_{CW: 18+}

The emergency chamber was quiet except for the low, rhythmic hum of failing systems and the soft hiss of oxygen cycling through the vents. Red light pulsed in ribbons along the access hatches, flickering with the erratic heartbeat of the ship. Shadows stretched and retracted across the curved metal walls, giving the illusion that the room was breathing around them.

Luka floated in the center of it all, tethered by a single cable wrapped around his wrist. His body was slightly curled, knees drawn in, one arm loose at his side. He wasn’t unconscious, just still. Suspended. The loss of gravity felt like an extension of the betrayal that had hollowed him out.

His jacket was undone, the fabric drifting lazily around him like a shroud. A bruise showed livid along his collarbone where the harness had bit too hard during decompression, but he didn’t so much as rub at it. His eyes were open, unfocused, trained somewhere between the ceiling and nothing at all, lost staring into the consuming past.

An access hatch opened with a reluctant groan. Varsen hesitated a heartbeat, then floated through, not with his usual purpose and command, but with the quiet resignation of someone arriving at their own grave. Blood stained the side of his face in a narrow, dark ribbon, almost black in the emergency glow. His posture was off, rigid and worn at the same time. He looked wrecked—not by the mission, or the storm, or the system collapse. By something more. He said nothing.

The door hissed shut behind Varsen with the soft finality of a closing grave. The sound broke nothing, only confirming the silence that had submerged them both. He didn’t move toward Luka, just floated near the threshold as the ship moved around them. His broad shoulders remained squared, jaw tight, the red light gleaming along the silver at his temples.

Luka drifted forward unprompted. No propulsion, just a shift of breath, a loosening of his knees, the slow yielding of a body with nowhere left to run. They floated near one other, but didn’t touch, didn’t even shift in greeting. There was no sound beyond their breath, magnified in the small space, distressingly human and unfiltered. The air between them was thick with tension.

Every twitch, every motion made the room seem to tilt. Luka’s eyes finally found Varsen’s, meeting the dark, hard stare unflinchingly. There was no fear there, no rage, only the terrible resignation that comes after running out of justifications.

No words were spoken. No accusations hurled. They were two men suspended in space, stripped of their roles, their lies, their orders. Life and silence—and the unbearable closeness of two people who had nothing left to hide, floating in the tremendous weightlessness of an uncertain future.

Varsen had drifted as well, the distance closing between them without question, without a raising of hands in greeting. Only when they were close enough to feel the heat of each other’s skin, Luka’s coat grazing Varsen’s fatigues, did Luka speak.

“You should kill me for what I did.” His voice was low, rough-edged from tension and dry air.

Varsen didn’t look away, didn’t blink. When his hand lifted, Luka’s body tensed, not quite flinching. But he didn’t pull back. He held his ground as Varsen’s fingers cupped his cheek, then slid into his hair, curling and twisting in a grip that was firm, but not cruel.

“I want you too much to kill you,” he growled quietly.

Luka’s breath choked in his throat. His lashes twitched, mouth tense. The slow tilt of his body aligned them like planets on collision paths, anchored by the grip in his hair.

It would have been easier if one of them struck the other—if it had ended in blood, in fire, in anything clean and final. This was worse. All the rage, all the guilt, were suspended, balanced on a razor-thin moment between impact and surrender. They hovered there, staring at one another like two men with weapons drawn, each waiting for the first move.

But no weapon came. No blow. Instead, Luka’s hand twitched, almost imperceptibly, and he reached for the shoulder of his jacket. The motion was slow, deliberate, as if the act itself could break the unspoken chains binding them.

Varsen’s eyes didn’t waver. He didn’t flinch, but the texture of the tension shifted into something else—something inviting. Luka’s shoulder rolled, and he pushed the jacket down one long, slender arm, then the other, leaving both bare in the pulsing red glow of the emergency lights.

Luka’s hands were steady, slow as they grazed the zipper of his sleeveless jumpsuit, peeling back the barrier between what should be, and what was. The material parted over olive skin, exposing sweeping clavicles, the flat span of his sternum, the smooth plane of his stomach as the tab approached his waist. No rush, no desperation, just quite attestation—a confession made in action, rather than words.

Varsen’s hand found his hip, and their bodies moved closer. Slow movements turned faster as their hands set upon one another. Sleeves and collars were pulled away, Varsen’s soft gray shirt peeled off to collide with the dark blue scrawl of Luka’s coat, leaving both to indulge in their own dance with one another.

Skin met skin with gentle grazes, shoulder to chest, forearm to wrist, fingers trailing, grasping, acknowledging with dragging strokes and hooking curls. The tether on Luka’s wrist threatened to tangle them both, and Varsen unhooked it without a word. They were left clinging to one another, spinning free in the pod’s chamber.

Luka’s breath caught, goosebumps rising on his skin. He hesitated a moment, then peeled away the adhesive patch from the back of his neck, stripping away the superficial implant used for data extraction and secrets stolen in silence. It came free with a whisper, and drifted like a fragile relic into the space beside them.

