Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The second Garin's breathing leveled into the soft snores of deep sleep, Sazahk rushed for the cover of a large boulder, undoing his pants as he stumbled in the murky dark. He was too cautious to take the privacy of hiding behind it, guilty enough for leaving Garin exposed in his vulnerable state even this much.

But by the goddess, he couldn't be quiet and he didn't dare risk being any closer. He sank his teeth into the meat of his left thumb to stifle his cry as he pulled his cock out and fisted it.

Goddess, he'd never imagined how responsive Garin would be. The sounds of his moans ringing in the caves played in Sazahk's mind as he stroked himself. He'd begged for Sazahk's touch, squirming and whimpering. So strong, so confident, so vulnerable, and so willing to put himself entirely in Sazahk's hands.

Sazahk pulled himself roughly, his own orgasm rushing toward him after his bitter fight to hold it back as he'd pleasured Garin. He stared through the dark at Garin's sleeping figure, so sated, so exhausted, so satisfied after Sazahk had taken care of him. He'd been so beautiful, he'd sounded so incredible, his smell of pure sex, and his taste?—

Sazahk came with a sob muffled against the flesh of his hand. He spurted his release into the dirt at the base of a mushroom and a few drops landed on the cap, causing it to light up at the contact.

That was interesting. There were a lot of things that were interesting. A lot of tests to run, a lot of experiments to conduct. But he didn't care about any of it.

Sazahk dragged himself back to Garin and dropped to the ground at his side.

For all the fascinating things all around him, the only thing that interested him was the human man sleeping soundly beside him.

Sazahk wanted to know if he was always that vocal.

He wanted to know if he only liked to be filled with one finger or if he liked more. How many more could he take? The scars littered across his body spoke of a high pain tolerance. He could probably take Sazahk's entire hand, but what did he enjoy?

And what sounds would he make if Sazahk used his tongue instead of his fingers?

Did he always fall asleep after sex? Did he like to cuddle after coitus? And if he did, did he like to be cuddled or to be the cuddler? Did he drink klak or coffee? Did he put cream and sugar in his morning beverage, or did he take it black? Did he read in the mornings? At night? Both? Never?

Sazahk leaned back against a rock and buried his face in his hands.

He didn't know if he'd done the right thing.

He thought he had. Garin had needed help, Sazahk had evaluated the options for relieving Garin's suffering, and he had presented the option with the greatest chance of success. Then, with Garin's permission, he'd executed. And he'd been right!

It was all so logical and defensible and yet…Sazahk had thought certain actions in his past logical, defensible, and moral, and some people had violently disagreed with him. Violently enough that Sazahk wondered sometimes, privately, in the deep recess of his mind, in the dark, by himself, if they were right and he had been the wrong one.

Maybe he had been wrong then and maybe he was wrong again. Maybe he really had hurt people and maybe now he'd hurt Garin.

Sazahk lifted his head and watched Garin sleep.

Even if Sazahk had done the right thing, for science and for the man, he hadn't needed to go so far. He hadn't needed to put his mouth on him. The selfish moment of weakness had come on too strong and too fast for Sazahk to fight against. He'd wanted—he'd needed —to get his mouth on Garin's skin and when he'd caught a whiff of the musk emanating from the base of Garin's cock, he'd been unable to resist the desire.

But Sazahk didn't think he had the excuse of fungal spores.

Sazahk wrapped his arms around himself to ward off the chill, flatly refusing to slide into the sleeping bag beside Garin after what had just happened.

Sazahk's arousal hadn't begun until Garin had looked at him with his blown pupils and parted lips, lust radiating from his skin. It had spiraled out of control from there. Which was new for Sazahk, who rarely felt sexual attraction beyond a vague interest in the act for its physiological benefits. It was as new as the gooey ball of affection lodged at the base of Sazahk's throat.

Feelings of fondness were very reasonable to experience after an intimate encounter, of course, due to the numerous changes in body chemistry brought about by the activities. Except Sazahk knew very well that the gooey ball had started before they'd even climbed into these caves.

Sex hadn't caused his gooey ball. He rather suspected that the gooey ball had caused his sexual desire.

He sighed and crawled over to his pack and the copious number of samples he'd taken that day. His own feelings were complicated and difficult to objectively measure, especially given the extreme events of the past couple of hours. Better to spend his time studying the things he had instruments for. He'd deal with his emotions later.

