9. Chapter 9

Chapter nine

G arrett glanced through his clothing, idly fingering his more elaborate clubbing costumes and wondering which to go with. He certainly wouldn't get much of a chance to use them on Pandora, and he probably wouldn't have time during the brief period he would be spending on Olympus getting things ready for the science staff. He could make a scene tonight in something that glittered like a starry sky, or he could keep it simple and attract less attention.

He finally went with something more subdued, amethyst and garnet jewel tones that clung to him and left nothing to the imagination but didn't scream his presence, and he accented it with cool blushes of color over his cheekbones, forehead, and down the bridge of his nose. He pressed tiny sparks of light to the edges of his eyes and the shell of his ear, then called it good and went to meet Robbie and Wyl.

Wyl looked about like Garrett had expected—punky, with his hair on end and clothed in sheer black fabric everywhere except his groin, where the cloth was opaque, probably at Robbie's insistence. He had thick boots on, black chain jewelry, and black shadow limning his eyes. Wyl was hot, but Robbie was absolutely gorgeous if clearly self-conscious. Wyl had chosen white for him, pants that clung just enough to his hips to stay up and a sleeveless shirt that could have been painted on. The shirt wasn't quite low enough to meet the pants, and everywhere bare skin showed, there was the faintest shimmer of glittery white, not from skin but from some kind of accent powder. Garrett looked from Wyl, who was smirking, to Robbie, who said flatly, "Don't ask."

"Not worth my life," Garrett agreed. He took in their looks and let himself feel a little flattered, then the three of them took an official car to the club, courtesy of Miles' insistence.

As before, there was no problem with the bouncer, and the stir they caused making their way to the dance floor was gratifying. The crowd parted and made room, and Garrett turned to his friends with a grin. "Dance with me."

Wyl didn't have a problem with that, sidling over and sliding down in a way that turned even Garrett on, and Wyl wasn't his normal type at all, but Robbie still looked self-conscious and on edge even as he swayed to the beat. Garrett pulled him close and murmured, "Just pretend we're alone. Or better yet, you're alone with Wyl. No one is watching you." Lies, lies . "Just hold onto him and move."

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Robbie did have a sense of rhythm, and when he relaxed enough to get going, he moved beautifully, intensely, focusing on Wyl to the exclusion of everyone else and moving against him like sin. Wyl managed to split his attention between Robbie and Garrett for a while, but the magnetic pull of his lover overwhelmed him, and soon Garrett was alone and not minding it. He kept dancing for a while, moving from person to person and space to space until he was at the edge of the crowd again.

A hand touched his back, just fingertips, tentative but familiar. Garrett turned and smiled at Isidore, who was standing a little way back but looking hopeful. He caught the young man's hand and pulled him forward into an easy embrace, swaying a little to keep them feeling as though they were dancing. "You found me," he purred.

"I thought you might come in tonight," Isidore said, slowly letting his arms creep up to Garrett's shoulders. "My aunt works at the governor's mansion, and she told me that you were supposed to be leaving tomorrow. So I took the night off, just in case."

Isidore's skin was too dusky to reveal a blush, not in the dim lights of the club, but Garrett could feel the heat of it from a few inches away. "I'm glad you did," Garrett told him, meaning every word of it.

"Are you leaving tomorrow?"

Garrett hated to disappoint him, but there was only one answer he could give. "Yes. I am."

Isidore gave him a half smile and a nod. "Yeah, I figured as much. You've never come in with friends before. Are they hanging out with you tonight?"

"I think at this point I'm on my own," Garrett said. Robbie and Wyl would find their way home when they were ready.

"What do you want?" Isidore asked, his silver-inset eyes shining brightly. "We can do anything you want."

"So easy," Garrett mused with a grin. "Didn't I warn you about that last time?"

"Last time was amazing," Isidore replied. His smile was so cute and earnest that Garrett just had to kiss it, and Isidore melted into his arms, his nervous tension vanishing at this sudden affection. They kissed for a long time, finally stopping when Garrett saw that they were attracting a crowd. He smoothly pushed them back toward an alcove, the most private spot you could get in The Palladium that wasn't a toilet.

"Maybe we should leave," Garrett suggested softly.

"Where do you want to go? The hotel?"

The idea didn't appeal for some reason. This was his last night on Paradise, and he wanted to really be on it, to see it. The planet had never truly been home to him, but he wanted to feel it somehow before he was confined to the sterile shipboard environment for the next few months. "Some place outdoors. Private if possible."

