Archive of Our Own ^beta

listen to this as you read

“you be the prey and i'll be the predator, i want it all. i can't pretend: i'm a cold blood killer, with you i'm an animal”

May 15, 2030

It was always with a strange kind of disconnected thrill that Gavin looked at Earth through the ship’s front window. The swirling masses of white clouds hovering over the endless blues of the oceans and greens of the continents.

    It took him mere seconds to pinpoint North America and zero in on Texas with the ship’s holoscreen. Zooming in on Texas, Gavin entered in the coordinates he had memorized long ago. A quiet, unassuming street appeared juxtaposed over the panoramic view of space on the front window. A small brick house with slightly overgrown bushes crowding around its front stoop filled up the screen. Ryan and Gavin stood together in the house’s doorway, Gavin in official uniform, beaming at Ryan, and Ryan with a wistful smile spread across his face.

    Today’s technology still surprised Gavin, even if he was one of the few allowed to know just the extent of how far technology had come. Just wait until Earth got a hold of some of the tech he was using up here.

    Somehow, a simple, universal program like Google Earth had managed to capture the one moment when Gavin had been leaving Ryan for the entirety of their foreseeable future. Reluctantly of course, but even Gavin couldn’t pass up an opportunity to go to space. The Unending Frontier. It had all happened so fast. The ISA had apparently read all of Gavin's work on the subject and found it both amusing and highly informative. They contacted him asking how he would like to join a small team going to the farthest reaches of known space to do what no man had done before.

    After years of secretly developing the technology to make such a trip possible, the ISA had finally been able to sanction a trip to a planet in the next solar system over; a planet that could possibly be home to sentient life. Of course, they didn’t know how sentient. The planet could still be in its earliest developmental periods and only the simplest life could inhabit it. But, as long as they found life, no matter how small, the mission would be a success.

    Rewind to months before that one moment captured forever by the world’s biggest online empire and Gavin is releasing his third book accompanied of course by video-graphic evidence on his YouTube channel.

    Space had always fascinated him, with its inky black infinity. The planets, the stars, the possibilities. That was the tag line of his first book, but you get the point. Anyway, his third book Space in Slow Motion had just been released. Gavin had used the theories, pictures, speculations, and experiments of world renowned scientists to create a narrative that would engage the laymen readers of the world. Mix that with his videos, and he had hit the jackpot in the science community.

    And then he had gotten the call. Or rather, ISA had called his and Ryan’s house and Ryan had picked up the phone. The conversation had gone a little something like:

    “Hello?”

    “Yes, hello, I’m Burnie Burns of the International Space Association. I would like to discuss a job opportunity with Gavin Free, is he home?”

    “HA!” And then Ryan had hung up. As soon as Ryan had hung up the phone, thinking it a prank of one of Gavin’s more troll-some fans, Gavin had sprung at Ryan demanding to know what the call was about.

    Ryan had explained, expecting Gavin to laugh along with him, but Gavin had panicked and rushed for the phone, quickly hitting redial. A bemused Burnie Burns had answered the call, and due to some wondrous alignment of the stars had found the whole situation quite hilarious.

    Ryan had apologized afterwards profusely, but it didn’t matter, because Gavin was going to go to space. Space! he had exclaimed several times to Ryan, eyes wide with wonder.

    “That’s amazing,” Ryan told Gavin, drawing the manic Brit in close. Ryan leaned in, pressing his forehead against Gavin’s. Ryan smiled down at Gavin, a small, sad twitch of his lips that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

    “I’ll miss you.”

    Gavin pulled away slightly from Ryan.

    “It’ll only be a few months,” Gavin had said, “Besides, I think there’s a little something we can do in the mean time to tide you over.”

    Gavin grinned mischievously, and stepping back into Ryan’s space, pressing himself flush against the older man’s body. Tilting his face up to just barely meet Ryan’s lips, Gavin whispered, “I still have months of training. Trust me, when I’m gone you’ll barely notice until I’m back.” And then, because Ryan had a habit of getting inside his own head and worrying too much over the little things, Gavin kissed him. Slow, steady, and grounding, ready for Ryan to set the pace.

