Thrum

“Ami.” My name in his mouth: a question and a consolation.

I’m in his arms before I have a chance to stop myself. He is my only comfort here, the only warm thing, the only embrace. And in my terror, as the hum invades my senses, I’m desperate for him. He takes me in as if he was born to hold me, enveloping me with arms around my body and a cheek on the top of my head, my chest against his, our heartbeats hammering in tandem.

“Shh,” he says as I gasp and sob, his fingers drawing slow strokes down my hair, thumbing the base of my skull. “Don’t worry. You’re safe. I will not let anything harm you. You’re safe.”

I believe him.

My hands clutch at the back of his shirt, as if I’m going to fall the moment I let him go and wake up frozen in a stasis pod, trapped between life and death. If I let him go, I’ll run forever down a bleeding corridor. Or I’ll fall down a depthless well, the ship’s hum surrounding me until I fracture into a billion particles.

“I was afraid this would happen,” he breathes, almost inaudible. As if he’s talking to himself, far away. “I tried to warn you… I can’t control it…”

None of his words make sense to me. They don’t have to. I lift my head to face him, this being who is not human but who feels, smells, sounds so deeply familiar that my chest aches. My vision swims with tears, my face wet, my nose clogged.

When I reach up to tangle my fingers in his hair, pulling his face down to mine, there is no thought involved. I don’t plan it. I simply open my mouth to his and drink him in.

He responds the way a human would. His shoulders relax and he melts into me, both tightening his grip and softening. A low sound in his throat says he’s enjoying this. His fervent return of the kiss says he’s been wanting this.

I begin to drown in the feel of him. I’m overflowing, clutching at him for dear life, and all around me the walls are crowding in, red and slick, and the thrum, thrum, thrum drones at the base of my fragile skull.

We stumble to the bed like a pair of horny teenagers. I am drunk on him, and I need him to keep me intoxicated, keep his warm mouth on mine, his hands seeking, my nerves alight. I’m already forgetting what had frightened me. It doesn’t matter, now that Dorian’s here. He presses a thumb to the base of my throat and kisses me slowly, his body weighing me down. I couldn’t escape if I wanted to.

And I don’t want to. I want to be here, yes, right here, and nowhere else, forever.

“Ami,” he groans. “I’ve waited so long for you.”

I don’t know what that means, and I don’t care. Maybe I’ve waited for him too. I came all this way, light-years and light-years, and I found him. Why shouldn’t I surrender to this?

He unzips my jumpsuit, warming me with kisses beneath my ear and down my neck, to the soft curves of my breasts. My back arches and I can’t have enough; I need more, more, more. I am open to him, ready and eager. I’m open to the encroaching darkness and its reaching tendrils, to the ship closing in and in around us, umbral and unending.