Isidore looked at him consideringly. "Do you mind taking my bike?"

"Is it enclosed?"

"Um … no."

Garrett considered it. His outfit would suffer, but it wasn't like he had to worry about impressing anyone after this. Not in these clothes anyway. "That's all right. How far are we going?"

"It's just outside the city limits. Twenty-five, maybe thirty minutes," Isidore promised.

"Then take me, I'm yours," Garrett said. Isidore smiled again, just a little bit, before turning and leading the way out of the club. They went behind the bar and through the service entrance to the parking lot out back, where one of the many vehicles parked toward the edge of the lot was Isidore's bike.

"Nice," Garrett said as Isidore led him over to the vehicle. Garrett didn't know anything about bikes, but he could tell quality when he saw it, and this ride had a vintage look to it, bright and shining and obviously well maintained, much sleeker and less modified than a lot of the more modern aerial bikes.

"It's my baby," Isidore said as he keyed off the alarm. "I was a bike mechanic before the garage went under. I spend way too much money keeping this one running, but I can't bear to give up on it."

"How old is it?"

"Almost half a century," Isidore replied, throwing his leg over the bike. "It was my dad's."

"You're doing a great job keeping it up," Garrett said as he joined him, wrapping his arms around the young man's waist and leaning in close. He felt Isidore's breath catch in his chest and smiled over it.

"Thank you," Isidore said faintly. "Uh … do you want a helmet? I only have one …"

"You've got the gyroscope running, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'm fine." Garrett pressed a kiss to Isidore's neck. "Let's go."

Isidore pulled the close-fitting helmet over his short, spiky hair, then revved the bike into ignition. A bike that could actually rev … so retro. Garrett grinned as they pulled around The Palladium and out onto the road. They got out of the downtown area fairly quickly and headed into the hills on the north side of Rapture. The desert gave way to rocky, scrubby ground that was broken by solitary houses and occasional trees growing out of red, iron-rich earth.

They went on and up until the houses were gone, and the road was only two lanes, then turned off onto a dirt path that went up a little more. They finally stopped on a large, flat slab of rock at the edge of a cliff, and Isidore killed the engine. Garrett got off and looked around.

Rapture was laid out before them, sprawling across the valley floor and far more beautiful at night, when all there was to see were thousands upon thousands of lights, steady and bright. One of the two moons was a sliver, barely there, while the other was almost full, a misshapen orange blob glaring angrily down at the world. Isidore came up behind Garrett and slid his arms around his waist. "The old man is drunk," he murmured.

"Old man?"

"The man of the moons," Isidore explained. "They're his eyes. When one is open and the other closed like this, we say that he's drunk." He looked out over the city. "It's kind of dumb—"

"No, it isn't," Garrett said. "You like it here, don't you?"

Isidore shrugged. "Here is what I know. I was born here, my parents were born here, both sets of grandparents were born here. We came with the original colonists, and we've been here ever since. So, yeah, I guess I do like it here. I'm happy being some place that I know so well. I think it would be really hard to never have a home like this, or to always be going someplace new." He glanced at Garrett. "Where's your real home? I know it isn't Paradise."

"No, it's not …" Garrett let his voice trail off as he thought about it. "I don't have one yet," he said at last. "I have family, I have friends. My home tends to be wherever they are, but as far as an actual physical place goes, there isn't one."

"Do you think you'll find it where you're going?"

"On Pandora?" Garrett scoffed. "Not likely. It's an underdeveloped, under-populated, viciously raw planet. It's always cold there, raining or snowing, or the wind is blowing hurricane speeds … I can't imagine making a home there."

"How long will you be there?"

"Three years."

Isidore sucked in a breath in surprise. "That's a long time."

"I know."

"So … there really is absolutely nothing that can happen with us."

Garrett smiled and turned around in his arms, then leaned in and kissed the young man lingeringly. "We can be friends," he breathed as he finally pulled away, nuzzling his nose against Isidore's cheekbone. "Very friendly friends. Friends with lots of benefits." He kissed Isidore again, tracing his parted lips with the tip of his tongue before slipping slowly to his knees.

Isidore moaned and leaned back against his bike, thankfully close, and braced himself as Garrett undid his pants and pulled out his cock. Garrett pushed Isidore's knees a little further apart so he could settle comfortably between them, or as comfortably as he could expect on solid rock, and then opened his mouth and breathed hot, moist air onto his lover. The weather wasn't cold, it rarely got cold on Paradise, but there was a sharpness in the air that told Garrett dawn was approaching, and he knew that the heat of his mouth would be a delicious contrast to that.