    And set the pace Ryan did. Slipping his hands under Gavin’s shirt, he ran them slowly up Gavin’s back, stopping right where Gavin’s back diverged into his shoulder blades, thrown back as Gavin arched his back and pressed closer to Ryan. Pressing his thumbs along their bony edges, Ryan pulled back from the deep kiss, listening as Gavin gasped for air and softly whined at the loss of contact. With a smirk, Ryan dug his fingers into Gavin’s shoulder blades, listening to the sharp intake of breath. Pain then pleasure. That’s how it went, so Ryan pressed another harsh kiss to Gavin’s lips, and when he pulled back again to suck at the taut skin on Gavin’s neck the moan that escaped Gavin’s lips was absolutely filthy .

    Ryan smirked against Gavin’s neck and nipped at him playfully. Gavin smacked Ryan’s ass with a snort, because no matter how serious Ryan tried to be, Gavin was still Gavin and at the end of the day they were still just two dorks in love.

    “C’mon,” Gavin whined, fisting his hands in Ryan’s shirt and trying to pull him back towards the bedroom. Ryan tilted his head to the side and stared impassively down at Gavin, fingers digging once again into Gavin’s back. With another hiss, Gavin arched his back even further.

    “Please?” Gavin whispered. Ryan smiled and leaned in to press a kiss to Gavin’s forehead, before letting Gavin pull him into the bedroom.

    They crossed the threshold, Ryan pulling the door shut behind them, leaving them in semi-darkness, only the lamp on the cluttered bedside table lit them as it threw haphazard shadows across the ceiling.

    Ryan captured Gavin’s lips again in a kiss, biting and sucking at Gavin’s bottom lip as he sunk down onto the bed. Ryan trailed kisses along Gavin jaw and down his neck, biting another bruise onto his skin. Irrationally, Ryan was worried, anxious for Gavin and this new opportunity unfolding before him. Space was uncharted territory and an infinite number of things could go wrong. He had seen Gravity ; he knew the risks. He wanted these ISA people to train Gavin well and then surround him with only the best because if they let one goddamn thing happen to Gavin--

    Ryan pulled back once again from Gavin.

    “Strip.” It was a command, simple, low. Gavin stepped back, suddenly shy, just like he always was. That’s what Ryan liked the best.

    Slowly, Gavin pulled his t-shirt over his head, his messy hair popping out of it even messier. Ryan lounged back, palming at the growing bulge in his pants, and enjoyed the show.

    Gavin unzipped his jeans and peeled them off, stripped down to just his boxers. The fan was on, and the cool breeze washed over his skin, making Gavin’s hair stand-on end.

    Gavin stepped towards Ryan, who leaned forward to meet him, guiding Gavin to stand in between his knees. Gavin tugged gently at Ryan’s collar.

    “Not fair,” he whined, his fingers fluttering towards the hem, trying to pull the shirt off. Ryan chuckled and pulled it off himself to appease Gavin.

    Ryan ran his hands up and down the small of Gavin’s back, short nails scratching blunt lines on Gavin’s skin. Running his hands down lower, over Gavin’s pert ass and down to his inner thighs, Ryan pressed a trail of kiss down Gavin’s navel, rubbing his nose in Gavin’s stomach hair before he hit Gavin’s boxers. With a dissatisfied grunt, Ryan pulled them down roughly, watching as Gavin’s dick strained up against his stomach, practically dripping precum.

    Pressing his hands back onto Gavin’s thighs, he ran them up, closer and closer, following them with soft kisses and quick nips, listening to Gavin’s quiet gasps above him. He wanted more. They both did.

    Their relationship may seem complicated to those on the outside looking in, but to Ryan and Gavin it was perfectly simple. The easy give and take, the mix of pleasure and pain. Ryan’s harsh orders and perfect attention to all the details, to all the little things that just absolutely made Gavin fall apart. And that was Ryan’s favorite thing, to make Gavin positively unravel.

