#binding affinity

waking up to Grace tracing the outline of your arm — now supple and firm with fat and muscle — and his hand just stops shy of holding yours. he hovers; thinks it through, but ultimately decides against it. he sees you've woken up and he greets you good morning.

being pressed up to each other quickly gets old and you two cuddle at some point in the night because the mere suggestion of your presences isn't enough. Grace needs to melt into you, and you want to melt into Grace.

being roused by Grace crying and kissing your hair, but you don't dare make a sound nor a move because you know he needs this space for himself to be as emotional as he wants. hard as it is to maintain your ruse, it's even more difficult to not acknowledge Grace and hug him back just as tight. secretly he wants that.

Grace's (and your) laughter thrumming through your chest when he makes a joke in the middle of a conversation. it's a spark amidst the roughness of recovery and you look past the corniness. you're happy because Grace is beginning to lighten up again. Grace is happy that you're here to laugh with him.

after a while, Grace grows to accept that you have to take some time for yourself in the mornings to swim and process your emotions through water. he waits for you patiently on the beach, and there's always a towel waiting for you. he, on the other hand, prefers to just talk. he talks and he talks until he's run out of things to say. sometimes it ends with him in tears, and his words get slurred and choked up. sometimes he just trails off. through it all, he prefers to be next to you; he either plays with your hand or sits there pressed up to you so he can be reminded that you're there.

taking turns sleeping in each other's bed even when the initial Very Clingy phase has cooled down between you two. with Grace, you don't even have to ask. he just moves over as soon as the bed dips and he assumes his place next to you. with you, though, he always asks first. he wakes you gently with a whisper to your ear, and he only slips beside you when you say yes. you almost always say yes.

the journey to Erid was, for the lack of a better word, tough. your memory of the final weeks before your arrival at Rocky's planet had been heavily suppressed by your own brain, given how traumatic it had been for both of you and Grace (and for Rocky, by extension). you were only half-conscious for most of it, and then not at all, when you were put in the care of Eridian scientists upon Rocky's urgent demand for you to be saved and nursed back to health.

it took a few years before you were really able to bounce back from that period of great suffering, but here you now were: your body had recovered and had almost returned to normal, except for the lasting mental scars that that experience bestowed upon you.

you chose to cope with them by swimming in the artificial ocean that your dwelling in the biodome overlooked. Grace woke up before you did, and so his wishes were prioritized during the construction of your little haven on Erid. not that you minded; you had little to want at the time, and were beyond happy that the Eridians were willing to keep you alive for as long as a human possibly could.

Grace was often worried when you slipped away early in the morning for a swim. even if you left him a note, he'd be scrambling to get out of bed and run outside so he could confirm that you were really there; you were alive; breathing, out on the beach, sitting on a small island of rock in the middle of the artificial ocean, glistening from replicated droplets of seawater as you look over at the shoreline to find Grace waving at you. you'd wave back, as a way to assure him that you're okay. you're not going anywhere.

Grace was just as attached to you as he was with Rocky. but perhaps the degree was a tad higher with you, because you were of the same species. you could also say the same for yourself. you two came so close to death; you were both afraid at some point that one of you would succumb to it, especially during those critical days where they were still pumping nutrients into your body intravenously.

for the first few nights in your home, you and Grace slept next to each other as a way to deal with the lingering fear. weeks of this set-up passed before you could function normally again: you spent the night closely tucked next to your fellow human; skin and fabric pressed against each other, as a reminder that you weren't going to disappear (and universe forbid, die) during your sleep. you picked that habit up from Rocky.

during this rough period of recovery, all the unaddressed moments on the Hail Mary would flood your subconscious. the memories you had of Grace and of yourself back on Earth; your relationship before getting launched into space, and whatever followed that, as you traversed the star-studded void to find a cure for Sol.

