“Oh, the island has an airport.”
Sergey flipped down the corner of his newspaper and stared across the table at Sasha.
Wordlessly, Sasha held out his phone, showing the tiny island Sergey had chosen, and the pin drop for the airport.
Sergey squinted. He zoomed in on Sasha’s screen, then zoomed in some more. Squinted again. “That is not an airport,” he said. “That is an air strip. A piece of asphalt spread out on a beach.”
“It’s got a clean approach, and the runway is in very good shape—”
“We are not flying to the island.”
Sasha frowned.
“I have already chartered a boat.” He flipped the corner of his paper back up and continued reading.
“Flying would be faster,” Sasha said, almost sotto voce.
Sergey snapped the corner of his paper down again and glared.
Wide-eyed, with an oh-so-innocent look on his trying-to-be-angelic face, Sasha stared back, sipping his latte as a milk mustache collected on his upper lip. “I am merely saying,” he said, milk foam still clinging to him. “Would be faster is all.”
“We are taking a boat. And that is that.”
Sighing, Sasha sat back and crossed his legs, people watching from their table on the cafe’s patio. They were in Bakewell, England, on Jack and Ethan’s suggestion, stopping for a coffee and dessert in the village’s quaint old town.
They hadn’t known where to go after leaving China, not at first. Colonel Song had given them free use of the plane and told them to go anywhere they wanted, but where was that? Russia was out. Houston… Sasha wasn’t ready to go back. Mark had called when he was back in the US and said he would clear out Sasha’s apartment and hold everything for him as long as he wanted. He had the free time. NASA had put Mark on indefinite medical leave while their doctors studied him all the way down to his molecules. Sasha, too, had received an email from NASA: indefinite medical leave, effective immediately. And please report to NASA medical.
Sasha hadn’t said anything about the email. He’d simply deleted it. Sergey hadn’t asked.
In the end, in the whole world, there were only two people Sergey could think to call.
He called the second: Jack.
He’d been surprised, though, when Jack told him to fly to England. He’d imagined him and Sasha settling into DC, perhaps, though how he could keep Sasha out of NASA’s hands once they were in America, he hadn’t quite figured out. But no, Jack was in England, and was waiting with Ethan at the end of the runway at the East Midlands airport when he, Sasha, and Ilya clambered out of the plane.
That first night, they’d stayed up drinking whiskey until dawn, Ethan and Sasha passing out on the couches beside him and Jack after midnight while they talked the hours away.
“Just like old times,” Jack had said, nodding to Sasha, limp and lying with his cheek on Sergey’s shoulder.
“And to you.” Ethan had his head pillowed in Jack’s lap, and Jack had his fingers threaded through Ethan’s hair.
“Sergey,” Jack said, holding out his glass. “You have my support, and you have my friendship. Always.”
It was an echo of the promise Sergey had made to Jack back when they thought their problems were only grumbles in the media and political attacks. He clinked his glass with Jack’s and sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know what to do now. Where do we go from here… Where do we even live? What do we do? How do I take care of him? I have never been unemployed.”
Jack was silent a moment too long. And then his response was a little too quick. “I’m sure we could make room for you here.”
Sergey had nearly snorted whiskey out his nose. He’d coughed hard, fighting the whiskey that tried to slide into his lungs. “Jack… hasn’t the world had enough of us? We are the Thelma and Louise of international politics!”
“It would be great to work with you again.” Jack had that faraway look in his eyes. “We were good together. Right?”
“I thought we were. I thought we could have changed the world.” Another sip. “That is why I picked you.”
It was Jack’s turn to laugh. “Picked me?”
“In Prague. I picked you. To be my sidekick.” He’d winked and couldn’t hold in his grin as Jack tipped his head back and kept laughing.
“My offer stands. You and Sasha will always be welcome here.”
“Thank you. There is something we must do first, though. Before anything else.”
“Oh?”
He’d smiled and brushed a stray lock of blond hair off Sasha’s forehead. “Tell me, where are the best beaches in the world? Preferably somewhere without people?”
He put the whole thing together the next day. It all fell perfectly into place as soon as he’d found the right island. Private, isolated, and as far away as far could go. Gorgeous, more perfect even than he could almost believe. Those kinds of places didn’t really exist, did they? Apparently they did.
So, after only two days in England, they were leaving again tomorrow. To Sasha’s credit, he rolled with Sergey’s sudden insistence that they must go shopping immediately for new clothes. His suspicion grew when they started looking at shorts and tank tops and swimming suits, and he’d finally stared Sergey down and refused to move another inch when he said they needed to look at luggage.
“We are having a vacation,” he finally said, testing the wheels on a hip-high monstrously huge black suitcase. “We are finally having a vacation together. Really together, just you and me and nothing else.”
