̼̰̦̹͈̻́̀̒̽̕ͅar ? F̷̘̭̤͓̠͚̟͋̀͜͜ͅĘ̴̧̦͉̹̱̖̻̺̰́̓͆̋Ä̶̻̭͚̞̘́̃̀̓̆͐̓̅̀̈̈́̚͘͝R̷̮̖̩̙̮̞͔̙̹͍͆?̶̨̨̢̛̳̖̣͕̩̩͈̻̼̲̩̹͌̈́̀̊͌̈́͠

Ȇ̴̺̈́́̃͑͑̈͊̊̇̆̀͊̆mpty̴̛̮̾̑̽̓̽̉̊̈́͌̀̍̐̂ spȧ̷̡̬̜͈̖̟̬͔̺̰̳̣͙̳̩̠̈̅̒̇͌̒̃͋̾̀ce in̵̡͗̅ h̶e̴r̵e̶emptTT̴̡̳͇͖̖̝̩̭̣̝̬̻̬̾͗͗͋̕ͅT̵̡̛̰͎̳̝͉̳̯̮̟̯͉͎̤̬͂̄͋̀͋̌̀̋̓̈́̍͐̇̕͠ͅY̵̼̣̜̱̬͈͕͎̳̻̼̏͊̿͗̽̅Ỵ̶̆Y̵͙͝

The speech blurred and then merged into one buzz that rang in Hajime's ears and made him squint and wrinkle his nose. Oikawa finally removed his hand from the back of Hajime's neck. He let it rest it on his shoulder, claws poking just barely into the skin. The right hand over Hajime's scars remained where it was.

The intent, he sort of felt, was that he was trying another way.

Iṡ̸̱͉   it̸͚̔.  Fri̴̛̝g̶̨̈h̴̳̓teni̸̙͊͛n̵͉̮̈́̏g̷̞͖͛ ?

It made him flinch. It made him feel the shuttle's empty space and empty days like one cold gun barrel pressed to his chest. Hundreds of days alone. Lights on, lights off, stars far away, life nowhere. Except for the occasional circling teeth and tentacles. Sometimes he felt nothing about it. Sometimes he clutched onto Tory like a small boy.

His face was an expression of pain that must have been alien. "Of course it is, you're out there."

Oikawa was silent. His face made an expression a human could not parse.

They stood and waited for each other to continue. Oikawa had no problem staring for a length of time a human would find uncomfortable or irritating. Or maybe he was speaking in those moments, and his words vanished unheard into the void. Maybe he really was frustrated too.

The next p̷u̷l̶s̵e̵ came more than a minute of silence later. It wasn't words at first, but intent. A very soft thrum whose meaning was felt instead of understood. To lay a veil of lace over him.

I̴ ̴h̸a̸v̴e wanted̶̛̠ you so long.

Hajime gripped the alien's wrist and hand over his heart with both of his own. With mind, soul and severed fingertips, he listened.

My lon̶g̸e̵st. G̴͇̔r̴̽e̵̺̓a̶̎t̵̮͂e̵͝s̶̗̈́t̷͕̿. Purs̸uit. Your̸̎́ weap̵̟̌ȍ̸͚n̷̦̅s̴̙̓. Infuriate mé̷͖ . Bu̷t̴.

Yõ̸͍u are ẖ̶̉e̴re. An̴͆d̶̎ I. R̵̦̕e̶̎f̶͉̅use. Failure.

I sa̸livatḙ̴͌. Wh̷͂ê̸̏n you wa̸l̸k̴.

W̷̋h̴en yoủ̸͓ disappe̶͎͛a̵̭͘r̵ .

' Wha̷͎̣̫̒t strange̶͔̐

lo̸̺̿nely

art̸s

does̷̱͐̏̓ he

pra̵͂c̸tice ? I n

hi̴s Fȏ̸̹ṙ̵̠t̶͈̃ress?

Warlike a̶̭̩̙̒ͅrts--

For a̶ vicious b̶̬͐e̶ast?'

I see into yo̷u̵r̷ vessel. I wȏ̵̺nder.

D̸o̴͇̞͑͘es he ta̵k̸e prid̸e in his v̸i̵ctories?

Does he̴ nest cò̶mfò̶rtably?

Does he̴ sing for me?

Is he dying?

—The veil of lace strangled Hajime from his brain to bloodstream to heart and muscle and bone. It was tangible and not. It was electrical signals and something that he imagined as lace, stopping the functions of his body. Growing inward from his fingertips and choking the functions of the human body.

It was the most the creature had ever spoken at once and his body could not bear the penetrating sound. But bearing Oikawa was now the greatest meaning in all the endless universe. So he held Oikawa's hand firmly to his chest and fought to stay standing.

H̵a̴ ̵-̸ ̷

J̷i̴ ̸-̵ ̵

m̴e̶e̴e̴.

Are̴̢̨͓͇̦̔̄̈́ ? Y̷o̴u̵?̷ H̷̦̊ea̸rin̸̪̏g̸ ? H̵ě̴͇a̵ŗ̷̓í̵n̵g̶̫̍ ? Me?

Y̴̨͔̼̌ǒ̵u are dying.

Yo̵û̴͔ cả̴͖rry̷ m̷y poison.

A sharp, slow pain pulled Hajime's eyes down.

He looked with a whimper at Oikawa's claws now puncturing his shirt and the skin beneath it. Oikawa had stuck and bled him. In between the strange speech and the choking, he hadn't even felt it.

The gentle droplets of blood he could see through the holes weren't the bright red of a fresh wound. They were shade darker than natural and mottled with beads of black. Black-red-dead blood ran softly over Oikawa's fingers, staining the gym shirt.

Hajime struck the alien's hand from below, chopping upward at the soft center of the wrist to quickly and effectively release its grip. Wakatoshi had taught him that, years ago. His captain was dead. He was dead.

He stepped back, chin bobbing on his collar to stare stupidly down at his chest through the shirt's new holes. Dark, dotted blood was pearling there on his skin, spreading its changed chemistry. Hundreds of thousands of cells per second. At least eight hours post-infection by now. Even that was time enough to affect bloodflow to the head and make him feel faint. Enough to feel a definitive mass in his chest. And his right hand may as well be gone from his body already. It was poison, all of it.

His hands pulled at the shirt and the holes and felt the blackness around the scars on his chest. Like his feeble human hands could pull out the killing agent that had been at work inside him for hours. Like he could actually save himself now.

"You poisoned me?" he murmured. Was it punishment? For wanting a predatory creature to be his friend?

Oikawa walked towards him, slow and menacing, to close their gap to what it had been.

Of m̶̻̕y̴ blő̴o̷͆d. A veno̵m.

Veno̵m. V̸͓̔ȅ̷̙nom. Veee̶e̴e̶̦͇͗e̷̱̓e̸̡͓͗̓̚e̷̠͍̰̅̓n ṅ̵̰

He'd had dreams and nightmares like this. In dreams, Oikawa had embraced him and fucked him and killed him in great and terrible ways. At least once with a dramatic poison like this. In the dreams, at least it felt like ecstasy and not betrayal. In dreams, it wanted him. Last night, it made love to him. Hours ago, Oikawa had held his leg and kissed it like he was its bride.

Haaaa-ji-meee. Vê̸͇n̶͎̅om. Vê̸͇n̶͎̅om. Venom--

"I heard you, shut up! Shut up!"

Hajime shoved his two finger stumps nearly into Oikawa's eyes. By luck or skill, the alien jerked its head to the side and narrowly avoided being jabbed in the eye sockets. "Explain yourself! You asked me if I wanted to live, for god's sake. So why did you do this? Bastard! Fucking snake! "

He was panting, nearly snarling like a beast at the end. Partially at the beast, for its unknowable ways, partially at his contradictory self. Did he want to give himself to this creature's will or didn't he, did he deserve this or not? This decision, this life, isn't under your authority, Lieutenant. This creature had authority that now overpowered his own, and with this authority it administered poison.

"Why are you doing this to me? I, I thought you wanted me—"

The weight in his chest moved, slouched deathlike closer to his heart. Hajime clutched his chest and groaned. Inhuman chemistry was finding space in his body to grow.

"Pleeeease. Tell me. Help me."

Oikawa took one more step forward. As he came, growths spread from his shoulders and ribs: the same tentacles from last night that held his body. Two took hold of his arms; a third circled his neck. Hajime stood captured and waiting, again.

I wa̷nt t̷o̶ ta̷ke yo̶u ho̶me with me.

Hajime stopped breathing, started, blinked, forgot protocol again. The p̷u̷l̶s̵e̵ was a whisper in his spine that shattered him.

Oikawa shattered reality when he broke into the shuttle, when he spoke aloud in the arbor room, when he cut and mounted him like an animal, and when he spoke like this. Not even in his sweetest private dreams did a string of words like this appear.

"Y-you what. Home? What—" One of the tentacles around his arms flexed upward to help him remain standing. A fainting spell passed a moment later, but no clarity of mind came with it.

It sounded like Oikawa might have been talking again, but it was only buzzing, chirping noise to Hajime. Gibberish noise and then no sound at all. Hajime only heard himself breathing a little hard. He heard the rustling of his ruined shirt as he gripped the fabric in one hand. One tightening, shaking fist. No other part of his body or mind had a grip on anything. But the alien gripped him, held him like a doll, fucked him and captured him and now decided the course of the rest of his life.

It was freeing to detach himself from his suffering and give himself to the creature instead. Till now. It was not fucking fair that for all his life's work and all his pain, the universe delivered him unto this.

Another tentacle and Oikawa's hands all came up to hold him, even though he was standing properly again. Hajime, angry, aflame with infection, lashed out at those hands. He shoved the creature roughly away with both hands, to a startled chirp sound from Oikawa. He was pushed back a few undignified steps, the tentacles whipping back and around. One of them slapped against the dresser.

Its torso and spine seemed to snap forward. Its posture changed in a second from that of flailing man to a creature aiming to pounce. Arms and claws out, legs spread to jump. After that rejecting shove, it no longer bothered to mimic the posture of a man.

Hajime could have punched it in the throat. He squared his body as though he meant to. He glowered at the creature. "What does that fucking mean, 'take me home'? That's what you wanted all along? Even on Earth? When every race was coming to my planet to kill us? I don't believe you."

Oikawa's lip curled and a few fangs showed; the alien emotion and intent there was unreadable. Nothing infuriated Hajime more.

This time, he bridged the gap between them. He ignored the tentacles that came close and slithered around his bare arms as he approached. They were nearly close enough for his bloodied shirt to press its dark stains onto Oikawa's bare chest.

"Tell me right now why you were on Earth. Do you understand? Why. Were you. On. My. Planet. Was it actually to 'take my people home' with you?"

The thing dared to hiss at him. Low but long like a crocodile in water, waiting.

"I. Can't. Hear. You," Hajime growled at it.

It leaned closer, eyes unblinking.

N̸o̶, rang soundly in Hajime's spine.

"No? No? Every alien species that came was there to eat us. Eat us, Oikawa. They saw us from far away and came all that distance. Just to make sure that we would all die. That everything on my planet would die. Why did you come, if not to eat?"

A shimmery green thing appeared in their shared field of vision. Oikawa's long thumb and foreclaw held up the petri dish of algae. The random intrusion on this breathless confrontation made Hajime want to bite that hand. It wouldn't be too hard either to grab the dish, break it on Oikawa's face and press the glass shards into his eyes.

F̸̯̈́ơ̷̘r. L̷i̴fe.

Hajime's fists shook with the desire to break glass and start a fight. He waited to hear further words in the rumbling vibration.

P̶͕̒ŗ̵͒e̷dat̵o̵r̴s soä̴̩́r̵ed p̵͌a̴̚s̷t.

S̶c̶r̷e̴amed̸ of̶̍ͅ th̵̲͐é̷͍ir green, green p̷̟͛r̶é̵̩y.

I̷f̸̈ t̵͘hę̵̔rē̵ ì̶͉̍s green. We̶ ẁ̴̓ill̵ pu̴ř̵́̉sue̵.

Pu̴ř̵́̉sue̵. Ta̴̮͂k̶̀e̵. P̴̫̚re̷s̸̓er̶ve.

L̷i̴fe. Likȇ̶. Mė̵.

A memory clacked onto the side of Hajime's unthinking brain--life you are growing in the heart of your fortress--and his fists slowed their shaking.

"Life," he said aloud. In the heart of his fortress where he was captured lived his dear oak tree and wildflowers and hundreds of botanical species. The arbor room was a preserved piece of Earth, lovingly cared for. And lovingly touched by Oikawa's clan once they came into the space. When he first burst the north door open with flamethrower in hand, Matsukawa had been standing down there with its hands on the bark of the oak tree. Last night little Watari had caressed his sunflower leaves.

