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Ethan had never thought of living in the Colonies before. He never had the desire, nor the curiosity, to visit Mars, let alone move there. Traveling wasn’t a leisure anyone could afford during a space war, not even the son of a rich Earth politician. When he was a kid, he had dreamed of exploring Mars during its pre-colonial times, when people were ruling as a free and independent democracy, and terrestrial hadn’t discovered yet the mines, the underground water, the resources. Now, what he had once studied in his history books, was radically different.
Sometimes, he wondered if this lack of curiosity made him spoiled and entitled, a fucking rich terrestrial brat as Cain – Alexei? – would say: blind to the differences of the universe. Can one truly understand how lucky they are to dive in clear waters if they’ve never tried the tempest?
But still, he didn’t want to be like one of those Earth people romanticizing a poor and exploited land. He didn’t need to discover it; he didn’t need to savour its genuinity. He was a soldier: he had to protect that butchered planet, not turn it into a tourist sensation.
And yet, days at Ludmilla’s hut were passing in a sort of twisted bliss. Days on Mars were longer and Cain was feeling at home. Speaking his language, behaving like someone who didn’t have a past to conceal.
The fear of being court-martialled, and the pain of a betrayed love were still very much present, making Ethan’s heart halt and gasp when he got lost in his thoughts at night, trying with all his will to be hopeful and not spiral into masochistic thoughts. He doesn’t love me, he’s just saving himself, he’s a narcissist, he’s a bad person, he’s violent, he’ll do it again.
But then, the sun kept coming every morning, shining also on that side of Mars, apparently forgotten by the rest of the universe, and Cain kept bringing him sweetened chernyy chay every day with an uncertain smile on his lips. If the jump drive on the reliant had kept working, it must have meant that the sentiment had been present on both sides, right? How can something so strong be unreciprocated?
Without considering the week Ethan had spent in a coma, five more weeks passed since their escape and their mutiny. One would think that telecommunication during a highly digitalized war would be fast and efficient, and, in fact, it was, but with more devices employed, more traffic also came. With the ever-increasing number of transmitters and antennas being employed every day by both military groups and the resistance, finding the right signal was becoming harder.
And so, Ethan and Cain, or Alexei or Sacha? (Ethan thinks he heard Ludmilla call him so, once), spent their days hiding from the random officials knocking at the hut’s door every now and then, but not so much, spent their hours thinking of the Sleipnir and their friends (or just colleagues? Did everybody know about Project Thebes?), but not so much. Mostly, they spent their minutes trying to figure out what the other was thinking, too afraid of breaking the thin equilibrium they were managing to form. It was selfish, but being far from everything, they started to have the feeling of being free from everything. Their recovery was fast, supplies kept coming every day, food, even if simple, arrived every day, and each meal had a warmth and spice to it that Ethan had never tasted.
And so, Ethan started to think that maybe life in the Colonies wasn’t so bad, after all.
Their days were repetitive but comforting. A routine. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays were for work at Ludmilla’s; on Thursdays and Fridays, two men from the local resistance nucleus would come in the morning and, after carefully blindfolding both of them, they’d bring them somewhere in the middle of the rock desert, having decided to at least use their knowledge to help repairing drones, weapons, and all the technology the nucleus managed to outsource from time to time. They weren’t trusted. Cain managed to win over some, being from a Russian colony as well, but at the end of the day, they were still military.
Saturdays and Sundays were for exploring the surroundings, or, from time to time, for enjoying the house alone: Ludmilla had a daughter and nephews in another town, and she was adamant about visiting them regularly. Ethan thought of these moments alone as date weekends. Let a 26-year-old have his daydreaming.
Ludmilla was the only doctor in the small colony, Nova Izhevsk, and Ethan had offered himself as a factotum: he would help as a nurse most of the time, but sometimes the stove, or the boiler, or the electrocardiogram machine would act up and there he would become the perfect handyman. Before being a navigator, he was still an engineer and a mechanics geek. Alexei hated (loved) him when he wouldn’t shut the fuck up about rusty old valves “that are impossible to find on Earth now!” (“Don’t you know that earth junk ends up here, princess?” “Sacha, vedi sebya khorosho”* “Sorry, tetushka Ludmilla”).
