Archive of Our Own

The planet they landed on was the most strange and virgin wonderland Jason had ever seen. Huge prototaxites grew from the ground like the fingers of an old dead god, and rose over the devonic forest and the horizon stretching into mountains and valleys. The smaller trees also looked different from the ones on earth, simpler and cruder, more like ferns full of spines and long leaves rather than actual trees with branches and leaves. They were packed close and searching for light, and as a result, they hid the moss-covered ground with a dark shade that seemed to stretch for kilometres around them. 

Jason stayed in those shadows as Kori inspected the ship they had arrived in. 

“It is broken.” She said as she closed the panel that covered the shield mechanics. “The motor of the shield is completely burned.”

“How is that possible?” Roy asked by Jason’s side. “Is one of the latest models.” 

“I believe it was the star’s radiation,” she said, as the three of them looked up at the little red star that was the centre of this system, weak but still fighting. “The energy lectures coming out of it were out of the charts for some reason, I don't think the model was prepared for it.” 

“Can we travel without it?” Jason asked. 

Roy chuckled. “Without shields? In deep space? No fucking way!” 

“It can probably be fixed with the tools we have,” Kory explained. “But it's going to take a while, the mechanism is pretty delicate.” 

“How long is a while?” Jason again asked, crossing his arms over his chest, the leather of his suit tightening against his arms and pectorals. 

“Two or three days if Roy helps me and everything goes well.” Kory guessed looking at the blackened mess of circuits and metal. “Maybe more if the damage has spread to other parts of the ship.” 

Jason cursed. 

“The other option is to call for a rescue ship, but that might take weeks,” Kory explained with resignation, cleaning her fingers with a little rag from her toolbox. “We are in the middle of nowhere.” 

The three of them looked around again. At the strange forest of prehistoric plants, at the eerie red light from the sun that turned the world into a never-ending dawn of soft pinks and purples, and at the dark shadows under need it all. It was too beautiful, too silent and calm, like a beast luring them into relaxing before it ate them. Jason didn't like this place. He couldn't place what exactly was spooking and prickling at his instincts, but Jason didn't want to stay here more than absolutely necessary. 

“We are fixing it.” He decided, then he asked into the creepy silence. “What do we know about this planet, anyway?” 

“It's new and old.” Kory instantly supplied as the scholarly mind of the team and the one who had studied the planet as they approached. “The atmospheric conditions, the age of the planet, and gravity are similar to Earth, but the biosphere is still taking its first steps since life was unable to prosper before the star cooled down.” She said signalling to the plants around them who were clearly prehistoric. “The rotation is also different, it acts more as a moon than a planet, one side always facing the sun and the other always in shade.” 

Roy frowned. “There are no days and nights?”

Kory shook her head staring at the eternal dawn they had landed in. “It is believed that the lack of rotation is the only way the biosphere is even surviving here. Their sun’s light is already weakening, if we add the night, the plants and life won't be able to survive.” 

“So it’s a collapsing system.”

Kory nodded. “In a few billion years. It will never hold a civilization.”

It was sad and all, that all this beauty would end, but not what Jason needed to know. 

“What dangers could we face?” Jason interrupted, trying to focus on the current problems they could face as the captain and leader of this mission. 

Kory frowned in thinking. 

“Food won't be a problem since the ship has emergency rations for these situations, but water was rationed for the mission’s planned duration,” she explained. “The climate can also be a problem. Volcanic activity is unpredictable, and it alters the climate greatly and suddenly. Ice and acid storms or sudden drops and rises of temperature are normal, but we should be able to predict them with the clouds and basic meteorological measures.” 

“What about biological dangers? Any species we should be wary of?” Jason insisted.

Kory shook her head. “Nature is too primitive. Skeletal cinarians, little cyclostomi, and some basic hexapodes, but scientists had not seen anything big enough that might present a problem for humans. It's the main reason I chose this planet to fix the ship.” 

Finally satisfied and relaxing slightly at her answer, Jason nodded at the pair in front of him and instructed them to start working on repairs. Meanwhile, he lit the small computer watch on his wrist and searched for a satellite map of the place they had landed in, trying to locate some source of water they could use. The unease inside him however only increased. He stared at the dark shadows around them again, at the tall ferns, at the looming fungi, and finally, he identified the strange sensation he had been feeling since he had stepped out of the ship: eyes on him. 

The feeling was the same as if something or someone was observing him. 

…oOo…

It was three hours later that Jason finally left the ship and decided to go find a viable source of water they could use. Getting an empty tank to transport it, and some basic tests to measure its quality and toxics, Jason stepped into the forest leaving his two companions behind doing their job. His wrist computer guided him in a north-west direction following a trail of prototaxites that ended up near a big lake and cave system. The walk should not take him more than an hour, but with the tank and the equipment, it was hard to manoeuvre through the plants. 