Unsurprisingly, Sazahk made no progress with his emotions by the time Garin regained consciousness with a groan. He bit his tongue to keep from assaulting the man with a barrage of questions before he'd opened his eyes, and stayed bent over his microscope, afraid Garin might see his eagerness to engage with him in his gaze if he lifted it.

Instead, he settled on a neutral tone as he adjusted a focuser. "How are you feeling?"

"Good," Garin murmured sleepily and Sazahk saw him sit up out of the corner of his eye and rub his face. "Really good. I must have—" Garin cut off and froze, his palm still sealed over his right eye.

"I assume from your posture that you've just remembered the events preceding your nap." Sazahk sat up and turned to Garin.

Garin curled in on himself, not lifting his face from his hands. "Yeah."

Sazahk sighed. He'd thought Garin's inane need to cling to shame would clear up with his mental faculties. "And I assume you're now reexamining the events in the worst possible light?"

Garin ran his hand through his hair and gave Sazahk a weak smile. "Something like that."

Sazahk ignored how that sheepish half-smile increased his heart rate and shook his head. "I understand that the situation was upsetting and that our solution was unorthodox. Awkwardness is understandable, but unnecessary. I suggest we be grateful for the scientific discoveries made and the apparent lack of harm to either of us and move forward."

Garin's smile tightened in a way that made Sazahk's stomach plummet for no discernible reason. "You're right. Thank you for your help."

"It's not something you need to thank me for, but you're welcome." Sazahk watched Garin climb out of the sleeping bag, for once uncaring about his nudity, and pick his clothes up from the pile Sazahk had gathered them into.

Scars and sun damage met Sazahk's curious scrutiny, just as he'd expected. Garin possessed a little body hair, but he wasn't as hirsute as some other human men. He was lean, limber, long, and rangy, with tough sinewy muscles under his scarred skin.

"You have no tattoos."

Garin glanced at him over his shoulder, revealing a hint of pink in his cheeks, before pulling his shirt on. "No, I don't."

"Why not?"

"Why would I?" Garin kneeled to tie his boots. "They're expensive, permanent, and can hurt your job prospects."

Sazahk cocked his head. "I understood them to be a common bonding tool among elite human military units, and your Vanguard unit certainly qualifies."

"Ah, I see." Garin sat next to his pack and pulled out their morning protein sludge, though Sazahk had lost track of time in their sunless surroundings and had no idea if breakfast was appropriate. "You're not wrong. But they're still expensive, permanent, and can hurt your job prospects, so…" Garin shrugged.

Had he considered getting one? Had he not bonded with his Vanguard unit? Had he not wanted to? And why had job prospects mattered so much, if he'd already had a job? Did it have to do with the military being a poor fit for him? Sazahk still didn't think such a violent profession suited the man.

"Don't you have samples or something to be studying, Sazahk?" Garin shifted as another blush stole up his throat and Sazahk realized he'd been staring.

"Yes, but now that you're awake, I'd rather we continue on and collect more." Sazahk turned away and packed up his microscope. He wasn't here to study Garin. Garin didn't even want to be studied, and goddess knows, he'd indulged Sazahk's curiosity far more already than he was obligated to.

"Sure."

Garin slurped down the rest of his breakfast and they packed up the haphazard pile of bags, tools, and a sleeping bag that had become their camp after the ordeal with the fungal spores. Neither of them said anything. Sazahk had never been good at social nuance, but he suspected the silence was awkward.

Was that better or worse than the tense, huffy silence they'd packed camp with earlier in their journey?

As soon as Garin tightened his last strap, Sazahk marched off in the direction he'd chosen while Garin slept. He might have discovered a concerning newfound fascination with all things Kevin Garin, but there was still a cave system of bioluminescent mycelium begging to be researched.

Garin trailed after Sazahk, keeping his mouth shut and his face out of sight.

He'd woken with the deepest sense of contentment and well-being he'd ever felt. Warm and sated and calm. That had lasted exactly three seconds. Then the memory of why he felt so sated overwhelmed him in a tidal wave of mortification.

Because Sazahk had given him the single best orgasm of his entire life.