"You mean plants? Plants!? The things in my ar-arbor--the green things that grow from the ground. You fly through fucking space just for, for," This sentence collapsed into dumb stuttering. He could not collect himself to finish it. To picture it. Taking, and being--

Pllaaaan̴̯͖̈́̔͐̑ñ̵͚͆̈́͠n̷̥̻̑͋n̴̦̈́̓͠n̸̮̣͛͜͝n̵̖̰̎́̐n̷͇̻͐n̴͓͔͆̋͐̚n̸̨͉̬̙̤̞̓͒͂͋̕͘n̶̬͚̪̬̺̂̓̎̓̂͑̕n̶̪̥̯͖̣̾̒͐— The sound of that response pierced ear and spine like a claw jabbing into both. Hajime hardly reacted.

Yeeess̵̼̲͒̔.

H a̷̜̚-ji̶-mmeee.

Ye̷̫͘esss.

Matsukawa held stems and leaves and flower petals against his own burned face. His skin had been growing back more rapidly than normal. Whether they were flung, torn, blasted, burned, the aliens' bodies would always grow back to the way they were originally. Even their hair. New organs, new limbs, new roots, new stems. They fucking...grew back.

When Hajime had to take a step back, Oikawa took one forward. He grew larger as he came, additional tentacles pushing out from the skin his back and ribs. They all curled forward to chase the retreating human. Hajime was shivering again. This time he had to listen.

We̷̫͘ came. Fo̵̞̕r L̷i̴fe. I sǎ̵w. You.

The tentacles squelched when they pushed their way out, reaching out from Oikawa's torso as though there were infinite lengths of them coiled inside his body.

I sǎ̵w c̸r̵̒e̷̓a̸t̸̋u̵r̸̊e̸s in my o̶wn s̶hape

One. Iṅ̷ an is̸o̷l̴a̴ted vessel̵. Vi̴cious...

VICIOUS.

Oikawa bared his teeth, open-mouthed as he echoed the word. There were sharp, flesh-tearing fangs that grew from his gums and teeth that lifted up from the inside of his throat like spines. He bid Hajime to look at his weapons and fear them. He did. He did.

Vicious cre̶a̴ture̵.

D̴e̵͊s̶t̴r̸oy̸e̵d̸ . M̷e̵.

He did. As he flew over coastal sea looking for a Traveler to board, Oikawa had crashed onto the front windows of Shuttle 4 like a bug onto a windshield. Oikawa, perhaps stunned at the sudden crash, had tried to teleport himself inside the ship and failed. The blurred, half-inside half-outside vision of him looked impossible, alien, just as bent on consuming Earth's species as every other invader that was there on Earth's last day. Hajime treated it like any invader and tore into his body with the shuttle's weaponry. But he hadn't destroyed the invader completely.

F̴o̸rtress-ves̷̒sel fell bư̷̾rning̴. S̷̾̕ky. Spanning. Fire.

The̶̩͌y co̴nsu̴me̶d yo̴u̴r pe̶o̷ple̶ a̶s i̷t fe̸ll.

Y̵o̶u̴ de̶fe̶nde̶d it. A̵s ̸i̶t fe̸ll.

L̴o̸ya̵l. So̸ld̸i̶er.

He did. The last thing he'd done on Earth's last day was fly at the side of a falling Traveler, ripping and burning dozens of invading creatures away from its side. He was the insect then. Worthlessly small to the Traveler and worthless to humans inside doomed to die when it finally crashed. He hammered them, torched them, pulled their skulls from their spines until enough became irritated with him to flick him away. That was when he fled. Less than an insect. So much less than a man. He fled Earth alone, or so he'd thought.

"Why did you follow my ship if you wanted to take plants?" Hajime grumbled back, lips hardly moving. Earth's last day made him still as stone. "Do you understand I'm not a plant? I am not...'life'...like you are."

I sm̵e̷ll th̵e̷ir a̴r̷o̶ma̴ and ̶c̷hemica̴l expression. ̴I̴n y̴o̸̷u̶r f̴o̸rtress.

I am L̷i̴fe. I know the scent of L̷i̴fe.

I̸ a̷lways̴ k̸n̶ow ̷whe̶re̴ yo̶u ̶are.

Oikawa dipped his head with blatant intention for his mouth or his tongue to reach Hajime's; he stupidly balked and pulled back. Tentacles at his back and around his wrists meant he could only pull back a short way. Oikawa followed still.

"But why, why not the Travelers?" Hajime sputtered to interrupt him. He looked beseechingly, curiously, at him. "The big fortresses. Really big ones. They have tons more 'life' on them than mine. Why would you just come after me?"

T̵̓o̷o. B̸̩͘ig. D̴e̶f̴ens̴e̶s to̷o...̶mu̴č̵h . Oikawa's eyes wandered away from Hajime's own now. They looked with approval at the new sheen of sweat on his collar, the punctures in the shirt showing his chest and his slightly quivering legs. His fangs were mostly put away but lips still parted. They smiled now. Its victorious smile demanded Hajime's eyes and attention.

̴̘̕I ha̶ve. ̸I̵nfl̸u̷̸e̵nc̸e̵. ̵O̵n th̸i̸s deci̸sion. What L̷i̴fe to pursue?

̵O̵ne vessel, fractional size, one L̷i̴fe sanctuary.

̵O̵ne soldier. ̶A̵ggressive. ̶A̵lone—

S̵o̷j̵o̷urners, let us pursue—

We giv̵e chas̵e—

And w̸i̵n.

Oikawa's tongue delved out of his smiling lips and licked up Hajime's jaw and cheek. He closed his eyes at the long, heated drag. That tongue's slick press was familiar now, both the gentle movements and forceful. The touch of these hands and strange limbs that now held him were worth the pain and time it had taken to let them in. He didn't regret their union. He didn't regret laying with a beast. It was inhuman to think so, but this journey to nowhere felt worth it, to have now felt the depth of Oikawa's want for him.

You win, he hummed back.

His response was a vibration that he could not understand, only feel. Their foreheads fell softly together, hair rustling.

"My life is yours," Hajime told him again.

Oikawa sighed. Hajime cherished that precious air moving on his skin as much as he would a hand or a mouth. His creature's breath was a rare gift. He wanted to receive it again and again. As many times as his life would allow. But--

"But I'm poisoned," he went on. His own breath stopped in his throat. In this absurd rush of information he'd nearly forgotten. He pulled away from Oikawa just enough to look him in the eye. "Why did you poison me? I don't understand?"

Beca̶use I wa̶nt you to l̵i̸ve, Oikawa purred back with a smile.

Hajime blinked rapidly, waiting for more.

His right hand rose up into his vision out of nowhere; it took another moment to even realize Oikawa had lifted it for him and held it up at the wrist with his long fingers. The alien presented the stumps of his own index and middle fingers to him. For the first time in many hours, Hajime examined them closely. The nearly-flat tops of the stumps had so little red inside. They were gross blurs of dark green and black. There was no bone visible anymore. There was no telling how far inside his body this all reached.

̶͗Ḅ̶̛̀e̶c̶̈́̉o̵ḿ̸̨̕e .

̶͗Ḅ̶̛̀e̶c̶̈́̉o̵ḿ̸̨̕e .

L̷i̴fe.

The words did not make sense to a man of science and protocol. They echoed blearily in his head like a long dream, until Oikawa pressed his intent for them into the base of Hajime's spine. It spread unmistakably down the whole length of him: become inhuman. Undergo a change of chemistry, of biology, of species and space. Much growing to do.

"Oh. God," Hajime breathed. His own hand was in front of his face, an alien limb.

I kn̷o̴w. Y̷o̴̸u̵ are dy̷i̸ng ̷i̸n th̷i̸s pla̷ce.

I gra̷nt yo̴̸u̵r w̷ish. Yo̴u w̷ill no̴t d̷ie alo̴ne.

A stray tear caught in his eyelashes.

He blinked, blinked, blinked, but still they flowed. Every second, he blinked. Each blink, he saw himself and then the creature as though they were separate layers of reality, now merging. Himself and his growing hand, then the creature's hand holding his. Himself, then salvation. An alien's hand, and an alien's hand. 

Ven̷o̴m ̷o̴f L̷i̴fe—to ̶͗Ḅ̶̛̀e̶c̶̈́̉o̵ḿ̸̨̕e. Or t̷o̴ die. B̷o̴th. P̷o̴ssibl̵e̷.

My str̷o̴ng s̷o̴ld̷i̸er wa̷nts to l̷i̸v̵e̷.

S̷o̴ fight ̷i̸t. F̷i̸ght.

And l̷i̸ve.

If n̷o̴t—

The tentacles that held and hovered around him reached closer. Around a thigh. Up from under the hem of his shirt. Into the shoulder hole of the shirt, where there was no sleeve to rip this time, so it crept unimpeded across and down his scarred pectoral muscle. His hands too found places at his waist and back to trace his skin and feel the strong outline of his body. Hajime reached one arm around his captor and laid it across his strong shoulders, where he wanted to hold him. Where he must hold him.

Oikawa's tongue licked at his jaw, licked at his open lips, and then inside them.

—th̵e̷n die here. While I a̷m with you.

Or f̵̺̒i̷̺͋ght my venom, v̵̺̒ic̵̺̒i̷͋ous beast. Come hom̵e̷.

And di̵e̷ a gr̵̛͕e̴͍͑at. Long. T̵i̷me. From now.

After I ha̷ve ha̷d you thousa̷nds

̸͕͌A̶͍͊nd ̷͉͑t̸̹̎h̶̘͋o̶̗̿ū̶̬s̴̲̈́a̸̒n̸͕̾d̷͚̃s̸ ̴̙̀

Of t̵i̷mes.

Oikawa kissed as he'd been taught: gently at first, and then a pause. It gave time for Hajime's mouth to shudder against his, and for that shudder to spread to every place that was touched and wanted for touch. His mate begged, so the creature gave. He gave Hajime his tongue to feel and to suck desperately into his own mouth. His tentacles found the places they remembered: squeezing one pectoral and curving mouthlike ends over a tight nipple, sliding down a hard and waiting abdomen. They were quickly growing wet as they roved.

Hajime threw off one tentacle that attempted to hold his arm down, so he could hold Oikawa's head still for a harder kiss. The tentacle punished him for his insolence by branching itself into two: one swept under his shirt and pulled it high up to his collar, the other pulled from the collar down. With one second of opposing force, the fabric gave way and tore. Hajime heard it, felt it, cared nothing for it. He felt the many hands and tongues of his lover who had given him a chance to both live and die.

They broke another kiss for Oikawa to use his tongue elsewhere. He wanted to lave his tongue slow and hot and torturous up his vicious creature's soft neck. He wanted to taste that skin and feel breath and muscle movements undulating it. The taste of alien skin so foreign and fine: traces of soil and salt and unknown Life chemicals, and something distinctly male, which brought his tongue back again and again--Hajime heard smatterings of this, knew this thoughts were true, somehow. Some sort of shivering. Some quieter vibration felt in between his gasps and the fervent grasping of their hands.

Every second of connection was a gift with no comparison. Why had it come to him? Why this creature, why the end of his world, why him? Endlessly he navigated to nowhere, chartering a journey with no end. No life in the great darkness but for this one, one that would not rest until it owned his. It dreamed of his body and his life and soul. It sang for him.

His creature's touch was stardust no man had felt but him. Only he felt this life-giving joy in the infinite dark. Please, never let this end. If I die, let me die like this. Feeling this.

Please.

God, please.

̴̱̉I̴ å̸m̶ ̶̰̓her̶̔e̷.

I know. I'm ready to be yours.

Oikawa answered him with hunger and joy, as always. Every slick tentacle and strong hand squeezed him tight and close, forcing their bodies together with taunting friction. Hajime wrapped his arms around his creature, holding it with as much fierce joy as he could with only two limbs. The alien demanded his open mouth so he gave it. It demanded he grind his pelvis against the opening slit between its legs, so he rocked hard and ungainly against it, teasing something coming to the surface.

It asked for him to show his own want in return--a gentle shiver in the spine and throat--so when Oikawa's hand came near, Hajime reached for the hand, and made sure the creature watched him kiss its palm. A soft kiss of worship. One breath of his gratitude and awe that could fill all of space. He wanted to live to give more, much more.

I want to g̸͒ivé̴ to you, Oikawa, he said, shivering.

He was heard, but Hajime could not translate Oikawa's response. It took another minute to hear him again.

I c̵̢̓aa̴a̴ȁ̴ȁ̴̵̢͍̓ȁ̴̸̛͍̤̮n̸̜͗͘ͅṫ̷ ġ̴̼iv̸̕ě̵͇ words. Words words much long̸e̷r̶r̵̶͇̎r̷͉͐

It ̶̣͌ is. So. E̶̽xh̷a̶usṭ̶͌in̶̾nn̶̾ng.