Of course, then Sasha wanted to know everything, and Sergey had to give him all the details right there in the mall, pinch zooming photos of the beaches and reading off their itinerary. England to George Town, in the Exumas in the out islands of the Bahamas. From there they would make their way to the speck of sand and sparkling water called Little Farmers Cay, where he had rented a cabana on an uninterrupted stretch of pristine white sand. Other than sailors who moored in the shallow anchorage and the fifty people who lived on the island, it was an untouched paradise.
Sasha had opinions about the trip. Truthfully, some were helpful. He was right, they shouldn’t bring a suitcase. How would they wheel it across the sand? Duffels for each, since they were easier to carry. At least he agreed they didn’t need to bring many clothes. If Sergey had his way, they wouldn’t be wearing much anyway.
He’d disappeared for an hour while Sergey was distracted by watches, and then reappeared almost out of breath. Then they’d decided to stop for coffee and dessert before heading back to Jack and Ethan’s sprawling estate.
And Sasha wouldn’t stop looking up information on the island.
It was cute, at first. He was excited, in his own quiet way. He wanted to show Sergey the sea turtles and the starfish, the stingrays that he’d never seen before, and the swimming pigs. But then he found the airstrip.
If it was up to Sergey, they would have taken a boat from England to the Bahamas, but apparently that was overkill. He’d looked. There wasn’t regular service via cruise line, and if they paid for passage on a cargo ship, the voyage would take an eternity. He grit his teeth and paid for the airline tickets.
But there was no way Sasha was going to fly them, not in a single propeller plane smaller than a Lada, to what was supposed to be their relaxing, carefree island paradise. He would stroke out before they got there and the whole trip would be pointless… if Sasha didn’t crash them first.
“What kind of boat?” Sasha finally asked.
He folded his paper and tossed it on the table. “I chartered a fishing boat out of George Town. The captain will meet us at the dock when we arrive and take us straight there.” He ran his hand through the air, miming their trip over the flat waters. “I love you, so much, but your flight school gave you the right call sign, Likho.”
Likho: Russian for Bad Luck.
He chuckled as Sasha’s wide-eyed fake innocence turned into the quiet pout of defeat. He grabbed Sasha’s hand across the table, rubbing his thumb over the wedding band he’d slid on Sasha’s finger while he was clinging to life in Inner Mongolia. Sasha had never taken it off.
Sasha tangled their fingers together and finally gave him a small smile. “I’m glad we’re going.”
“Me too. Remind me to pack sunscreen.”
Crystal water refracted the afternoon sun into a million shades of blue and turquoise and jade. They could see all the way to the ocean floor, coming closer and falling away beneath the boat as the shallows rose and fell. Here, a sandbar barely two feet beneath their boat. There, a sapphire abyss, the plunge of the ocean floor vanishing away. Conch shells littered the sand like glitter and waves of ocean grass swayed beneath the currents.
Sasha had looked a little green as they pulled away from the dock, but within minutes, he was side by side with Sergey, watching sights underwater Sergey would have sworn on his life couldn’t exist in the real world.
A stingray ruffled by them, humming in the shallows. Sasha pointed, some noise of exclamation and wonder exploding out of him as if he were a little boy and not a grown man.
It was worth it, all of it, for the smile on Sasha’s face, right that moment. He wrapped his arms around Sasha’s waist and pressed his face to the back of Sasha’s neck, kissing him.
Little Farmers Cay was a spit of an island, one in a long, flat chain of volcanic rock and coral reefs rising from the waves. They were sandbars that had turned into islands and had captured perfect pools of unspoiled ocean in half-moon cays and gentle inlets. Beyond their sandbar island, Exuma Sound plunged between Farmers Cay and Cat Island, and beyond that, there was only the empty, open Atlantic Ocean. It felt like they were on the edge of the world, looking out into the vast distance of nothing.
But not like up there. He squeezed Sasha tight and kissed his neck again. Sasha was back. He was here, on Earth. And they would never be separated again. He would never feel that aching, crushing, utter hopelessness he’d felt when Sasha had been stranded in orbit, cut off from the entire planet.
“Look, there’s the airport.” Sasha pointed.
The ribbon of concrete, barely wider than Sergey was tall, unfurled along the beach, mere feet from the waves. He watched as one wave broke on the unspoiled sand and splashed over the runway. It wasn’t long—only minuscule planes could land or take off—and it ran from one end of the island to the other, each end of the runway pointing to the waves. There was no second chance if a pilot miscalculated. A flat patch of concrete, a couple lawn chairs, and an umbrella huddled together on the far end. An old man sat under the umbrella with binoculars and a radio.
He pulled his sunglasses down and stared at Sasha.
Sasha chuckled. He leaned back against the railing as the captain slowed the engine and brought them around the coral and rock that upheld the far end of the runway and toward the single pier on the island. “I would argue that I actually have very good luck. I am still here.” Sasha sounded inordinately pleased with himself.
“You are a cat with nine lives, but you might be working on credit now. My job is to make sure there’s no opportunity for the universe to collect on any of those extra lives you have found.”