*Behave yourself
The thing was, Cain was behaving. He was behaving so much that he had gotten a proper job right after he got back up and his stitches weren’t hurting anymore. Abel still unconscious and looking like he was more dead than alive.
He had begged Ludmilla so much to introduce him to someone trustworthy in town, someone who’d give him any kind of task to keep his mind occupied from the thought of losing his navigator, without the fear of being snitched on and reported. He begged and behaved so much that he managed to become a trainer for the local resistance group. With every war, there’s always a resistance against the government and its military, and what were Ethan and Alexei if not enemies of the military, right now?
Cain was behaving, and Ethan didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know this new, silent, observant, somehow kindly rough person. On the ship, he had learnt when to keep silent, when Cain wanted to be humoured, or rather have him disappear from his face. Now, they fucked - they made love - they spent every day together, even if they had decided together to keep separate rooms, but they weren’t talking.
After their renewed introduction and apparent reconciliation, things started being in a stalemate. It was clear Cain was trying to play by Ethan’s pace, but this was making both quiet and uncertain.
For starters, Ethan didn’t know whether to call Cain by his task name or his real one, too afraid to cause a negative response, so he was carefully avoiding calling him at all. Sacha hated his task name, didn’t like the ugly biblical reference, nor did he like what the character of Cain had made of him with Project Thebes. As much as it had been difficult, he liked the Sacha he was in the colonies: he had been dedicated, maybe reckless and selfish, yes, but loyal to his dears, in his own way. He wasn’t going anywhere. How to make Ethan understand this, if he wasn’t even trying to call him by his real name?
Cain on the spaceship was biting, Sacha in the colonies wasn’t even barking; he put the leash in Ethan’s hands, but Ethan was afraid that if he pulled it even just a little in his direction, the wolf at his feet might escape at full force on the opposite side.
Sacha’s confidence was fully restored only when they’d roam the rock desert during their weekends off (their date weekends). He knew how to move, he knew how to find water among the arid red ground, he knew the stars, and, with Ethan’s surprise, he knew how to love freedom and nature in a childlike way, attentive to every sound of the wind and careful not to disrupt the habitat of the creatures living there. In five weeks, this was the second time that Sacha had taken the initiative of bringing Ethan out for a small trip. The first time, they’d been unsure and scared of being caught, which led to passive behaviour and a petty fight about canned beans, finally resulting in silence treatment from Ethan’s end and not having sex for the following two weeks. Sacha was fed up. This had to change. On Saturday morning, early, he mercilessly turned on the lights in Ethan’s room, flopping on the mattress next to him and patting his knee.
“Oi, wake up. We’re going”. Pat, pat on his knee again and then more gently on his stomach. Ethan scrunched up his nose, letting out a wide-open mouth yawn that showed Sacha a few cavities in the back of his mouth. Heh, always liked his sweets.
“Mh, what time is it?”
“Late enough for you to be up, come on. I’m taking you somewhere nice”
Ethan propped up, a little crusty thing on the side of his right eye which Sacha removed with his fingers. Not realizing what he was doing, Ethan leaned his face on his palm and smiled softly, leaving him just a bit mortified when he understood what Sacha was aiming to remove. He cleared his throat and got up.
“Do I need to pack something in particular?”
“I got everything, tent and all, just get your cute ass ready”
“Tent? Isn’t Ludmilla out this weekend? I thought we’d-“
“Sweetheart, I’m still going to fuck you even if we’re out the house, don’t worry, just get ready. I’m taking you somewhere nice”.
Sacha hadn’t spoken to him that cheekily in quite some time, and even if sex wasn’t what Ethan was referring to, it made him smile fondly. He was taking him somewhere nice, after all.
They took Ludmilla’s old motorbike and drove for about 50 km southeast, stopping just once to relieve themselves (Sacha joking about holding it for Ethan and Ethan getting all shy and jiggly and Sacha knew they were going to talk today and it was going to be a good day).
They stopped in front of a huge cluster of red, dry rock, looking a lot like Red Jasper.
“I’m not going down there”
“Ethan, it is safe”
Ethan raised his eyebrows impossibly high, forming lines on his forehead and crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“How do you know?”
“Just go, it will be wide inside” and then, diverting his gaze from Ethan's questioning face "this place is not too fare from hometown".