Hah. You're exhausting too, you animal.

A dozen too-long fangs pierced into the meat of Hajime's fully exposed shoulder. He yelped and tried to shove the crazy alien off him with one arm, but a tentacle trying to pull it straight down kept him from doing much of anything.

̵̪̉͆Ex̵ȟ̶a̵̍͑ust̵̛̕ing̷̈̃͜!̶ S̴̯̓ȍ̷͎! Ma̸̩̎ny! W̴̯̓ȍ̷͎rds!

Y̴̓ȍ̷̵͎̍u̷r sp̸e̸cie̸s ̸̸̲͈̒̽is nea̸̎rly DEAF—

An ear-popping sound bit into Hajime's spine and chest, making him inadvertently bang the back of his head against the wall.

N̵o̷w te̷ll m̴e̷ t̴e̷ll ̶̛͎t̴̮͊e̶͉͝ḷ̴͐l̶͘ͅl̷̝̓ ̸͓͊̏t̴͚̊̇ẽ̵̖̣l̷̯̬͠l̴̘̦̈l̵̗̬̈́

Wha̴t? I̵͝s̷s̷̵̲̊s̷?

Oh-ii-kah-wah?

There was sudden distance between them, carved so the alien would have space to stare expectantly into Hajime's eyes. He smiled as he asked, showing a few fangs. The tentacles all slowed their motions over his body as though they, too, were listening. One pointed its fat end at him, as though it were watching.

Hajime was still panting from the rush of contact. Out of nowhere, he felt a rush of shyness. Not shame, not anymore, but it took more than a moment of silence before he could respond. When he did, it came quietly. "I...named you," he admitted.

Oikawa showed more fangs. There was more white seen in his widening eyes.

Na̶͆ͅme? Title ̷̹͉͊t̸̙̲͛ḯ̸t̴̋e̸̹̒l̵̓l̸͙̃̓e̴͎͠ ̴̛̀ͅr̶̈́ö̴͚̀le̷ r̴o̷ le̷ or Na̶͆ͅme?

Name̷?

̸N̵̬̓ ̷͙̉ä̸́ ̵̯̉m̵ ̷̠͠e̷̊ ? ? ?

"It's a name," Hajime spoke, squinting momentarily against the almost tangible feedback noise in his skull and spine.

Me̸a̵ning?! Of?O̶̘̽f ̶̛͚͑O̶̓̚F̸̡̭̔̋͂ ̵̳͚̑̇Ŏ̴̢̮͘F̴̨͕̔?!

"It means..." he began easily, and then found his mind partially blank. He was light-headed not due to the venom but due to his blood running merrily to his cock. He could only half-see the characters in his head.

In a secret memory or two, he saw himself. In some safe, windowless room in the shuttle, writing the name and enjoying the sight of it on paper. He'd sketched things with it on his mind like he used to with Hitoka. Poor drawings, a few not-poor drawings. Connection and river and thoughts drawn in thin pen strokes. A surname evoking water, which he wrote next to his own evoking stone.

"It means...a river."

Oikawa's shoulders fell as though he had sighed. A soft purr sounded from him. It was pleasant to the ear and even to the light bump of pain on the back of Hajime's head. The intent in that sound was a soft satisfaction that his creature wanted to share with him. He liked the name.

The sound, this connection, this new pleasure they were sharing, it all emboldened Hajime further. He was on the verge of life and death and inhumanity all at once in this creature's arms. There was a place in the universe for him, by its doing. A kiss on its palm like he were a man before a priest was nowhere near enough.

Oikawa must have felt him start to tremble.

"Your...your real name..."

All vibrations, rumbles and scraps of words floating in their connection vanished. Oikawa's pupils narrowed to animal slits in one split second. He was again the watching predator that Hajime had always known. But instead of recoiling in fear, he yearned to reach further. He could tie the adoring beast to him even more. If the universe gave him this great a blessing, he ought to try his luck just one more time.

"Is your real name 'Tooru'?"

One of the pupils trembled as though it were a small worm trapped in the jelly of the eye.

It became an animal again, in a split second—Hajime's protocol, fear, instincts returned; he curled up in terror—and it screamed in his face.

Every tentacle squeezed madly tight, squeezing air and imprinting new bruises. The limbs shoved him back and then up the wall behind him. Hajime yelped in dumb shock at being lifted like a doll. And under the coughing and fearful gasp, he did slightly regret the moment of sappy yearning.

Oikawa's scream turned to some start-and-stop chuffing, like a dog or hyena. Hajime stared down at him from his elevated spot. He looked down at that open-mouthed grin, looking at seemingly every fang the creature had.

Y̷̮͘ò̴̖u know my name! You know my name! Ḫ̷͘ò̴̖w

c̷̮͘ò̴̖uld

y ̷̮͘ò̴̖ u

k n ̷̮͘ ò̴̖ w

m y

N A M E!

The tentacles pulled him from the wall with ease and held him up fully in midair. Hajime shouted in real, helpless alarm. He had to stare into the open mouth with even the spine-teeth in the throat gleaming up at him. With no way to move, he felt an irrational fear of Oikawa swallowing him whole.

With two long steps, Oikawa crossed part of the room, taking his human prisoner sailing through the air with him and over his own head. The tentacles slammed him down onto his own mattress, harder than any casual fall or playful push into bed he'd ever felt. The bolted-down legs of the bed creaked a little.

As he tried to sit up, Oikawa crawled onto the bed after him like a cave creature meant to skitter on all fours. Hajime jerked back instinctively, but his tense limbs were all pressed down at once.

Oikawa was there again as he had once been: hovering in place with victorious joy at acquiring an incomparable prize. Before Hajime had panted beneath him like a trapped rat seeing death above. Now the creature was life, a glorious being who controlled all life on this shuttle, and was pleased with his gift. His many tentacles floated weightlessly above him.

I wą̴̛̰͊ited! Wą̴̛̰͊ited for you to są̴̛̰͊y! You knew me!

With whą̴̛̰͊t arts do you divine me?!

This crea̴̛͊ture calls to me.

It cą̴̛̰͊lls me.

You cą̴̛̰͊ll me!

Iwaaiiizumi Ha-ji-meeee .

I wa̴̛͊nt to ca̴̛͊ll you.

I wa̴̛nt to tell you many things!

Live! Live! Live to see my home that wa̴̛its for us

We will live in green forever, To̵o̶ru-called-Oi̷kawa and this unbreakable alien—

Most precious and rare.

N ̴͔̙̇o̵͈͊̉ w s t̸͒͝op̵̈́̽

̶͊M̴a̸k i ̵̹̈n̶̊ ̷̟̕g̸̿

M̷͉̋ ̸͠e̷̓

T̴̯͐̾̊ ̷̼̇ a̵̢͖͙̺͂ ̸͋͛͑ l ̴̛͍̚̚k̶͂ ̸̻̳̙͈͒̎̇ .

The navigator obeyed.

-

Chapter Text

Today was the death of his shame and regret. The alien invasion was here in his home, in his garden and his bed and his body and now his soul. Hajime welcomed whatever end had come for him.

Oikawa held him and fucked him in his own bed. There was no greater gift in the universe. There was no better feeling than the whole length of the alien's cock in his ass, his gift and punishment for living so long without it.

He'd tried to take his own clothes off in a hurry, but the tentacles were faster. They burst with violence and wetness from the alien's skin and pulled the clothes apart and away in shreds before he could. They returned in force to feel bare human skin and Hajime loved it. They gleefully groped at every smooth, sweating plane: arms shoulders ass abs nipples jaw calves feet spreading his thighs apart every limb of the creature taking its share of ownership now that they finally could. Hajime showed his own joy at being taken, now that he could.

It took such joy in stroking along his body, so Hajime guided its hands. He joined fingers with and then kissed those hands. He kissed and worshiped its unbreakable body with his eager mouth, even when stray tentacles appeared from nowhere to lap between his lips. When his mouth drifted too low, it pulled him up again. It wanted to be near his face and to watch him. Hajime wanted the same: he wanted to hold it around its shoulders to keep it near and run his hands in its hair, so it would feel the desperation in his mouth when Hajime kissed. What adoration Oikawa felt from Hajime's mouth he would mimic in return, and so Hajime taught his creature how a man should kiss.

Now, Oikawa held him against the wall with his legs spread around it and forced Hajime's hand around both of their cocks. It pressed its face into his neck, then its thinning, spreading lips, then its teeth. Dozens of razor teeth punctured Hajime's neck. He could not help but moan from pleasure and pain, from Oikawa taking blood and giving venom, from his right hand refusing to stop pumping between them and the nails of his left carving new scars into the alien's back. Neither of them could stop.

No seconds. No minutes. Time stopped and moved in breaths.

In a new breath, Oikawa had pushed him down onto the bed while it remained on its knees pleasuring itself with one hand just above him, where its upcoming orgasm would be inescapable. It wanted to mark him as its territory, again. Hajime spread himself and opened his mouth to welcome that too.

In another breath, Hajime sat up in its lap and bounced on its cock while the clawed hands held his hips pressing him down each time so there was no choice but to fuck himself on it harder, harder, harder while he groaned and cursed and almost cried.

In the next and the next and the next, Oikawa looked down on him as men once looked up at heaven. Earth was gone, but his place in the universe was here.

Hajime loved it. He grasped for ever more places to touch, to show that he loved its body being shared with him. He loved to be close. He loved to see its pleasure and its happiness written so plain. It brought him joy that Oikawa had won in the end. He was proud, in a way, of Oikawa's victory.

A sick feeling rose up in his chest. Nausea. Not shame but sickness. Stomach and abdomen cramping. Warm. Hot. Boiling--

Hajime hid inside his pleasure and writhed into a tentacle's grasp to feel that instead.

Sometimes Oikawa would separate them only to bare his teeth and hiss like something draconic, to lose Hajime's mouth when he sank deep into him. Sometimes he pushed into him in shallow thrusts to tease them both. Once Oikawa's tongue came out and licked long and slow up the whole exposed length of Hajime's throat.

Once he said to his creature: You are so wanted you are so merciful I wish I had opened my doors sooner and walked into your open jaws

Once Hajime saw a vision from a nightmare where the open jaws took a piece of his flesh away from him, left him with a gaping hole and a scream that would never stop. He fell back into reality, into bed, where he was alive and full of pleasure still. For now. Maybe not for long.

He said to himself, I'm dying. I really am dying. Oikawa gave him a chance to die.

He had a chance to live beyond his trapped existence inside Shuttle 4 or to end it. Whether it would last years or days, Oikawa took the rest of Hajime's life, because he had always wanted to put an end to this journey to nowhere.

Now he cried at the wild thrusts of Oikawa's hips. He cried at the unstoppable spread of the alien matter inside his body. He cried for a definite end to infinite suffering, while Oikawa chased his climax.

It was dizzying to hear it vocalizing almost like a man of Earth would instead of its natural thrumming vibrations. It was dizzying that it wanted his life so badly, that his body meant so much. It revolved its life around trying to reach him. It deserved his body and his adoration and everything else it wanted. The long fingers were puncturing Hajime's skin again. The tentacles were squeezing and biting deep. The unknown growth pulsed louder, stretched its roots. Hajime deserved all that, too.

Oikawa's hands pulled him even closer. He panted like the needful animal that he was. Each thrust gave pain that touched the edge of orgasm. He fucked him like he had been denied for years, because he had.

The long siege was over. Tooru would break or conquer every barrier that kept him from this, and he had. All this distance repeatedly traveled and failure and pain mutilation misery regrouping retrying screaming planning needing staring into the beautiful green eyes all to feel this on his cock--it was so base, so inevitable so fucking mouthwatering and true.

A shudder wracked the full length of Oikawa's body. Hajime fell into his own orgasm at the sight, again.

I belong to this creature, I belong to this creature, rang inside his head, and inside every part of him. Maybe Tooru was telling him all this, had been telling him, but only now did he hear.

This time Hajime felt himself fading. Knew himself to be resting because Oikawa was now laying next to him with a hand stroking slow and languid along his side. Found himself later on his side supported on one elbow feeling Oikawa's skin in return. He could do that now without fear. They felt each other's bodies with calm curiosity, for once.

Oikawa stroked his warm human skin. The small fine hairs on his arms and legs. His blunt fingers and flat little nails. Hajime felt no hair on his creature anywhere but the head. He felt the slightly rough texture of the green abdomen stripes that sometimes glowed when the aliens teleported. Oikawa seemed bemused at the idea of genitals that did not retract into the body.