“Me? What about you?”
“Experience.” He slid his sunglasses back up. “And a healthy dose of conspiracy has kept me alive.”
“Bodyguards have helped, too.”
And then they were there, docked on the handmade wooden pier. They thanked the captain, who was already ambling up the island to the cabana that multi-tasked as the restaurant, police station, city hall, radio shack, cabana rental outfit, and yacht club.
They could see the entire island, end to end, and the crashing waves on the opposite shore. Palm bushes and sand grass covered a gentle hill, and spots of brilliant flowers were the only other bursts of vivid color amid the dominating palette of sand, sky, and ocean. Scattered, and with a healthy distance between them, were a handful of cabanas, beach shacks built on the sand almost at the surfs edge.
“I think there were more people on the ISS when I got there,” Sasha said softly. He snaked his hand into Sergey’s, squeezing.
There wasn’t an ISS anymore, and all those people who had been there were now atoms in orbit, blowing on the solar winds. They were people who had been Sasha’s friends, and people he’d had to kill or leave behind.
Sergey didn’t know how to talk to him about what had happened up there. He had his own version of events, the monstrous, static-filled horror show that came over the radio, and the nightmares that had filled in the gaps in his mind. But he hadn’t lived it. Hadn’t had to watch his friends go mad, or make a choice on who to save and who to kill. He hadn’t had to endure the isolation, the madness, the slow suffocation, or the terror of being abandoned by the entire world. He hadn’t had to fling himself out of the only safe harbor in orbit and strand himself in the stars. Sergey could only listen from a million miles away as the love of his life had clung to survival.
He knew Sasha wasn’t sleeping through the night. He knew because the way Sasha got back to sleep was to wake Sergey and fuck him through the mattress. He fucked Sergey every night before they went to sleep, and again if he woke from a nightmare… nearly every night.
He’d never had more sex in his life, ever, and while he wasn’t complaining, he also recognized what it was: Sasha was running again. Running from his memories.
At least he was running to Sergey this time.
Small mercies.
“We are in the blue cabana.” He pointed, and they set off, sliding out of their shoes and hiking over the powder-white sand, the grains so fine they were as soft as silk against his skin. The wind was gentle, wrapping the island in a breezy caress. “Good call on the duffels.” Sasha smiled.
The cabana was rustic, salt-sprayed and wind-worn, but it had a bed for two, a private bathroom, an outdoor kitchen—a cooler with ice instead of an electric fridge—and the front porch was the sand and ocean. Someone had dug a fire pit on the beach. Ashes filled the bottom, the remains of charcoal and driftwood.
He stood on the sand, watching the waves crash and roll into the shore, an endless, mesmerizing hypnosis. His toes wiggled in the powder as salt spray dusted his face.
Sasha pulled his duffel off his shoulder from behind and tossed it to the side. His hands slid under Sergey’s shirt and traced up his ribs, then wrapped around to his chest. Lips landed on his neck behind his ear.
“You’re overdressed,” Sasha whispered. “Let me help you.”
He let Sasha strip him as he closed his eyes, Sasha’s hands trailing over his skin like the ocean breeze. He smiled as Sasha guided him into the cabana and over to the bed. He finally opened his eyes as he fell back, landing on the mattress as Sasha—now naked—climbed on top of him, straddling him.
They kissed slowly, Sasha holding his face in both of his hands until he sat up and wrapped his arms around Sasha’s waist and drew him close, burying his face in Sasha’s firm stomach. Sasha’s chest rose and fell, and he could hear the echo of his heartbeat like he was listening to the ocean crash in a seashell.
Sasha groaned as Sergey kissed his way lower and took his cock into his mouth, twirling his tongue around the head before sliding halfway down his erection. He held Sasha’s hips as he sucked, his thumb brushing over the bear tattoo on Sasha’s hip.
He took his time, letting the feel of Sasha fill his mouth, his throat. Sasha rarely let him suck him off. Usually he was the one taking charge and blowing Sergey, or spreading his legs and rimming him until Sergey was desperate and wild. It wasn’t often Sasha let himself simply receive Sergey’s love.
Sasha’s hands slid into Sergey’s hair, and he gripped his skull. It was faint, but it was there—slight pressure to guide him, faster, harder, as he sucked Sasha’s cock. Sergey groaned. He loved it when Sasha let go, when he let his passions run free.
He obliged, loosening his jaw as he sucked Sasha all the way to the base until his nose was buried in Sasha’s crotch. Sasha gasped, grasped his head, tried to pull him closer and pumped his hips as his cock slid in and out of Sergey’s throat. Sergey’s tongue laved against Sasha’s shaft as Sasha jerked, trembled, and groaned his name.
Finally, Sasha pulled back, doubling over as he drew in a ragged breath. Sergey, too, coughed, breathing deep. He reached for Sasha again—
Sasha tackled him to the mattress, pinning his hands hard to the mattress over his head as he moved between Sergey’s thighs. His hips—his cock—pulsed against Sergey’s erection, hot and hard between their bellies.