Jason thanked his exploration uniform for the million time in his life. He had hated the uniform on sight when he had first entered the academy, it was too revealing, too tight, and the design and electronic components only seemed to accentuate the suggestive lines that were already there, but with time, Jason had learned to rely on it. Without the sturdy boots and the reinforced pants and jacket, he would have succumbed to the weirdness of deep space long ago. Now, he walked over the rising roots covered with moss, and fell against the spiked trunks of some of the fern trees without feeling the slightest pain or discomfort. 

He soon lost track of time or place. With no day and night references and with no geographical landmarks he could see under the ferns, it seemed as if he had been walking through the jungle forever. He still had that creepy feeling too, as if something was following him through the density of leaves and trunks. It was creeping him out, and that paired with the physical effort of just moving forwards, and the strange and new environment, made his composure begin to shatter. 

He started to see shadows between the trees, strange eyes of a vivid blue following him, the trees suddenly seemed to move, muddling his path and the route, and the moss turned slippery under his boots making him fall way more times than a man with his experience should. 

When the forest finally opened into one of the lakes he had been trying to find, Jason fell to the ground on its rocky shore and just tried to breathe as he looked at the big expanse of clear water, with cool air blowing from the massive waterfall, and with a little window of pink opening up to the sky. Openness. Jason’s rapid heart slowed a fraction. The place was still shadowed, a prototaxite's shadow falling on it, but moss and little aerial plants hung from the ferns, grew on trunks, and glittered with little drops of humidity. 

Again, it was breathtaking, again it was too strange.

After a while, he got rid of his jacket, and half naked, he finally felt his skin cool down and his mind calm after the strange trip. He didn't like the stupid forest. He had been trained to survive in every environment, his mind had gone through training to face any challenge an exploration mission was meant to face. He had been the strongest in his class, he had been elected ‘Captain’ at twenty, a success on its own and a proof of his mental strength. Yet, he had crumbled in this forest. It was as if some primal part of him had needed him to get out of it, as if a part of his mind told him he shouldn't be here. 

It made no fucking sense. When he returned, he would ask Kory to re-examine the planet and its parameters to see if they had missed something, and if there was something that could justify this panic reaction he was having. He should also undergo some medical exam just in case. Maybe it was a new species. Maybe it was some air parameter or something they had missed because this wasn’t normal.

Ignoring the problem for the moment, Jason took the tests and started to try the clear water. The device said everything looked normal and drinkable, so Jason opened the suction valve on the tank and sat there on the shore as the whole thing filled up. 

The place was beautiful, there was no denying it. The kind of raw untamed nature you could see no more on Earth, but the colours and shapes were all wrong. Maybe it was the pink light from the sun or the effort and panic he had just experienced, but Jason suddenly had trouble focusing on things. The lake was there, he could see and touch it, he could point where it was, or its colour, but he would not be able to describe its shape. It felt as if something was muddling with his senses whenever he looked around. 

He was definitely sick.

The tank by his side beeped announcing it was full, and Jason put back his jacket and picked up the whole thing. The tank had anti-gravity motors installed in it, so Jason could carry big amounts of water without dying under his weight, but manoeuvring the tank on the way back turned even more difficult and tiring as the sensors tried to readjust the thing as they advanced. 

The pressure and panic came right back to him too. To the point that Jason had to stop several times in the middle of the path, close his eyes, and just try to breathe. It seemed to take hours to return to the ship, even though the computer on his wrist signalled the direction very easily. It was as he finally spotted the white lines of the aircraft that Jason let out a sob of relief and felt a bit of the pressure lift out of his shoulders. He could spot Roy and Kory working on the side of the ship, Kory’s redhead was like a signal in the middle of the forest. A sign for home.

He opened up his mouth, ready to call to them when he again spotted movement by his periphery. Jason turned immediately, hand going to the paralyzing gun at his hip when his blurred eyes finally landed on it. 

Someone was standing a mere metre in front of him. At first glance he looked human, he wore the exact same uniform and clothes as him, stood on two legs, and had the most handsome face Jason had ever seen. He was gorgeous, with tan skin kissed by the sun, wavy black hair that felt messily to his jaw, and a psyche many men dreamed about. The skintight uniform revealed long and muscular legs, thin hips, and shoulders broad with even more muscles. He was tall and lean, pretty and hot, he had the kind of body someone would expect to see in porn actors, or sexual androids by how perfect it was. 

