#jamgnat

“We’re gonna have to land,” he muttered, jaw set. His grip wrenched the steering column down and the ship pitched under his force. “Do me a favor and scan this planet. Quick.” 

Your wrist terminal flickered to life in a wash of blue light. The hologram spilled between you: a terra map of an orb turning slow, continents like bruises under clouds. Mountain chains spidered outward, their cave systems glimmering with faint, unregistered heat signatures.

You swiped through the interface, thumb brushing a static pulse. “Breathable air,” you reported. “Zephyrax-934. Uncharted—at least by my logs.” A pause, “I haven’t been here… have you?”

The ship bucked dangerously close to the planet’s orbit, cutting through pockets of lilac haze with each bout of intergalactic turbulence. Thrusters sputtered as the hull shook itself apart, each inch of descent a staccato beat of metal fatigue and atmospheric friction. Rick leveraged harder on the pedal, syncing his rhythm to the planet’s magnetic pull, attempting to brake in tune with the planet’s currents.

Squinting through static, he side-eyed the hologram with narrowed eyes, “934, huh? Maybe. I don’t remember.”

“Yeah, uh, let me see if there’s anything we can—“ Your words fractured as the next shudder rippled like an electromagnetic current. The ship spun sideways. In the same blink the ship’s airbags deployed, exploding from their casings and slamming your right arm against the door’s interior panel. Your terminal cracked like a glow stick. Chemical heat soaked your forearm, saturating like wildfire.

As more of his computer systems started faltering, Rick’s AI ruptured through fragmented responses, its voice glitching in loops while sparks chewed through the console: Warning—impact sequence—containment—override—

You caught the blinding spark of an exposed motherboard, arcing, alive. Heat flamed up your arm, a warning, a promise. “Fuck!” you spat through disheveled hair.

Steering through pockets of resistance that felt less like air and more like water, his knuckles drained bloodless as he fought the wheel.

Rick cursed back from behind the haze, muffled by outdated deployment bags. “Shit, shit, SHIT.”

In your effort to reach his damn portal gun, which was inconveniently out of sight, you slammed your free arm down on one of the airbags. Stupidly determined, you wrestled against the bloated air discovering the safety measure proved to be more hassle than help. Trapped like a mosquito in amber, movement was impossible. Why on EARTH did this idiot still have Takata airbags?

You couldn’t see him through the mess, but if your view was gone, his had to be worse. If Rick was as pinned as you were, then you were both going down with this heap of junk towards an unseen end.

A dying animal thrashing against the jowls of gravity, you prayed the emergency landing systems were still breathing code. If anything else, you’d settle for a merciful crash. Friction whistled a banshee’s cry. The chorus of system failure alerts and a screaming engine bled with your silent pleas. Relentless notes that sung, ‘this is it.’

The plunge was nothing near compassionate. Impact split the windshield in a web of light, glass spidering outward before it gave in like a black hole.

Shards and clots of alien grit ripped through the airbags, carving streaks of heat across your skin. Gravel scattered through the cabin. A horizontal hail shredding fabric, skin, anything that yielded.

Silence arrived still and sharp, threaded with the crackle of smoking circuitry. The lights on the dash blinked once, maybe twice, then dimmed to nothing.

The air felt alive, vibrating, as though the planet itself had exhaled into the ship.

Rick was a vague outline through the haze, slumped but moving. You caught the faint drag of his voice, cursing under his breath alongside the red glow of the ship’s failure. And with it, you nodded into a soundless dark.

—

His frame arched ice stiff over the pile of rubble that had slammed through the windshield and swathed the front seats.

“God dammit,” Rick rasped. The sound barely rose over the dying hum of the engine. “You just had to pass out now, huh? Great timing. Stellar.” He yanked at a loose strap, trying to free himself.

Cursing his ship to whatever hell was closest, he glanced toward you. Wilted, limp, blood winding along your arm where glass had kissed bone. His stomach twisted, violent and unwelcome.

Rick’s fingers hovered before they landed at your neck, “Don’t—” he murmured, pressing two digits to your throat, finding a pulse that stuttered under his touch. Weak, but there.

He exhaled, too shaky for his own comfort. “I’m not dragging your ass through customs,” Rick stated somewhere between resentful and relieved.

He gritted his teeth, scowling as he fingered the lining of his jacket. The motion was all impulse. Something to do with his hands while his brain refused to stop screaming. Searching for something: his flask, his nerve, maybe both. An ampoule.

Rick snapped the tiny glass vial between his teeth, spat the nub at his boots, and shoved it through the mess of hair blocking your features. His fingers snagged strands like a rough hand on velvet.

A sweep of ammonia snapped through the air, jumpstarting your current. Your head jerked back against the mangled headrest, breath catching on instinct. 

Satisfied you weren’t dead, Rick shifted his attention towards the wreckage and unburying the center console. Aggravated, he sunk his nails into the cool, freshly unearthed dirt.

Each movement coalesced clouds of dust that hung chalky in the ship’s interior. Thick as it flirted with ammonia and unstable tech.

Clumps of dirt spilled out the cuffs of his oil streaked lab coat as he moved. He coughed a slurry of rough curses as flakes of glass bit his fingertips, caking crimson as blood coagulated with the dirt underneath them. When he finally reached the black-box, he pried it free from the wreckage like it owed him answers. A sound that was half relief, half fury.

Processing the damage, you blinked with haste as you de-shelled your forearm terminal. It came apart in two warped halves. Circuit-kissed skin welded to its interior. You sucked a sharp breath through your teeth. The damage was nothing short of apparent. Threads of melted tech begged to remain fused, seared to the flesh that remained intact. Patterns of charred lines and half-formed wire imprints ran along your wrist like veins that didn’t belong to you. The brand twitched, angry at its introduction to open air. A lattice of heat pulsed in rhythm with every shaky breath you dared take.