As forceful as Sasha was covering him, his kiss was tender, almost shy. He threaded their fingers together and stared into Sergey’s eyes as he rubbed their noses. His lips teased at Sergey’s, warm and soft, with barely-there kisses that had Sergey straining for more. He arched against Sasha’s hold, trying to chase his touch.
Sasha slid down, following the line of Sergey’s body. His hands caressed down Sergey’s arms, his shoulders, his chest, and down to his hips, finally catching up with Sasha when he—
Sergey threw his head back. He would never get used to this, ever. Never get used to the feel of Sasha’s mouth on him, the hot, wet suction, and the fire burning within Sasha as he swallowed Sergey’s cock whole. Sasha didn’t just blow Sergey because Sergey loved the feel of his mouth. He blew Sergey because he craved him—every part of him, and especially his cock, and especially inside of his mouth—and because he loved it.
As a side benefit, he loved it when Sergey screamed, too. And so did Sergey.
Sergey shivered, from his head to his toes, as Sasha’s tongue did wicked things while he swallowed around Sergey’s cock. His back came off the mattress and he clenched his thighs around Sasha’s head.
Sasha wasn’t having that. He grasped Sergey’s thighs and spread them wide, sucking from root to tip in long, never-ending sucks, and then pushed his legs back, folding Sergey in two and exposing his ass.
And then he dove in again.
Sergey screamed, before shoving a fist in his mouth as he squeezed his eyes closed.
Sasha fucked him with his tongue, holding his ass open as he rimmed Sergey until Sergey was soaked with his spit, and quivering beneath his mouth. He could barely breathe, not with what Sasha was doing to him, and he fisted the cotton blanket as he tried to hold back another shout. Between his legs, Sasha moaned as he lapped at his ass, and then went back to his cock and sucked him deep until Sergey’s eyes rolled to the back of his head.
“Sasha,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Sasha, please… Fuck me.”
Sasha rose and pinned him again, hard, hands threaded with Sergey’s, hips finding Sergey’s and thrusting as he kissed Sergey like he was stealing oxygen from Sergey’s own lungs. God, he’d give it up gladly to Sasha, anything, to keep this love alive.
Sasha’s thrusts shifted, and he lined up his cock between Sergey’s asscheeks. The head of his cock rubbed over Sergey’s asshole, once, twice, a third time. Sergey’s breath stuttered as Sasha stared into his eyes.
He pushed, and his cock slid inside Sergey. Sergey’s eyes went wide, but he held Sasha’s stare, his blood boiling in the searing heat of Sasha’s unblinking gaze. Sasha never stopped, or slowed. He slid all the way in, a steady press, until his thighs were up against Sergey’s ass and his cock was buried as deep as he could be.
He waited, kissing Sergey softly again, those slow, sensuous kisses that undid Sergey’s sanity. Every part of Sergey trembled, and desperate pants broke against Sasha’s cheeks as his body adjusted to the hard cock filling him. Pressure, so much pressure, and that stretch, that perfect burn—
Sasha thrust into him, little by little and still kissing Sergey breathless, until he was pulling nearly all the way out and then sliding back in, every hard inch going so deep inside him. Sergey clung to him, feeling every vein and the ridge around the head of his cock moving in his ass as Sasha fucked him. They moved like waves, bodies sliding, hips coming apart and then together, arms wrapping around shoulders and hands stroking through hair.
His own cock pressed against Sasha’s stomach, sandwiched between them, smearing precum across their skin. The pleasure was electric, a frisson that lapped under his skin, spreading from his ass and his cock to every part of him. It built in waves, in time with the sound of the sea and the wind, his entire world reduced to this island, this cabana, this bed, this man in his arms and inside his body.
Sergey grabbed Sasha’s head, cradled his face, brought his lips to his own and kissed him. Sasha’s hands, next to his head and holding him up, fisted the sheet, and his arms quivered as he moaned into Sergey’s kiss. His thrusts sped up, deeper, harder, more of him trying to combine with Sergey.
“I love you,” Sergey whispered, more a breathless pant pushed out of him as Sasha fucked him. He groaned, his vision going white-hot, and kissed Sasha again. Sasha had brought him right to the edge, but he didn’t want to go over, not yet. Not without Sasha. “I love you… I’ll love you forever…”
With a cry, Sasha came, thrusting into him and roaring, his cock pulsing as wet heat filled Sergey. Sasha’s orgasm slammed into Sergey—the push, the heat, the thrust of his body and soul trying to reach into Sergey’s—and he echoed Sasha’s cry with his own as his body went rigid and his back arched and his eyes whited out and he came, and he came, and he came, seizing around Sasha as Sasha buried his face in Sergey’s neck while Sergey’s ass milked his cock through his orgasm.