His exploration was deeper. More annoying. He peered into Hajime's ears, rubbed at his nipples and belly button and Adam's apple all so much that Hajime slapped his hands away from all of them. That cruel rejection hurt his feelings, angered him. Oikawa hissed like a dragon, then smiled like a hyena, leaving Hajime lying there confused like a man who didn't know how aliens communicated. He kept laying still while Oikawa pulled Hajime's forearm into his mouth. He started shaking it in a soft grip like a dog. He started playing.

He smothered Hajime with his body, squeezed and nuzzled incessantly until Hajime did the same thing affectionately back. Once he gripped Hajime under his arms and lifted his upper half up off the bed to stare up at him. He rolled over on the bed and pretended to hide under a pillow.

While watching the whole stupid act, Hajime wondered how long he had to live. In this haze of sex and salvation the odd phrase chain like unknown lethal dosage or rapid decay or mass organ failure would tap at the edge of his mind. With a little more focus, he might actually start contemplating the possibility of death by poison. He might start to form an opinion on whether venom from an unknown creature was better than the pill his parents took. He wrestled with Oikawa instead.

Time passed here and there; they dozed around it. Hajime...drifted.

Oikawa's long fingers traced and stopped on the scars he had cut into his chest, rubbing the greenish-black dots around them. On occasion he would pause at random places on the skin and hum. Sometimes Hajime wondered what he was thinking. Sometime later, he faded.

Sometime around noon Hajime woke from a trance minutes or seconds long and found tentacles stroking slow paths over his knee and ribs and collar, like they were tracing the shape of bones underneath.

Sometime in the afternoon he was bent over the side of the bed with Oikawa's chest pressed down on his back all limbs holding them flush to each other panting open-mouthed as he was mounted like he needed to be.

Sometime when evening was near there was pressure in his chest back left arm like a heart attack like an infection so he writhed and choked on the bed while Oikawa stared.

Sometimes he was awake gone awake Now. Sometime Today the day he let the alien

in they lay on their sides together he crushed his face into tooru's collar

And he shook and he wept and held him so so tight and his pain

now had an answer because he was held just as fiercely

but oikawa's words were soundless song now no

meaning no dialogue no need for that oh well

He felt his body for sickness and there

was sickness there was acceptance

the red mouth started hunting

Again again I must have you

As much as I can before

You are gone

(̷̈((̵(p̵̭̒uls̶e̴)̸̜͂)̷)̷)

(̷̈͜(̴̇(̵̙͆(̷̈́p̵̒u̸lś̶̗ę̴̕)̸̜͂)̷̃)̷̈͜)̶

(̵͎̝̲͊̊̑(̸̛͈̊̓(̸͈̤͗̍̆(̷̧̐p̸͚̔̆ŭ̸͍̘͓̐ḻ̷͈̑͐s̶̟̏͊͌è̸͖̭)̴̱̜̦̆̚)̸̯̩̱̒)̶̮̼͋̐)̴̧̼̊́́

Sometime Hajime came to in bed yet again. He woke from a feverish delirium so heavy that he stared at the clock on the opposite wall and could no longer understand the numbers.

He lay on his stomach with his head turned to the far wall. Oikawa hovered above with his hands at either side of him. There was a long, low hiss coming from all of his body. There had been sounds like this in Hajime's old dreams, where a serpentine hiss preceded the creature ripping his throat open or spilling his intestines onto the ground. Today the serpent truly was in the room with him. Oikawa's cock was sliding over the roundness of his cheeks, announcing his need again.

A trace of that instinctive fear rose up, then melted. The old anticipation rattled him much less now that his body had experience of the living thing. The old fears ran deep, but his new infected scars ran deeper. Deeper still was an overwhelming gratitude for Oikawa's gift to him. Gratitude, which felt so similar to joy.

The serpent's hiss fell into a heavy vibration that reached into his bones. He meant for Hajime to welcome him. Yes, he must. The old fears and the new cloud of fever parted enough for Hajime to have one single thought.

He pushed his torso up off the bed, pushing the alien away as he declared, "Wait."

Turning onto his side revealed a menace straight out of the old, uglier dreams: Oikawa staring down with eyes wide and mouth open. Teeth in the jaws. Teeth in the throat. Eyes that didn't blink. Tentacles moving in the air like they were still in outer space, like gravity did not touch them. Otherworldly. And angry.

He tried to speak. It didn't come. Old fears. Deep.

He tried. Again. "Y-You want more, huh? Then you'll have more. Please don't stop me this time."

Hajime maintained eye contact when he reached for both of Oikawa's arms, the tentacles creeping close. He sat up, carefully set one leg off the bed. Leaned on it. Stood. Oikawa mirrored all his movements. Now they both stood on the oval-shaped rug by the bed. They stood together only a moment before Hajime sank down to his knees on that rug.

There was an alien cock weaving in the air at the level of his eyes. Oikawa had already taken notice of that proximity. "I don't deserve this gift you're giving me," he said, looking up and over it for now. "Can you understand me right now? I'll make you understand."

Thirsty. Need medical exam asap. Good thick rug for doing this. A couple more reasonable thoughts floated near but he steadfastly dismissed them. He must do more for his lover, for however long his life would last.

He exhaled his remaining fear--another logical thought, old, from this very room: Are you serious? Are you sure?--but it was burned away in this new fire. He was long out of practice. He was faced with a dick that looked like a veined red worm. His mouth watered for it.

Hajime touched it gingerly with one hand. It stopped winding and wandering almost instantly and curved into the palm of his hand, like it wanted to be held. It was soft for now, slowly engorging as though it could inhale. It wanted touch and friction so he gave it. One stroke. Two. Three, four. Some natural lubricant leaked from the flesh just from the brief motion of his palm.

He lifted it just enough to drag the flat of his tongue upwards along it, from base to its rounded head. Oikawa made a sound like a stuttering, chopping growl. His thighs flexed at the edge of Hajime's vision. He kissed the red head, lapped at it and its underside; the whole body swayed slightly on its feet.

No point in hesitating now. He wanted a cock in his mouth now. Now he could show gratitude for his salvation and the depth of his want.

The eyes looking down on him were the same predator eyes that killed him in dreams. Now he would fulfill their real desire. With their eyes locked, Hajime took half the shivering cock into his mouth--alive alive it was fucking moving shit--then after one helpless flinch, the final spike of disgust flattened and died.

He took more of it in, uncurling one finger from around its base, as Oikawa made a truly alien sound never heard before. It summoned a flash of memory: Oikawa appearing at the end of that long hall after he'd first entered the ship. A moment where Hajime's soul fled his body in fear, while Oikawa's had swelled with hunger and joy. He was confident then that this was finally close at hand, and he'd been right.

Hajime was close to gagging now. He'd gagged then, too, unable to fucking believe it: the nightmare actually walking in his hall.

He'd fought then. He'd unclipped his weapons and rose to fight the infinite dark. Standing tall. Shaking in his boots. Wanting to fall to his knees. Now on his knees. Now letting the alien cock writhe and leak in his mouth. Oikawa changed him, made him, saved him.

The clawed hands came down: one on top of Hajime's head, one gripping his neck and shoulders. They could sever his spine. They could rip his body open. He heard the whisper of nightmares past where they had. Now he swallowed around its cock just as he had in dreams.

Oikawa's sound was first a moan and then a scream. Hajime hollowed his cheeks to suck with more force and heard a shuddering exhale: another breath from the creature that didn't breathe, who only breathed for him. Hajime leaned back to tongue at the long slit at the appendage's head, then took it all back in. The alien was shaking from the vigor of his mouth. Both hands gripped around his head like they meant to crush his skull. They pulled him closer. His own hand dropped fully away from the base. The hips pushed forward. Pushed the cock further. Further. In. Yes, more, take more, ohh yes--

Hajime obeyed the command he felt within. Swallowed its lubricant, its leaking precum or nectar or venom or whatever its body was giving him because he was meant to take it. Gratitude and joy and poison on the tongue.

Suck, swallow, almost-choke, suck, open his aching jaw wider. Barely breathe between the rough, then rougher slides in and out of his mouth, because Oikawa was thrusting his hips intermittently. Gathering himself enough to not just be sucked off but to fuck this willing, full mouth. The cockhead was alive and reaching into his throat. Hajime was fading again.

Every thrust forward slid his cock firmly along Hajime's trapped tongue, squeezed

him between those tightening cheeks your perfect perfect mouth I knew

you would be perfect for me beautiful creature I

knew you would be mine

I knew you could not deter me forever one day I

would reach you in your sanctuary make you my own

keep you have you eat you feel the sweet hot inside of you

tongue blood soul your million mysteries are mine until no light sustains us

a█̸̗̼͐ȟ̵͂h̶̃--

Å̶͇A̶̩͌█̴̸̴̶̷̨̪̹̗̥̔̍͐́̕H̴̦͗█̷̸̴̴̸͚̺̞̗̹̄͐̃͂͝--

Hȁ̷̡-jii-meee

Hȁ̷̡-j̸i̴͈͒-̶̛́M̸EE̵E̸

Whe̵͗n your ̷̧̰͗w̶̄e̸̗̐ͅa̵p̸̖̊͛o̸̖͛n̵s t̸o̷re m̷e

an̵͎̂d̵ you̸r s̸ilent̴ m̸o̴uth ̶͛̾c̸͎̊̒͝u̵̦̾̒r̵̘̀̈́s̶͓͙͚͐̓é̸͎d̴̺̮̉͗̈͜ ̷ me̷ be̴hin̷d̸ y̵our w̷â̵lls̵̓͘

I always imagined t h i s

Ta̸ke me̶ now a̸nd li̶ve̶!

Li̶̼͑ve!

LIVE!

Hajime held onto his creature's thighs and choked.

At the end of every exhale black dots sprouted like fungus in his vision. At every inhale they melted away. The seed filled his mouth so he swallowed, swallowed, swallowed whatever it was, whatever it would do to him. He would not ask, only obey. Swallow. Obey.

He loved the alien cockhead with slow swirls of his tongue as its fury ran out. When Oikawa's hips finally settled, Hajime stayed in place.

Eventually his mouth was freed. He did not so much as cough. He sagged. Sat heavily on his own heels. Bowed his tired head. Swallowed one more time. Only breathed, for now.

His heartbeat slowed.

Oikawa was on his knees on the rug with him.

God, please, he had begged in the empty halls, and Oikawa was there. Held him up even now. There would be no falling if Oikawa was here.

He stayed upright with effort and with help, breathing slow and steady against the black spots in his vision. Maybe he really would live.

Oikawa had joined their hands and held both up to the scars on his chest, seeking that growing resonance that let them communicate. He hummed. He vibrated in a stuttering way, and then a slow purr. No words came through at all. Like there was a steel ship hull or a window between them, again. The inside of him was some unreachable secret garden that Oikawa still couldn't always reach at will. How was his actual garden doing, with aliens wandering around in it for hours?

If he did die from poison, the plants there would live a long time on scheduled water and light--of course they would. The 'Life' in his arbor room was going to a new home whether he was or not. Yes, it had to.

He was inexplicably leaning against the dresser across from the bed. No memory of having moved here. His ass hurt much more now, and there were more dots of blood on the bed than he remembered. Hajime reached one arm behind his head with great effort and great heaving breaths, feeling for something he remembered should be there. Eventually he felt the petri dish of algae. He gripped it, brought it safely down to his lap. All a great effort, suddenly. His heart beat slow and heavy.

"I need to...go to the arbor room," he decided.

He looked up in time to see Oikawa so close he was nearly in his lap. But he was looking down at the dish, admiring the soft green thing that Hajime had nurtured. His slow heart gained strength.

"Let's...let's go. To my garden. Will you go with me?"

It wasn't a real question. Oikawa followed his every move, his multiple attempts to get his legs under him and his slow, eventual rise to stand.

They went to the open shower in the bathroom. Oikawa held out one hand under the stream of warm water and then walked under it when Hajime pulled him near. He watched in complete befuddlement when Hajime shaved his face. When Hajime opened his dresser for fresh clothes, Oikawa amused himself by repeatedly opening and closing the sliding drawers.

The new clothes were a black shirt with a red collar and black slacks, a little more formal-leaning than gym clothes. The time read 18:09pm: nearly twenty-four hours past his last meal, seven hours after waking with an alien in his bed. Right now his his heart felt strong. He faced the alien standing in the center of his bedroom, then turned his gaze to the door.

Some sixteen hours ago, Hajime had slammed this door uselessly shut, and an alien had teleported past it. Now he opened it and invited the alien through. He shut it behind them both with one hand, held the petri dish in the other. He and his creature set off together.