“We’ll die there, after all this effort to stay alive the rock will fall and crumble on us and we’ll die there!” He already knew he was going to enter, because at this point, he wanted to see the somewhere nice. And Ethan, being a soldier, decided to trust his fighter and entered the slim vertical opening in the rock.
They kept walking inside the damp and cold cave for some 20 or 30 minutes, Ethan starting to become a bit sceptical, but when he sneezed and slipped Sacha was right there in front of him, and for the remaining 10 minutes of walking he kept their hands laced together. Palms just a bit sweaty, but firm. Suddenly, the light started increasing in intensity.
Somewhere nice was probably an underestimation. Ethan had never thought of visiting the Colonies, before, but this might have been the most beautiful place he’d ever seen.
The trail they followed in the dark led to a wide cave, with light coming bright from a large opening from the top. A small waterfall was falling from the higher rock, creating a soft carpet of bright green moss scattered all around. A lake, just a few meters wide but deep enough to swim, was sitting at the bottom left of the water stream. Some insects that Ethan couldn’t recognize were flying around, escaping the outside drought. At second sight, it wasn’t a grand spectacle, but the unexpectedness of it all, in the middle of the Martian red desert, made it all more beautiful to Ethan’s eyes.
“Cain! I mean Alexei? Have you been here already? Did you know this place?”
Sacha shushed him, a bit annoyed at the insecurity he still had about his name.
“You like it?”
Ethan nodded, his cheeks were pink-tinted, but it was fine because so were Alexei’s. They were still holding hands.
“Call me Sacha, okay? I don’t like Cain, ‘s not me”
Ethan turned fully towards him, smiling about this little conquer he was having, bringing his free hand at the height of Sacha’s navel, sneaking him under his hoodie. Autumn in that side of Mars was gentle, but the temperature in the cave was starting to give him goosebumps. “Sacha? Is it a nickname?”
“Mmh, diminutive for Alexei, or Alexander”
“Sounds like a girl’s name” smiley, teasing.
“Shut up, Ethan” An eye roll, but he wasn’t annoyed, and Sacha was kissing him, just a bit sloppy, open-mouthed, but very sweet. Both of his hands came up to stroke his cheekbones. A bit messy, the sweetest he could give him, probably. When they parted, Sacha’s eyes fell on the scar on his lips, his eyes immediately getting darker and his brows coming together, furrowing in a sort of downward arrow.
“I’m- I’m sorry about that, I don’t know why I did that. I liked it, back then, ‘m not gonna lie or anything about it. Made me feel superior and all that. I jus’, dunno, I’ve felt sorry ‘bout it for a while, it’s true”.
Ethan wanted to say it didn’t matter, but if he did, he wouldn’t have been honest, because it did matter and that wasn’t a pleasant memory, one of those that twisted the idea of Cain in his mind, like he had to be on guard even when they were intimate, still now.
Sacha noticed his silence and took it as defeat.
“Come on, princess, let’s go check the water”.
Ethan wanted to say something else, kiss him again, but it was okay. For now, they had time.
The water was extremely cold, but Sacha had to be all macho about it and decided to dip his entire body inside. Ethan didn’t mind being called a pansy today, comfortable with just wetting his toes. After approximately two minutes, Sacha’s lips started to turn purple and he got out, trying to be nonchalant about it, while his skin was betraying evident goosebumps.
(“Youre such an idiot, you’ll get sick” “Watch your mouth”).
Sacha was looking so young, smooth tanned skin with pearly droplets, his manhood reddened from the cold water (of course, he had to jump in naked) that Ethan started feeling a bit silly and boyish. He got the towels that Sacha had providently prepared in his backpack that morning, and just as the fighter was reaching out a hand to get one, Ethan snatched them both, running away easily, hopping from one big stone to the other and laughing so, so much. Of course, Sacha reached him just as easily, not too mad, but not too amused either at the bravado. Towels forgotten, he lifted Ethan up and his intent was clear.
“Aaah, nonononono, Sacha please, it’s too cold- come on” he was trying so hard not to laugh though, kicking his feet up and down and pushing his hands on Sacha’s chest “baby, come on, pleaseee” Sacha got just a little tense and Ethan thought he had overdone it, but then he heard a small snort and saw Sacha smirking down at him
“Baby, uh? Don’t baby me you brat”.