Garin shifted to watch Sazahk's back as the scientist prodded a mushroom, making it light up and send a blue glow spider-webbing up the wall.

In retrospect, he wasn't surprised Sazahk knew how to play a man's body. He was a brilliant biologist, after all, and what was sex but biology in action with a dash of observational ability? But still…Garin shivered in an inappropriately pleasurable way as he remembered the magnitude of Sazahk's focus on him.

This was all a Garin problem, though. This getting caught up in the memory of how Sazahk's hands had felt on him was not a mutual thing. Sazahk had moved on to glowing fungus before the cum had dried on Garin's stomach.

Which was well within his rights. And a blessing, really. A bit of a ding to Garin's ego, admittedly, to be so smitten with a man who didn't care, but still a blessing. This would be unbearable with another person making it as awkward as he was, or worse, lashing out and resenting him for the whole thing.

This was better.

Sazahk's indifference was better.

"Does your map say which way to go?"

"What?" Garin yanked his head up from Sazahk's boots, which he'd been staring at in an effort to avoid staring at his long braid and elegant throat. Sazahk had redone the braid while Garin slept, though not nearly as well as it had been done before.

"Does your map provide any information that might be useful in deciding whether to take the left passage or the right passage?" Sazahk gestured in the two directions. "I'd read it myself, but I don't know how. I have a preference, but you may have insights to contribute and an opinion of your own."

Since when did Sazahk care about Garin's opinion on their travel direction? Since he'd made Garin come on his finger? Garin shoved that thought away before his cock perked up. Besides, he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Instead, he looked past the qesh to see a branch in the tunnel. The left darkened and widened while the right had more glowing growths but narrowed.

He pulled out his tablet and brought up the maps. "If one of them gets us any closer to an exit, we should take that one."

Sazahk didn't argue and Garin glanced at him. He'd told himself to be grateful Sazahk wasn't making things awkward, but this felt weird. Days arguing and now this?

"Within reason, of course," Garin muttered as he oriented himself on the map, playing both sides of the argument despite himself. He panned around for a few moments, then put his tablet back in his pocket. "The left leads to more large caverns, but the right brings us closer to the exits I want to aim for."

Sazahk perked up with a yellow like sunflowers bursting across his nose. "Perfect. We'll go right."

"Perfect?" Garin eyed the narrow tunnel lined with mycelium filaments. It was large enough for a broad-shouldered man to walk through without touching any of the fungi, but just barely. Neither Garin nor Sazahk were particularly broad-shouldered, but that still didn't leave as much room for error as Garin would have liked. Mind-blowing orgasm aside, Garin had no desire for a repeat fungal spore experience.

"Yes, the mycelium is clearly thicker in this direction and potentially originating from it." Sazahk all but skipped into the narrow fissure. "There may be an energy source stimulating its growth, possibly geothermal in nature."

"So, we're heading into a forest of poison mushrooms fed by exploding, boiling water." Garin stepped around every glowing thing and placed his boots carefully onto lifeless, gray stone as he followed Sazahk.

"Unless, of course, that's too much to ask of you, given your recent and quite possibly traumatic experience." Sazahk stopped abruptly and turned to face him, the bright yellow on his nose morphing into a gray specked with brown. "I understand if the concept of another close encounter with the fruiting body of this particular fungus might be overwhelming to you."

Garin stumbled over his feet at the sudden force of Sazahk's full, earnest attention and stopped short of bumping into him. "No. No, I'm fine, I don't mind another encounter—that is—" he blushed hotly "I don't want another experience like that, but I'm not afraid of some glowing mushrooms."

"It wouldn't reflect on your fitness for duty or your commitment to our mission if you were afraid, considering the possible mental effects of what you went through." Sazahk scanned Garin's face and posture.

"I'm not afraid, and even if I was, I wouldn't want my fear to hinder your curiosity about weird things." Garin waved at a bulbous yellow fungus the same color Sazahk turned when he was happy.

Sazahk glanced at the mushroom and light green streaked across his cheeks, but still he frowned. "And I don't want my curiosity to stampede over your fear."

Garin's blush returned, but it was the warm bloom of something pleased and sheepish instead of the hot sear of mortification. "I appreciate that. But I'm not afraid, so…we can continue on."

Sazahk nodded with a small smile. "Okay then."