Varsen watched it float away, then turned his hard stare back to Luka. There was no forgiveness in his eyes, no condemnation, only the cold recognition that what was done could never be undone. This could not be erasure, but it might be a step toward forgiveness. For both of them.

Varsen’s steady hands caught Luka’s hips, the space between them shrinking until foreheads gently pressed together. It was possessive, rather than tender, but Luka didn’t think he could have tolerated tenderness just then.

“You were a weapon when you came here.” Varsen’s voice was quiet as he spoke, his stare demanding more than seraching.

Luka’s hum was acknowledgment as much as confirmation. Varsen’s hand slid along Luka’s forearm, stroked over the crest of his shoulder to sweep his thumb along the textured line of an electrical scar. In zero gravity, every movement was deliberate, a slow negotiation to remain connected rather than drift apart.

“They said I forgot everything,” Varsen murmured.

Luka frowned and looked away. “You remembered enough to be a worthy target,” he muttered as he looked back to the man. A pause stretched between them. Luka’s voice softened. “It was just a job,” he breathed.

Varsen’s breath hitched, tension thick in the silence. The slowly, deliberately, he crushed his mouth to Luka’s in an unyielding kiss. Stubble scratched at soft skin and scar tissue as the meeting of their lips turned sharp with mounted urgency, the kiss neither gentle nor tentative, but possessive, full of silent demand. Varsen’s hand leapt from shoulder to hair, fingers threading to curl against scalp.

Luka hooked a leg around Varsen’s, his hands gripping tight at bare shoulders as he met tongue with tongue, pressing into the connection between them like it was the only anchor in their weightless void. Breath mingled between them as heat flared, driving hearts to a heady, racing hammering.

Varsen’s mouth tore away, leaving Luka panting hard, his heart lurching in his chest. Noses brushed, eyes blurred and unfocused. Silence stretched taut between them before Varsen spoke, voice low and frayed.

“Are you going to leave me here?”

“No,” Luka panted. “I’m going to stay.”

Varsen’s lips twisted. His throat worked, but no words came. He sniffed once, rough and almost angry, then managed a rasped “Good.”

Despite the intensity boiling between them, they moved cautiously at first, testing the fragile boundary between distance and connection. In zero gravity, every motion was amplified—a tentative reach could push them apart as easily as pull them close. Legs intertwined and arms wrapped, creating a shared gravity to hold them steady.

The red emergency lights painted their skin in warm, flickering hues, casting long, soft shadows along the stark metal walls. Around them, the faint, constant brush of cool air was a reminder that this confined space, this moment suspended in time, was a sanctuary—fragile though it might be.

Breath turned quick, shallow, laden with the weight of unspoken fears and the heaviness of their shared history. Their hands wandered again, gripping and pulling, brushing and stroking, feeling over skin as lips crashed and tongues slid. The rattle of Varsen’s belt buckle was jarring in the quiet, though it the sound of it was smoothed over by the warm, leonine rumble that came from the Varsen as Luka’s hand was thrust into the warmth behind the zipper placket to curl and grip the swollen heft of Varsen’s cock.

He scraped his teeth over stubbled jaw as legs tightened in their tangled twine. Rough hands forced Luka’s grip off of the man’s shoulders long enough to haul arms from jumpsuit holes. The flimsy fabric hung behind him like a dead skin, dithered as Varsen hauled it down past narrow hips, over the curve of his ass, the protrusion of his own straining cock.

Luka laughed in surprise, and snarled, and dragged biting kisses for the man’s mouth. His fingers pulled, tugged, then gave up their prize to push at Varsen’s planetary-styled trousers. He shoved the undergarments down after them, and choked a little noise as they took on a bit much spin for the haste of their movements. He reached out and caught the abandoned wrist tether.

“How much shit do you think we’re going to be in if we survive this?” he asked as he hauled them along the thin orange strap for the wall.

“That depends on how much shit we can shovel out o the airlock before we make dock,” Varsen rumbled against the hollow of Luka’s throat.

“Mh.”

He wrapped the tether about Varsen’s waist, and flashed a grin at the man as shoulders impacted with chill metal.

“Stay,” Luka commanded, and diverted one of Varsen’s hands to the grip near the tether.

The wide strap of the tether was not so long that he could wrap Varsen up like a holiday present, but there was enough length to string it around one thickly muscled thigh. Luka hauled the attachment end up and tethered it onto the grip near Varsen’s fingers, leaving the man pinned and well anchored.

“I’m not the one who has trouble staying,” Varsen pointed out, his voice low and bruised.

“Good,” Luka replied with a wink.

Luka finished hauling wadded fabric over the curve of Varsen’s ass. He kneaded at plush tissue, teased his fingers in warm sweeps along the crack, then twisted himself down and around like an acrobat, using Varsen’s own body for handholds. A lack of gravity had its advantages, and no weight to deal with as he craned his neck to strike his mouth upon its prize was chief among them.