Muscles stiffly tenderized, pain lanced through your neck as you twisted a glare at Rick. Any answer that might explain why you were both bruised, bloodied, and trapped felt light years away.

There was no tell that he heard your silent plea. He stayed focused on his work.

You could see each tremor of his hands, each clench of his jaw, yet he still choreographed the board with wild precision, a master of control.

Petitioning eyes won you a once-over skim. ”What?” he snapped. Briefly, like the swish of a cat's tail, his focus barely grazed you. Incredulously infuriating.

Areas of the ship that had curled to the earth continued to splinter electricity. “We gotta get out of here,” you managed. 

“Not until I sync this data,” Rick's breath mixed with the tang of burnt tech.

A scoff scraped your throat, “Sync to what? All our tech is destroyed!”

He halted his movements and slammed the lid, tripping his temper, “Our tech? None of this is even remotely yours.”

You flashed your raging forearm like it was obvious, “And look where that got us! We crashed. What part of that isn't clear?”

“Oh, I don’t know… maybe because this black-box is the only thing that’s keeping us from completely disappearing into the void?” He jerked back from the console, sparks snaking around his fingers. “And you think whining helps? Every second you’re sputtering, we lose another fragment!”

You jutted your chin towards the back viewport, where the terrain of Zephyrax-934 sprawled beyond. “We’re blind here! We need to figure out this planet before it figures us out!” 

“What do you think I'm trying to do, here?" He didn’t even look up, fingers caressing the terminal like it was the only living thing besides himself that mattered, “And how exactly do you propose we move? The hull’s barely holding together, the atmosphere’s fucked, and you want a leisurely stroll?”

Coiled like chilled syrup clinging to a metal straw, you had no answer for him.

“Should’ve let you nap a bit longer. Would’ve spared me your commentary," he added.

You flinched at the snap in his voice, “Good to know you’d rather scrape my corpse than listen to reason.”

He jerked a cable from the box, sparks flaring. “We’re in this mess because you didn’t read the goddamn briefings before we crashed!” 

“We barely had time to stabilize the entry!”

“You lost any bet we had when you spent invaluable time on footnotes while the ship was literally falling apart!” Rick feral, continued to maul your spirit's flesh like a starved dog, “Logs wouldn’t have kept us from crashing, but maybe—just maybe—they’d have given us a clue before we slammed into this mess!” 

 A hysterical cackle. “Footnotes? I read as much as you did on this place before your ship slit my wrist!”

Rick seethed, inhaling the remaining ammonia and smoke.

“You’re missing the bigger picture,” you pleaded, begging him to comprehend the potential dangers awaiting.

“The bigger picture? The bigger picture is survival, is this,” he pounded code, “You think I care about your panic?”

You kept your voice low and sharp. “If we don’t step out and actually look around, we’re not surviving at all.”

He finally turned, eyes flashing, jaw tight. “If you touch anything before I finish syncing, you're done," he threatened. “Move, you're dead to me," a half-empty bluff.

Though the dust from initial impact had settled, the air remained thick with unspoken friction. Dust drifted lazily across the beaten dash, but the tension refused to lift; you remained still, every muscle weeping, hoping the data Rick clung to could somehow wrest sense from this wreck.

You ghosted the pieces of terminal still stuck in your arm, gently picking away the foreign elements. Every millimeter of touch fought your nervous system as you meticulously pinched away the remains. Your wrist birthed streams each pull, and your fingers were quick to slick in your own blood, making the task near impossible. 

Wafts of copper sliced through the air. Rick’s eyes flicked to your forearm, a grimace crossing his face as he allowed the gravity of your predicament to lure him down to a simmer, “Not that I’m checking, but… yeah, that’s bad.”

You huffed. Your forearm wept platelets, plasma. All your body’s defenses spilling out with eerie determination. 

“Don’t move it,” he cautioned.

“So now you care,” you scoffed. “I’m fine, I’ll fix it.”

“You’re bleeding out,” Rick warned flatly. “Want to die here? Quit fucking with it.”

He was right. You vowed not to admit it and continued to peck regardless. The excavation was nearly finished. Sharp inhales and off-beat breaths. 

Nowhere near subtle, he snuffed you out like a cigarette, “You sound like you’re getting fucked.”

“What?” you stared, stunned. Disbelief just short the pace of a hare.

“Pathetic,” he added, like diagnosing an illness.

“You think I sound pathetic?” Incomprehensible annoyance and disbelief knotted amongst the words.

Rick continued like he was discussing nothing short of science, “You do.”

Fury and shock pulled your expression taut. A psychotic grin.

His eyes flicked up, briefly unreadable. “You sound human. Same thing," Rick flattened. “Quit fucking with your arm,” he repeated.

An annoyed scientist interrupted. Rick yanked on a loose strap hanging over the dash, opting to slice a spot frayed from impact. He tossed it to your lap like an arrest warrant.

You begrudgingly surrendered to his orders, tightening the makeshift tourniquet with clenched teeth. “Where’s your portal gun?”

“Gone. Broken. Take your pick.” Rick stole a look of the expansive forest behind him. The light had dimmed to a blue-hour haze. He palmed the back of his neck and sighed, “I haven't been here but I know planets in the Vireon galaxy typically aren’t...that bad.”

Suspicion gripped you, “that bad?” ‘That bad' could mean a hundred different things in Rick's dictionary. Sentient vines that squeezed you to suffocation, locals with a penchant for sadistic abduction. 

Your silence eventually lured an answer out of him when the black-box’s terminal faintly glowed green. “It’s an aphrodisiac planet,” he finished casually.

“Oh, this is rich.” The annoyance festering in you rolled to a boil, “Is that why you don’t want to go out there? Scared you're gonna fuck ferns till your balls get poison ivy?”