Garin returned the tiny smile. "Okay."

They stared at each other.

Sazahk really was very pretty, but Garin had a greater appreciation for the level head and quick thinking hiding under the fine-featured exterior after finding himself so vulnerable and helpless in the man's elegant hands.

His brilliance, Garin had never doubted, but he hadn't anticipated the way having the full focus of that brilliance turned on him made his heart race. Dark green and brown curled up from under Sazahk's collar. Green meant curiosity, but a green that dark Garin had only seen directed at him. And what did that brown mean?

Sazahk broke eye contact and spun on his heel. "If it makes you feel any better, we have no reason to believe the fungus will release any spores when not agitated."

Garin bit his own tongue to punish his wayward thoughts. Daydreaming about Sazahk having a color just for him and getting his hopes up about what brown meant… If it meant anything, it probably wasn't flattering. Sazahk showing an interest in Garin's well-being meant Sazahk was a good person, not that Garin was special.

Sazahk continued as he studied the yellow fungus Garin had pointed out. "And I said there may be an energy source that was possibly geothermal in nature. It very well could be something else. An enormous pile of decaying biomass from a die off of the animal we observed, perhaps."

"I'd prefer the boiling water." Garin wrinkled his nose at the idea of an amorphous pile of death and shook off the last of his embarrassment. "Speaking of animals…"

"I didn't see or hear any while you were sleeping." Sazahk lead them down the passage, around a corner, and into another narrow tunnel, this one draped with flickering strands of mycelium hanging from the ceiling.

"Were you paying attention?" Garin paused and stared at the beauty of the dancing lights before them, despite his judgmental tone on the topic of distraction.

"I was." Sazahk cut a scowl in his direction. Then he pressed his lips together. "In the beginning, at least. I admit to giving the job of keeping watch less than my full attention when the threat level proved to be low."

Garin sighed and moved to overtake Sazahk's position in front. "I'm going first."

Sazahk's forehead streaked with purple, and he opened his mouth, but he closed it again after a half second and nodded.

Garin hesitated at Sazahk's acquiescence, off balance after having braced for the argument. Not forcing Garin down a fungus-infested tunnel, not fighting him when he was protective… This was about the sex, wasn't it? This was Sazahk trying to make Garin comfortable after his humiliating display. He was stroking Garin's ego, so he felt big and strong again when Sazahk was the one who'd had to save him. Garin ducked his head and powered onward.

This was stupid. These were stupid thoughts. He was the one making such a big deal out of this, not Sazahk. All he had to do was focus on his job and this would all blow over.

With that as his mantra, Garin lead them through the twisty tunnels, careful not to touch anything that looked anything like a mushroom while Sazahk puttered around after him, poking things and taking clippings and muttering to himself.

Focus on the job, the feelings will blow over.

Focus on the job.

And yet, every once in a while, Garin caught himself watching the qesh instead of their surroundings, captivated by the yellows and greens rippling across his skin and the infectious excitement in his dark eyes. But he understood the excitement in those eyes enough for his stomach to drop when it suddenly spiked.

"I recognize that!" Sazahk took off past Garin, slipping through his hands before he could grab him.

"Recognize what?" Garin stumbled after him, ducking under a hanging curtain of mycelium.

"This." Sazahk dropped to his knees before a bulbous black rock.

Garin's gorge rose when the tiny tentacles covering it writhed toward Sazahk. "Don't?—"

"I'm gonna touch it!" Sazahk shoved Garin's hand away without looking at him. So much for the brief bout of accommodation. "It's Insect."

Garin realized, once he got a calm look at the thing, that its shiny black casing and twisting cilia did match the videos he'd seen of Insects and their structures. "We are close to where you encountered them."

Sazahk offered his hand to the strange rock, and the cilia wrapped up his long index finger. "Even so, these sensory growths must spread very aggressively to have made it all the way here in such little time. I theorized that the Insects might have an effect on the ecology of their surroundings, and if that's true, I suspect these growths are largely responsible."

"Do you think the Insects did all this?" Garin gestured at the surrounding fungi forest.

"Unlikely." Sazahk extricated his fingers and dug around the growth, revealing a thick taproot descending into the ground. "The level of infestation throughout the so-far-explored subterranean system is too great to have resulted from an introduction by the Insects. But the Insect growths could have facilitated the transfer of the mycelium to other parts of the Dead Zone's soil which could have aided in the plant growth I observed."