Stratt didn't need to drug you with an amnestic pre-launch. you went on your own volition, provided that they begun your coma procedure on Earth. you remember that now, as you kick lightly your dangling feet in the blue-green water of the ocean. you were one of the rare, noble cases that were willing to lay their life down for the sake of all humanity, because you knew that your work on the Project would mean nothing if you didn't make one last sacrifice.

that meant you remembered more than Grace did. it was another hell of its own, seeing the man you loved (but were not bound to) look upon you like you were a stranger during your first few conscious days on the ship. but his body kept score. every time he looked at you, spoke to you, touched you; his body reminded him that he knew you on Earth, and that you knew him, too. you just weren't sure if he also knew that you loved him beyond the confines of a platonic context.

so, for a while, you were content just going through the motions of regaining a sense of normalcy with Grace. eating together, sleeping next to each other; in your second year of recovery, Rocky had discovered what chess was on his laptop and made you a set, as a way to re-sharpen your cognitive functions. you and Grace played game after game 'til exhaustion, the aftermath of which meant that you'd be on the floor, napping, too lazy to get into bed; your bodies were pressed close to each other as a form of silent assurance.

you were happy with the way things are. mostly. in the fourth year, you had been well enough to sleep in your own bed (initially abandoned to accommodate your need to always be around Grace), and you even began your own work with the Eridians. Grace started teaching the kids some time that year, and you were waking every morning to suit up and accompany Adrian to the local laboratory of your cluster.

the Eridian scientists were beyond excited to have learned that you were one of the engineers that built and designed the Hail Mary. they wanted to work with you right away (provided you were well enough, Rocky made that point very clear to them), and so you joined them in their research about Earth's minerals and other resources and how they could be incorporated with those found in Erid. Adrian played mediator for a while, just before you got properly settled in your lab and with your other Eridian coworkers; after your period of assimilation, they left you to your own devices, with the exception of your morning walk together along the beach.

like you, Adrian was also dealing with the emotional brunt of Rocky's return. they were now older than him by a few years; and just as stricken with grief as the other. you two often talked about that. grief, that is. Adrian, though, was surprised when you told him about your complicated situation with Grace. how you'd loved him since your days on Earth, but that you could not find it in you to broach the topic to him.

"humans like to live in uncertainty too much," Adrian mused. you ruefully agreed. you explained to them how the pursuit of certainty was more painful than remaining uncertain about where you stood in a person's heart, because that entailed change that may or may not be favorable to your current situation. Adrian still didn't get it — the Eridian way, of course, was to be blunt and direct — but they respected your views. to them, that was simply your own alien way of easing an intangible hurt.

Adrian offered to help. you didn't think much of that suggestion, because you readily accepted it as a way to show courtesy. they told you they wanted to help bring you and Grace back together, or to whatever state existed between you two before the inevitable 12-light year journey was set into motion. "Grace is your mate", Adrian said. "It's only right to claim him as yours, with such short lifespan that humans have. Must spend the rest of your years in love."

that had completely slipped your mind until today: you had gone on one of your morning swims again. you had been camping at that small island of rock when Grace's beckoning pulled you out of your reverie. you shouted a promise of your return, and right away, you began swimming back to shore. he stood there, waiting for you with a towel. you gave him a word of thanks as you wrapped the covering around yourself and walked with him back to the house.

"the scientists want to speak to us today," Grace said. "Rocky dropped by. said it was some sort of a request."

"request for what?" you asked.

he opened the door of the house for you. you stepped in, but didn't move away from the rug so you wouldn't track seawater inside the living space. he, on the other hand, sat on the couch and shrugged. "dunno. Rocky wouldn't say."

"huh," you pursed your lips. "i'll just get cleaned up. we can go meet them at the second aperture later."

and soon you found out why Rocky kept mum.

the Eridians (well, the scientists and a handful of other researchers) requested an in vivo demonstration of human copulation. in crasser language, they wanted you and Grace to have sex, right then and there, for science. all in the name of science. sure.

you and Grace were dumbfounded. and red. so red that you thought the Eridians would be able to finally see color the way your species did. he was quick to snap out of his shock and stammer out an explanation why you can't just do that; how it required a certain level of closeness beforehand, and that sex, at least culturally, to humans, was never meant to be watched by other eyes. "just watch porn! there's hundreds of it on that laptop!" Grace asserted. one of the Eridians chimed that that didn't compare to the real thing. they had no way of determining heart rate differences, shifts in body temperature, etc. all valid reasonings for the experiment to take place.