Rick exhaled through his nose and shoved the black-box away for good, satisfied with the knowledge his upload had completed. “I transferred our coordinates to the the sub-basement servers. Drones’ll pick up the rest,” Rick explained. Task marked off his mental list, his tone was already somewhere else. Clinical, methodical. He cut the last of his harness straps, a sharp snappunctuating his detachment.

“What makes this place oysters and saffron?” You pushed his knowledge.

“Atmosphere,” Rick bit out. His hands clamped down to your hips, unwarranted contact firing frayed nerves throughout your spine. Heat through blood and dust, and for a blink it felt less like help, more like possession. With one flick of the blade, he sliced through your blood-stuck harness. Movements brisk, brutal. His fingers pressed along your thighs to clear the straps with haste, the gesture mechanical yet too human. “Get out."

You tried the passenger door; it held firm, dented in place. Shoving proved futile, jarring your sore shoulder. The back hatch was your one salvation—the only portion of Rick’s ship that remained seemingly untouched by collision. Rick caught your eye and tilted his chin toward it, a silent order. The two of you maneuvered through the wreck, stepping out the hatch. Dimming sun soaked through lilac blue haze. The air outside felt heavier, like it had been waiting.

Thick and floral, like breathing through heated nectar each inhale. A film of metallic dust glinted against the half-dead sun. Dust motes drifted upwards instead of down as if gravity hadn’t quite yet decided what to cling to. Somewhere beyond the trees, a low thrumming pulse rose steady and alive, like the planet itself had a heartbeat. Rick’s boots crunched beside you, grounding the impossible.

“How long?” you spoke, tugging absently with the tourniquet that bit your forearm numb. The strap marked the divide just beneath your elbow.

Rick stood a careful distance away, eyes narrowed toward the wreck and the alien ridgeline beyond. He peered onwards taking in the surrounding terrain. You’d crashed along one of Zephyrax’s expansive mountain ranges. Slopes razored high and the faint shimmer of fog rolled between peaks.

“Not sure,” he admitted, something unreadable in his tone.

“Okay,” you acknowledged. “Your trunk—is that scanner still in there?”

“Should be.”

You followed him. Rick braced a boot against the trunk and pried until the latch gave. Inside, the scanner lay among shards of glass and coiled wire, its display flickered weakly next to the trashed portal gun. A fraction of closure.

He paid no mind to the loss. You watched as he calibrated the scanner with a few practiced taps. The scanner rippled, sending a wave of cerulean light over the soil. Data strings crawled across its surface: Atmosphere stable, Flora composition unknown.

“Still functional,” he said, almost to himself. Rick squinted at the readings, “Alright, plants first. If this place really is what I think it is, we’re walking through a hormone factory.”

The word hormone hung in the air, heavier than it should’ve been. Your arm throbbed, pulse syncing with the scanner’s faint hum.

He whispered an annoyance. “You’re useless if you bleed out,” he said, already reaching for what tools had survived the crash.

Rick’s medkit was mostly a graveyard. Half the contents caked with ash, the other half fused from heat. One item clung to life: a single vial of antiseptic, the glass miraculously intact. He held it up to the light, gave a terse nod.

“Lucky you,” he grumbled, uncorking it with his teeth. The liquid inside smelled faintly of iron and citrus. Sharp, searing, clean. His fingers snapped a command your way, ‘Come here.’ The sting hit before you could brace. 

You hissed through clenched teeth, pulling back. A dab of antiseptic stained the dirt dark, interrupted by the jerk, “What about your hands?” Rick’s fingertips were twitching fire, raw from impact and subsequent actions that followed.

“Hold still,” he chided, and tugged your arm carelessly. A shot of fire. His voice had lost its bite, replaced with tired precision. The liquid met your wound with a hiss, pain blooming electric before dulling to warmth. Rick tore a strip from his lab coat, twisting the fabric into a makeshift bandage.

The contact was rough, but his thumb brushed once over the bandage’s edge, accidental, maybe. As his hands pressed against your arm, something beneath the surface began to shimmer. Microscopic spores in the atmosphere clung to the burn and began to crystallize, forming a temporary seal. Natural bio-tech. Unsettlingly, beautifully iridescent. 

Rick froze just long enough to notice. “Well, congratulations. The planet just gave you a skin graft.”

As he knotted the final strip, the air around your arm glimmered faintly. Rick caught it in the corner of his eye, expression tightening. “Don’t move,” he warned, eyes narrowing on the faint glow. “This planet doesn’t do favors for free.”

As he spoke more spores gathered, fizzing with microscopic motion against his fingertips. They stitched over his wounds with slow, pulsing warmth, leaving faint, honey-colored scars that shimmered like wet resin.

A strange sweetness in the air. It didn’t feel like healing. It felt like being claimed.

Rick flexed his fingers, testing each joint like a mechanic checking a freshly rebuilt engine. “Well…that’s new. Hands work. Great. Yeah…we’re both in deep shit now.”

You thumbed your forearm. The pain had settled to a the ache of a dull bruise.

Rick continued testing his restored fingers, muttering something about, “We’ll pay for this later.”

You smirked through your own bruises. “Oh, I’m sure we will.”

He shot a sideways glance at you, lips twitching. “You’re enjoying that too much.”

And just like that, the crash, the pain, the weird planet—all of it faded into a thread of something sharper, warmer, closer, suspended between the two of you.

Whatever price the planet wanted would have to wait. “Plants,” you reminded him.

A brief pause, the slight tightening of his jaw, the way the glow of the setting sun highlighted the ridge of his brow. Nestling lavender-blue across his frame. “Yeah. Yeah, plants,” he agreed.

— 

Rick hoisted the scanner, brushing aside the low-hanging silica canopy leaves. The trees offered cover, but the air hummed with something heavy, something sticky, that made your pulse tighten in your chest. Both of you moved with caution, aware that every inhaled breath carried a subtle insistence. Aphrodisiac, yes, only dangerous if you gave in.