He licked teasingly, never closing his lips around Isidore but never drawing back. Isidore panted and mewled and finally slid one hand into Garrett's hair, and that was all the encouragement Garrett needed to plunge down his lover's cock and bathe him in wetness and warmth.

Garrett loved the heavy, hot feel of a cock in his mouth. He was a slut for bare skin, a total nudist whenever he could be, and few things felt better than going down on someone and having their body splayed out for him, naked, ready, and desperate to be touched. He couldn't have that with Isidore right now, not outside on a fucking slab of rock, so Garrett made the most of the bare skin he could have. He let the head of Isidore's cock go to the back of his mouth and swallowed, his throat gripping the hard, needy flesh. Isidore suddenly cried out and seemed to melt, his hips thrusting forward as his shoulders fell backward, and he came hard into Garrett's mouth.

Garrett drank him down, humming appreciatively, and then stood up, using the bike for leverage when he realized his legs had gone numb. Fucking rock. Still, Isidore was clinging to him and smiling and staring like Garrett had hung the moons, and so he couldn't complain.

"You're so good at that," Isidore murmured, pulling him close and kissing him. Garrett opened his mouth to the questing tongue and let the young man lick up every trace of himself he could find, grinding his own aching erection against Isidore's spent cock.

"Do you want to fuck me?" Isidore asked finally, breathless from their kissing.

"Desperately," Garrett said, and he was so hard with want that the word wasn't at all flattery, just truth.

"I hoped so," Isidore replied with a grin. "I'm ready for you." He turned in Garrett's arms and draped himself against his bike, holding himself up on his forearms. Garrett slid his hands under Isidore's filmy shirt and pulled it up, exposing the smooth expanse of his back. He undid the fastening on his own shirt and pulled it aside, then pressed himself to Isidore. The heat and the slight, catching stickiness from sweat felt so good. He crawled one of his hands down the back of Isidore's pants, and when his fingertip dipped inside and he felt the slickness there, he smiled.

"You prepped early."

"I wanted to be … uhn, god … ready if … fuck, Garrett." He writhed back suddenly when two fingers slid inside. "Please, fuck me."

The sky was lightening now, traces of rose, gold, and orange drifting up on the horizon like curls of smoke. Garrett watched the colors come, felt the heat of his own personal sun in the warmth of Isidore's body, and reflected that if he tried, if he wanted to enough, he could make this place home. There were things here, people here, that he could love if he let himself.

He wasn't one to second-guess a decision, though, and it was with a feeling of quiet acceptance that he moved the rest of their clothing aside just enough to press his cock into Isidore's clenching channel. Isidore moaned, pushing back against Garrett, and he bottomed out inside of the younger man. Garrett stayed there for a little bit, kissing Isidore's neck and stroking around the tight ring of his entrance with his index finger, which made his lover shiver, before sliding out and pushing in again.

"Garrett, more," Isidore whimpered, and when he reached around and felt the young man's resurging interest, Garrett decided to stop teasing him. He set up a rhythm, easy at first, then harder once he felt certain that he wasn't going to be driving his lover's cock into something hard and painful. He absorbed everything about the moment, Isidore's warmth and scent and the sounds he made, so beautifully inarticulate.

Garrett watched the sky brighten into pale pastels, the clouds disappearing as the dawn burned them away, and his orgasm came in a surprising rush. He ground tightly against Isidore as he poured into him, letting the harsh ecstasy of the first few moments consume him before remembering his lover. Reaching around, he gripped Isidore's cock in one hand and pressed firmly against the base of his testicles with the other, rubbing hard on his perineum the way he knew the young man liked.

Isidore arched against Garrett, throwing his head back and yelling Garrett's name as he came again, a thick white plume of heat that slowed to an ooze against Garrett's palm. Garrett supported their weight with one arm, bracing against the bike with the other until Isidore's eyes opened again, and his breathing slowed to nearly normal. Then he pulled out, slowly, semen and lubricant clinging to him like a heavy mist. It almost hurt to pull away, but Garrett knew he had to.

Isidore's shirt became a casualty of their mess, helping both of them get mostly clean again. After that they just stood a little longer, Garrett's chest to Isidore's back, breathing softly and watching the sun rise over the hazy horizon. Once it was fully up, Isidore faced Garrett, kissed his cheek, and said, "I'll take you back."