you were still processing the proposition. Adrian's offer to help echoed in your mind, and that was all you can think about when your mouth moved on its own, and you coolly responded that you were alright with it. Grace's head snapped in your direction. "if it's for science, then it's fine," you said to him. "i trust you, but I'll only go through with it if you're fine with it, too."

you'd never forget that day; the day the experiment finally took place. nearly six years of pent-up emotion was released within that soundproofed aperture, on that makeshift bed that the Eridians provided for you and Grace to finally partake of each other's bodies. he broke after the third time you kissed him. he paused, nearly in tears, and confessed that he'd always wanted to touch you like this; that he knew he'd loved you since Earth, and that he was so, so happy you were alive and breathing and still with him after all that you've been through. Grace pinned you down and ravened your lips; your mouth, your neck; everything and everywhere, until you were covered with evidences of his love, but were still wanting more.

it felt like coming home, when Grace entered you at last; after he kissed and licked and fingered you open thoroughly. you had not the luxury of adjusting to his size; he was near delirious at this point, and desired only to feel you wrapped around him. he, too, was sick of playing the part of an indifferent housemate. between his adjustment to his new life on Erid, and his respect for your own ways of coping, he never got around to address what had remained unspoken during your time on the ship, up until your eventual residence on this alien planet. but you could feel it all now. every slick drag of his cock against your walls was a declaration of his love; his hunger for you, his promise that you'll be his until the end of your days. you clenched around him in response every time, and the more you did, the deeper; the faster Grace fucked you.

he claimed you as his in many ways, as if this were done within the secrecy of your home and not in front of an entire Eridian conference behind the one-centimeter xenonite glass wall. thrice on your back; once on top, and twice from behind, with the second time having your back pressed into his chest, keeping you upright as he thrusted into you in time with the tight ovals he was drawing on your clit. from there, he whispered how much he loved you; how you felt so good, how you and him fit so well with each other, and that from here on out, he would never hesitate.

the last leg of the experiment was marked with Grace putting you in a mating press; his hips bore down on you harder than before; slow but punishingly harsh, like he wanted you to take the shape of him after this. his hands were tethered to yours, interlaced along the gaps of your fingers to remind you that he wasn't letting go of you for as long as you lived. your body drank every drop of his devotion before falling limply on the mattress; tired, hazy, but satisfied.

the ending was a beginning in itself: the swan song of your period of isolation from your rightful lover, and the welcoming procession of whatever was in store for you and him after you wake from your necessary slumber. Grace gathered you in his arms. your bodies were still humming from the aftermath; still abuzz from wave after wave of endorphins that your bodies were pumping through your systems. you cuddled up to him, for further comfort and warmth.

you could hear the Eridians talking amongst themselves through the glass; how vastly different your "mating rituals" were compared to theirs; how much you and Grace leaked (that one made you two laugh despite your weakened state) and how messy and loud it was.

i suppose this happens a little before your full recovery, because Grace is still sensitive to ambient temperature and he's in a survival, hypervigilant mode despite things having gotten better for the two of you.

he'd be so frightened to not find you next to him :( his thoughts immediately drift to a worst case scenario where you probably got sick through the night and the Eridian doctors took you away to be monitored away from him. he's scared that you maybe had an accident in the house in some way and he's too late to help. just like. everything that could go wrong. Grace gets up and looks for you in the house — tears are clouding his eyes and he starts yelling your name. he rushes down the steps, barefoot with just the blanket over him and runs to the shore, half sobbing and screaming; frantically looking around. he's blinking hard to adjust to the darkness and then finally, finally, he sees you. you're alive. you're in the middle of the articial ocean, but you're alive.

Grace pleads, with his hoarse voice, for you to come back, and when you do, he drops everything to embrace you, not caring that you're drenching him. he doesn't even speak after the preliminary "don't do that again" that he says into your wet hair. he just takes you home, where he can see you. he only allows you to leave his sight so you can clean up and come back to him; still a bit cold to the touch, but very much present.