The walk was long and quiet and calm. No night-cycle darkness touched these bright hallways yet. A gentle, tingling hum rang in his spine only once. Oikawa walked in silence with him. Hajime walked with the unwavering posture of a navigator in full service dress boarding a ship for its maiden voyage. This would be a much greater undertaking than that. Ahead was a maiden voyage that perhaps no human had ever made before. He would make contact with an alien race, properly this time.

Ahead was the south entrance to the arbor room. Last night he'd stumbled out this door wearing only underwear. Hours before that, he'd gone into this room's opposite entrance armed with knives, a flamethrower, and a mountain of fear and fury. There was no fury left and the fear was, for now...bearable. If he kept moving forward it might stay that way.

Hajime gripped the heavy door handle and pulled.

Opening the door revealed Shuttle 4's tiny planet of greenery. The mighty valley oak sat far ahead in the center of the room. She had some burned branches and missing leaves, but she was ever as beautiful as the earth. She took all of Hajime's attention first. Then he perceived the familiar green sprawl of flowers, dozens of plant beds and ponds around her, and finally, like an unwelcome afterthought, the unearthly spots of color invading the room.

The rest of Oikawa's clan were still here. Their heads had all turned to the sound of his approach. Pink-haired Hanamaki lay sprawled in open grass by humble dandelions. Darker Matsukawa ran his hands down ivy vines growing up a far wall. Kindaichi and Kunimi were perched in the low crux of a Japanese maple, others sat beneath sunflowers and tropical banana trees and orchids. They had made themselves at home.

The usual metallic clank of the door had sounded off in the garden like a gunshot, and now it was quiet. The great change of last night was heavy in the air still. This was a piece of an alien planet, a sieged vessel, and a minefield.

A trio of butterflies fluttered past.

If Hajime could sprint to the other side of the room where he'd lost his flamethrower--no. Not now. Not anymore.

He broke the collective stillness and advanced first: to the center of the room, from hard entryway tile to cobblestone to warm soil and grass. Hanamaki was first to follow, crawling nearly with his belly on the ground. Matsukawa stood up and walked in slow strides parallel to him. Others came near from their spread-out perches in the room. Oikawa stayed behind him. He was being surrounded. The oak tree was not far ahead.

Hajime stopped in a patch of grass off a walking path. He got down to his knees, sitting against his heels. Back straight. Hands over his thighs. The petri dish was clutched in his right hand. The pulse of his fear could have cracked it.

They came closer. They crept in the grass and around bushes, past trellises heavy with vines, along the recessed pools where rice grew. They gathered in a half-circle in front of him. It was the perfect formation from which to charge. Pin him down together. Cut him open from throat to pelvis. Hajime remembered protocol, which kept him still.

For a short while, the creatures sat and observed. Hajime let them acclimate to his presence. Hanamaki sat closest, three or four meters away, pink hair falling just over his brow. Yesterday Hajime had ripped a gaping wound into this one's back, and his knife had just...fallen in. Like there was infinite space inside the body. Room to store infinite tentacles. Hanamaki was one of the easygoing, playful ones, but now he stared at the 'alien' that had torn him open with his hands, and his face was blank like an animal staring into the distance. Sometimes they all looked like that. Sometimes they didn't bother wearing an expression.

In the thick quiet Hajime reached his right hand forward. Hanamaki tentatively pushed forth two pink-tipped tentacles from the skin of his shoulders, which split messily into two more. Hajime looked away from these, pushing the petri dish ahead of him in the dirt. He sat back on his heels.

"This is yours now," he said to them.

The room listened to him. The formation ahead was still but for the flick of Hanamaki's eyes: down at the dish, then back at him.

He tried again. He felt...something...in the back of his neck. Something tingling. Hopefully it was Oikawa, listening. This plan hinged on the known fact that he could listen and speak to both sides of this room.

"This is for you to take home," Hajime added with careful enunciation.

Matsukawa crouched by Hanamaki with terrible slowness to be level with Hajime's eyes. Last night this one had attacked him at full sprint and met the jet of the flamethrower head-on. Just under a day later, the destructive burns were nearly gone, the skin regrown and smooth almost everywhere. None of them had ever regenerated so fast before today. Instead of sprinting again, instead of spearing his hand through Hajime's gut for retribution, he stayed still.

They were all waiting for something from him. He had to give to them. He had to reach them. With his mouth and his spine he reached to speak in their cadence:

" My garden is all I have. I do not have a home anymore.

I will give you seeds from my old home. And knowledge of how to grow them.

When I die, I hope they will live on. My planet's L̷i̴fe goes with you. "

Next he mimicked something ancient, made modern by how often his whole country had to see it on miserable news broadcasts. Hajime remained on his knees and bowed his torso to the ground, palms flat, till his forehead touched the ground and the inward-pointing tips of his fingers. A dogeza for absolute shame. It made him feel the shape of his father, who once degraded himself like this to beg for his son's acceptance into cadet school.

" There is no excuse for the violence I inflicted on you.

I am a stupid creature driven by misery and fear.

I will not dare ask forgiveness. "

Silence.

An insect, buzzing.

A mass in his chest and back, moving.

Maybe they all heard this apology and plea as nothing but gibberish. Maybe they didn't fucking care. His flat hands were tightening into fists. Then the dirt nearby shifted as the petri dish was lifted away. Hanamaki had reached one of his tentacles out to pick it up.

Hajime pushed up from his bow and sat on his heels again. Too soon. Definitely incorrect. He was fucking nervous. And Hanamaki was...smiling at the petri dish. Yahaba crept closer to peer at it.

They did not meet eyes or seem to make any sound. But creatures who communicated by bodily vibrations and hums likely didn't need such sounds to be loud. They could almost certainly 'talk' to each other without meager human ears taking notice. So the silence continued. For him.

Hajime blinked, waiting.

Hajime blinked, and then Kunimi was there in front of him, teleported.

He jolted and reached for a knife that would have been on the shoulder of a containment suit. Then he squeezed that shoulder in shame. Not a day before, he'd beaten Kunimi with this same hand. There were no bruises or scars to show that beating. There were no humanlike feelings on the alien's face to tell its thoughts about that cruelty.

Kunimi had eight tentacles now, all waving behind his back like a slow wind blew them. He lowered his body closer to the grass. Touched one knee to the ground. Did not blink. Two tentacles curved around his left side like slow clock hands. Cupped in their grip was a stuffed dinosaur.

The sight of Tory changed the room. All the apocalyptic changes in and around Hajime ceased to matter; Tory washed them all away. He wanted to weep, for having forgotten him. He wanted to leap off the ground and beat Kunimi a second time to take him back. Without realizing, he'd risen off his heels with a desperate gasp, another gunshot in the room.

He burned with the desire to have Tory again--so he burned, burned, burned a new protocol into himself. He stayed his instinctive violent hand. He stayed on his knees.

Hajime reached his arms outward. Turned his shaking palms up. He did not fight, but asked for mercy.

Kunimi...came forward.

The tentacles brought the precious thing closer and closer. Their movement was slow, steady. Gentle. And then done. Tory was delivered safely in Hajime's hands.

The gentle cotton touch of him soothed all fears and ended all violence. Hajime crushed his most precious thing to his chest. Then to his face. He fell back onto his heels. He inhaled the soft scent of Tory and exhaled all his fears in a sob. All the aliens watched him sob.

"Thank you," he breathed once, and then louder, deeper inside himself: Than̸k yo̸ũ̴̏ŭ̶̓͒̕͘͠͠u̴͊̓̒ù̶...

For a moment the arbor room was empty but for the two of them. Like it used to be. They were alone and safe. Then Oikawa's fingers came and touched them.

The fingers first touched between his left shoulder and neck. Then they sank lower. Hajime kept his left arm out of the way, kept Tory securely in the right. The hand eventually reached the hem of his black shirt and pulled it all the way up to his collarbone, exposing his whole torso and all his scars.

The clan all leaned or crept closer at the sight. Little black-and-green fingers of some reached from the scars outward into the skin, and surely beneath it. Imagining the full, internal reach of it made Hajime initiate a calm-breathing protocol.

His shirt fell limply down. Hajime idly pulled it back to place with weak fingers, while Oikawa's hands settled on his shoulder and neck. He accepted their place there.

Oikawa crouched down behind him, letting one knee touch the ground. Both hands remained in place. New tentacles sprouted and settled around his abdomen and arms so he was surrounded and held from all sides.

N̷o̶ m̸ore ̴̤̄w̸͙̆̾è̸a̸̛p̶ö̷n̴͈̋s. Iwaai̵z̴͖͍̕z̵̙͂̽z̶͉̲͐̓umiiiHaji̶̇̽m̶̍͋ẽ̸̳̖e̷̪͐ẹ̸̑e̵.

No̵ mo̴re ă̴g̴̪̀̈ő̴̧̈́n̷y.̵́ You wil̴̽l̷ h̴ol̶̂͑d m̵e n̴o̴w.

Ȃ̸nd̶ we. Will̷͂ h̵ol̵̍d̸ you.

Hajime could say nothing at all in the face of that gift. So he bowed his head to its weight.

Against his hair he could feel Oikawa's head tilting upward to look at the oak tree nearby, whose branches reached nearly over their heads. A common oak was a mystery to an alien who'd never seen one. What did they ponder about this alien garden? What did they want to know? And what did he want to know? How did Oikawa know--

Hajime clutched Tory with both hands instead of one and cycled through another breathing exercise. Stopped thinking. Tried to feel gratitude only.

There must have been an affirmative sound he could not hear, because the clan suddenly advanced. They crawled and stepped closer and crouched near. All so close. And so quiet. Barely a hum or vibration. Sometimes a quick, jerky flex of their claws. Tentacles waving overhead like silent, slow flags. Hajime's calm-breathing protocol entered a desperate overdrive.

One tentacle dared come even closer: one of Kunimi's tentacles, pointing its black end at Tory.

W̵̤̲̎hat̷̘̹̔̈?̸́ ̴́͛

Ĭ̴s̴̽

T̸̻́hiś̵̱?

Oikawa must have been relaying Kunimi's question. His voice was a gentle, easy whisper on the spine. But Hajime's own mind was blank of easy answers. He stared down at the child's toy that he had clung to since Earth had died. He knew what it was. He could not speak what it was. It held all of his love and kept him alive. They must have seen it clipped to his belt or in his hand hundreds of times. Maybe that made them curious, but they couldn't possibly understand. And he couldn't convey the truth of it in their way.

"He's something I need," he said aloud, then tasted regret immediately. He cleared his throat and added, "I...um, found it here before I left my home. It...helps me nest comfortably."

As he did there was some tingling, soothing feeling that must be Oikawa's response. A caress on his neck and even throughout his throat. It felt easier to breathe.

Kunimi may have felt it, too, and actually heard its real meaning, because his tentacle retreated.

T̴his̶? T̵̳̕H̸̨̓̊I̷̭̙͗S̴͖̀?̷̊

Many alien heads turned up in unison so that now they all looked up at the branches of the oak tree reaching above their heads. The largest lamp on the ceiling was still on and shining from the west-side wall. An isolated man could pretend he saw a tree silhouetted against the sun.

Beautiful.

...F̶̎rő̷̕m ̶̌͘h̸̒ó̵̬̟̓me?

From home? From home. Was home. This room was home. He slept in a bedroom but he lived here, in Shuttle 4's arbor room.

"Yes," he said aloud. He could not articulate any truth he meant to say about the tree from Earth. But bits of it slipped through as he looked at her: "Life. Home. Still with me."

He thought about things from home. "It's called a California valley oak. I've been to the land where these are from. I really liked that place. Before it was gone."

They didn't make a sound or a response that he could hear, only stared at the moving leaves. He didn't know a way to make them truly see or understand what this tree made him feel, so he kept it to himself. After graduation from Shiratorizawa cadet school came coastal California. It was a frequent duty location after becoming a full navigator. He saw its trees: the palms in the cities, these oaks outside of it. The dirty warmth and ocean sunsets. The desperate violence. The chaos at his base near Tokyo on Earth's final day might not have even compared to theirs.

Hajime was pulled out of those memories by Oikawa pulling on his shoulder. So he looked.

There he was, reflected in the creature's eyes. Not fully recognizable as his human, not fully familiar to himself. Not human but sometimes within reach. Far from home and close enough to touch. The million mysteries of another species were close enough to touch in his eyes. The truth he saw in this great tree was there in his eyes. Hajime had the sense these thoughts were not entirely his own and also that he wasn't breathing. He gasped once, coughed, collected himself. Stopped thinking, again. Returned to action.

Whatever Oikawa was trying to ask, trying to know, he would answer. He still breathed for that reason.

"Let me show you my garden," he declared to them at large.

He'd start simple, and describe a tree.

-

The evening progressed. Hajime sat in the grass and spoke like a divine oracle to an alien species that didn't know what oak trees were.