And then, there was his face. Strong jaw, long lashes, and full kissable lips as pink as flowers. He had a playful and happy expression on his face that again reminded Jason of nights spent in bed doing wicked things that made him cry in bliss. And he had the most deep and vivid blue eyes Jason had ever seen, hypnotic, distracting, and as gorgeous as the rest of him. He was a vision, a fantasy Jason hadn’t even known he had. But it definitely wasn't human. 

The way he stood there, staring at him with those deep unblinking blue eyes was not human, and no human was capable of such stillness, there was always a beating heart pulsing under the skin, and a breathing chest moving with it, but this creature stood still like a statue. 

Jason stared at it with huge eyes, the pressure he had been feeling all this time in the forest coming back tenfold. He could barely breathe as every instinct and all training he had received screamed at him to run. The creature lowered his head to the side as it watched him, in the kind of gesture a wild animal would do when it was wondering at something. Then, it smiled, but it stretched longer than normal, showing way too many teeth. 

A big sound came out from ahead of them, from the spaceship, and Jason turned to it without being able to stop himself. 

When he turned back the creature was gone and he found himself alone in the strange forest, the sensors in his watch detecting nothing. Completely creeped out, Jason ran towards the ship without thinking about anything else. If something had happened to Roy or Kory, if the creature had done something to them…

He found them exactly where he had left them. Kori was kneeling by the opened valve, and Roy was handling her a screw from the toolbox. Both of them blinked up at him with unfocused eyes when they saw him appear by their side. 

“Jason? You are back already,” Roy, the soldier in their team, told him with a smile. “That was quick, we haven't even started.”

Jason frowned at his amused face and checked his watch. “What are you talking about? I have been away for four hours.” 

Kory frowned back at him. “What? No, you just told us you were going to get…” She grew silent as she checked her watch and realized Jason had told the truth. 

“...What the hell?” Roy commented as he also checked his own.

“This doesn't make any sense.” Kory agreed. 

Jason stated to his two companions who seemed to have lost hours of their lives without even realising it. This was bad. This was astronomically fucking bad. The forest, the creature, the fucking ship! 

“Okay, we are all getting into the ship, and re-examining everything. This is not normal. I need to know what is happening, and I need to know it now” Jason ordered.

Both of his friends agreed and instantly stepped into the ship following orders, but as Jason made to follow them, he noticed handprints by the entrance. It was not his, Kory or Roy. It barely looked human, the fingers were too long, and it had the imprint of claws too, as if something was trying to look human but didn’t know how they even worked. 

Jason looked down and saw footprints preserved by the moss walking in and out of the ship too. The ones coming in looked animalistic, wild, big and strange, a predator definetly, if one was to trust the claws, but lighter and quicker than anything Jason knew. The ones coming out however looked perfectly human, the exact shape, the number of fingers and the length between them. 

They walked in the direction where Jason had come from.

…oOo…

“There is nothing wrong with the planet or with us,” Kori repeated for the tenth time.

They had checked the scans again, repeated the test, and taken read after read again, but the answer remained the same. The planet was a welcoming one for humans, they had nothing to worry about, the air was pure, the water toxic-free, and nothing on the surface had evolved or developed enough to present a danger to them. Their medical analysis had also come out well. There were no toxins in their blood, their brain function was stable, and there were no injuries, or anything in them that could explain what had just happened.

“I saw it! You saw the footprints!” Jason complained. “It was there, in front of me, like you or Roy! I don't know what it was, but it definitely was not ‘innocent and unevolved nature’!” 

Kory was frowning now, and Roy looked wary and beyond tired. They had had this conversation for a few hours now. At first, his two friends had wanted to believe him once he explained the strange sensation in the forest, and the creature that came out of nowhere, but as the exam results came out and nothing came up, both of them started to book at him pitifully in a way that was pissing Jason off. 

“What about you then? What about the fucking several hours of your life you don't seem to remember?” He protested again. 

By now, however, Jason was realising this was not going to go anywhere. Kory was too scholarly to believe in anything that the sensors and exams couldn’t even detect, and Roy was also a practical man, he only believed in what he could see and stab. 

“It is probably stress,” Kory concluded. “We have been working nonstop for months, and that paired with the weird and new environment could have caused the hallucinations or the loss of time.” 

Roy nodded as if that was a good enough explanation. 

Jason almost snarled at them and the pity looks in their eyes. 

Leaving the medical room where they had been coped into for the last hours, he walked outside of the ship needing air and some distance from them, even if it was from this strange place. 

It had not been a fucking hallucination! Jason had had hallucinations before, and nightmares, and terrors, and none of them had ever looked this real. Something was lurking in the forest. Something that the scanners couldn't detect, and therefore could be dangerous. And there was also something going on with the forest and his friends, but none of them seemed to be paying it any fucking mind. 