“Scanner’s picking up something,” Rick murmured, tapping the interface. A faint glow vibrated over a cluster of luminescent root tubers. ‘Sensory enhancement warning,’ it read in stark red letters. You shot him a glare.

“We know,” you snapped, voice thick. “We don’t need the scanner to tell us this planet's spiked with libido.”

Rick grunted, brows furrowed, ignoring the heat creeping through his chest. “Yeah, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” His fingers lightly caressed a root; the scanner hissed a caution, but his thumb hovered over the edible tuber anyway.

You moved beside him, hands flexing against the rough bark of a nearby tree, heart thudding not entirely from fear. The hum in the air nudged awareness, sharpening every sense. You tried to focus on the task: Find something to eat. Stay functional. Survive.

But as your fingers unearthed a root and brushed against its faintly glowing surface, a heat spread along your forearms, a beat that traveled up your neck and settled low in your abdomen.

Rick’s eyes met yours, sharp, testing, tense. “You feel that?”

“Don’t,” you snapped, trying to shove the awareness down. The sweet, earthy alive, made it impossible to ignore. The world softened: the sweep of his sleeve against your arm, the low hum of the planet, the scent of sap and soil mixing with the air around you.

He groaned, exasperated and aware. “We need to eat something or we’re gonna pass out before the drones find us.”

You hesitated, fingers grazing the soft, glowing tuber. Eyes flicked up to his. Every sense screamed don’t, yet survival was survival. He nodded.

Finally, you dug in, chewing slowly, aware of the heat creeping further, the pulse under your skin synchronizing with his proximity. Rick followed suit, tasting the nectar ridden sap of a nearby bulb with a finger.

The scanner warned again. ‘Sensory amplification: high,’ but the warning felt both too urgent and absurd. You could feel the planet nudging, prodding, teasing, threading its effects into every breath, every trail of movement between you. Every step you took was measured, every inhale thick with pollen and pheromone-laden spores.

Somewhere under the haze, you both realized: it was impossible not to notice each other here.

Rick crouched a few paces away, the scanner resting against his thigh, smirk still lingering like he knew exactly what was happening. “Careful,” he said simply, as though the air wasn’t conspiring against you.

“We need to separate.” You stepped back, chest tight as you lengthened the distance. The heat radiating from his body impossibly palpable.

Zephyrax didn’t cooperate. The air itself pressed warmth against your skin, willing you back to the orbit of Rick’s aura.

He slyly smirked. “Having trouble?” he lazily teased, stating observations like this was just another day in a lab rather than crawling through a hormone-soaked alien forest.

You shot him a glare, adjusting your grip on the root tuber, “I’m fine.”

“Mm,” he murmured, tilting his head. “Sure you are.” There was amusement in his tone, but not ridicule. More a low, sly acknowledgment that he knew you weren’t entirely in control.

“Can you fuck off?" The words struck like flint.

The closer you got to edible roots or bulbs, the sharper the pull, subtle as a whisper, undeniable as your own heartbeat. Impossible to tell if they had adverse effects without help, Rick, of course, knew, and still kept the scanner just out of reach, gatekeeping survival like a game.

Smug as he leisurely strolled through the forest. His admiration for the planet was legitimate. Gaze devouring everything in his path as his head filled with theory, logging for future calculations. 

It was all too much.

A reach for the scanner ended with Rick trapping your wrist between the device and his firm hand. “Whoa,” he said, mock-stern, smirk tugging at his lips. “Look at you," he hummed, “glowing, shaking.”

“Just tell me what’s edible,” you managed.

“All of it,” he replied too easily.

“You know what I mean.”

The heat of his hand, the pull of breath, the hum of the scanner. You squirmed, frustrated, aware of every spark in your fingertips, every inch of contact radiating through the thin fabric of your sleeve. “Shut up,” you spat, but your voice quivered, betraying more than you wanted.

“Not happening,” he murmured, thumb brushing lightly over your pulse. “Way too fun to watch.”

You twisted slightly, straining against his grip, eyes narrowing. “Why aren’t you feeling it?” Your voice was sharp, tinged with disbelief and heat, every syllable carrying the pull of the planet.

Rick didn’t release your wrist, only shifted his weight slightly, smirk still teasing. “Feeling what?” he asked, feigning innocence as his fingers held firm.

“The planet!” you hissed, tugging his grasp. “It’s messing with me, and you—” you glanced at his hands, then his chest, “you’re just… fine!”

He let out a low, amused hum. “Mm, yeah… I feel it,” he admitted finally, voice quiet, deliberate. “But I’ve been around a few planets that thought they could push people around. Doesn’t mean I let them.” He rubbed small, calculated circles across the surface of your skin, stirring more of your nerves. Nebulae in miniature.

You groaned, exasperated, “So you’re just… enjoying watching me squirm?”

Rick’s smirk widened. “Part of it? Sure. But mostly? I’m just curious how long you can fight it. And honestly,” He leaned just enough for the light from the scanner to catch the edges of his grin. “I like the view.”

You blinked, caught between indignation, awareness of the pull in your abdomen, and the subtle, dangerous thrill of being pinned there. Wrist in his grip, pulse hammering. “You love this, don’t you?” you shot, not sure if you were accusing him or the planet. Probably both.

He exhaled a low curse, the fight bleeding out of his smirk. “You make everything complicated,” he muttered, and before you could fire back, he leaned in. The kiss landed at your temple, rough-edged and fleeting, as if he regretted it the instant it happened but not enough to pull away.

You blinked, stunned, face flushed faster than you could smother it. “Was that—did you just—?”

The moment slipped past like static. Neither of you spoke. The forest exhaled around you, encouraging a venture deeper into the grove.

The air thickened, sweet with resin and static, every breeze deliberate. Controlled by the planet’s force.

His jaw locked; you could see the muscle twitch there. One hand stayed suspended in the air, hovering near you like it hadn’t gotten the memo to retreat. Then he shoved it through his hair instead, rough, forcing the motion casual.