“…is only our beginning,” Sasha whispered, kissing Sergey’s ear. It was the first thing Sergey heard, after the roar of his own heart faded. The world came back—the ocean swell, the breaking surf. The cry of a sea bird and the sway of palm fronds on the warm wind.
He smoothed Sasha’s sweat-slick hair back from his forehead. They were still joined; if he could live forever in these moments, he would, and never let Sasha go. He stared into Sasha’s eyes as he felt their heartbeats thumping in the spaces where their chests were pressed together.
They swam the next day in the gentle lull of the waves on the lee side of the island. On the windward side, they only swam until they neared the darkness of the sound, neither daring to venture closer to the midnight abyss.
Instead, they moved from sandbar to sandbar in the cay, bobbing in the translucent waters together. Sasha pulled Sergey close, until he was wrapped around Sasha underwater, legs crossed behind his back, arms around his shoulders. Ocean water dripped from Sasha’s windswept hair, and his nose and cheeks were dusted with the kiss of the sun. Freckles had appeared on his almost ghostly-white chest, turning a gold and pale pink.
Eventually, they made their way to a sandbar flung far out in the middle of the emerald waters, away from the dotted cays and coral islands. From where they were, even the sailboats moored in the anchorage disappeared if they squinted. They were alone—together—in the world, with nothing but the sea and the sand and an endless sky.
Sasha stared at the sky as they lay in the sun, gentle waves running up their legs and pooling beneath their backs. Blue ran from horizon to horizon, an unbroken dome of tranquility and perfection in every direction.
Sergey propped himself on his side, elbow in the sand, head in his palm, and ran his fingers over Sasha’s stomach. There was something in the moment, something Sasha was working up to. He recognized the charge around him, an almost thickening of the air. Sasha had something to say, but he would speak in his own time.
“It’s one of the things I missed the most,” Sasha finally said. “When I was up there. The color.”
“It’s dark in space.” Well, duh. But Sasha had been orbiting the Earth in his space suit, lost in the darkness—true, absolute darkness. “And the ISS is…was…pretty sterile, if I remember? The Americans loved their white.”
A hint of a smile turned up the corners of Sasha’s lips, there and then gone, before his face shifted into a deep frown. “My first memory of the ISS was how clean it was. Almost blinding. It was so white, so full of stuff. Things packed on every bulkhead…” He waved his hand, as if trying to draw the station, and then sighed, long and slow, his ribs rising and falling beneath Sergey’s hand. “But my last memory of the ISS was soaked in blood.”
Damn it, Sergey. He swallowed, and he pressed his hand against Sasha’s side, curled his fingers into his skin. For Sasha or for himself, he didn’t know. Maybe they both needed the touch. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned the ISS—”
“I missed the color blue,” Sasha blurted out, talking over him. “Out there, it was so dark… Even before Mark and I jumped. We had lost power on the ISS. He and I were floating in the station in the black, in all of the mess… And we could hear Phillipa—” He paused. Licked his lips. “I used to wait by the window and watch the Earth turn. I would track the oceans, all the way up to the North Sea. The Baltic Sea. The Barents Sea. And then I would look down at Moscow. And at you.” A deep breath. “At least until the windows froze over and then I could see nothing.”
Sergey’s fingers dug deeper into Sasha’s skin, as if he could hold Sasha to the Earth by his will alone.
“Every time I saw the oceans, I thought of your eyes,” Sasha whispered. He took a shaking, almost shattered breath. “I didn’t realize how much I would miss you. How it would feel like I cut out my heart and left it on Earth when we launched—” He rolled on his side, facing Sergey. A wave rose between them, burbling, and then skittered away. “My whole life, I thought I’d find myself in space, but when I got there, I realized I was wrong. I found myself in you.”
Sasha cupped Sergey’s face, his large hand cradling Sergey’s whole cheek. He leaned into Sasha’s touch and closed his eyes.
“No, no,” Sasha murmured. “Open your eyes. Let me see.”
They popped open, and Sasha gazed at him, his eyes filled with wonder, the same way he used to stare up at the night sky. “That is what I missed the most. The color of your eyes when you look at me like this. When you love me.”
Sergey let his eyes do the talking, pouring his love into his gaze as he pulled Sasha into his arms. They kissed, each tangle of lips and tongue lasting what felt like a lifetime as the waves rose and fell around them.
They were all alone, and there was no one to see when Sasha moved down his body, kissing his ocean-soaked skin—his chest, his belly, and then his hip—until he reached the top of his swimming suit. Sasha looked up at him, heat filling his eyes, as he undid Sergey’s suit and pulled it down.
“Sashunya…” He dug his hands into the sand as Sasha swallowed him, humming while deep throating Sergey in one move. The waves broke against Sergey as he gasped, and as Sasha sucked him hard, all the way down, over and over. Sergey pushed himself up to his elbows and watched as his cock disappeared down Sasha’s throat. Sasha met his gaze, his lips sealed around the base of his cock. It was almost too much.