As if they hadn't been stressed before. Their fucking job description was stressful, deep space explorers were meant to be stressed, and that's why the academy fucking trained them to deal with it. This wasn't stress, this was something else he couldn't put his hands into and something that could harm them. But if the other two didn't take it seriously, how was Jason going to be able to protect them?  They had already lost Bizzaro because of his incompetence, he had promised himself a year ago that it would never happen again. 

He looked at the forest and the pink sky. New strange clouds had appeared, and it seemed they should be careful about what they brought with them. Jason observed them move, getting closer and bigger, painted golden and purple by the light.  He suddenly missed the dawns of Earth, their little home at the academy, and how simple life had been back then.

Kory stepped next to him a moment later, and put a hand on his shoulder. 

“I'm sorry.” She said.

“I know. It's not your fault, it's just…” Jason looked at the forest and the shadows were secrets and darkness seemed to uncurl. “I worry. It’s kind of my job. I don't want anything bad to happen to any of us, and this place creeps me out.”

 “I know,” Kory sighted by his side. “You always try to be the big bad leader and take care of us even though you are the youngest and most vulnerable of us all. But you are even worse after what happened with Bizzaro and-” 

Jason tensed immediately when hearing the name, and Kory cut her words and looked away ashamed. They both stayed next to each other awkwardly after that. That topic was a thing they never talked about, one of Jason’s darkest moments, but now it was again in both of their minds, and Jason hated it. He hated being vulnerable, he hated what those conversations did to him, and he hated to be reminded of how useless and pathetic he had been.

So he said nothing, he didn't even acknowledge the words Kory had said, didn’t scream at her as he had done years ago in self-defence, he didn’t throw a fit, or broke down crying in her arms, he just looked at the forest and tried to calm his mind and heart. Eventually, she just stepped in front of him and hugged him as if she didn't know what else to do to fix the situation. 

Jason clenched his jaw at the contact, closed his eyes painfully, but eventually, he hugged her back. The intimacy was now a common thing between them after years of living together and after everything they had survived. There had never been anything sexual or romantic between them, after growing up together, the three of them were more like siblings at this point. None of them could see their family or lovers during missions due to their location, but they still had each other. Now as he hugged Kory against his chest, he felt his mind calming if only a bit. She was alive. It was okay.

“It will be alright,” she whispered against his chest. 

Jason nodded, and again his eyes landed on the forest surrounding them. It suddenly felt darker with the shadow of the clouds covering it, but what worried him now was the silence. 
There was no creaking of the tall ferns or the leaves moving into the wind. Everything had gone silent, still, as animals did when an angry and bloodthirsty predator was nearby, only it was the whole nature that had gone silent here. 

Jason felt awareness of having eyes on him again, only this time, they looked angrier. 

“I will go inside,” he said quickly, stepping away from Kory’s embrace. 

Kory nodded and gave him a weak smile. “Roy said he was going to sleep, you should too.” 

“And you?” 

“I wanna stay here a bit more and look into the vents, try to see if I can fix anything and make up for the loss of time.” 

Jason nodded, not even paying attention to her as he just tried to get away from the silent angry forest and back to the ship. 

…oOo…

That night Jason had a strange dream. He was in the forest again, with the pink sky above, the moss under his feet, and with the creature standing in front of him. It was as beautiful as he remembered. Tall, with lush black hair and a physique Jason had only seen on models and genetically modified people. It felt as if his own wildest fantasy had taken shape and was not staring at him unblinking. 

There was still that eeriness, that discordance as if the creature didn't yet know how to fake being human, and it was confusing Jason’s own mind too. Attraction mixed with fear and alarm, as he observed the creature approach like a prowling beast.

But as if it tended to happen in dreams, he couldn't move. He couldn't run or scream, or wake up, he could just watch as the creature raised his arms and hugged him, exactly as Kory had hugged him minutes ago, but way more possessive and strong, with a hand holding him by his nape and the other pulling him close against a breastless chest. 

They were the same height, and with similar physiques, but the creature’s skin was impossibly cold. 

Jason realized only then that both of them were naked, and the realization again brought a mix of emotions to his mind. Desire, lust, and alarm. It had been so long since he had had sex or any kind of sexual contact and this creature was so pretty. This was just a dream, he could just…it probably would be fine. 

His arms rose to hug the creature back, pressed more firmly against it, his body suddenly obeying him once more and leaning into the other’s coldness. The creature seemed to note his sudden change of mind and the silent plea in his body because a second later Jason’s head was pulled to the side harshly to show his throat.

A harsh bite pierced his flesh, pain bloomed, and Jason screamed. 

A punishment.

