to protect the stars

No matter how interested he may have been, he knew that he probably wouldn’t understand what the hell was written in these books in the first place. He wasn’t educated to that extent. Maybe he would get Abel to tell him all about it at some point.

“Graduate with honours? Fuck, Princess you’re such a nerd, it’s sexy.” Cain laughed as he smirked across at the blond once more. “Fuck yeah it’s a turn on, makes me wanna fuck you right here and now.” the dark haired fighter continued with a salacious grin. Unfortunately, he knew that sex was definitely off the table at that moment, especially while Abel was sick, but it didn’t hurt to tease him, Cain could never resist a well placed innuendo whenever the opportunity arose.

“Mm, you’re not some innocent little Earthling now? What would mommy and daddy say if they knew just how lewd their precious son really was.” Cain smirked again, unable to stop himself. When it came to filtering his words, that was definitely something that he wasn’t skilled at in the slightest, but he was sure that Abel was aware of this already.

“Relax, sweetheart. I know you can’t fuck right now, I’m not that stupid.” the fighter grinned as he continued to relax on the bed, resting his hands behind his head as he stretched out comfortably. “I want you to tell me about Earth…like…what’s it like? What’s the food like?” Cain uttered as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it up without a care in the world. He wasn’t entirely sure if the vents were even open at that particular moment.

His face flushed as Cain continued and he shook his head as he set the tablet down.  “I was never completely innocent...  I was driven by my studies, but I was otherwise a normal teenage boy,” he retorted while his cheeks burned.  It as if things like that weren’t entirely normal, they were.  Maybe it was just saying (or rather, alluding) to it out loud that made it seem more... embarrassing?  That wasn’t exactly the word, but it was close enough.

“My parents will never hear about how lewd their ‘precious son’ has been.  I’d like them to remain blissfully ignorant about my personal life.”  Most parents wanted to continue to see their children as innocent and pure, right?  Not engaging in debauchery and whatever else.

After another couple of coughs dark hues returned to Cain again.  So much for reading, but Abel didn’t mind.  It was strange, but they didn’t often spend time just talking, at least not for very long.  Their conversations often dissolved into provocation moans.  This was probably the longest conversation Abel could remember between them, at least inside their bunk.

“Earth?  Okay, let’s see...”  He stared up at the ceiling as he thought.  “It depends on where you lived on Earth.  Some places are cold most of the year, some are hot most of the year, and some have seasons of cold and hot—winter and summer.  We had four seasons where I lived, so I’d see snow during the winter and in the summer everything would be lush and green.  The food is way better than what they serve us on the Sleipnir.  I had never heard of ‘mystery meat’ until I joined the Alliance, and I’m pretty sure meat shouldn’t be grey with a weird rainbow-ish grease to it...”

He couldn’t get over the fact that he was being given the chance to see something as simple as white fluffy clouds, so different to the dark synthetic clouds that he saw on Mars. This was something entirely different for Cain and he honestly loved it more than he would probably ever admit. He couldn’t wait to actually get off the ship and take in everything that Earth had to offer.

Following Abel through the necessary security measures, dark keen hues glanced around at everything that was available to him, not wanting to miss anything for even a second. Deep down he knew that he would more than likely never live his excitement over all of this down and made a mental note to attempt to at least act a little more uninterested…no matter how difficult that may have ultimately been.

“Look around in the airport? What kinda stuff is there to do in here?” Cain questioned curiously as he looked around curiously. However, at the mention of food he definitely perked up despite himself. The possibility that he may actually get to try some Earth food rather than the slop that they were served by the Alliance was rather exciting. The food in the Colonies was nothing special and the food out in space was possibly even worse, only providing the necessary nutrients that the fighters needed.

“Do they serve like, proper fucking Earth food here? I want to try some.” Cain uttered with a smirk. He could only imagine what kinds of things he would be eating during the time they were here, it really was a luxury to the dark haired male. Gripping onto Abel’s wrist enthusiastically, Cain pulled the blond over to the direction of where he could smell the delicious scent of food, there was no doubt that he wanted to try everything that he possibly could. He was more than determined to make the most of everything that was on offer to him.

“It depends on what you mean by ‘proper food.’  Airports usually just have cheap fast food, we might be able to find a sit-down restaurant... and there’s usually a few bars, too—but we’re getting some real food before we hit any bars,” Abel explained and then looked around.

“What are you in the mood for?  There’s a burger place over here, and that one has subs and sandwiches... the one over there is a sit-down place with pretty cheap food, they have breakfast and lunch meals...”  Abel was too hungry to honestly care too much about where they ate.  He knew they’d eat a nicer meal once they were in their hotel room and settled.  His parents would probably serve something fancy, too.

“—Ah!  Cain, hold on!”  Abel stumbled behind his enthusiastic companion and tugged on his arm until they stopped.  He couldn’t help but chuckle at Cain’s excitement.  Too bad he wasn’t video recording all of this to show as proof to anyone who didn’t believe him that Cain was still an overgrown child, despite how he tried to appear most of the time.

“Really?” the blond asked with an arched brow, half-jokingly.  Of course Cain would try to barter with sex.