It was so easy to just take all of Gavin, suck him hard and swirl his tongue in just the way that made Gavin moan and his knees weaken. And it was just as easy to stop right before Gavin’s release, to listen as Gavin moaned and begged for more as Ryan flipped him over and fucked him hard, mouth pressing kisses to the hard lines of Gavin’s back while one hand held Gavin up and the other jerked him off.

It worked for them, Ryan mused as he lay in bed with Gavin afterwards, the Brit curled against him, fast asleep. It worked for them, and Ryan was going to miss it. He was going to miss Gavin stumbling around in the morning, half-awake and choking down a scalding hot cup of tea. He would miss how Gavin would kiss him goodbye before work, his mouth tasting of morning breath and Earl Grey.

But, where Ryan’s passion was computers and video games and animation, Gavin had an unadulterated obsession with space, unparalleled by no other passion except for maybe his love for Ryan. Sometimes, Ryan even questioned that, when Gavin would stay up all night, outside with his high-powered telescope, gazing up at the infinite cosmos.

Gavin’s love for space was adorable, at least when it didn’t pose a possible threat to his life. Ryan supposed that he shouldn’t make any presumptions about Gavin’s relative safety, at least not until he met the people he would be working with.

    June 18, 2029

Gavin got out of the car, but hesitated before closing the door. Ryan looked up at him, trying to meet his eyes, but Gavin turned away.

    “I can come in with you,” Ryan offered quietly.

    “Nah, I got this!” Gavin said, trying to perk up. “It’s just some new people. I’m great at meeting new people!” Gavin threw back his thin shoulders and beamed at Ryan. He could do this, no problem. It was just some scientists and the likes. His kind of people. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

    Shutting the door, Gavin waved good-bye to Ryan and turned to march inside. Or attempt to march inside. He tripped, but nobody important saw. Well, Ryan saw, but he didn’t really count. What Gavin didn’t see as he was busy righting himself was the sad smile on Ryan’s face, like he was saying good-bye to Gavin for the last time.

Of course, he wasn’t, but Ryan had always been a worrier and nothing made him worry more then sending Gavin off into some strange world of space nerds.

    Gavin was shaking, but like, on the inside. Like his entire being just wanted to vibrate so fast his molecules could pass right through the floor and he could just leave this entire situation behind, but he couldn’t.

    Matt and Burnie were standing before him, Matt with his arms crossed and an incredulous look on his face; Burnie was positively beaming. Gavin was so fucked.

    “This...this skinny shrimp of a British twink is your grand secret weapon for your insane space mission?!” Matt bit out, turning to glare at Burnie.

    “Look,” Burnie replied all smooth talk and smiles, “He may just look like a kid with a big nose who hasn’t brushed his hair in a week, but he’s got something special.”

    “We don’t need ‘special,’ we need someone who can survive in space and come back alive !”

    Burnie ran a hand down his face, pulling his smile down into a frown. Gavin opened his mouth to say something, perhaps pull his reputation out of this metaphorical mud dragging, but Burnie held up a finger to him, all smiles again.

    “Matt, buddy, look, this guy, using only a telescope and basic deduction , mind you, has been able to theorize more about KOI-351 than any of our scientists have been able to figure out using proper...well, science!”

    Matt quirked an eyebrow and turned to Gavin, his eyes asking “Is any of this bullshit true?”

    “I wrote three books,” Gavin offered up, “They’re all New York Times Best Sellers.” Gavin shrugged slightly, because as far as actual credibility went that was all he had. His intense fascination with space wouldn’t get him far without any actual degrees and sadly he didn’t have much in the way of those.

    Matt sighed and he scrubbed his hands down his 5 o’clock shadow.

    “Fine, fine. Let Gus and Geoff have him. If he dies, it’s not my problem, do you hear me?”