His hands weren’t steady. Neither were yours.

“Rick,” you spoke softly, reaching to guide his gaze back to yours.

He fought within himself, stiff, opting to leave your palm lingering on air. “Focus,” he muttered, voice frayed at the edges. “It’s getting dark.”

A beat passed. “Caves,” Rick said, tone clipped and mechanical. “By the wreck. We can wait it out there.”

You nodded. Warm, dry, probably less persuasive than the forest. The caves by the ridge were likely the safest bet to wait out the night.

You followed Rick back the way you came. 

As the two of you trekked out of the forest, the planet’s pressure lessened like a fading nicotine buzz.

By the time the two of you reached the wreck, the sun had folded behind Zephyrax’s peaks. The world dimmed to deep violet. A little ways beyond, the mountain curved inward, revealing a narrow recess of obsidian stone. Rick ducked first, scanner flickering across the interior, pathing amongst the rocks.

“This’ll do,” he observed. Inside the small alcove were trellises of vines thick with foliage, dimly glowing berries. The faint light illuminated a blanket of moss that sporadically carpeted the rocky floor. A stones throw deeper revealed puddles of liquid contained in rocky crevices: a collection of puddles.

The air grew thinner, colder. Aubergine moonlight weaving through the cave’s mouth like strands of silver thread. You looked almost luminescent under the cave’s strange glow. Translucent light followed like a halo, as though the planet itself adored you.

Rick’s gaze snagged on that glimmer, on the way the glow pooled in your hair, your lashes, the hollow of your collarbones. It made him still in a way he hated.

Rick shook his head, unfooled by the planet’s clear lure. It was too good to be true.

“We do need water,” you prioritized. “We should at least scan it.”

Rick crouched near one of the pools, the scanner hummed low as it analyzed the sample. The water shimmered faintly underneath the hologram. Too crystalline, too still. The reading pulsed across the display: ‘Bioreactive compounds detected.’

“Yeah,” he confirmed, leaning back on his heels. “Figures. Even the water here’s trying to flirt.”

“So it’s just roofied, basically,” you reasoned, squatting beside him at the puddle. Your reflection glowed like ionwine. 

“Non-lethal,” he replied, eyes flicking to you before back to the screen. “But don’t drink too much.”

“Same to you.”

Rick slipped a hand in his breast pocket, conjuring his kryptonite. He thumbed the cap of his flask, tipped its remaining contents down his throat. “I’m covered.”

You dipped a finger into the pool. Ripples danced outwards, a honeycomb pattern. “We’re drinking this whether you like it or not,” you warned.

He snorted, “Yeah? You planning to waterboard me with it?”

“Rick,” you sighed. “We're not dying of dehydration. Plus," you nudged his shoulder, “first wave wasn't so bad.”

“Uh-huh,” he rolled his eyes and dipped the empty flask into the pool. The liquid generously sloshed itself into its metal confines. Rick tipped the flask to his lips and sipped, rested elbows on his knees for a beat longer, and passed the flask your way. 

The metal was cool against your palms. And the water took easily. A strange warmth licked through your chest. Drinking starlight.

His gaze traced the line of your throat. Rick’s eyes lingered, amused and sharp, "Hmm. Yep. Definitely doing something.”

Something indeed. “How deep you think this cave goes?” The mossy area looked to descend further than you initially expected. The vines along the obsidian raveled to dark, impenetrable depths.

The cave hummed around the exchange, air gently thinning into something cooler, cleaner. Rick leaned back against the wall, squinting at shadows that no longer looked so threatening. “Looks deep enough to hide a few mistakes,” he mused.

A quiet descended. A shared breath caught in the shift of temperature. The chill kissed your skin, and for the first time, his warmth nearby felt less like arrogance and more like relief. 

The temperature dropped another degree, breath visible. Rick glanced your way. Exhaling realization through his nose. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, and I’m sober.”

A shiver trailed up your arms. Rick noticed; of course he did. He sighed, peeling off his lab coat with the exaggerated suffering of a man doing something charitable against his will.

“Don’t read into this,” he muttered, tossing it over your shoulders.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you replied, though your smirk betrayed you.

He rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re terrible at lying.”

“So are you.”

Rick shifted beside you, a quiet rustle of fabric. “Move over,” he said, low, reluctant. “Before one of us freezes or starts hallucinating.”

You obeyed, the space between you closing until the planet’s eerie bruised glow spilled across both your faces. The coat rustled softly as he adjusted it. Rick’s shoulder pressed against yours, solid and electric. His warmth seeped through layers of exhaustion and restraint.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you whispered, the words misting across the coat’s overlap like incense. You leaned in despite yourself, and he didn’t move away.

“See?” he muttered. “Efficient use of body heat. Totally scientific.” The faint scent of his flask lingered. Metallic sweetness, sharp and smoky, and something else ozone-laced.

“Uh-huh,” you said. “Real selfless of you.”

“It’s science, not seduction."

“Seduction is science," you countered.

“Can’t argue with that,” he mused. The rumble of his voice shivered faintly through the small space between you.

You turned, barely. The world felt softened at the edges, and he was the only thing that stayed sharp. The low light turned him half-real. The cave’s light painted his skin in shifting blues and violets. Jaw sharp beneath faint stubble, lips slack with thought. His focus lingered forward, gripping the flask like it was a tether.

“I think this planet wants us to fuck,” you breathed.

“It does,” he factually agreed, voice sandpaper soft. His eyes remained fixed ahead, “Question is, do you want to? Or is that just your neurochemistry talking?”

“I want to—us to,” your confidence faded. For a fleeting second, you wondered if the pull in your chest was just the planet or him. 

Rick’s eyes traced you like a formula he didn’t want to solve too fast. “You think it’s just the planet?” he asked, quieter now. “All this?”

For once, the question didn’t sound like a challenge. It sounded like a confession.

You swallowed. “You’re asking like you don’t already know the answer.”