“Cain, it’s fine.  I already anticipated that I would be paying for most things,” he shrugged, “But you should have some money, too.  You get paid for being in the military.  Have you ever bothered to check your bank account?”  Not that money mattered much while a person was in space, unless they had a family depending on it back home.  It would make sense Cain hadn’t bothered to check to see how much money he may have had.

“Don’t worry about paying me back.  Pick somewhere to eat.  It’s my treat,” Abel smiled, “We have a lot of the same places in the city, so you don’t have to pick every restaurant here for lunch. I can tell you that all of the ones here are pretty good.”  Although everything tasted good when a person was starving.

He wasn’t entirely sure why he was so focused upon getting Abel to just rest, feelings truly were a strange thing to the dark haired male.

“Hm, fine…just if your head starts hurting or anything I’ll definitely make you rest sweetheart.” Cain uttered a little awkwardly as he ran his fingers through his dark hair.

Glancing across at the datapad once more, brows furrowed as he attempted to follow along with what Abel was reading. To say that Cain wasn’t cultured when it came to classic literature was an understatement, the only thing that he really read was anything that the Alliance had given him, he couldn’t actually remember reading an entire book in his life. Books hadn’t been something that were readily available to the fighter, not that he had been particularly interested in them in the first place. However, he could understand the relaxing element to them, even if his idea of relaxing was simply getting off.

“I have no idea who those writers even are.” Cain commented as he flopped back down onto his back next to the blond with a sigh. He knew that he was more than likely making himself look stupid but it didn’t really matter to him in the slightest. “You really are one of those educated Earth guys aren’t you.” the fighter continued with a grin spreading across his lips as he looked across at the Navigator and winked knowingly.

“I can see why you were a virgin when you got here.” Cain uttered with a smirk on his features. If there was ever a chance to tease Abel then there was no doubt that the cocky fighter would take it. Hopefully Abel realised that there was no malicious intent behind it, however, Cain’s delivery when it came to comments was not always the best.

“If my head starts hurting I’ll make sure I rest,” he reassured, “I won’t be able to focus on what I’m reading if I have a bad enough headache.”

Abel had already assumed Cain wasn’t exactly cultured when it came to things like classic literature.  However, it wasn’t an assumption based solely on Cain’s presumably rough past in the colonies.  Cain just didn’t seem like the type of person to bury their nose in a book unless he had to (and even then it was probably not his thing).  There wasn’t anything wrong with that.

“I wouldn’t have expected you to know who those writers are.  A lot of people don’t,” he shrugged, “Both of the writers I named write about some pretty dark themes.”  He wouldn’t get into too much detail since he was sure Cain didn’t really care.

“Er—yeah, I’m well-educated... it was expected of me to heed my studies and graduate with honors.  Things like that look good on college applications,” Abel replied and then glanced over at Cain in time to see that wink and his usual smirk.  “Is it a turn on that I’m intelligent or something?” he asked half jokingly as his cheek pinkened.

The blush darkened as Cain continued.  “I—hey!” he griped and then elbowed the Fighter in the ribs.  Abel could tell from Cain’s face there was no malice behind his mockery.  “That’s a moot point now,” he muttered as he shrank down into the blankets and behind his datapad while his cheeks continued to burn.  He was certainly no virgin now.

The general common theme regarding people’s perceptions of the Colonies had never been a positive one as far as he was aware, as much as he would have loved to tell Abel that the horror stories about his home planet were not true, unfortunately that was not something that he was able to do.

Conveniently, Cain had left out the fact that his time back in the Colonies in recent years had been spent in prison. He wasn’t entirely sure whether Abel knew this or had a feeling that the dark haired male had been incarcerated despite his young age. He was in no way ashamed of himself or who he was but there was still something that was holding him back from actually telling Abel the full truth, maybe he was worried about what the blond would think of him after all.

“Well, it is what it is, can’t change any of it now.” Cain sighed as he relaxed further into his own seat, dark hues glancing across at Abel. He could tell that the other male probably needed some sleep before they actually landed and truthfully it probably would be a good idea if Cain tried to rest as well, after all this was going to be one hell of a new experience for him to say the least. Closing his own eyes as he leaned back against the headrest, it didn’t take long for the fighter to fall into a light sleep.

Cain wasn’t entirely sure just how long he had been asleep for, startled awake by the sound of a voice over the speakers telling them that they would be landing on Earth in the next few minutes. Looking out of the window, dark eyes widened significantly as he saw the blue sky all around them, white fluffy clouds to be seen. It really was strange to see with his own two eyes rather than on a small crackling television screen.

“Oi…Abel.” Cain uttered as he attempted to shake the blond awake from where he was still sleeping. Smirking to himself as he remembered that Abel had told him his real name, the dark haired fighter leaned closer to him and whispered into his ear teasingly. “Ethan~ Ethan wake the fuck up~” he continued in a sing song voice. In reality he was more than excited at the fact that he could actually see the Earth out of the window and he wanted Abel to share this moment with him.