    Burnie chuckled and grabbed Gavin’s arm, grip too tight, perhaps because Gavin’s eyes had blown wide at Matt’s casual mention of dying and now he was pretty sure he was shaking for real, but Burnie had steered him away before Matt could notice.

    They turned the corner down a blinding white hallway. As soon as they were out of sight, Burnie ground to a halt turning to Gavin with worry heavy in his eyes.

    “Are you okay? I know Matt can be kind of harsh, but that’s only because he doesn’t want anything bad happening. He blames it on PR, but he has a heart in there somewhere...I think.”

    Gavin nodded, taking a few steadying breaths. He really wasn’t better; it would take a little while for him to feel calm and in charge of himself again, but at least like this he could function.

    “Great!” Burnie said, not looking convinced at all, “Let’s go meet the team!”

    Burnie guided Gavin down the hall, past different doors labeled only with numbers until they came to one door crudely painted black and green with a sign that said “Bullshit Room for Assholes.”

    “They--uh--don’t come across as professionals but I swear they all know what they’re doing.”

But what Burnie didn’t realize is that nothing could have calmed Gavin down more than that door that looked like an angry five year old had painted it and the neatly written sign taped lopsided in the middle of it.

    Burnie reached for the door handle, but before he could twist it, the door flew open almost hitting Gavin square in the nose. In a blur of auburn curls, a man came flying out of the door with a yell.

    “Fucking asshole!” He exclaimed, whirling around.

    “Oh, uh, hey Burnie.”

    Burnie grinned at the man and pushed Gavin forward.

    “Hey there Michael! Meet Gavin, he’s your new resident hypothetical alien expert.”

    “What?” Michael and Gavin both chorused at the same time, but it was too late, at least for Gavin anyways. He was in it for the long run.

August 27, 2030

There are long distance relationships and then there’s Ryan and Gavin. This had been over a year long adventure that had involved no less than three bloody noses, a perfect lift off, a not so perfect landing, a very sexually frustrated Ryan, and several scarred astronauts the day they had heard Ryan and Gavin trying to talk dirty to each other over a stolen holo screen in the bathroom.

    When Burnie had first tracked down Gavin and pulled him from his happy seclusion with Ryan in the Georgia suburbs, Gavin had gone just out of pure curiosity. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to join some of the world’s finest on  a trip to the next fucking solar system in a space shuttle equipped with technology Gavin couldn’t even have imagined in his wildest dreams.

    Sure, training had been bumpy (to say the least). Two of the bloody noses had resulted from Gavin being a downright klutz when Geoff was trying to whip him into shape ( and the other had been from Michael the day before lift-off because Gavin could not just “fucking sit still already goddammit”), but Gavin was the New York Times Bestselling author of three books hailed as the “best works of the theoretical possibilities of life in space and how to reach it” since, well, ever, according to almost all professionals in the field except for the ISA’s own Gus Sorola who just so happened to be intimately acquainted with Gavin and knew him to be an idiot, but that’s a story for another day. Right then, the world needed a hero, or at least some sort of justification for this suicidal mission. And for better or for worse, Gavin was that justification.

    He was the mission’s pretty British poster boy, and they got all the publicity and funding they needed because of him, so Gus couldn’t really complain because his baby was finally going to fly and KOI-351 was going to be theirs so soon. They were so fucking close.

    And then suddenly, just like that, they were there. There was liftoff, practically perfect. Gus had patted himself on the back and later, after hours of diligently watching his shuttle, even after Matt, Geoff, and Burnie had all separately told him to get some sleep, he had finally gone back to his quarters and grabbed himself a cold beer, content to sit back and review the media’s coverage of the Achievement Hunters inaugural voyage. It looked fucking beautiful.

    “You done good, Gus. You done good.”

    September 8, 2030

“Fuck,” Ryan practically moaned, thrusting up into his own hand as he listened to Gavin whisper absolutely filthy things in his ear. Or rather, into the holoscreen, but it was practically the same thing.