Rick’s mouth twitched between a smirk and something softer. “Maybe I wanna hear you say it.”

“Why?” you challenged, voice breaking at the edges.

“Because,” he said, leaning closer, breath ghosting your cheek, “if you do, I can stop pretending I don’t.” The tangy salt of his skin, the faintest hint of the flask’s burn still clung to his breath.

The silence stretched, thick and humming. You could feel the planet pressing against your ribs, begging confession.

You didn’t look at him when you spoke. “Yes.”

The word fell heavy. Too human, too simple.

Rick’s breath caught between restraint and ruin. “You certain?”

“Pretty sure.”

Rick leaned closer, voice low. “Then the planet’s got nothin’ on you.”

The distance between you collapsed without warning. His knuckles grazed your collarbone, unintentional almost. His pulse jumped beneath his skin. Rick wasn’t touching you so much as orbiting you, drawn too close to resist, too aware to commit. Yet.

Your breaths tangled and hitched. You could feel him watching the line of your throat, the way it fluttered when you swallowed. The planet’s hum echoed in both of you.

He exhaled, low and unsteady.

He reached first—rough palm to your jaw, and moved to cup the back of your head, pulling you in until the world narrowed. He leaned in slowly, deliberate, giving you every chance to pull away. You didn’t.

The first kiss was quiet, reverent, before it deepened, heat spilling between your teeth like starlight melting into dark water.

Every nerve came alive at once. The second kiss wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t rushed either; it was searching, the kind that came after too long pretending not to care.

You tasted him: smoke, flask-burn, the faint metallic ghost of ozone.

Your hands found his chest, his pulse thrumming hard against your palms. The air thickened, laced with the scent of moss and static. His teeth caught your lip, just enough to drag a sound from you that wasn’t entirely yours.

You moved without thinking, closing the distance until your knees bracketed his. The movement sent pebbles skittering across the cave floor; his hand shot out to steady you, splayed at your hip. Rick shoved the tangled lab coat aside.

The rough sound in his throat wasn’t quite a laugh as his back retreated into the moss-laden stone, adjusting to your shifting position. 

Rick didn’t move, didn’t have to. The gravity between you was it’s own equation.

Both hands found your hips, thumbs notched against the curve, anchoring you on his thigh as though the ground itself might give way. Your heat was palpable against his leg. Agonizingly electric. Aware. 

You grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him closer. Rick groaned through hot breath as you settled into a straddle. Somewhere in the distance, the flora pulsed with light, each glow stuttering in rhythm. The cave’s temperature shifted with rising intensity. Wet against the skin: Zephyrax’s applause swelling, adoration or warning, it was hard to tell.

You took a moment to lean back and sweep the hair out of your eyes, and with it the sheen of sweat developing along your hairline. The faint tremor of effort. 

Imperfect symmetry, hard to look away, Rick took in the sight of you. His gaze tracked you, something volatile sparking behind it. Adoration or anticipation, he couldn’t tell. Just knew you’d bypassed every firewall he’d thought would keep you theoretical.

You met his eyes with flushed cheeks. “You’re staring,” a small laugh.

“Calculating,” he corrected. His fingers flexed once, twice, grounding you where fabric met skin as if he needed the contact to prove you were real. 

He countered the pause with pressure, stiffening his thigh against your core. He didn’t move much, just enough to tip your axis in his favor. Your center of gravity was no longer yours alone.

Rick curled his thumbs beneath your waistband, brushing the thin fabric beneath it. He felt the drag of fibers, the microscopic grip where the threads met flesh. He noted the texture like data, tried to file it away, but the sensory feedback lingered.

A single nod, as if the air itself might break if you spoke. Unspoken permission, quiet allowance was enough for him.

He moved over you quick, coaxing fabric down your hips to heap at your boots. Rick’s fingers lingered at your laces, feeling the friction of worn fibers. The motion was thoughtless, practiced but slower this time. Leather creaked as Rick hooked his thumbs behind the heels, adversely tugging you closer as he worked to free your feet.

The strange relief of it, muscles easing where they’d been braced too long. Even the smallest shift felt amplified here, the planet listening through every fiber. 

Air slid through the weave of your sock, cool against the air. Rick’s fingers closed around your ankle. His fingers found the ridge of bone, the hollow just above it. He worked small circles into the tension, slow enough it looked like thought. Small rotations, assessing. Absently cataloguing the ache from travel.

One by one he freed your legs, moving quick, and with them his undershirt. He tugged the hem loose, movements economical, no flourish. For a heartbeat he kneeled there, shoulders easing a quiet breath that folded the air flat again. A sculpture half-finished, mortal and divine.

Rick unhooked the buckle of his belt with a sharp flick. Unspooling tension. His hands hovered at the zipper for a heartbeat too long, knuckles pale with thought. He let his pants fall neatly, a sense of ownership over the space around him, as if he was marking the boundary he was quickly crossing. Like he’d done it a thousand times before, because he had—just not with you.

It was then you caught the strain visualized between his legs. Fabric taut.

Pinpricks of anticipation pounded your temples in small, insistent blurs. Rick ran his hands underneath your shirt. The cloth muffled everything but the smooth caress of skin. Palms glided until they met curved wire, slotted in the crook of his thumb and pointer finger.

The tremor, the sudden stillness of it all, felt electric as the temperature.

Your shirt made a quiet flutter as it fell, the kind of sound that barely reached the air but somehow broke the stillness. Rick faltered forward, finding your lips, bracing his weight atop your chest. Your mouth opened under his, clinging to his atmosphere. Softness carried pressure, a quiet insistence that clawed at your ribs, tightened in your gut. His hands found your arms, your waist, grounding, guiding as his mouth moved to the curve of your neck.

Rick slid his fingers underneath the band of cloth that clung at your hips, coiling them one measure tighter in his grasp, as he pressed his length against your center, eliciting a moan.