Insect creep didn't seem as inherently dangerous as mind-altering mushrooms, and Garin had let Sazahk muck about with those, so he let his eyes wander as Sazahk dug around the growth. He didn't see any other Insect?—

A flash of movement caught his eye.

He froze and stared into the gloom, hunting for motion. Several seconds later, he got it. Something dashed under the hood of an over-sized mushroom. Then Garin found himself staring into a new pair of dark eyes, the light of the bioluminescent fungus glinting off the huge orbs.

"Sazahk," Garin whispered as he reached for the gun hanging at his hip.

The dark eyes twenty yards away blinked, and two seconds later, three more pairs joined them.

"Sazahk," Garin hissed more urgently, not daring to take his eyes off their growing audience. He trained his gun at them.

Each eye was large based on the amount of light reflected off them, but the spacing between them was not. That could mean a large animal with closely spaced eyes, but most likely it meant a smaller animal. Something the size of a dog perhaps, and not one of those monstrously massive ones the rich families on Earth liked to breed. But Garin counted five pairs now and even if each animal was only the size of a house cat, if it hunted in packs, it posed a serious threat.

"Sazahk!" Garin finally snapped, sure beyond a doubt that the animals in the gloom were aware of their presence.

"What? I'm in the middle of—oh!" Sazahk interrupted himself with an ecstatic gasp and Garin knew he'd spied their guests. He stood and grabbed Garin's wrist. "Don't shoot them."

"I don't want to, but I want to be mauled even less." Garin didn't lower his weapon, despite Sazahk's deep frown and the blue dots appearing on his skin.

"You have no idea if mauling is even a behavior these creatures engage in."

"Exactly."

Sazahk huffed but didn't pull Garin's arm down, instead turning toward the animals and crouching. "They appear to be displaying curiosity."

"Maybe," Garin replied as a sixth pair of eyes appeared. The creature brushed the stalk of a fungus body and, for a brief moment, its silhouette flashed into relief.

"Did you see that?" Sazahk's voice lifted in excitement.

"I did." Garin had seen a domed back and a long tail and enough to confirm his earlier estimate of dog-sized.

The mushroom lit up again as the animal moved, and the light cascaded through its neighbors, illuminating the creature's shape as it approached them.

"Sazahk, get back!" Garin grabbed Sazahk's arm and pulled him behind him, but at the sound of Garin's voice ringing against the stone walls and floor, all the eyes disappeared in a flurry of motion-activated fungal light.

"No!" Sazahk took an aborted half step forward, but by the time his foot hit the ground, the animals had gone. "You scared them."

Garin let Sazahk shake off his grip, regret bubbling up in his throat, both at having grabbed Sazahk despite how much he knew Sazahk hated it and at having scared away the animals they'd partially come all this way to find. "I did. I'm sorry."

"It's—" Sazahk hunched his shoulders and sighed. "It's okay." He walked toward where the animals had been, sweeping the light of his headlamp back and forth across the ground. "You were just doing your job, though—oh, that's interesting."

"Please don't get so close." Garin joined Sazahk as the qesh kneeled beside a hole with dirt piled up around its edges. "That looks fresh."

"I believe it is." Sazahk ran his fingers through the loose dirt and it lit up with sparkling blue as they passed through. Garin bent to shine his headlamp into the hole and ensure there wasn't an animal poised just inside ready to launch an attack. "They either dug these escape tunnels with remarkable rapidity or they emerged from these tunnels into this area."

"Or some combination of the two." Garin looked around and spied three other similar holes with mounded dirt.

"This soil is remarkably rich." Sazahk scooped up a test tube full of dirt from the other holes. "I wonder if the animal was drawn to the soil or if its waste matter is responsible for its richness."

Garin side-stepped away from the nearest pile. "Pleasant."

"Perhaps they're also drawn to the root of the mycelium." Sazahk tucked away his test tube and hurried down the passage, already forgetting that Garin was supposed to be going first. "Let's hope we see more."

Garin wasn't sure he could quite get himself to hope for another encounter with a mysterious and potentially dangerous creature, but for Sazahk's sake, he at least didn't actively hope against it.