He woke up suddenly with Roy snoring by his side, and his body felt hard and sweaty. He definitely had an erection between his legs and that was as worrying as it could be because that had been some fucked up dream, and he couldn’t believe he had gotten rock hard while thinking about a monster that was about to kill him. 

The clock announced that six hours had passed since he fell into his bed, but on the other side of the room, Kori’s bed was still unmade. Standing up and needing whatever distraction he could get, Jason went looking for her since the scholar sometimes fell asleep in odd places while reading or researching something. But she was not in the research room, in the medical room, or in the control pit. She wasn’t fixing the ship either, what’s more, once Jason began to panic, he realized she was not in the ship, nor in the forest around them.

He woke up Roy and both of them tried to find her using the ship’s technology, but like yesterday, the radars couldn't find a trace of sentient life around them, the ship couldn't detect Kory’s personal computer, there were no footprints left on the moss around the ship, there was no trace left of where she had gone.

She had just disappeared as if she had never been here.

…oOo…

Jason locked down the ship and sent an SOS message to the nearest inhabited system. The rescue ship would take a week to reach their location, but Jason was not risking it anymore, not after losing Kory. 

The order to stay put and wait for help, however, was not well received by Roy. He kept wanting to go out and look for her. He kept trying to find excuses and explanations for the situation, like ‘she had probably broken her computer band’ or ‘she had just fallen into a cave or something where the signal could not be received’, but they were all poor excuses since both of them knew that the ship’s scanners had enough power to cover the whole planet and scan even below the surface. Still, Jason said nothing and let Roy believe whatever he wanted, since the other option was one he didn’t want to think about either. He still didn’t let him leave the ship. 

They argued for hours. 

The water in the tank would not last them for a whole week, Jason reminded Roy, eventually they would need to go out for more, and they could search for Kory then. It might be too late, Roy insisted, she might be sick, or injured, and the hours they were wasting could save her. Jason refused. Roy screamed at him, critiqued him as a captain, and even brought up Bizarro and Jason’s failure. 

They got into a fistfight that ended with Roy unconscious on the floor and Jason trying to heal his broken lip in the med bay. It was their usual dynamic, Roy would apologize when he woke up, Jason would heal him too, and after some more awkward hours, they would be best friends again. At the end of the day, Jason was still the captain of the ship and had the controls and locks of the whole thing, so Roy had no other choice but to obey him, and both of them knew it. 

Fifteen hours after Kory had disappeared, Jason again prepared for bed. It was then, as Jason brushed his teeth, and stared tiredly at the mirror, that he noticed the bitemark in his neck. It was in the same exact spot where the creature had bitten him in his dreams. 

…oOo…

The following week passed in a daze. Being confined to a small space was never fun, but adding the chaos of the last days and the current uncertainty turned the whole experience into a nightmare. 

Jason spent his days training, trying to contact the rescue ship, and looking into the scanners for any presence or clue about Kory, or the creature. Roy on his part kept on mumbling in the background, glaring into space, and generally ignoring him. Sometimes Jason would find him in the same position he had been in for hours as if he didn’t dare move, or worryingly arguing to himself, but Jason just assumed it was the boredom driving them both insane and let him be. 

Jason had his own problems to deal with. He kept having strange nightmares every night of the creature watching and following after him. It always tried to touch him, at first curious and wondering, hands tracing his ribs and collarbones, gripping his buttocks, but then hard and painfully. Jason woke up screaming as his legs were painfully broken, or as his arms were painfully twisted. It also tried to speak sometimes, opening and closing its mouth, but with no sound coming out of it. It almost looked as if he was a boy testing a new toy and learning how to play with it.

And as the days progressed, the creature seemed to learn. His body looked more and more human, less eerie and more alive. The way he moved and touched Jason also improved, with no more painful accidents but instead soft touches that left him hanging. Soon Jason woke hard every morning, terrified, spooked, with new inexplicable marks on his body, but incredibly hard. He started to dread going to sleep, but he also began lingering in the dreams once he was in them, leaning into the monster, asking to be touched and caressed by the gorgeous fantasy, he stopped resisting or even trying to run away from those pretty blue eyes. 

It was on the fifth day of their forced confinement, with the water almost out, that Jason finally caught a worrying behaviour from his teammate. 

He was sleeping again, another passionate dream with the creature’s mouth again on his neck and hands tracing his naked tights, when he woke up and found Roy looming over him. He almost screamed in panic, but Roy wasn’t moving, he was doing nothing, just staring at him with glowing and blue-changing eyes. 

“Roy?” Jason asked with a strangled voice. 

The man however only smiled, but as it had happened with the monster, it was too wide and unnatural. Roy didn’t smile like that, it was always smirks and little timid smiles, the huge happy smiles were unseen in a soldier like him. 