He slid a palm over you, narrowed eyes catching each flutter in your expression. His digits teased, flexing lightly in a torturous, repetitive motion.

The cloth yielded under his touch, alive with residual warmth. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Each ridge, each thread. Tiny topographies of distraction. He flexed his hand, pretending it was curiosity, not the pulse it triggered. Rougher under his touch than he expected, heat trapped in a dampening weave.

The experiment became worship: pressure calibrated, movement deliberate, breath gone quiet. Everything but taking them off.

Just fabric. That’s all it was. Polymer blend, 40/60 maybe. But the heat under his hand said otherwise. His mind kept converting warmth into meaning, and meaning into something harder to shake.

Frustrated huffs, gentle as moth wings. Hips tilted upwards involuntarily, you brought your thighs closer together, a plea for more.

Rick splayed a hand across your knee, redirecting it to cushioned moss. A yielding resistance.

He clicked his tongue, “We do this my way.” Not a careless step, but an exploration of pressure, how far he could sic’ control.

Simple friction, he told himself, basic chemistry. The body always betrayed itself in contact.

“Please,” you pleaded. A futile attempt to maneuver hips in your favor blocked. Bending your free leg upwards earned contact with his bicep, flexed just enough to nudge you back down. You were utterly at his mercy. Every touch spiraled into growing need.

A cocky smirk. “Breathe,” Rick coaxed just the opposite. He thumbed your clit through the cloth, the tip of his nail fleetingly agonizing against the bundle of nerves. Prickling irritation.

Frustration transferred to your grip. You cupped the back of his head, an attempt to urge him closer. Rick barely budged. He moved only with the quiet gravity of someone who dictated the rules of motion.

Ragged breathing, your moans clearly pitched into wavelengths of strained desperation.

“Please," you begged once more.

Rick finally obliged, sliding his fingers under the damp fabric, slicking them against your folds. He moved slowly, repeating the torturous cycle he’d assigned before.

You whispered exploitatives, bringing your hands above your head in surrender, wrists overlapping. Rick towered over you, enjoying the view. You tried your best to keep steady, a mess of self-constrained writhing. 

The air moved like a living thing, slow, tidal, breathing with you. Every inhale drew the cave’s cool dampness into your lungs; every exhale sent faint ripples through the vapor that clung to the stone.

With a precise push, Rick sunk a finger deeper, then two. His eyes scanned your features, devouring every reaction. He curled his fingers deliberately, testing how far you stretched to the edge of sensation.

“Look at you," Rick cooed. His influence was clear on your face. Tightened brows above rapid fluttery blinks. An arching back, Rick kept even pressure within you. Purposeful and timed with the gentle spasm of your hips begging for more. Knot after knot unwinded like threads pulled gently from a tangle.

His hand found his briefs. Rick dragged them down, freeing his strained length. He palmed himself with dry friction, thumbing the tip to smooth his slick.

Too sweet, too metallic. The air pressed against your skin like water. Fingers gripped at nothing, breath shallow, your senses threatened to fold in. “Rick," you negotiated for more.

He removed his fingers with care, leaving you trembling in anticipation as he drew himself closer, taking your soaked underwear with him.

Violet and blue. The light neither steady nor random, pulsed in rhythm with your breath, or maybe the planet’s. It was impossible to tell where your heartbeat ended and the atmosphere began. Each flicker of color shimmered along your skin, heatless but present, like being touched by sound.

Rick slicked himself against your folds before aligning his head with your entrance. He slowly pushed forward, groaning at the sensation. As if the planet itself had leaned in, the pressure wasn’t violent, just unrelenting. A slow, invisible hand guiding him down, forward, deeper.

He groaned under the weight, low and involuntary, the sound swallowed instantly by the cave’s walls. The glow around him dragged resistance through his lungs; every exhale met the atmosphere’s answering push.

His body adjusted before his mind did. Muscles flexed, grinding against you. The hum in the air deepened, vibrating through his ribs.

It hurt. Not unfamiliar, and you’d been tucked away long enough for it to. Straining just short of tearing, a deep ache that sharpened before softening webbed at your entrance. You quieted through the pain.

“Christ, you’re—“ his words caught on the draw, replaced instead with your open-mouthed pants. “Fuck," he decided on. His growing pleasure leaving him wordless.

“Just keep moving,” you huffed, “It’s been a while.” The pain spread into a steady burn that almost felt good. It was pain, yes, but refined. Pain made precise.

Rick sunk himself in fully, pausing briefly at the hilt to let you breathe. “Relax,” he reassured. “Good problem to have.” Cocky.

It took a handful of agonizing thrusts for your body to shape to him, giving way to his rhythm. His breathing synced with each hit, a steady tempo of exertion. Each press, each roll, seemed to pull your body into itself, releasing tension like water slipping through cracks, leaving you both heavier and lighter at once. Pained hisses turned pleasurable shudders. A gradient of ecstasy unfurled, softening every earlier ache.

A grin cut through his expression. “Okay?” A craftsman checking his work.

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to. The silence stretched, full of breaths you both understood all too well. His body stopped resisting.

Rick reached over. His fingers dug into the fabric of his lab coat, scrunched it into lumpy wedge. He shoved it underneath your tailbone, filling the hollow beneath the small of your back. He tore clumps of moss with it. Uneven, too soft in spots, too firm in others, but it held just enough against the ache in your gut. Not comfort exactly, but leverage.

Rick rocked forward, testing the shift, and let his head tilt back. It wasn’t luxurious but the fresh angle was a calculated pleasure proven by a chorus of deepening moans. He nudged at your sweet spot with meticulous pacing. A viscous drag clinging to skin.

“Please just," you didn’t bother spelling it out for him. Couldn’t at the peak he was quickly pushing you towards. 

Rick was already smirking like he decoded a language you never meant to speak aloud. “Yeah?” he groaned between thrusts, half amused, half resigned. “Got it.”