He retook the lead, but Sazahk had lost interest in the fungus and strode along at his side, his head on a swivel. An hour later, despite Garin's lack of hope, Sazahk grabbed Garin's elbow, freezing him in place, and pointed to the wall on their left fifteen yards away.

"There!"

Garin saw the eyes a second before they disappeared and huffed a laugh. "Now who's scaring them?"

Sazahk made a disappointed sound. "Maybe with exposure to us they'll become bolder."

"Maybe." Garin didn't re-holster his weapon. If they did become bolder, he wanted it at the ready.

Whatever the deal was with the animals, Garin and Sazahk were definitely closing in on the source of the mycelium. The thin strands and filaments adorning the ceiling and walls grew thicker and closer and closer together until they weaved a thick carpet across the floor. It muffled their footsteps and sent ripples of light out from every footfall.

Sazahk put a hand on Garin's arm. "Turn off your headlamp."

Garin balked, not liking the idea of blinding himself while being stalked by a group of possible ambush predators.

"For a moment, at least. For the sake of observation." Sazahk turned off his own headlamp and, after a small sigh, Garin followed suit.

But they weren't plunged into darkness. Dimness, sure, but Garin's eyes adjusted quickly and in moments he made out the familiar line of Sazahk's nose and the cupid's bow of his top lip by the light emanating from all around them.

"It didn't do that in the cave we entered from." Sazahk gazed about with wide eyes and softly parted lips.

"No, it didn't." Garin couldn't tear his eyes off the wonder in Sazahk's face, no matter how beautiful the glow of the organisms surrounding them.

In the awed silence, a faint static-y buzz whined from Garin's pocket. They both looked at it and Garin fished out his tablet. The screen flickered and it chirped erratically.

"This didn't do that there, either." Garin turned the screen to Sazahk. It wasn't broken or bricked. The screen was still perfectly legible, but it glitched and crackled as though Garin had dropped it a few too many times.

Sazahk opened his mouth and reached for the tablet, but froze with his hand midair, his eyes trained over Garin's shoulder.

Garin froze too, adrenaline spiking through him.

But Sazahk's face was delighted, not frightened, and he pointed slowly with his chin.

Just as slowly, Garin turned his torso to peer behind him.

There, a few paces down the passage, lit by the cool glow of the mycelium, stood an animal.

It took Garin a few moments to realize the animal was standing at all and not crouched on the ground. It was squat, its low-slung body propped up on short, stubby legs. But those legs ended in large, flat feet, and toes tipped with curved claws wicked enough for Garin to shift protectively in front of Sazahk.

It had the domed back Garin had clocked before and a long, thick tail that tapered at the end and flicked back and forth as the creature stared at them, tiny round ears pricked forward. The thick frame narrowed into a longish neck and a small, long-snouted head which cocked to the side like an inquisitive dog.

The creature's body rippled with a rainbow of colors, and Garin realized it was covered in white scales that lifted and danced with color.

"Metachrosis," Sazahk breathed with a note of awe. "Control of chromatophores is a marker of a species indigenous to Qesha. There are so few of us left."

Garin didn't know all those words, but he understood Sazahk was referring to the pinks and purples now playing over the creature's scales.

Sazahk stepped forward, and the creature trilled, then bounded away with surprising agility for its stubby legs, displaying a sleek body as it pranced out of sight.

Sazahk sprang into motion, following the animal down the winding passage clogged with fungal growths. "Increased animal presence and increased mycelium stimulation could be entirely coincidental, related only in their similar need for shelter from the sun and the effects of the defoliants inflicted on the topsoil a millennium ago, but any link between them would be a groundbreaking discovery."

Garin didn't try to stop him, chasing after him and twisting his body this way and that to avoid another brush with anything that might disperse spores into the air.

"Of course, their very existences are groundbreaking discoveries, but on their own they don't necessarily give us any insight into the remediation of the Dead Zone and fascination alone won't provide a home for the Insects to?—"

Sazahk shimmied through two boulders and stopped talking mid-sentence.

"Sazahk?" Garin held his breath as he slid his face past a cluster of bell-shaped mushrooms. "Sazahk, what?—"

The words died in Garin's throat as he stepped free of the crack and joined Sazahk.

They had found what they were looking for.

Whatever it was.