Sasha had his own suit undone and one hand inside, stroking his rock-hard cock. Sergey wanted him, all of him, the feel of him, and he grabbed Sasha’s biceps and hauled him up. Sasha’s hands landed in the sand beside his head right before he captured Sergey’s lips in a soul-shredding kiss, and slid his entire body against Sergey’s in one hot, hard grind. Their hips connected, cocks against each other, heat meeting heat. The waves washed over them, breaking on their bodies, salt spray on his face and in their kiss.
They moved as one in the sun and the sand and the water on the edge of the world, making love as they traded oxygen and spent lifetimes inside each kiss. Sergey was lightheaded, windswept, moving with the swells of their love, and he didn’t know where he began and Sasha ended. All he knew was this love, this eternal, perfect love Sasha had lit inside his soul.
Heat spilled across their bodies like a burn as first Sasha, then Sergey, came with a shudder. They kissed through it, captured each other’s gasp in the space between their lips.
A larger wave came then, surprising them, rushing up Sasha’s back and over his shoulders and splashing them in the faces. Sergey sputtered, laughing. Sasha smiled.
The whole time they made love, Sasha had stared into his eyes as if the answer to life that he sought was buried somewhere inside the color of Sergey’s irises. Now, with water dripping from the ends of his blond hair, he still held Sergey’s gaze, a smile softening the firm, hard edges of his features. He kissed Sergey’s lips and nose before dropping one long kiss on his forehead.
“I don’t ever want to live without that,” Sasha whispered. “Without the way you look at me when you love me.”
“You never will, zvezda moya.”
At night they watched the stars, sitting in the sand in front of their cabana with the ocean waves tickling their toes. He’d been nervous, not sure how Sasha would react beneath the vast expanse of the sky. The Milky Way ran from horizon to horizon, a velvet midnight speckled with a billion specks of diamond dust.
Sergey felt small, so incredibly, incredibly small, beneath the night sky.
But how would Sasha feel, looking back up to where he’d been marooned?
“Imagine seeing that—” Sasha pointed to the Milky Way “—from inside,” he finally said, after watching the stars in silence for an hour.
Sergey slid his hand across the sand and laid it over Sasha’s. Sasha tangled their thumbs together and kept talking, barely over a whisper.
“I saw things I can never explain when we were on the dark side of the planet. I saw stars no one has ever known. Whole universes no one knows about. Colors I can never name. I saw a billion years of time surrounding me. I saw galaxies that were already long dead, the ghosts from their cold stars expanding into the void. I thought I could see all the way to the end of time, or to the beginning, depending on how you look at it. I could see everything, all of reality. I thought I was already dead.”
Sergey had never, ever heard Sasha’s voice pitched that way, the deep tremor, the fracture over the vowels. He almost lost Sasha’s voice in the waves, and strained to hear him.
“It reminded me of the highest heaven. Above space and beneath time.”
“I… don’t know if that sounds amazing or terrifying,” Sergey said softly. “I’m not as brave as you are. Just sitting here…” He waved his hand at the sky, the spray of stars. “It scares me a little.”
Sasha looked at him.
“It’s… so huge,” Sergey said lamely. “I never thought about how vast space was, and how far away it all was, until you were up there. And I had no way to reach you.”
Sasha turned his hand over and wound his fingers through Sergey’s in the sand. “I will never be that far from you again.”
“Well, I’d like you to be a hell of a lot closer. This close, in fact. Or closer.” He smiled, waggling his eyebrows as he fell back on his humor like always.
Sasha smiled back at him, but it faded fast, and he turned once more to staring at the sky and the stars as his expression hardened and his jaw clenched.
What was that? What had happened? Had he said something wrong? He thought they were forever, that this was it: him and Sasha for the rest of their lives. His ring was on Sasha’s hand, wasn’t it? He checked, furtively. Yes, it was still there, half buried in the sand. So what had he said?
That intensity was back, that swirl around Sasha. He was gathering his thoughts, gathering himself. This time, Sergey felt a pool of his own anxiety open up in his belly, a dark lance of fear growing out of his heart.
Sasha closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.
He rose, dusting sand off his suit. Sergey tried to follow.
“No. I need a minute.”
And then he walked away.
Sergey sat in the sand, staring at the waves—nearly black, with caps of diamond dust that looked like fallen stars tumbling on the swells—and let his mind go blank. Don’t think. Not even for a moment.
He didn’t hear Sasha’s return, his soft footfalls in the sand.
“I said once,” Sasha said, suddenly, shattering the fragile stillness that had descended around Sergey. He started, turned—
Sasha was down on one knee in the sand, looking at Sergey with an intensity that rivaled the sun. His ice blue eyes were lit by the stars, almost iridescent in the night, and the Milky Way’s glow glittered over his skin.