After drying up, Sacha suggested they’d go out to set camp and eat the sandwiches Ludmilla had made for them the day before. They didn’t talk much for some time, just resting idly on the sheet they were lying on, backs on some rocks, legs comfortably sprawled in front of them on the ground with their feet bumping every now and then.
Sacha was playing with a small pebble he found inside the cave, smooth and levigated by the water, making it turn circles on Ethan’s bare belly, his sports t-shirt and jacket lifted to expose soft light skin interrupted by a big scar across his torso. When Ethan propped up, the pebble fell exactly inside his navel, closing the hole as a sort of cute red button. Sacha poked at it with one finger, smiling lightly, but clearly concerned about the scar close-by.
“Sacha?”
“Mh”
“I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Mh. What about?”
“I’m not sure how to put this into words… there’s always been a distance between us, but- but now it’s making me more unsure. Before I knew, before I knew about that project… Thebes? Everything was a bit of a blur: we moved so fast, maybe too fast, but I enjoyed it. I loved the rush and even the rough edges somehow, because in my head, I thought that maybe that frenzy was proof that you cared. And now… now it’s different. You were right, I mean, you’ve said it yourself: you’re not Cain, Cain was forced on you by circumstances. But I’ve always been the same, Ethan and Abel were still the same person, and despite everything, I still feel the same. I don’t want to rush us, not anymore, at least. I genuinely think we need time, but what I’m trying to say, I guess, is that I, somehow, truly believe in this, but I need to know more of you, I need to understand who Sacha is and I don’t want to be scared and tentative like it was before. I want to understand you, all of you, and I want us to find something real”.
Ethan had looked at everything but Sacha’s face, and still now he didn’t dare to look at him, afraid that the tears he had managed to hold down so well would stubbornly fall out of his eyes. So, he focused on the pebble still in his navel, pushing it inside with his index finger.
But Sacha was at a loss of words, never had been someone wearing his heart on his sleeve, never even thought he had a heart to begin with (this wasn’t true, but it was easier for him to think he didn’t). He hated this situation; he wanted to be a jerk about it and run away, he wanted to tease Ethan for being a pansy, but instead, he felt such fondness for him in this moment that it was uncomfortable. Ethan was brave, and Sacha wasn’t. He was a coward, and like a coward he hid is face, lowering it on Ethan’s torso, kissing his hands lying there and nuzzling his stomach. Was this enough? Could he kiss him stupid and show that he understood? He did! He agreed with what Ethan said, but how could he tell him when he had never had to share feelings with anyone before?
“Sacha” his voice sounded wet, Sacha didn’t really want to look up now “I need you to say something, please”.
“Abel… I don’t know what to say, but- but I feel the same. I want to tell you things, but I don’t know how, so I’ll follow you, okay? If you ask me, I will answer, alright? You aren’t a project to me, believe me, please. Is this enough, for now?”
Ethan just sniffled and nodded, sniffled and nodded because that was enough, for now.
And then Sacha was all over him, pebble tight in his grip because he wanted to make a ring or a necklace or something for Ethan with that, if he had the time. Kissing his jaw softly, then his eyes and finally his lips, trying to put as much intention into it as he could, drawing soft little moans out of Ethan and, for the first time, he thought of telling him that he loved him. But that would have been wrong; love would have been a small plaster on a big wound in that moment, thrown there without any further explanation. Ethan deserved more from him.
So Sacha pulled both of them up, half laughing, half exhausted, and suggested they just head back to Ludmilla’s hut, raid her kitchen for something to eat, and crash in a real bed together. (“Fuck the tent princess, tonight I want to feel you beside me on something that doesn’t sink into the dirt”).
They got back on the bike, Ethan driving a little bit faster, enjoying the way Sacha would wrap his arms tighter around his waist (he had always liked his navigator going fast). That warmth in front of him was enough to make the night feel almost safe. When they finally rolled up to the hut, it was dark and quiet. No lantern light in the window, no soft humming from the kitchen. They both paused for a heartbeat, a stupid grin tugging at Ethan’s mouth, because thank God, thank every star above, sweet old Ludmilla wasn’t home.
For tonight, just a roof, a bed, and the dizzy relief of being together without anyone watching but the stars were enough for Ethan to feel sure about their hearts.