Maybe they knew enough, after hours alone to view and touch and absorb this place. But they'd come after him for his plants and they were planning to leave with some, and he didn't know how long he had to live, so he talked about plants first.

The quertus lobata here, or the white valley oak, can live for twenty of my lifetimes, it lives in low valleys where a lot of rain will drain into its roots--and so on.

They stared. They flexed their claws, tapping their own palms with them like they were counting, or maybe it was a gesture of excitement or interest. Hopefully Oikawa was translating passably. But having been in the garden alone for a while already, they would want more than rote description.

Hajime stood up to touch the oak and Matsukawa rose with him. They locked eyes and froze, the memory of last night's flamethrower hovering near, but Hajime thawed first. He walked over, put a hand on the tree trunk. With slow beckoning hand movements, he invited Matsukawa to touch it with him.

The alien came close and cautious. Matsukawa made sure to stand a few steps away from him. He placed his hand on the tree, so they touched it together. There was a human-like, gentle pleasure on his face as he followed the grooves of the bark with his long fingers.

When Hajime started walking and talking, they started following him. To almond trees, to a wisteria tree hanging over a pond, to hydrangea and vegetable patches and worms in the dirt. He went to storage alcoves in the walls and lifted out handfuls of different seeds, went to different plant beds and lifted up samples of their differing soils. They looked with awe at the contents of life spilling over his hand. He coded an additional hour of sunlight at a tertiary console so the 'sun' gave brighter 'daylight'.

The aliens watched him spread seeds, prune rotted leaves, measure and tend with metal instruments they had never seen. They watched him garden.

Oikawa relayed no questions. For now, they looked up when he talked and walked wherever he did. Moving like specters through his green. Their truce was fresh and new and his instincts continued to adjust. In some moments, they felt like quiet visitors standing or moving at a casual distance. In others their presence felt like a group of lions looking at him across a watering hole. Strange men standing on a path where he expected no one to be. But he had to approach them.

He set his jaw against that fear. Hajime held out seeds for the aliens to touch and hold. They took his offerings. He stayed still when they paused to touch his hands. He kept from flinching when they touched his shirt and pant legs and shoes.

A sideways glance revealed that Oikawa was looking at him. He'd kept a slight distance throughout this slow tour so his companions might fill the space nearest to Hajime instead. Now came directly to Hajime as though summoned by his eyes. He moved slow and languid now. As though he had no fears and no needs. As though they had time.

The sight of his approach struck Hajime with attraction so fresh and fierce it was nearly painful. An ache that brought him joy. Weak knees. Slack jaw. Warm gravity lulling him close. It was a challenge to speak through the arresting joy of looking at him, but Hajime did. He held up orange seeds in his palm.

"How do you plan to carry these?" he asked gruffly. Oikawa ignored the seeds and stared into his eyes. "You came to take Life, so you must know it can't survive the cold outside the ship. I don't know how the hell you survive the cold. I don't know what climate you're going back to or the nutrients in your soil--do you need something to transport them in?"

No answers. No fears. No acknowledgment of the urgency.

"Hey. Can you hear me or what?" Hajime pressed. His fingers curled over in a protective layer the seeds. "I'm...I'm worried my seeds will just die. If you can't understand what they need. Do your friends understand what I've been saying?"

The response took several moments. Maybe Oikawa was grumbling to himself about having to repeat his answer five times to a nearly deaf alien. Maybe seeing Hajime with no barrier between them was a joyful ache that he had to savor.

Eventually the reply manifested:

Y̴̥̾ou ̴ spe̶a̶k. Wi̶̤̎t̵h̴̬͊ clė̵̺a̵r ̴̼̈́in̶t̶ent.

S̷ô̷m̴̃et̵ime̵s̶. I̵t̴̑ h̴e̶l̶p̶s̴.̸̇. S̸o̵met̶̍i̷me̴s̵. You ̵͐only ̸̻̦́g̷̪̅͠r̴͍̒o̶̲̾ͅẉ̶̈́l̶̮̇.̶̱̚

Ṁ̴̫y̴ mate is a ̴ barbarian.

"Your wh--?"

MY--

His response was interrupted by Oikawa's tongue laving up his jaw, cheek, and temple. One hand kept him pressed close and unable to pull away if he had wanted to. He could have licked the alien right back, but the tongue made him weak. It made him smile. The sound of My. My. My. pressed against both eardrums, against neck and back and shoulders, like each vibration was a kiss.

Hajime.

Hajimeeeee.

Yeah?

He was My in Oikawa's mind. And a barbarian skilled in battle. And his mate who would live with him in green forever. And other things that he could feel. The feelings were pushed into him, like silhouettes of something he experienced. He was able to almost see them, to see himself. He was...

He was--

Yes, they had. After all the bloodshed, they really had.

"Tooru--"

The seeds were in his pocket. His hand was at the nape of Oikawa's neck pulling gently at his hair while Oikawa licked inside of his mouth. The heated tongue left his saliva there, left the mark of his territory there, left Hajime a weaker man. The teeth threatened and thrilled him. The large body demanded his hands and wanted to share their skin. They were at peace. They were new. They should have made love in the green Life around them and erased all the universe but each other. But death could take all these things away. How close did it lurk?

Hajime resisted human and alien desire just enough to separate their mouths. He needed to know more. He needed to prepare for and build a chance for a future, like any navigator would. He could. He should. He held his creature in his arms and was held in turn. The fear of letting go of that bit into him like a new poison.

This one was quick-acting, slowing his thoughts in seconds, pulling fear above thought. He could not think of what to ask. He did not want to ask.

With his lips against Oikawa's he eventually puttered out the phrase, "Hey, w-where...are you from? What's your planet called?"

There was a chastising bite on his jaw and claws pinching into his back for the crime of pulling away. But an answer slipped in gently after: Ao. Ba.

There was a slight separation in the syllables like a name and title, or surname and given one. A real name and a real place instead of a dark unknown. There were only a few seconds to pull himself together and think of some actually useful information to pry from him, before Oikawa decided to bite or play or or rip his clothes off for a third time--and there was really only one question worth asking. Fear kept this one close.

"What if your venom kills me. How long would I have to live?"

The answering vibration was soothing again, like the soft touch after admitting Tory helped him 'nest.'

Ÿ̴o̸̪̕u̶ ̶fe̸͂̒el̴ ̴̫́͂n̵o̵͑ p̵ã̷in ev̵en ̸n̶o̷w.

Yǫ̴͑ͅǔ̵ ̷̄w̷i̶ll live.

Y̵̹͐o̴ù̷ wī̷l̸l̸ ̵́c̷̃ò̸͔̠͊m̶e h̵o̶me̶̒.

"What makes you so sure? How long until we know?"

Y̴oū̶̆̂

W̶̿̅ĩ̸̘̜ll̷͐

Live.

This time the answer almost tickled, almost made him smile against his will. It felt like a pleasant tingle along the nape of his neck, and it...silenced him. The pleasant feeling lay over the nape of his own neck where his own vibrations came from. It felt like a finger held against his lips. Or a whole hand. Oikawa stared evenly at him and did not answer Hajime's series of confused, silent blinks.

Near them, Yahaba and Hanamaki stroked their fingers happily along the branches and leaves of an orange tree. Their claws only barely skimmed the fruit itself. Oikawa parted his lips and showed some teeth, distracting Hajime. It may have been a smile.

Y̴ou̵ŗ̷̉ ̵̼̎s̴̮̔a̴n̴͚̈́ctu̷a̵ry

I̶s m̷a̷g̸n̸i̸fi̴̕c̵͘ĕ̷n̸ẗ̵́. Y̵o̵ur L̷i̴fe

K̵n̶ow̴̋s̴ wa̸͗ř̴m̸͛th. G̴rơ̶w̶t̴̓h̷.̵ H̶e̷̐alth̴.

I̸͐ ̷́kn̴e̶̛͂w̵ al̸l a̸lò̷̄ng m̸ŷ̷ ̷vici̷o̵u̷̕s be̶̅ā̵s̸̒t

W̸aś̴̊ hǐ̸din̴g̸ tr̴̐e̵̓̉a̵s̸ures li̷̐k̵e ̶̉tẖ̵̾i̷s

An̴d n̵ur̶͋t̵u̸rin̶g h̴a̷̋n̷d̵͍͗s.

Hajime felt a lopsided smile growing, almost let it stay. It was a sweet compliment, and validating, and distracting. They only gave him this mercy in the first place because most spaceships were fitted with arbor rooms and he took care of his. They might not have chased after him if he hadn't, so it was humbling too.

No̵͑̓w̵͋̊ ̷͌we.̵ ̸̟̀̀Ẃ̶ȏ̸͆u̴l̴̇ď̶ ̶̛̩š̷ee̴ m̶o̷r̶͚̈e/

̶̍M̵̓͘o̴͊re̵ ̵s̴ec̴͆rè̷ts fro̴̓m ̴t̷h̶͘i̸s̶ m̵et̷a̸l v̵ess̵e̷l̸̪̓

H̴́a̴̬͠j̸͙̈́͝i̶̓̏̀i̸͇̻͂m̷̒e̵͊̂ë̶̟́̑̓ͅē̷̥̃e̴̞̾ė̷͍̿e. I h̵av̷̹͊̓e̷̛͈͂ ̷̍p̴̈̃a̶͆i̴d ma̸ny̶ ra̶i̸ns o̷f̴ ̸bloo̷d

T̷o̸ seĕ̴̉ ̶y̵̞͊ou̸̕r̵ ̸̛͖̅milli̸͎͒̈o̵n̴ ̴m̷̿y̵̟͋ster̵ì̸es.

Ś̵̙how ̶̛̳us ä̸́ll. All̵. All.

Three companions had joined them in the dappled light of the orange trees and leaned close, as though they might hear an alien secret then and there.

"You want to see alien things, huh?" Hajime muttered. Maybe that was part of why they all kept up this pursuit, too. Valuable L̷i̴fe was on his ship, but maybe the allure of discovery meant something to them too.

Tooru smiled again, showed teeth again. This smile looked larger and happier than almost any of his others.

Yes̷! ̷I ̵̙͘am fas̸ci̵nate̷͋ḏ̸͠ by̸ ̶̃ali̷ens!

Hajime should have laughed aloud at that nonsensical statement. Instead he remembered Oikawa's statement in his bedroom, that L̷i̴fe pursed Life on other planets. If there was 'green,' they would pursue--

"Aliens...plural?" he gawked instead. "You've seen other--" But he couldn't finish the question, even though he already knew the answer to it, and the three other members of the clan were still staring him in the face, and that 'hand' on the nape of his neck silenced him again. Then Hajime silenced himself.

Hanamaki, Watari and Kunimi stood surrounding him now. They had all felt his vengeful, hateful hand just last night, and dozens of times before that. The rains of blood they all suffered to be here were all Hajime's doing. If they wanted to learn his secrets more than tell theirs, if they wanted information instead of revenge, then that was more kindness than he ever deserved. It wasn't his nature to bury his head in the sand, he thought. But it wasn't his place, he feared, to question the Life that saved his.

"I'll show you anything you want to see," he said. He dipped his head as he spoke, wondering if that looked submissive. It must have come across well to Hanamaki and Watari, whose tentacles started waving a little more animatedly.

To the side, Matsukawa blinked into view a few steps away. Hajime flicked his gaze to him. If they were all gathering, he ought to project more friendliness. He ought to find ways to give to all of them, ought to figure out what 'mysteries' sentient plant men would want to know. Did they care about anything not plant-related? He reached up to pluck an orange from the tree branches above his head.

"Does Matsukawa want to hear some alien secrets, too?" Hajime asked in an attempt to project that friendliness. But 'Matsukawa' would be an alien gibberish sound to them. Hajime peeled the orange with his nails for a moment, realizing what needed explaining next.

Oikawa took a strange, swaying step closer.

K̶aw̴a̶? KAWA?

Oikawa now pointed accusingly at Matsukawa who idly combed his own hair and ignored the killing claw near his face. Hajime paused in peeling the orange with his nails and inclined his head towards the accused. "Yes, I meant him. That's what I call him. Mat-su-ka-wa."

I ̷a̶m Kawa.