    Gavin was sitting on the toilet in the shuttle, holoscreen in one hand and dick in the other. Timing his thrusts with Ryan’s he murmured, “God Ryan, I can practically feel you inside of me. Fuck, I want you so bad. I would be so good to you. I would listen so well and beg and do whatever you-- fuck-- say.”

    Ryan moaned again, his hips stuttering upwards. He increased his pace, half-lidded eyes meeting Gavin’s through the screen.

    “Gav, who the fuck are you talking to in there? I have to take a shit, open up!” Michael banged on the bathroom door several times.

    “Hold on a sec,” Gavin tried to yell back, but his voice hitched on the last word as in front of him Ryan reached back to finger himself, angling himself to give Gavin a full view.

    “ Shit ,” Gavin whispered, almost cumming right then.

    “Too late,” Michael yelled, slamming open the door.

    “Shit!” Gavin said much louder as he dropped the holoscreen on the ground.

    MIchael froze and took in the entire scene: Gavin with his dick in his hand and face bright red, Ryan naked on the holoscreen, face annoyed, but not embarrassed.

    For several beats everything was silent and then Michael, without a word, turned around and walk right on out and closed the door.

    “You have five minutes,” he yelled through the door, voice strained.

    Gavin quickly bent down and picked up the holoscreen.

    “Mood killer,” Ryan muttered, reaching up to scrub his hands down his face and then after that a second thought given where his hands had been just moments ago, he fisted them loosely in the mussed sheets of his bed.

    “Well, uh...that didn’t work.”

    “No,” Ryan said flatly, “I’ll just have to wait until you get home. I’ll survive.”

    “But I won’t,” Gavin whined.

    “Three minutes,” Michael yelled from somewhere else in the shuttle.

    “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” Gavin said to Ryan, bringing the holoscreen closer to his face.

    “I don’t want an intimate view of your left nostril,” Ryan complained, and then, quieter, he murmured, “Call me soon.”

    Gavin pressed end reluctantly, quickly cleaning up the bathroom lest Michael skin him alive and then exited, hedging around Michael,  not meeting the head astronaut’s eyes. Gavin turned around and crashed straight into Lindsay.

    “Heard you were getting freaky in the bathroom,” She said. “Nice! Getting more action than I am and your boyfriend isn’t even on the shuttle.”

She glared at the back of Michael’s head, but he just flipped her off and went to go take his shit.

September 30, 2030

        “On what we estimate to have been September 10 in Earth time, the astronauts of the space shuttle Achievement Hunter discovered colonies of highly primitive life forms on an unnamed planet in the KOI-351 solar system.

        Leader of the expedition Michael Jones commented in an interview over the shuttle’s holoscreens, ‘Quit saying it’s an unnamed planet, we named it Scrotum. It’s official and shit.’

        This discovery could lead to new breakthroughs in planetary science and new expeditions are being planned by the ISA as we speak.”

                    -Excerpt from the New York Times

    December 20, 2030

    “Would it be too cliche if I said that all I want for Christmas is you?” Gavin asked Ryan. They were tangled together on the couch, finally back in their house after the ten days it had taken for Gavin to re-acclimate to life on Earth.

    “Yes.”

    “So you would be opposed to me tying you up in ribbon and putting you under the tree?” Gavin asked innocently.

    “I would be opposed to being under a tree…”

    Gavin’s attempt at foreplay was sad, but Ryan forgave him after so long in space, because, really, all they both needed was a good fucking. And Gavin had promised him a lot of things when he had been up in that shuttle.

    “Stay here,” Ryan commanded, getting up from the couch and walking into their bedroom. Gavin squirmed around a bit, trying to decide what to do with himself without Ryan there. He worried for a minute, wondering if he should be stripping or preparing himself, but Ryan had just told him to stay, nothing else.

    Ryan returned, halting Gavin’s anxious fumbling around. He was holding something behind his back and Gavin tried to peer around Ryan to see it.

    “Oh no,” Ryan said with a smile, taking Gavin’s jaw in his right hand. He leaned down to press a hot kiss to Gavin’s lips, slipping his tongue inside Gavin’s mouth after months of just imagining what kissing Gavin again like this would feel like.