“A-are you okay?” Jason asked again.

Roy nodded again, the movement more a jerk of muscles than an actual volunteered movement. “Tired,” he said, but his voice was loud, and the vowels were off, as if this was the first time Roy had used his voice. 

Jason stared back at him. What was happening? Was he dreaming again? Was Roy the one causing the marks on his body? But Roy just blinked another time, and finally went back to his own bed. He looked more like a puppet than his friend as he moved, but he laid down on his bed easily, and soon Jason heard him deeply breathing moments later as if nothing of importance had happened. 

The next day he examined his friend again, another deep and meticulous medical exam, but again Jason found nothing wrong with him. He also checked the video recordings of their room to be sure, but no matter how many times he replayed it, Roy didn’t move from his bed, didn’t wake another time or stir in the slightest, and meanwhile, the shape of his fingers and kisses bloomed on his skin out of thin air as he turned and turned on the bed looking aroused and feverish.

…oOo…

“I’m going to get more water,” Jason said on their sixth day of waiting. The rescue ship had said it was going to get delayed due to some solar flares, and Jason could not ration the water anymore. 

Roy didn’t even acknowledge him. 

He was seated in the bed, looking more dead than alive by the second. Jason had not seen him eat or drink in the last couple of days, and he even seemed to refuse the rations when Jason presented them to him warm and good smelling. He just kept staring out into space with vacant eyes that kept changing colours. His murmuring of the last week was gone too along with the talks with himself or any reaction to his environment. He had been none responsive for the last couple of hours, even to pain. 

And yet, the medical scanners said that nothing was off. 

Without another option or way to help his friend, Jason took the water tank in silence, and after a whole week, he stepped out onto the planet wanting to at least provide for his team. 

Nothing seemed to have changed since the last time he had seen the forest. The huge prototaxites rose around him like huge towers of a forgotten civilization. Ferns of strange shapes and colours spread tall and far, and shadow crept underneath between roots and moss. The sky was pink. The air was fresh. The silence stretched for miles.

It all looked the same, yet, there was a strange tension in the air, almost like anticipation. It felt as if this was meant to happen, as if the forest had known he was going to eventually come out again, and had been waiting for him. It was a stupid notion, forest couldn’t be sentient, but Jason had no other way to explain that feeling.

Still, Jason had taken a decision and was committing to it. 

He didn’t know what had happened to Kory, he didn’t know what was happening to Roy, but he was not going to stand there trembling in fear and let them all die. He was a captain, he would not be defeated so easily. So, armed with as many weapons as he could carry, and with the huge obtrusive tank by his side, he set one foot before the other and entered the forest once again ignoring every instinct in his body. 

The trip felt easier this second time when he knew what to expect, but despite the knowledge and his weapons, he arrived at the lake’s edge, sweating, creeped out, and more tired than he wanted to admit. He had tried to constantly look around for Kory, for the creature, or for anything, but there had been only the ferns and darkness around him. He had felt a hundred eyes on him, and there was the oppressive silence, the strange light, and the numbness once again filling his mind. 

It felt as if he was about to die.

Once on the shore he took off the jacket again, checked the water, and activated the tank as nerves clawed the inside of his belly. Clouds floated ahead, rainbows of colours reflected the water, and when Jason turned to face the forest again, as he had expected, there it was the creature. 

Under the full light of the red sun, he looked even more stunning. Tall, lean, with a body, Jason now knew personally thanks to his wet dreams, and a face that was hard to look at from its perfection. His blue eyes shone like jewels, the shape of his lips was made for kissing, and as he smiled happily and open at him, he looked like the most wonderful vision Jason had ever faced. 

Jason instantly pointed a gun at it, a killing one, but the creature only smiled more fondly as he stepped closer. 

“Did you take Kory?” Jason asked with numb lips.

The creature finally stopped before him. 

“Yes.” 

His voice was music, magic, the only thing Jason ever wanted to hear. It was the most perfectly set trap he had faced.

“Where is she?” Jason almost growled at it. 

The creature frowned at him as if he hadn’t expected him to be angry. “Feeding the forest.”

Jason couldn’t help it. He shot it. 

The creature didn’t even react. A hole formed in his chest the side of a fist, right where the heart should be, but just quickly, it reformed until flesh and then clothes covered the wound. Instant healing, some kind of shapeshifting Jason realized. Normal weapons would be useless against it. 

“What are you?” He asked as his hands began to shake.

“You don’t have a word for something like me, and nothing in this world uses the kind of communication you use.” The creature said happily again, as if he was talking to a child. “The closer approximation would be ‘god’, ‘life’, ‘forest’...but you can call me Richard.”

