27
Aiden
The soothing hum ofthe Maine’s engine wasn’t enough to lull Aiden to sleep even after the long, hot shower he’d taken. His mind was still racing with jumbled thoughts about Claudia’s body in the tank, about the ring they’d failed to retrieve, and about Darren’s reassuring embrace in the middle of their mission.
Running a hand through his copper hair, Aiden sat up in his bed. He needed a distraction like he’d needed it on that first night on the Maine. A way not to think for a while so his strained mind could recuperate. He needed a reset, a chance to rest so he could organize his thoughts and feelings and not bury himself even deeper into this dark and lonely place he’d only recently managed to escape.
Just like that night, Aiden could only find that delirious bliss of not thinking in Darren’s arms. As he stood up, he knocked the bag with the college students disguise props from the bed. It spilled and his eyes immediately zeroed in on the black thong that Darren had gotten for him on Earth. Darren had never officially presented it as a gift, but it obviously was.
Aiden picked it up. He’d never thought about the appeal of luxurious underwear, content with the comfort simple briefs offered, but now that he was holding the exquisite piece, he couldn’t help his curiosity. The silk material was velvety, making his skin tingle with the anticipation of feeling it, but all he did was to stuff it in the pocket of his slacks because the urge to forget himself, if only for a while, was stronger. He needed Darren’s hands on his skin, Darren’s lips kissing him and Darren’s cock making him see stars.
Aiden didn’t know if it was right or wrong to want Darren, but he couldn’t help it, his body already taking him to the bridge and then Darren’s quarters. That question of who he was—which he’d started to carve a new answer for—came back to haunt him as he knocked on Darren’s door, as Darren opened and a pair of hopeful indigo eyes took his breath away.
“Aiden,” Darren said, his wretched voice full of longing. “Please, talk to me. Don’t shut me out,” he pleaded as Aiden pushed him down on the bed.
Aiden straddled Darren’s hips, using his weight to restrain Darren’s movements. He didn’t want to talk, he just needed not to think. “Fuck me,” he said, attacking Darren’s neck and sliding his hands under Darren’s shirt.
“No.”
Aiden froze, his gaze snapping to Darren’s face. Darren’s eyes were dark with lust, but they were also sad. Pleading, lost, afraid. A window to his heart that Aiden couldn’t look away from even if he wished, because all he saw there was him. Just him, in his ugly rawness, in that state where he couldn’t hide his true self.
His chest suddenly felt too tight, air not making it into his lungs. Darren wanted him, more than anyone ever had. He didn’t care about Aiden’s flaws or how fucked up he was, hedidn’t care Aiden had tried to kill him. He just… wanted Aiden, despite all of that.
Aiden propped himself up on his knees and hands, hovering above Darren on the bed and drinking him in. His own heart wanted Darren in that same way. It didn’t care who he was or what he had done, it simply yearned to have him. It had found in Darren that long-forgotten sense of belonging that Claudia had carried, and even after seeing her body in the cryo tank in the vault, it hadn’t disappeared. It was still there, calling out to Aiden, tempting and soothing and so impossible to give up even if a part of him still demanded just that.
“Darren,” Aiden rasped, his heart wild in his chest. He rubbed the tattooed ‘C’ behind his ear and inhaled. “Why was she there? I don’t know what to do. What to think. Everything is so messed up. I know she lied to me, but you killed her and even after seeing her dead body in that tank, I still… I—”
He shuddered as Darren’s arms wrapped around him and pulled him in. Darren rolled them to the side and held Aiden tight, his warm and solid body grounding. Reassuring. A lifeline that Aiden could take or refuse.
“I… Part of me still misses her. Despite the lies.” Even if less so with every day that passed as Aiden forgot Claudia a little bit more. “But the other… it wants you,” he muttered, wrapping his fingers around Darren’s hands as shivers raced down his spine.
“I’m sorry,” Darren whispered, burying his head in the nape of Aiden’s neck. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have asked you to come with me to the vault. I… If I could make you hurt any less, I would do anything, Aiden. If I could bring her back so you could talk to her, I’d do that for you. But I won’t ever give you up even if you told me to. I can’t.”
Aiden felt it, the truth in Darren’s words. It was in his cracked voice, in the way he was clutching him close, how his breathing turned uneven. It was heart-breaking and euphoric atthe same time, a confession so raw it swept Aiden away and made him want to hold onto Darren as desperately as Darren held onto him.
“We can do this at our own pace. We don’t have to rush anything,” Darren said, hugging Aiden even tighter. “You don’t have to forget Claudia or forgive me. I’m not asking you to. Just, please, let me stay by your side.”
Something settled in Aiden’s chest. The protesting part of him still rose up, throwing more anger and guilt at him, but it couldn’t win against the sense of rightness reigning inside him just from being close to Darren. It lost, even if it continued to struggle futilely, and Aiden rolled over, hugging Darren back.
“Okay,” he muttered and inhaled Darren’s scent.
Images of summer storms and fields of wildflowers filled his mind as he kissed Darren, a few gentle pecks on the lips that didn’t go any further as his eyes closed and he drifted off in Darren’s arms. He said one last goodbye to Claudia in a dream, and she smiled at him, then kissed his forehead before dispersing into gold-tinted dust as darkness engulfed him.
