A Perfect Fit

I move my finger over the deep groove of the button. A perfect fit. A scream echoes, words collide, but lose all meaning to me. Relaxation fills my body, as I press down.

I feel a hard thud across the back of me and sharp pain before passing out.

When I come to, he’s there. Hair dark as a black hole. Face illuminated by the ship's navigation screens. Leaning against the periwinkle wall, he glares down at me.

"What the fuck Dex?"

As I try to move I realize two things. One, I'm in more pain than I realized, and two, he had bound and gagged me. The latter making his question rhetorical.

"They're going to come for you now. Hell, they're probably already on the way."

He pushes himself off the wall using momentum and shoulder blades.

Yakuun. I've known him for so very many solar passings. We both studied at the same Celestial High: Augburn. He was the most decorated and most beautiful of his kind. Everyone wanted to be him, or be with him. Even me.

He walks over to me and crouches down in front of me. Yakuun reaches out. I close my eyes as his fingers glide over the skin on my face.

"Why did you do it?", he whispers softly, "You had me. Why?"

The towel he tied around my head to gag me with is still firmly in place. I open my eyes, narrow my eyebrows. When I try to cock my head to the side, a surge of pain rips a moan from me. Muffled under the cloth, I still can not speak.

"Yeah, I wouldn't move so much. I got you pretty good. Though not fast enough."

He traces the bridge of my nose with his forefinger. I stare past him at the view through the ship's vast windows. The "nothingness" brushed with purples, blues and golden hues.

Space is gorgeous.

I remember when I was of small form running free on the surface of our planet. Climbing down into the core, using the stairways our ancestors built by hand. Some areas were off limits, for ceremony only. But not to Yakuun. He didn't believe in the way of the ancients, never did. Thought them silly and archaic. I firmly believe it was his beauty that kept Yakuun from consequences. He knew it too. This boldness did allow us more adventures, but did stunt his ability for intimacy.

I turn my focus and my eyes back onto him.

Lavender skin tight against his body, long hair of sunset ombre set up on his head tied with fabric from home. Eyes shivering with silver. He is a remarkable Kombun, many would argue the best of us.

I championed this belief too. Until recently.

Yakuun pulls his hand away as if feeling my silent words. He sighs, stands up, then walks over to the control panels, his back to me. I watch him fidget his thumb over his lip. He does that every time he's distressed and thinking. Yakuun turns his head to the left, looking at the adjacent galaxy.

“There might still be time…”, I barely hear him say.

Then, invigorated by an internal illumination I wasn't yet privy to, he nearly leaps up to start pressing in a navigation sequence.

Everything within my body instantly feels the piercing shock and heavy weight of dread.

No. He wouldn't. He can't…

A laughter erupts from the being I once held in my arms after a night of sweat and promises. A laughter so twisted it feels like a scalpel pulled along the vulnerable flesh of my heart.

The ship begins to shift course until the galaxy closest to us fills the monitors.

Fuck.

I start to make an effort as best possible, through the pain, to get free. I wince as I turn my head to look at my surroundings while doing my best to not alert Yakuun.

There's got to be something on this damn ship. Anything.

Unsure what he used to tie my hands behind my back, I turn my wrists to try and gauge what I am up against. It's rough enough to be rope is all I can tell. The binding is tied into what feels like a complicated or at least tight knot.

He's speeding up the ship.

I start to push my body towards the wall to see if I can find any sharp edge to rub against, when he turns his full body to face me.

“What are you doing Dex?”

He slowly starts to walk towards me, licks his lips and smiles. Eerie. Disheveled. He looks both excited and pissed.

I'm out of time.

I start to speak beneath the towel pressed tight against my mouth and shake my head, imploring him with my eyes.

He stops, sighs, slightly amused.

“Its almost over. What's the harm anyway? Nothing you can do is going to change what's about to happen. Let's hear you beg.”

Shock chills me as he kneels to free my mouth.

“Go on. You had so much to say a second ago. Thrill me Dex. One last time.”

Before he can do anything I lunge forward and grab his nose hard in my teeth. He screams and punches me, but I bite down harder. Blood is filling my mouth, I let it pour down and out the side of my lips.

“Fwee me”, I manage to garble, mouth still full of arrogant nose.

He punches again, throws in some hair pulling and face scratching which leads to me nearly taking his nose fully with me as a souvenir. Yakuun finally acquiesces and unbinds my hands, expertly releasing the knot.

He cowers on the floor in pain, howling.

“I HAD THIS DEX! I HAD THIS UNDER CONTROL YOU TOOK THIS FROM ME!”, his voice distorted by the mangled mess bleeding into his palm.

“I took nothing from you! I gave you EVERYTHING! Look at you! Look at this ship!”, I gesticulate wildly at the metal holding us in it's belly. “What were you thinking? What happened to you?”

“It belongs to me! It's mine! You can't have it!”

My shoulders slump as I look at him. He looks so frail, covered in his own blood. Blood I beckoned forward.

Tears fill my eyes, “I never wanted it, Yakuun. It belongs to the ancestors. It was never meant to be brought back into our way of life.”

He scoffs, “They're dead Dex. Stop romanticizing a bunch of corpses.”

“I think I'm done romanticizing you, actually.”

It takes me just a few steps until I'm at the navigation panel.

Yakuun's beautiful eyes widen in terror, “Dex wait, wait. Think of what this can mean…for us! We could live forever!”

“This species was deliberately put into dormancy by our ancestors to begin the three centuries of peace we have had the gift to be born into. You'd throw that all away for a chance at immortality?”

“Yes! Fuck yes! A thousand times yes! Listen…”, he slowly starts to inch himself towards me while still on the floor. He cries out in pain as he cups his hand over his nose, “Dammit, you really hurt me!”

He growls then stops himself and waves his hand as if to shake it off, “Is this really peace? Everyone mindlessly doing nothing? We can create real peace, with real freedom! You and I, and our love can be eternal! Just us!”

“We do have freedom Yakuun, you're just talking about yourself, again. You want the freedom to do whatever you want with no consequences. If this creature is brought back we do not know if it can be made dormant again. We do not know if it can be sated. These creatures can teleport and decimate worlds in days! The arrogance you believe you'll even have a second to get what you need from them for this mythical immortality…it took the ancients generations of hunting them to stop them! As for our love being eternal…you didn't even last one year, how could you last eternity?”

My words choke in my throat as I watch the man I've loved get to his feet, blood staining his delicate clothing.

“I've always loved you Yakuun…”

“No! Dex NO!!”

I move my finger over the deep groove of the button. A perfect fit. A scream echoes, words collide, but lose all meaning to me. Relaxation fills my body, as I press down.