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Here were some things: fluorescence, white, and him.
Pete made the cramped quarters of Research Station 3A feel like brick house. He was full of ground energy wherever he went. Kao had never lived planetside before, but when the history books spoke of wild and devastating, he was sure they spoke of Pete.
What else would make sense of the destruction of him? Beneath Pete’s hands and his lips and his words?
Today, Pete was still recovering from space-sickness. He had spent most of the morning curled away under Kao’s sun-mimicking lamp in a gentle apostrophe. When Kao had kissed his forehead, he had smelled like heady flowers.
“Ylang-ylang.”
“What’s ylang-ylang?” Kao asked.
“A type of flower. My dad’s been growing them at the greenhouse recently; our housekeeper got some for him from her own place.”
Kao couldn’t imagine what a greenhouse was like—he had only seen them in books—but he nodded anyway. Pete had once told him it was very, very humid and very, very warm. Kao hadn’t experienced humidity before either.
“You didn’t understand, did you?” Pete smiled. It was fond to the core and, smiling, Kao ruffled Pete’s hair in mock frustration.
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll show you when you come. Did you get your vacations set up yet? You said you were going to talk to your supervisor.”
“Mm. I’ve been searching for tickets to Earth. They look pretty cheap mid next month; I’ll comm you the details the moment I get them, don’t worry.”
“Sounds good to me. You have to let me come pick you up; I got a cute new car that I know you’ll like.”
(The mere idea of piloting a vehicle sounded preposterous and scary but…Pete looked proud. Kao decided he’d bring a helmet just in case. He could probably find one at one of those hobbyist ship shops.)
They were so close and gentle like this, warm with body heat and sleep. Pete’s hair stuck up in rough spikes from the sonic shower and tickled his thighs. (Pete claimed he never felt clean enough after it.) When Kao ducked down to kiss his forehead again, overcome with fondness, Pete tipped his head up and caught his lips instead.
Sun-warm. Earthly.
Kao let those calloused hands gently tug him down.
Here were some things: amber, mattress, and him.
The days before Pete would come up to visit him, Kao would go off cryo and set up his bed proper. Sleep was sluggish on those days. Slow to trickle into his head and smooth down his spine. The bed felt weirdly open.
And then Pete would come. He would set the lamp back to amber—none of that space-white for him—and Kao would watch his skin become burnished copper and Kao would climb into bed and not feel like he was stranded without orbit.
“Not as good as planetside,” Pete would whisper between kisses. His body was always hot to the touch, calling Kao’s palms to melt into his sides and his body under his chest.
“Space sucks,” Kao would agree.
“Not too much, though,” Pete’s smile in those moments was black-hole deep. “It’s got you.”
“Yuck, cheesy.”
“Grr, come here. I’m gonna squash you—”
“Eee—Pete, stop!”
“Lemme kiss you first. And explain to me what just happened with Mek earlier.”
“Urgh, okaaaaay.”
Here were some things: nausea, gravity, and him.
Kao’s body staggered whenever he was on Earth. Waterlogged. Every pore of him was filled with unfiltered air and open sky and the terrifying, terrifying stretch of land. Logically, there was no difference between the grav machines on the stations and on Earth. Pete still held him around the waist.
“Space baby,” he teased.
“Shut up. I feel sick.”
“Gravity getting to you?”
“I don’t know.”
On the drive back, Kao stuck his head out of the window and drank in the speeding sights that blended together like those old art pieces in Base 3’s museum. He earned a bug in the mouth for it, something small and scaley, and when he spent the next two minutes pawing at his tongue and spitting, he could forget about the car sickness and the odd choke of sadness.
Here were some things: blue, and love, and love, and him.
The sky was actually blue. And yellow, most days, and pink sometimes, and red. Kao watched three sunrises and dug his toes in thick loam and stared at the sky so much his eyes went dry and stung with the force of the sun. He finally understood what Pete meant by humid.
They lay on a wide picnic blanket and curled into each other until all Kao could hear was the thump of Pete’s heart. Today, all the love he felt pounded right under his skin. When Pete gentled fingers down his side, his face burned. There were sheets fluttering in the wind as they dried and, in the sun, everything smelled like laundry detergent and Pete.
In space time was immaterial. Everything was always black and black and black and shut windows. Here, the passage of it felt scarier. Weren’t the days too short like this? Counted out in blues and yellows and greys and reds? He could feel the rainbow tally of them looming on the horizon.
“I love you,” Kao whispered into the sweaty skin of his neck, gripped with a sudden need. “Very much.”
“I love you,” Pete mumbled back, half-asleep. His arms tightened around Kao in a gentle squeeze. “When I wake up, remind me to ask you a question, okay?”
“Okay.”
When he closed his eyes, the sky was already turning red.
Perhaps if he closed his eyes, he could let today stretch just a little longer.