The thing started circling him then, next to the tank of water, over the waves of the shore and to his other side once again. He smiled happily and kindly, like a man appraising his lover rather than a predator circling prey. Jason followed him, not fooled by his game, and not daring to give him his back. 

“ ‘Richard’ sounds like a human name to me,” Jason said. 

“It is.” And again, that happy innocent smile. “You all had once, so I needed one too. Roy suggested it. Said he could call me ‘Dick’, and that it fit me well.”

“Roy?” Jason stammered. “You talked to Roy?”

“I needed a way to learn about you, to learn the proper way to court you, so I had to enter his mind. He told me many things, about you, about the place you came from, or your travels. You are an interesting species.”

He entered his mind. Suddenly, the memories of Roy mumbling and talking to himself took on a different tone. The night he had caught Roy looking at him near the bed looking different, it had been real not his imagination, it had been the monster, and it had been Roy talking to a monster. But then why was happening to him now? Why was he not talking anymore? 

“What is happening to him? Why isn’t he talking anymore?”

“Your minds are not made to hold one such as me. Like colours under a strong light, they fade.” 

“He is dying?”

The creature looked at him curiously as it completed another circle around him. “He ‘died’ yesterday, his physique succumbed as you fell asleep. What you saw today was just a husk held up by the remnant of my power.”

Jason gasped suddenly unable to breathe, and his knees crashed to the floor. Both his friends were dead. He had failed them, just like Roy had said, he was the worst captain to ever exist. He had been unable to protect them once again. 

The creature kneeled before him too, now within arm’s reach. He was looking at him frowning again, with those blue eyes completely focused on him as if he was trying to understand him. He said nothing and did nothing as Jason trembled under his grief and guilt.

“And the dreams?” Jason had to ask. “Was that also you?”

This time the creature, Dick, looked away with another smile, almost shy, almost looking human. “I couldn’t help it.” 

The smile showed his little fangs and a dimple on the side of his face. Jason wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kill him. He looked gorgeous and innocent, the kind of man Jason would hit on a bar, but then he opened his mouth and horror and pain came out of his mouth. He was a demon. One of those that tempted humanity into sin and pain, and this one had come to get Jason.

“Why?” Was the only thing he could ask, his mind overwhelmed by everything, but just needed to know why this had happened. “Why are you doing this? Why did you kill them?”

The creature smiled at him proudly and satisfied. “Because you are my mate.” Then he cringed. “I didn’t want for Roy to fade, I liked him, but I needed to learn about you and your species, so it had to happen.”

No, it did not.

“And Kory?”

Dick’s face contorted into one of pure rage before his eyes, all innocence gone, just the beast showing his fangs. He was still beautiful, and handsome, but there was nothing kind about him now. “She touched you.” He snarled like a possessive child. “You are my mate.”

Jason closed his eyes. 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

“I am not your mate, go search for someone else.”  

But when he opened his eyes, Dick was smiling at him again, all happy and nice. “I told you, there is no one else like me, it has to be you.”

“No!” Jason screamed, raising the gun again to the creature's head. “I am not. I will not be your mate. I’m not playing your games anymore!”

The creature leaned into the gun as if it had been Jason petting him lovingly instead of threatening him with death. He raised his hand as if to touch him, and Jason found himself unable to move as it always happened in his dreams. He could just stare into that lovely face, into those eyes looking at him full of fondness and unrestrained lust. 

He was going to die. 

“You are so kind Jason, and so pretty and strong.” He told him. “You will make the best mate.”

As those fingers finally landed on his cheek, Jason’s world disappeared.

…oOo…

Jason woke up in a place he didn't recognize. The floor under him was covered in leaves and soft moss that felt like feathers, while over him, branches of what looked like ivy climbed on the walls and ceiling of a cave illuminating it with a strange pulsing light. There was a strange smell in the air, earthy and primal, the kind of smell someone could only find in centuries-old forest. 

Jason tried to sit up, but his head again spun and clouded. There was something in the air, in that smell that overwhelmed his nose, a toxin or some sort of drug he couldn’t decipher. He needed to find a mask so he could survive this place, his uniform always had one on one of its interior pockets but when he finally managed to sit up, he realised that not only had his clothes and equipment been removed, but that the creature was also here with him. 

Dick was curled next to him over the moss, his skin pale and soft next to the dark greens and browns of the cave. He was halfway on top of him and he kept lazily grazing the muscles in his abs while singing some strange tune. 

“What happened? Where are-...?” Jason could barely form words, his mind felt numb and watery again. 

“I brought you home,” Dick said raising his head from his chest to smile at him. 