Varsen’s breath grew quick and shallow again, thighs tensing as he clung tight to the handhold. Beads of clear fluid welled from his cock, trailing through the air to splatter and turn to tinier beads where they weren’t absorbed by fabric or caught on body hair before they could float free again. His free hand caught on Luka’s thigh, his ass, drawing him close to grasp and tug at his cock whilst Luka’s mouth worked a symphony of delight in tongue and minor suction.

Then Luka was twisting about, grasping and sliding, pulling free of Varsen’s hold with insistent tugs of body and limb. Their mouths caught again, cocks grazing, sliding as Luka cling, and Varsen’s arm hooked around the man to keep him close as his upraised legs would allow for. There was something not quite punishing in the way they clung to one another, as if each might best the other in strength of grip, in demand and claim, bruising and threatening to break all over again.

But Luka would not relent, and his amber eyes were intent as he stared at Varsen in the steady red strobing of the caution lights. He braced a slippered foot to the wall and adjusted his grapple, angling hips and guiding with one hand to press his straining cock hard against its slick mark, rocking to drive inward even as he fought to keep his purchase enough to use leverage to his advantage.

Varsen made a sound low in his throat, vibrating through his chest, and Luka made the conscious decision not to treat it as a laugh. Except then he was laughing, struggling slightly with the little tucks and shifts of his hips. He smirked at the other man, then grabbed firmly to his thigh and hauled, angle be damned, spearing into tight, stretching heat made only somewhat slick with spittle.

“Ah,” Varsen hitched.

Luka moaned hips drawing back ever so slightly, and hauled again. He abandoned thigh to paw at rib and chest, to tweak a nipple and finger a scar. His mouth caught at Varsen’s, and then Luka hooked his knees to the wall, his hands behind Varsen’s neck, and trialed a few experimental bucks.

The grunts and chuffs this elicited only drove Luka on harder, faster. He held tight and drove into the man, smacking hard and chasing the rebound into the corner, off of the wall, bracing and holding as not to go floating away—but he seemed to have found a good position, an effective bolstering to keep them locked together, bouncing and rebounding, smacking home with grunts and puffs and soft slivers of moan.

He gripped and bit and suckled at patches of bare, scarred skin, and was treated to the same in turn. Varsen had hold of Luka, heel tucked, legs tightly curled as he held tight grip on the wall, tangled and bound by the tether. They rocked and strained and struggled, rough and steady, momentum building hot between them as the red emergency light pulsed a strangely slow countertempo. It was punishment, and confession, and a strange wordless acceptance.

And then it was explosive pleasure, bursting hot within, without. It was pulsing and throbbing heat spilling over into an electric loss of breath, a crescendo of nerves that made it easy to forget to hold tight, to hold fast. Luka near slipped away at the crest of it, toes and fingertips bracing more than holding, but Varsen’s heels tucked, his arm wrapped tighter.

They teetered out of the corner, clinging one to the other, anchored by strap and hand as they rocked and ground and finally stilled. Their mouths met with a strange softness, something that bordered on tenderness, on forgiveness. Varsen let go of the grip point, fingers sliding instead through hair, nails teasing at scalp. Each second drew them back from the edge of their fractured selves, not forgetting all that had occurred, but absorbing it—a strange kind of reassembly. Not healing, only… inhabiting the damage together.

Luka tucked his head beneath Varsen’s chin, not moving to unbind his leg, nor assist the man with his trousers. His fingertips traced over an aged scar, circular with a slight hollowing at its center. He tipped his head and dabbed a soft kiss there.

They remained tucked like that for several minutes before Varsen moved. He hiked up his trousers, and helped Luka pull his jumpsuit up about narrow hips. The wrist strap was unhooked from the grip, unwound from thigh, and slowly untwisted from waist, both of them working in tandem to free themselves from the uncomfortable constraint near the wall.

They didn’t go after their drifting clothes, nor seek to part and claim that nothing had happened in the pulsing red light. They did not cover the distant sounds of the dying ship with words to pretend that everything had been resolved. Instead they reclaimed one another, floating in a slow drift through the emergency chamber, bodies loosely tangled. There was no urgency now, only slow and steady breaths syncing across the silence, only skin touching skin, warm and familiar and new at the same time. Luka’s head rested to Varsen’s shoulder, and one of Varsen’s hands remained curled at the base of Luka’s spine. Not wary. Not punitive. Just a relaxed weight. Just… there.

Coat and shirt drifted around them in lazy spirals, caught in the subtle currents of recycled air. Sweat and cum floated in suspended droplets, glinting briefly in the shifting light. Still they were quiet. Words were not needed. They weren’t whole, nor forgiven, but they weren’t alone, either.

Varsen tipped his head to press his lips lightly to Luka’s brow. Luka’s gaze flicked to the implant still drifting beside them, a small, curved sliver of tech glinting with unpleasant secrets. He reached for it on instinct, then stopped, hand hovering. He let it float away without touching it, and returned his hand to Varsen’s side.

Varsen made no comment. They lapsed to stillness within their silence, simply holding one another, suspended in the narrow space between ruin and redemption.