    While Gavin was distracted, Ryan reached out and clipped something around his neck and then pulled back to admire him.

    The collar fit snuggly around Gavin’s neck but not too tightly, just about a pinky’s width of room was left. It was a soft, supple black leather with a single metal ring in the front. Simple, but effective: Ryan could see the growing bulge in Gavin’s pants, just from this.

    Gavin reached up to finger wonderingly at the collar, looping his pointer finger in the metal ring before looking up at Ryan, silently asking him what to do.

    Ryan was standing above Gavin, looking down at him sitting on the couch. Ryan pulled him forward gently, guiding him to kneel on the carpeted ground.

    “Suck my dick,” Ryan ordered, petting his hand through Gavin’s unruly hair.

    Gavin pushed into Ryan’s touch like a cat, rubbing himself against Ryan's familiar touch. Reaching up, Gavin palmed at Ryan’s bulge, almost in wonder after being starved of this kind of touch for so long.

    Slowly, agonizingly, because he was Gavin after all and he was nothing if not a tease, he unzipped Ryan’s jeans, pulling them down to discovered that Ryan had gone commando all day.

    Ryan’s dick popped out, fully erect, precum beading on the head. Gavin pressed feather-light kisses along the shaft, but Ryan was having no more of that

    Fisting his hand in Gavin’s hair, he pulled his head back and kissed him again hard and commanding, biting on Gavin’s lower lip before release him again. Gavin just grinned up at Ryan before swallowing him whole. He pulled back slowly, licking along the bottom of Ryan’s dick before tonguing at the slit. Reaching up with his hand, Gavin cupped Ryan’s balls giving them a light squeeze as he swallowed Ryan again. Setting a pace for himself, Gavin bobbed up and down, giving the best goddamn blowjob of his life, partly out of desperation, because he has needed this, oh god has he needed this.

    Not that he doesn’t love Michael and Lindsay and Ray and Geoff, but after months of living with the astronauts and Geoff prattling away in his ear, all he wants is some physical release.

    Some time to give in to his basic needs and feel for once like he is truly needed. Like he is useful. Ryan understands that, just like Gavin understands that sometimes Ryan--despite how much he loved to pamper Gavin and order him around at the same time--sometimes he just needed the kind of physical comfort that can only come from hours spent on the couch with bad sitcoms in the background as they kissed lazily and just felt each other laying together, warm and breathing and so very, very real .

February 12, 2031

    “We have contact!” Gus yelled frantically running from computer to computer, directing the scientists beneath him.

    Gavin was standing with the rest of his crew, staring up at the crackling monitor on the wall. A faint face could be discerned from the static, vaguely humanoid, but with no gender-distinct features.

    A strange, garbled voice filled the room, repeating the same phrase over and over again. Gus recorded the message, struggling to decode it as fast as possible. Other faces joined the original on the screen, all of them repeating the same thing over and over again.

    “I got it,” Gus yelled, waving around a piece of torn paper.

    “We come in peace,” He read aloud, turning to beam at the Achievement Hunter crew, ecstatic from this new discovery.

    But, the crew wasn’t looking at him, or the faces on the screen, rather they were looking out the window on the far wall.

    Thousands of ships filled the sky and around them thunder clouds brewed.

    “They don’t look so primitive anymore,” Michael muttered, drawing Lindsay closer to him.

    Gus turned to stare at Gavin whose face was a mix of pure shock and fear.

    “You were right,” Gus muttered, “You were right.”

    “What? What are you talking about?” Michael demanded.

    “The Theory of Relativity, I added my own hypothesis in my third book” Gavin replied, still staring outside, “Time on that planet moved faster than here. That’s why what seemed like minutes to us were months on Earth. Well, everything is relative. Even there. We altered their evolution by showing up when we did. Time sped up. And...now they are repeating what they know. They’ve gone exploring, and they found us.”