“Nngh—Cain, stop—I’m awake!” Abel groaned as he shifted in his seat.  His muscles were stiff and his neck and back ached.  He was pretty sure his butt had fallen asleep at some point during his nap, too.  With another grumble he pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed them as if trying to squeeze out whatever sleep lingered.  He knew he would need to be awake and alert the rest of the day.

Dark hues stared out of the window to see Earth below them.   An ethereal ring of light-colored haze faded into the darkness of space above them.  Below them the surface was still too blurry to make out too much, aside from what was ocean and what was land beneath the clouds.  The further they descended the lighter and bluer the sky became.  Clouds leisurely floated beneath them until they broke through the mesosphere, and then the stratosphere.  Abel couldn’t remember the last time he had seen clouds in real life.

He peered over his shoulder at Cain.  This was Cain’s first time seeing clouds in person, wasn’t it?  At least clouds on Earth.  Had Cain ever seen skies so clear and blue before?  Things like the sky and fluffy clouds were mundane and forgettable to someone who had seen them all their life, however this was all going to be new for Cain.  Abel knew that, and he was sure Cain wouldn’t forget to remind him.  It was, dare he think, endearing to see Cain so wide-eyed and excited, almost childlike.

Eventually they landed safely on the ground and were allowed to exit the carrier.  God, it felt amazing to finally be able to stand up.  His legs felt tingly after sitting for so long.  Once Abel had stretched he gathered his things.  He led Cain off of the carrier and into a building where they were filtered through security.  Although they weren’t outside, the air seemed fresher than the continuously recycled air of the military ships.

They had only been around each other for a short amount of time, yet Sacha was instantly drawn to the blond, his demeanour, his appearance, in his eyes it all added up to the perfect package that he just wanted to get him into bed. Sacha was no stranger when it came to sexual encounters, he had had more than he could even begin to count and he definitely wanted to add Ethan to this list. However, he had a feeling that it was going to be far more difficult to get into Ethan’s pants, but Sacha never backed down from a challenge.

He was determined to get this hot blond into his bed.

“The fuck?!” Sacha was suddenly pulled from his own thoughts by his cigarette being pulled from his mouth, now that was definitely something that he hadn’t expected. The smirk instantly curved across the dark haired males lips as obsidian hues connected with the other’s without wavering.

“Heh, you’re a lot bolder than you look, you know. Not many people would have done that to someone they’ve only just met. Don’t think that it’ll stop me in the future though, no promises.” Sacha laughed with a grin flashing in Ethan’s direction. Running his fingers through his hair, he glanced across at the blond once more. “Me? No I don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Not the relationship type. I tie or a sock on the door? You’re such a fucking dork oh my god, it’s hot. Maybe you could watch while I’m fucking someone, you could learn a move of two.” he continued with a salacious grin.

It wasn’t Sacha’s intention to come across as nothing more than an asshole, his personality was brash and crass the majority of the time but he meant no malice by it.

“Hm, yeah from Russia. My parents moved here when I was about ten or so for work. Can’t say it’s been all bad though. What about you? Born and bred here I’m guessing?” the dark haired male questioned as he jumped down from where he was still sitting on Ethan’s desk before heading over to his own side of the room. Unpacking his things would come later when he could be bothered to actually do it of course.

 Stretching his arms above his head, Sacha attempted to work out the kinks in his muscles from travelling to the college before pulling the shirt he was wearing off completely. If there was one thing that Sacha was definitely proud of it was his body, the top of a small star tattoo just visible above his low slung belt.

Pink tinged Ethan’s cheeks again when Sacha invited him to be a voyeur.  He hastily tried to will the color from his face.  Sacha really had absolutely no filter, didn’t he?

“That sounds pretty cool.  I’ve always wanted to visit Russia, and Europe,” the blond replied before he nodded, “Yeah, I was born and raised in the U.S.  Pretty boring.”  He shrugged.  A majority of his life had never been too exciting, save for his summers during high school with his best friend.  His life in college was proving to have an intriguing start, as well.

Dark hues watched Sacha as he hopped off of the desk, stretched, and then pulled off his shirt.  Ethan wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse that his roommate was physically attractive... depending on the situation, it was both definitely both.  His cheeks began to burn again when he realized he had been looking at Sacha’s half-naked body for far longer than any normal person probably would have.

Ethan decided to occupy himself with the task of putting away his books now that Sacha wasn’t sitting on his desk.  However, his attention shifted to Sacha again when he spoke, and the blond now noticed the tongue piercing.  He never really understood the reason behind having piercings in places people wouldn’t normally see, but to each their own.

“No, I’m not here alone.  My best friend got in to this school, too,” the blond answered, “I’m not sure what dorm he’s in either.  I was hoping we’d be rooming together, but obviously we’re not.”  At the very least he wanted his and Jules’ dorms to be at least relatively close to one another, as in within a few minutes walking distance.

“What do you plan on majoring in?  It you have any idea yet,” Ethan asked after putting away the last book from the box he had opened.  He knew a lot of people went into college having no idea what they wanted to do, and even if they did many would wind up changing their majors (sometimes more than once).  “I’m looking into computer science and engineering.”  He knew he wasn’t really helping his ‘huge fucking nerd’ image, but he didn’t care.