He kept the pace until your insides crystallized, the last phase before shattering a rain of a thousand. Your body hummed through it, faint at first, then louder, until it texturized. It rippled behind your temples, silvery and wet, like currents tangled in nerve endings. Every blink distorted. Hue bleeding, sound stretched thin, the body slow to remember itself in the static haze.

Rick followed, the last trace of curiosity shuttered behind him. A little forceful, a lack of control. Through ragged breaths, ribbons prettied your insides. 

The moment was over, fading but concluded, and he moved like someone unwilling to linger.

A quiet collapse, the two of you independently recovered. A faint vibration lingered underneath your skin, steady and clean, the kind of immobilizing calm that felt earned. Stillness born of too much feeling. No guilt, no rush. Just that strange, private hum that came from surviving something, finishing something, and realizing you made it intact.

A sound cracked the silence. The faint metallic chirr of calibration, a pulse of blue light against the dark. You blinked. Rick was no longer beside you. He stood a few feet away, hunched over one of the drones, hands moving with brisk, unthinking precision. The shift in him was jarring. The air that had been sacred a second ago now hummed with ordinary sound. Tools, motion, disinterest.

“When—” Your voice came out raw, small. “When did they get here?”

He didn’t look up, eyes squinting at the readout. “Couple minutes ago,” he said, like that meant nothing, like the moment you’d just lived had been yours alone.

The hum in your chest faltered, replaced by something sharper than awareness. Distance. The quiet shock of being left behind mid-breath though you weren’t entirely sure what you were expecting from him.

You blinked hard, breath catching on to the turn of relief. The drones — finally.

Their faint hum filled the air, reassuring in their predictability. Still, your pulse stuttered.

“Did they—” you hesitated, glancing toward the obsidian seam of the cave’s entrance, “Did they see anything?”

He grunted, somewhere between dismissive and thoughtful, “If they did, it’s on the feed.” He kept his eyes on the screen, tone clipped, “Which I’ll delete. Obviously.”

Rick crouched lower, the glow of the drones’ interface washed blue across his face. His fingers moved in short, practiced bursts. Tap, flick, recalibrate, reroute. A low click echoed off the cavern walls, then a sharp beep, higher-pitched, almost triumphant.

“Finally,” he muttered. One last sequence of keystrokes and the drone’s shell hissed open, releasing a faint puff of sterilized air.

Inside: a neatly folded set of clothes, still sealed in vacuum plastic, and a fresh portal gun: gleaming, intact, portal fluid swirling faintly like it had been waiting. He didn’t notice your expression. Your relief tangled with the shock of seeing something so familiar emerge from this strange place.

Rick grinned, the kind that looked half-earned and half-spiteful. His thumb brushed the trigger casing. “Fresh clothes, working tech,” he said under his breath. “Not a bad haul.”

Your words snapped through the cave, sharper than you meant them to. “How the fuck did your AI know to send that, Rick?”

“The black-box. Doesn’t think. Doesn’t guess. It remembers.”

You blink, caught halfway between relief and dread. “Remembers what?”

Rick’s gaze flicked past you, toward the dark stretch of the cavern, “Everything it’s seen me do,” he said. “Every calibration, every variable, every failure. It’s built to predict my next move before I make it — because I programmed it to. That’s its job.”

He stood, portal gun in hand, the glow of its coil painting his knuckles green. “So if it sent this…” He gestured at the clothes, at the tech gleaming like a heartbeat in the drone’s open shell. “It means it thought I’d need it—which clearly, we did,” he said. 

It sat under your skin, that sour pulse of embarrassment. Hot and spreading quick. You glanced toward the cave mouth where the last traces of smoke still cling to the air. 

“You don’t turn your ship into abstract art on a cliffside and not need emergency delivery," he finished.

You knew he was right about the black box, about its importance, but admitting it would feel like swallowing glass. So you stayed quiet and bare. Bra and socks and embarrassment.

Then, without looking at you, he’d reached over and tossed something your way. A folded packet, the clean clothes from the crate.

“Here,” he said, like it was nothing. “Figured you’d want first pick.”

You’d caught it clumsily, pulse skipping. It was so casual it almost stung. No mention of the moment previous, no smugness, no victory lap.

He’d straightened, cracking his shoulder, still facing away. “Don’t worry about it,” he added, tone even, almost bored.

It had been the kind of line that left space for you to breathe again. A truce spoken in his language. You nodded, though he hadn’t seen it, and let the silence settle warm again, the embarrassment ebbing into something quieter. Gratitude threaded with ache.

Rick adjusted the last setting on the portal gun and fired. The air tore open with a hiss: a vertical wound of green light spilling across the cave wall. The glow painted everything in acid hues.

He stood there for a moment, watching it stabilize. Then, almost pointedly, he said, “Pathetic.”

The word snapped you out of your head. “What?”

He didn’t look at you right away, just holstered the gun and brushed the dust from his palms. “You,” he said finally, voice flat, eyes still on the portal. “You sounded pathetic.”

You blinked. The words hit differently. Not cruel, but threaded with memory. You could still feel it: glass embedded in your forearm, blood mixing with dust, his voice above you, sharp and detached. 'You sound like you’re getting fucked. Pathetic.’

You remembered your forearm, still patched with a makeshift bandage. Beneath it a nearly healed scar, shiny circuitry slivers of memory.

He caught your expression then, the confusion, the flush of remembrance. His mouth twitched something between a smirk and a wince. “Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered. “Just…don’t make it a habit.”

“Well, let’s never crash here again,” you countered. “Once was enough to prove our compatibility issues.”

“Compatibility issues, huh?” He stepped closer towards the portal, tone dipping. “If that’s what you want to call chemistry, sure.”

Acid light caught the edge of his lab coat, and for a second you saw it again: that flicker of honesty he always buried under sarcasm. Then he was gone, swallowed by the green.

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