I̵̅ am̵̓̕ ca̶ĺ̵͘͠led K̶̾awa?̸̝̉

Oh-ii-ka-wa? M̷ist̸a̸ke? ̴͑H̵urt̷̆t̷?̷̉̀

C̴̄onfusiŏ̶̼͐͋n̶̐ q̴ủ̶̯̉̓esss̶̋t̵͎̑o̴in̶̋ ̶

a̴̐ǹ̶̘g̷͂e̵͑r̶ ̶͘o̵c̸̺̅͠n̶̠͝f̵̫͎̆̕ṷ̶̞͊s̵̰̹̐͝i̸̯̮͐ŏ̷̭̥͘n̸̼̝̈́--̷̗͗̚

The buzzing whine of Oikawa's negative emotion was briefly, barely audible. The soft, wet tearing sound of one orange slice from the whole was smothered by it. Hajime bit into the slice immediately as though the sweet taste might help somehow. "Guess we could start there for alien secrets," he said around a mouthful of fruit. "I named all of you, and that's just the name I came up with for him. It's similar to yours, but not the same. It's just what I thought of. Sorry."

B̶͉́̈́̇̈́̇͠e̷͛͐́͘t̶̿̆̾͝r̶͆̒̔ā̶͆̆̂̓̕ỷ̴͗͊ã̸̃̀͒l. ̶̧͕͇̰̯̬̖̩̰̿̓́͊̒͛̇͜͜͝Ḃ̷e̵̲̎̃̒̀̓̈́͒̍͘͝t̶̨̘̬̜͎͒͆͌̊̓͆̓͘r̵̢̗̻̓́̍ạ̶̯̤̟͇̰͚͑̌̿̀̔͑́̍̕͜͝y̴̼͇̖͍͆̅̕ͅa̸̛͂́͑͒̍̅̀̉͊̎͝l̶̥̣͆̇̀̂̀́̈́̑̔̾̐͗̚͠.̸͈͚̹͎̑̑ͅͅ ̸̨̫̖̔̿͆̊̅͛̊̐̓̈́̂͝

Th̶e̴͖͉͂ ̸̩̌barb̷̆a̸̛ṙ̶̥͉ȉ̶̕a̶n cut̷̔͊s m̷̃e in̷ h̵͛alf, agaï̷̓n

H̵̊e ḻ̷̟͛̏ov̷͂es to ̵̞̖̓ẅ̴̗́̎o̵u̶n̷̞̩̍̈́ḋ̸ me--

"All right Whinykawa, please ask your friends if they want to hear their names, and then I'll give you something nice. Something tasty," Hajime said.

He kept chewing, despite hardly being hungry. But the idea of hunger sparked another. "You're meat-eaters, aren't you? With teeth like that, you have to be. But you don't seem interested in eating 'Life'. Are you hungry?"

The aliens watched him bite into another piece of Life and chew.

-

They were hungry for knowledge from beyond their own experience. Alien plant life, alien beings, alien mysteries. The first of the 'million mysteries' he fed them was their names. He turned to the alien who dared stand the closest.

I always called you 'Hanamaki', he said aloud, and Hanamaki seemed pleased.

He moved in a circle under the orange trees and gave them all their names aloud. Matsukawa and Watari and all. Tooru gave him their true names: I-ssei and Shin-ji and Too-ru and all. It was a warm and refreshing thing, like a bite of a new orange, to hear the names of the creatures granting him mercy. His fears were turned further away.

Hi-ro was the first and only Life to hold out his hands for an orange. He held out his hands just as Hajime had earlier that evening to receive Tory. Hajime obliged him with the same kindness. Hiro dropped orange slices into his mouth while his clan looked on with visible discomfort. Hiro-called-Hanamaki had either the palate of an adventurous tourist or a cannibal. It was not Hajime's place to question Life's desires. So when he picked a second orange for himself, he split it with Hiro.

Next, he led them all out of the arbor room in a slinking, teleporting line to the cafeteria.

The room echoed with activity for the first time in ages: curious chirps at the empty space and creatures hopping on the long tables. Hajime ignored that and strode behind the food line to the fridges. He set slab after slab of raw, Earth-farmed meat on the room's center island. The aliens stared. Their lips parted.

Hajime held out a raw steak in one hand. Issei-called-Matsukawa was again the first to take an offering from him: he teleported near, speared the whole thing onto one of his claws, then teleported behind the island again with it. He held it near his mouth. Out came a long, long tongue that wrapped, compressed and squeezed much of the meat. He swallowed the compressed hunk whole.

Meat juice ran down Matsukawa's jaw, chin, throat. He licked some of it away, let the rest drip down. He hummed. Stepped up to the huge island to spear a piece of raw pork on one claw. This time Hanamaki came near and they each tore half of it away with their teeth.

All of them now stood with their mouths open, now that the sample whet their appetite. The change was quick and animal: they attacked.

They dove for the meat, and Hajime dove back. Their tentacles reached for them or they jumped on top of the island to take it. They tore and ripped away pieces that dangled from another's jaws. They hummed, yowled, shrieked. Blood and bits of flesh splattered against the hanging pots and on the nearer walls. And on Hajime, leaning against the farthest counter because he was frozen there.

His nightmares looked much like this. They really ate like this. They had language, they understood mercy and scientific discovery and gardening. And they ate raw meat like wild dogs. Even Hanamaki, the cannibal who ate dainty orange slices, crunched bones between his teeth. A tentacle whipped the nearest wall, knocked a hanging frying pan off a hook. Hajime glanced at them first with fear, then with irritation. Thank goodness he thought to put Tory in a drawer first.

Eventually they slowed. They licked blood off the table. Akira lazily pulled a bit of a chicken breast off the ceiling. Hajime remembered he had an apple in hand, as though an avatar of edible Life might intimidate them somehow, might protect him somehow. But they hadn't looked and he hadn't taken a bite.

Oikawa vaulted the counter and landed with a hard thud in front of him. He beamed some giddy vibration that sounded like good good good goooooood eating well in your metal vessel HajimeHajime good so gooood--

Glad you like it, he muttered back while wiping his face, wondering with a trace of real seriousness what the shit he was doing with his limited lifespan.

At that moment Kindaichi crawled from around the counter, jaw still dripping. He stood up on two legs. He stepped forward and grabbed at Hajime's bicep, which wasn't half as frightening as Oikawa's face. Oikawa, out of his periphery, tried to translate a question, or a want--a want to go where stars was, want want go look in a star, to see in see out through out see see what? Huh? What? You're just humming. What the hell are you trying to say? Oh.

Hajime left the bloody stains and scraps in the kitchen. Per the creatures' request, he led them upstairs to the flight deck.

At the top of the stairs they could just glimpse the wide window that looked ahead into outer space, and occasionally at aliens.

They slowed when they neared the top of the stairway. They watched Hajime go up to the threshold of that room first and alone. He was silhouetted in that door frame, open space behind him, alien invaders below. He waited to be followed. Tooru climbed to the top of the steel stairway. Once he was at the top step, Hajime turned away from him and walked in.

Hajime walked first into a room that his hunters had never seen from this side. One-third of the flight deck's perimeter was one massive rounded window showing the dark of space ahead and above. The back two-thirds was dedicated to operations: screens, consoles, projectors, equipment racks. Near the back wall was a tall console where a co-pilot was meant to sit. In the center of the room was the larger pilot's chair, from which Hajime fired almost all of his weapons. The creatures watched him go to his place and take his seat.

For a time the only sound in the room was the clicking of a keyboard and console buttons that conducted a spacefaring vessel's usual business: status of the ship's engine and mechanicals, the day's coordinates, gravitational fields of far-off dead planets and smaller bodies in space. Another day at the helm.

Eventually heavier, slower clicks of alien talons sounded in the air alongside the console's keyboard. L̷i̴fe invaded the flight deck and his periphery slowly.

The creatures looked at electronic consoles and computer monitors which were exotic technology to them. A monitor tracking clean airflow in the HVAC system blinked twice; Yuu-taro jolted slightly back. A table near the far wall projected a blocky, three-dimensional image of the solar systems ahead; Hi-ro stopped to watch it rotate. They looked out his huge window and at his control chair and the open paths between consoles that used to know only one set of footsteps. It was a never-before-seen perspective, and never-before-touched alien objects.

Hajime closed his charting screen and chose to sit with his arms crossed while he watched them. After a time they had all meandered to the front of the room. The invaders looked out into space together. Shivering, claws flexing, holding each other's shoulders. They must have been talking, vibrating together; only snatches of it was audible to the human ears in the room. No words, but their awe was palpable in the air.

Some of them turned around to meet his eyes instead. While looking, Hajime blinked as any man would, and within one blink Tooru disappeared.

The space between Akir-a and Hi-ro was empty. In outer space beyond the window, Oikawa floated.

They became a picture of yesterday's reality: Oikawa looking down on his object of adoration as always, Hajime's fingers now hovering instinctively over the console to ready the shuttle's weapons, and refusing to blink. If he blinked, it could make itself in the room again--a law he would remember forever. Early on in this chase, Oikawa had almost managed it. He existed briefly in this room, then Hajime understood how to keep him out, and then he was back outside. He'd failed. He'd beat all of his limbs against the glass in a fury with no sound.

He pressed his hands to the glass now and salivated.

Today was a new reality. Today Hajime breathed in the changes: Oikawa did not need the blink of his closed eyes to teleport himself, but he did need Hajime did need to welcome him. He closed his eyes

Come in, he almost said aloud. Come here--

When he opened them again, Tooru was standing in the room in front of the pilot's console. Teleported. The intense cold of outer space came with him for a moment. A shudder rattled him from his neck downward while he gazed at his new mate. As though he might disappear in a blink.

I̷̭̦̒̑w̷̓aị̵̡͛ẑ̷͓z̴̅̇̾z̸̆uimiHajim̶̌ě̶͐͑́e̸̐̐̐͝e̴̛̓.̸̧͚̓̏̊̕

Iwaizz̴̲̀̿z̷̆̋̎̾u̸̱̾͆̈́miHajime̴ee

̵̥͛̔̽Wh̴̢̼͚̋a̸͐͗t̸̓̊̕ ̶̀͆̄a̶̋̎rey̷̘̓͋̾͠o̸̒̾͠ủ̵͐?̵͎̬̑

Iwaizumi Hajime was disarmed by his captor yet again. Where he half-expected to be yanked forward and fucked on the flight deck floor, instead all that came was a strange pulling sensation on his mind. His arms were crossed. His heart beating a little too fast. Mouth still closed. What am I? My species? What are you asking?

W̴͍͑̅̾h̵̘̊̊a̸̡͚̎͂̉t̴͓̥̜̆ ̴̦͈͛͝â̸̙̓r̵͕̉͘̚ͅe̴̞̓͐ ̷̛͍̅͌y̸̞̠͆̊̃o̴̭̘̓u.
What a̵͔͐̑re you̸?
What?Are?You?--

--was the meaning and the meaning was feelings and not actually words maybe Oikawa did not naturally think in words but Hajime's mind only tried to translate him into words.

The meaning was a question of self and past and future. The meaning was an image of Hajime not from his own mind but Tooru's, a view from outside his shuttle where the aliens often looked in, a view of his angered face a view of his hands typing attack commands on this very console and Tooru imagining these hands on his body and Tooru imagining a soldier killing the creatures that invaded Earth to eat it even though it was fruitless. His question was a feeling of what he perceived Hajime as against what he really was.

It was all in a vibration. It penetrated his spine and felt along it, as though his answers and his thoughts and his million mysteries were there waiting to be touched. All the pictures and all the feelings said what are you called, if not a soldier?

Hajime knew the mystery that Tooru was asking. He answered in their way, the way Tooru showed him images of himself earlier: Navigator.

It was all in another vibration. It was not as strong as one of their species would communicate, but it was felt. In one sound, he projected the color and misery of his years on Earth.

He sounded:

the shape of his schools and cramped homes,

running through a riot to make it to the cadet schools' interhigh championships,

the polluted places and the clean,

the trees he climbed the rockets he saw launched,

the rockets he put together with his own gloved hands,

the Travelers visible in orbit at sunset,

the familiarity of sweat the breeze on the Pacific coast where he stood alone.

That sound of his life was what the alien sought all along. He felt not just the silhouette of Hajime's experience but its real shape, the real colors and the real sounds. A soft shiver rattled Tooru's head and shoulders as the echo of a Pacific breeze touched him.

A million mysteries were answered. The room had to wait for him to be able to speak again.

Eventually he managed a vibration stating: ...Say this meaning in your way.

Hajime knew for certain the full wave of his sound was understood and the word in his own tongue conveyed less. But he obeyed. Hajime raised his head and replied aloud, "Navigator. I'm a navigator."

Oikawa hummed as he absorbed this word in his tongue and a human's rougher speech. He vibrated the sound back to his companions who stood nearby, as though to tell his friends what Hajime really was. But the other aliens were already looking at him.

Eventually their relayed questions returned to fill the silence. They asked to see some of the weapons he'd fired at them. Hajime tapped his fingers on his arm and contemplated if showing weapons was a good idea or not. But in the name of diplomacy and inter-species relations, he fired some lasers. Some teleported back to the stairs in instinctive fear, some stood still, some seemed to enjoy it.