“I said once,” he said again, his voice like a torn sail, ragged, and in an octave Sergey had never heard. “That I would never let you go. And that I would take you to the ends of the earth, like Jack and Ethan did.” He shrugged, one shoulder rising and falling, and a tiny, shy smile appeared for a moment. “You were the one who brought us here, but—”
From behind his back, Sasha pulled out a ring.
It was burnished gold, and it seemed to collect the light from the stars and from Sasha’s eyes, almost glowing as Sasha held it out between his fingers.
He turned, stumbled on his knees, crawled toward Sasha. He couldn’t think, not at all, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe, and his mouth opened and closed with no words coming out.
“Marry me, Seryozha,” Sasha whispered. “Right now. No waiting. And right here, beneath the stars and their spirits. The universe will see us together and know we’ll never come apart again.”
Galaxies spun. The world tilted. Sergey nearly collapsed. He made it, somehow, to Sasha. He couldn’t take his eyes off the ring in his hands.
“Don’t we need… something official?” he sputtered.
“My soul has been conjoined to yours for years, ever since you sent your soul to find me in the land of the dead when I went to Kilaqqi.”
Once, he might have quietly pushed aside Sasha’s spirit journey as shaman mumbo jumbo. It was the mushrooms, it was the wild drug trip he’d gone on, and the connection Sasha had with his adoptive father. It was maybe even a spirituality that Sasha had embraced.
But not, anymore, not after meeting Kilaqqi and sitting by his side, and watching him pour out his life and his love to save Sasha and bring him back to Sergey.
And, hadn’t something changed after that trip two years ago? I couldn’t love you fully, not with what I had cut out. Kilaqqi saved my life.
How desperate he’d been when Sasha had disappeared to Siberia, aching, wondering if this was the last time Sasha was going to disappear with his heart.
Sasha coming home had brought something more than just his own heart back, though. He’d brought certainty, and Sergey had felt a shift in his soul as they’d made love then.
“What is conjoined can never be unjoined. Mountains and rivers. Sky and earth. You and me, Seryozha. I’m already yours forever. We are already bound together by something greater than time. No piece of paper can match that.” Sasha’s gaze burned into Sergey, as if his soul were right there, fluttering beneath his skin and in the ice of his eyes and staring into Sergey’s own soul.
He held out his hand. It trembled, until Sasha took it, steadying him.
Sasha slid the gold ring onto his finger. The inside of the band was smooth and dark, soft, yet warm. Wood, he realized. The inside of the band was polished wood, the outside burnished gold. How perfectly like his love it was: hidden treasure beneath an impenetrable surface, there for only the one man who could find his way into Sasha’s heart.
“Forever,” Sergey breathed. He reached up, running his fingers through Sasha’s hair. “Is only our beginning.”
Sasha slid his fingers between Sergey’s, their two rings nestling together. A smile spread across his face, slowly, wondrously, as beautifully as the unspooling of the universe when time began. “I am your husband now.”
A thousand sparklers burst inside him at Sasha’s soft words. “And I am your husband.”
They made love for the rest of the night, first with Sasha on top of him, sliding into him and thrusting, once again staring into his eyes the whole time, as if he wanted to fall into Sergey’s soul. And then Sergey sat up, riding Sasha’s lap as he wrapped his arms around his shoulders and kissed him while the moon rose over the waves.
He rode Sasha while Sasha lay on his back and ran his hands over Sergey’s chest, his hips, his thighs. Sasha called him beautiful, called him perfect, called him his love. Sergey tipped his head back and rode Sasha’s cock from root to tip, teasing his cockhead and then taking him all the way inside again. He rolled his hips, taking over the thrusting as he braced his hands on Sasha’s chest and worked his hips up and down until it was Sasha’s turn to throw his head back and grit his teeth and dig his fingers into Sergey’s hips hard enough to bruise.
They kissed, Sergey squeezing Sasha inside of him, milking Sasha until he was a shuddering, gasping, trembling mess. Chuckling, he kissed his way down Sasha’s jaw, circling his hips like he was trying to belly dance, like he was corkscrewing his way down Sasha, and like he was trying to keep Sasha’s cock inside of him forever.
Sasha’s eyes flashed before he pounced, and he put Sergey on the mattress on his belly in one smooth move, sliding into him again from behind and lifting his hips as he kissed Sergey’s shoulder blade. “Lyubov moya…”
Sasha’s cock moved into him, all the way to places he’d never felt before. He gasped at every stroke, clutched the sheets, spread his legs wider and pushed back into Sasha’s thrusts. Sasha ran his hand around his chest until he rested his palm over his heart.
He plunged his cock deep, and Sergey howled as Sasha’s cockhead roared over his prostate. Every muscle in his body seized, lines of fire running through his nerves and under his skin. Sasha pulled back and plunged in again, faster, harder, only his hips moving as he pressed his lips to Sergey’s neck, his hair, the side of his cheek. His hand moved down and wrapped around Sergey’s cock, stroking him in time with his thrusts.