Hajime shot some trash cans out of an airlock. He burned them to a crisp with a tertiary engine thruster and cut the remains with wires like a cheese wheel. Now that some of the grim seriousness was behind them, the aliens felt little fear in asking pointing their claws at human stuff and asking a hundred times via Oikawa what is this, what is it for.

So, solar panels are--a computer is--a protein bar is--this shuttle is--don't fucking touch that!--electrical wiring is made of--

Why do you need so many Computer. Explain what is the meaning: farm-uh-soo-tih-kull praw-duckts. How many Steel Alloy make a Spaceship. Why was your globe warming. How does an en-jin work.

Their line of questioning went on--and ended up mostly divided between their beloved plant life and 'alien' sciences they had no familiarity with: electronics, computers, spaceship construction, urban transportation. For now at least, these were the otherworldly secrets they were most curious about: Not the fall of planet Earth or the decades of dread before it. Not the final day when Earth became hell and then became nothing. Not the death of him, but the life of what he once was. They asked about things he could share without pain.

In the center of the room in front of the pilot's chair, Hajime projected images of Earth, Tokyo streets, a sports venue, a beach.

While walking around the room he looked through the massive rotating projection of Earth at Tooru, staring back at him, again. The great mercy of him stole Hajime's breath, again. He felt alive. He felt he was in a dream. The serpents were all here, surrounding him, and he was nothing but grateful. Sometimes the tentacles of Life would sweep gently past his legs or shoulder, for their fear of him had calmed.

Midnight passed on the flight deck, in its mimicry of Tokyo time. Another day at the helm, another day of navigational business. Today was the first day on the ship that Hajime did not spend alone.

-

Today.

Today again.

Then came the third Today--a blessing, a surreal dream and the endpoint of outer space. On the third day after making contact, Hajime stopped charting his daily location in space.

He saw to ship maintenance and let the aliens watch him turn screws and change oil, but he did not mark or control the ship's course. Shuttle 4 flew blind. He floated above fear and consequence and regret and he did not care. Tooru had sex with him anywhere and everywhere. He enjoyed time with his new alien friends. Sometimes he laughed.

Yuutarou fell off the back of a moving treadmill again while Akira kept easily walking on his. It looked so much like an ancient cartoon that he could not fight the laugh.

If he laughed, Tooru would usually grab him with two or five limbs and breathe a hard puff of air into his neck or cheek, because he thought he was answering.

Although the L̷i̴fe gave little information about themselves, their natural behavior was on display in this new shared environment, and Hajime could finally observe them without fear or needing to keep himself from blinking. L̷i̴fe liked to clack their long fingers against their palms when they were paying attention or counting. They drank through their skin and were averse to eating plants (mostly). Teleportation remained a mystery. Although he never witnessed them inhaling, they did exhale. Issei and Hiro exhaled against each other, and Tooru exhaled against him. Breathing was sensual and loving, and a large breath or sigh through the mouth was a gift. Tooru gave him gifts each day.

Hajime gave affection back happily, sometimes desperately. In welcoming the aliens he awoke as human again: he socialized, he touched, he shared. He lived.

On the first day after their true introduction--he shared his gym, a favorite place, where the Life played with the equipment more than 'used' it. He shared more of his food and cooked the aliens omelets and beef stew and Tooru ate all his damn bread. He shared his theater room, watched them crawl like bugs into the large seats and teleport out of them seconds after he started a movie. They understood the ship's cameras saw things in real time and believed the movie screen must also be 'seeing' something real. He assured them again it was not real, it was a fake story created for amusement and to sit the fuck down and watch Godzilla with him.

He let the alien shower with him again. He let it hold him in bed. He felt the same reverence it felt as its palms and fingers curved and traced the shape of him, as they had always wanted. It loved the shape of him.

On the second day after their true introduction--they stayed mostly in the arbor room, where the Life most wanted to be. They sat under and around greenery like its touch sustained them. It was a soothing spa treatment, it was a good book, it was instinctive and bodily satisfaction. The clan pushed flower stems, branches and leaves towards Hajime's skin like they expected him to get the same satisfaction out of it.

He sat by a console and remotely moved the lamps on the ceiling, so the Life watched him move sunlight. He turned on the irrigation system and they watched the plants be watered. They slipped into pools and ponds, sunned themselves, relaxed utterly around him.

Am I actually going to leave? Hajime asked himself.

He sat in the garden with them, on the edge of tranquility. But there was a tiny prick of fear biting him, sticking its venomous little fangs into him. Somewhere. Maybe from his left hand, fearfully clutching the alien-and-human regrown fingers of his right. But I live here.

Where was this going? Where had his mind already gone? Discovering what the alien venom was doing to him was a march to the medical room away, just an x-ray away. He could see it, shout in horror, and then prepare. Something. Take action in the face of death instead of wallowing in passivity, which went against all navigator protocol. He was such a fool to not try. To not even look. He looked to his savior instead for hope.

Please, he said with a feeling, and I am here, said Tooru with his presence.

He was suddenly there under the trees with him, teleported. The presence of him was the tranquility Hajime needed. The poisonous bite of fear and consequence were dismissed.

Hajime reached a hand up to him and said aloud, "Sit next to me a while."

A hand larger than his wrapped around all his fingers. Alien tentacles reached down and wrapped around his arm like snakes. A few days ago he would have screamed. Now his mind and heart were floating. He could only think how much he admired the creature for never relenting in its goal of touching him. They met eyes; he saw the creature respected him in turn. How would he look in the light of a different planet's sun?

"Take me home," Hajime said.

He felt his creature's pride to hear that. It responded in turn, but no words came through. Only a sure feeling like a wall, pressing hard, pressing in--or up. The response lifted him up. Up into a cloud where now his body floated, too. Hajime floated in nausea and soft dreams.

False afternoon changed to false sunset sometime when Hajime wasn't looking. The sunlamps' slow, programmed movement stretched the shadows in the room. The aliens hovered near and spoke; he heard little of it. He turned his head gently into Tooru's shoulder. He gave a sigh into that cool skin. He raised his head slightly and came closer, exhaled into the hollow between shoulder and neck. Kissed his creature's neck. Breathed for him again. again. Hajime hadn't breathed for hours. He only wanted to breathe for his lover and his love. That was the true poison that made him a fool, that changed him so.

He gave Tooru the gift of his breath: Do you understand? Do you understand?

He took it greedily: I do.

And so.

On that second day Hajime felt

bound even tighter to his captor and

savior needed him even more needed to show

him what this meant what he felt when he looked

on the monster that cut and changed him they lay in the

grass feeling each other for the endless false evening entangled

breathing into the other's skin tasting pleasure like it was still a new

marvel that they could touch each other now it seemed unreal time was unreal

the false evening was true night as Hajime lost his sense of time lost his fear and

gripped tooru's shoulders as he thrust himself down onto his cock where he belonged

gasping i love you i love you i love you do you understand are you hearing me I share your

same dreams I want to live in green with you forever I want to hold you forever I wont fucking let go of you--

They slept in the arbor room.

-

On the third day after their true introduction--they all moved as one.

A solar panel was struck by an asteroid fragment and needed replacement. Per protocol, Hajime donned a spacesuit.

The L̷i̴fe watched him pull on and latch its pieces together. They watched him latch the helmet into place over the now-dirty white of the body. He closed the airlock door behind them and opened the door that separated the ship's interior from outer space. The cold came immediately; the end of gravity came immediately. Hajime floated out the door. He let the aliens flow outside.

He needed airjets on the suit to move, they moved themselves by some gas or magnetism or alien magic he still wasn't privy to. They all moved together along the curve of the ship's hull towards the topside where the solar arrays sat. Issei loosely towed the replacement panel in one tentacle, a flat steel surface nearly the size of his body. The airjets sent him just slightly over the top of the ship, slightly above the flat tops of the solar panels, but Akira and Tooru's arms grabbed at him and held him fast so there was no need to jet himself down.

Hajime reached for the toolkit tied to his thigh and set to undoing the broken panel from its slot. The L̷i̴fe watched him. Sometimes their tentacles brushed his suit. Connection through touch was the only way their vibrations would be audible out here, though he heard no conversation. But the quiet was easy and companionable. The infinite dark was above them and all around them, as ever, into forever. But they were together.

The L̷i̴fe lingered after the panel was set, floating merrily through the arrays like fish through kelp. They had done it so many times before.

Today Hajime did not chart the ship's location, or the stars ahead. Most stars in detectable range were new and undocumented, never seen by any living creature. That was true for most of them. Today he wanted to look forward to new stars with Tooru. He wanted to put his arm around his shoulders like his partner, and like his friend, too. What mattered most in that moment was to be next to him.

He was about to raise his arm to make that real when Tooru unclipped the ring holding him to the ship's hull and pushed him. He herded Hajime gently down towards the door they'd all exited from so he would be inside and safe. No words or vibration came through the spots where they touched, but that truth was felt somehow anyway. The others began to follow.

Once the airlock was secure, Hajime unlatched his helmet and scratched at an itch on his face. He scratched at one of his legs, too. There was a floaty, half-heard rumble from Tooru that implied that Yuutarou wanted to try on his Face Shield and wondered if this was acceptable. Hajime said in a floaty way back to him that this suit needed to be cleaned, and there was one in better condition, and taller, too, that Yuutarou could try. It was in the lower deck engine room, let's head down there. Hah, I should take a picture of you wearing it, I wonder if I can take that with me.

They knew the way now. They flowed up the three little steps leading to the attached hallway and turned left immediately. Some walked, others sprinted off on all fours and thrummed their excitement. Hajime locked the helmet into its rack on the wall, now stripped down to some gym clothes.

He went up the steps last of all, saying in their way You're all gonna make ME chase YOU?

And he started to. His fitness regimen from Earth remained firm. He could have broken into an immediate sprint any day. But not today.

He made the turn and started to run--started--collapsed for some reason. His leg skidded out from under him and then his chest hit the floor. Then his arms did. One leg flew up into the air before it thumped against the floor too.

The other leg did not fly up, did not move. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt enough to part his jaw for him and spur him to shout in pain before he understood why. He had to push himself up and around with his hands, shaking, to see and understand why.

The right leg that he'd pivoted on to make a left turn had opened like a piece of crushed meat. Hajime looked into the top of his own knee joint and tibia that had pushed up through the skin and burst out. They weren't the off-white of bone but smothered green and black like a mold had grown from within. The mold was in his flesh, it colored his muscle tissue and grew through it like spiderwebs. The venom's infection had suffused flesh and bone with the colors of disease. His leg had collapsed like it was rotting. It was rotting.

"No! NOOO!" he shouted like a man at a loss, and then he wailed like an animal, then he reached for a knife to cut away the dead weight per protocol, but there was no knife. Then Tooru and Issei were there.

They smothered him, surrounded him with tentacles, pulled him away. His leg pulled away too. It separated from the underside of his left thigh with a pluck of pulled flesh that almost punched Hajime into unconsciousness. The ugly limb flopped to the floor without the rest of him. Hajime kept screaming.

Tooru vibrated something, but Hajime heard nothing even as his own screams wavered for lack of breath. He moaned instead, shook in pain. "Pick it up, pick it up," he started to say, so it could be reattached. But neither of them picked up his detached, burst-open leg. It stayed on the tiled floor like a prop, like nothing.

The other L̷i̴fe teleported near. Their bodies and legs blocked it from view. He remembered something of his new nonviolent protocol, then forgot it. He wanted to hurt them for ignoring his leg. He wanted to hurt Issei, who was helping to lift Hajime more securely into Tooru's arms and push them both away. He wanted to bash his own head into a wall for not realizing something horrible like this was coming, for burying his head in the sand like a spineless fucking rat. As though alien venom might do its work peacefully.

Tooru ran ungainly down the hall, like he wasn't using to moving this way, like a man weighed down with a body. Why didn't he teleport them wherever he was fleeing? Did he know? Did he know? Did he know? Did he know!? Was it a matter of if or when?

It was a matter of regrowing his leg, Hajime realized as he hyperventilated in the alien's grip. He initiated a calm-breathing protocol, much too late, and tried to yank the edge of his shirt to make a cloth tourniquet, but he was much too weak. He blinked at his ineffective hands in confusion, maybe shame.

You

will

live,

Sounded in Hajime's neck and his whole left side, held against Tooru's front. The huge spread of that feeling-speech felt strange. Felt quiet. It didn't carry his creature's usual airy and vivacious manner. As though it wavered for lack of breath, too. As if he was in shock, too.

"Are you sure? Are you sure?" he asked in between his practiced breaths.

There was an attempted tingling sensation on the back of his neck. It did not feel like an answer.

Tooru ran towards the arbor room.

-