Sergey went wild, chasing the euphoria in his ass and the hand gripping and squeezing his cock. He slammed his hips back and forth, meeting Sasha’s thrusts, the sound of sweat-skin on sweat-skin and their groans filling the cabana and drowning out the waves. Sasha covered his back, kissing every bit of skin he could find. “Lyubov moya, lyubov moya,” he breathed. “Ya lyublyu nasos.” I love you.
He screamed his throat raw as he came, coming apart in Sasha’s hold, his insides spasming around Sasha as he shook and slammed back into Sasha’s thrusts and buried his face in the mattress. Sasha gasped, an almost shout, and went wild, grabbing Sergey’s hips as his thrusts—impossibly—sped up before he, too, screamed, and a warmth spread within Sergey.
Sasha collapsed on Sergey’s back, sweaty, breathing hard. Sergey turned his head, and Sasha met him with a kiss over his shoulder, a long, slow, strung-out play of their lips.
They collapsed on their sides, legs and arms and hands laced together, foreheads touching, lips trading barely-there kisses back and forth. The bed was a mess of sweat and come and lube, but so were they, and they didn’t care. Sergey could barely breathe, but he smiled at Sasha, still coming down from his orgasm as stars fluttered and fell on the edge of his vision.
“Wow…”
“Married sex is pretty good.” Sasha winked.
Sergey laughed. “I suppose this is our honeymoon then?”
“I hear you are supposed to have lots of sex on your honeymoon.” Sasha grinned, even as he tried to catch his breath.
“That is the usual plan.”
Sasha pushed him to his back and straddled him. Sergey’s come was still smeared on his belly, still hot and wet, but Sasha laid down on top of him and kissed his way down his chest. “Give me ten minutes,” he said, in between long kisses.
Sergey laughed.
“Actually, give me five minutes…”
Exhausted, but beyond ecstatic, they lounged in the sand together, Sasha lying back on Sergey’s chest and sitting between his legs. Sergey wrapped a blanket around them both, the only thing covering their naked bodies as they let the ocean tickle their toes. The moon was high above, and Venus had risen over the horizon, heralding the coming dawn. Already the stars were fading, the spilled-paint swirls of the Milky Way softening.
Sergey kissed Sasha’s temple as Sasha watched the sky. He was quiet, but it was a calm quiet, and Sasha seemed to radiate a peace that seemed so rare in his lover. A contentment, and a settling in his soul.
A streak of light winked overhead, a line of diamond fire that fell to the horizon. He felt Sasha’s deep inhale. It was the third shooting star they’d seen.
“I tell myself that’s them coming home,” Sasha whispered. “Jim and Michaela. Rafael and Joey and Phillipa. And Sarah. All of them coming home.”
Debris. Fire raining to the ground. A thousand parts and pieces falling from the heavens, a thousand pieces of Sasha, a thousand pieces of his heart, nothing more than ash.
He tightened his arms around Sasha and buried his face in his blond hair. He smelled salt and sweat and Sasha. He’s here. He’s in my arms.
“I was afraid that that was all that would be left of you,” he murmured. “That I would have to catch your falling star and scoop your ashes in my bare hands. And I would have. I would have chased every piece of stardust, crawled across the Earth to find every part of you—”
Sasha twisted in his arms and kissed him, cutting off his choking ramble. Sergey kissed back, desperate to feel Sasha’s heart, the pump of his blood, the life inside of him.
“You brought me home.”
He tried to smile as regret stabbed him, made him flinch. “Well. I brought you back to Earth… but I also made us homeless.”
Sasha shook his head. “My home is not a place. My home is with you, wherever that is in the world.”
He kissed Sasha instead of trying to speak, falling back to the sand with him and kissing his husband until the night faded into dawn, and the sun’s glittering light flung itself up from the horizon, igniting the ocean and dusting the waves in spilled gold.
They watched the sunrise with their heads pressed together. “So…” Sergey said. “About where we will live…”
Sasha’s eyebrows rose.
“Jack has offered us a place with him and Ethan.”
Sasha took a deep breath and then slowly blew it out, his cheeks inflating as his eyes widened.
Sergey laughed. “We don’t have to decide anything anytime soon. All we have to do now is be here.”
“I like that plan.” Sasha rolled, pulling Sergey on top of him until Sergey was straddling him and draped over his chest, the blanket around his shoulders like a cape. Sasha ran his hands through Sergey’s hair, kissing him, holding him until their heartbeats seemed to synchronize, beating as one and in time with the waves.
Sunbeams crept over the ocean, slanting across Sasha’s face. His ice-blue eyes caught the rays, and for a moment, Sergey could see into the very center of him. His breath stuttered, struck suddenly by the force of Sasha’s all-encompassing, all-consuming love. Never before had he been loved this wholly, this completely.
And never before had he loved someone so much as he did Sasha.
Beneath him, he felt Sasha harden and press against his belly.
Sasha pulled him down and kissed him as the waves rolled on and on.
Set after Stars