Then pushing Jason back down into the leaves, he climbed on all fours over him and trapped him under his body. Jason realized then that Dick was also naked, that they were touching skin to skin, with no barrier left between them. Jason tried to look away, preserve some kind of dignity even now, but like everything that had happened before, it was impossible and he soon found himself glancing at the monster’s body.

As the parts Jason had seen so far glimpsed by the uniforms and dreams, Dick’s naked body was perfect. His skin was perfectly soft and tanned, his nipples a perfect shade of pink and even the cock between his strong tights was the most gorgeous one Jason had ever seen. Jason followed the lean muscles the uniform had showcased, all fluid grace and curved lines designed to turn him mad with lust. Jason wanted to reach up, trace that exposed flesh, bite one of those perked nipples, but something kept on nagging him, something he should remember but just couldn't. 

“Like what you see?” Dick asked nuzzling his face and kissing his brow. 

Jason found himself nodding. 

“Good” Dick mumbled against his ear all endearment and fondness. “I created this body just for you.” 

Without being aware of even moving, he pressed a hand to Dick’s ribs and sighting at the silken skin under his fingers. Perfect. Beautiful. His. Dick had made this just for him. His mind clouded further, as his eyes devoured the naked body above him, and lust stirred in his groin. 

Dick sat down between Jason’s tights and looked at his aroused body with satisfaction in his eyes. One of his hands lowered down his abs and curled around his cock casually, massaging it with clear intention. Jason squirmed, overwhelmed already with just a touch, but not complaining in the slightest at the treatment.

Jason moaned when Dick began pumping him when his cock hardened completely. His mate was so good and kind. He opened his legs further, a silent request for more, and Dick instantly conceded. Sitting back on his heels as if to observe the show, he started to pump Jason's dick in earnest, up and down, fast and punishing, and just observed him squirm and pant under him. 

Jason tried to keep it cool, he tried to look good in front of his mate, but the stimulation was more than anything he had felt before. His whole body felt suddenly on fire, his mind slow and dumb, but the intensity of the experience was taking him under. He could only focus on the spot where Dick was touching him, on the ripples of pleasure climbing up his body. He rose his hands up gripping one of the branches near his head, and tried to hold into it for dear life as Dick abused his cock however he wanted. 

His legs spasmed on both sides of his mate whenever Dick dragged his hand down, and his hips arched when Dick dragged it up. It should hurt; a part of his mind supplied. Dick was being rough and impatient, they had used no lubrication, and there was something strange about the way his body was overreacting, but he just couldn't focus on it. Dick lowered his other hand and started playing with his balls in tandem with his cock, squeezing and rolling them against his palm, and Jason arched off the floor with a dirty loud moan, chest pressing up, while his hips dug down. 

“When Roy explained, I didn't understand why you mated like this,” Dick whispered above him while licking his lips, eyes glued to his body, and every reaction he extracted from him. “But now I'm starting to see the appeal.”

Jason whimpered, feeling completely exposed and debauched, he had never been like this, he was always the cool one during sex. Yet, he felt his eyes begin to water from pure bliss as Dick tightened his grip on his cock and balls and used him as his own personal toy. 

Jason should have felt embarrassed, he should have asked him to stop, but when he risked a glance at Dick, he saw only approval and desire in those gorgeous blue eyes. Dick liked to see him like this, what's more, from the hardness Jason felt pressing against his ass, he was enjoying doing this to him. 

Arousal spiked in his blood at the realization. Right now Jason looked like a pathetic and wanton slut, but Dick enjoyed seeing him like this. Dick was hard because of him. It was that realization the one that finally pulled him over the edge, and made him shoot his seed all over Dick’s hands. 

Jason tried to breathe, he tried to ride the overwhelming orgasm, the muscles on his tights trembling from the effort of keeping his legs open, and his hands fisting branches and anything he could hold into, but it was no use. The orgasm stretched and lasted until Jason started to get scared at what was happening to him, and only then, the whole sensation subsided. 

Dick kept observing him, his blue focused on his face, on the rise and fall of his chest, and the quivering muscles on his belly. He stroked his cock again, and Jason felt his whole body flinch in a hard shudder of pleasure. He had never felt this exposed before, he had never acted this way with any other.

“Please.” He begged. 

And his kind and beautiful mate finally obliged. He leaned down over him again, a hand raising to Jason big pectoral’s muscle to squeeze it as if it was a woman’s breast, possessive and painfully. He also leaned down to kiss him, and willingly Jason opened his mouth to let Dick lick at his tongue. He just rose his arms around Dick’s neck and tried to answer him the best he could.

He didn't resist, he didn't comment on the guttural dangerous growl that came out of his mate’s throat. Of course Dick was being possessive of him, of course Jason would let him do these wicked things to him. They were mates, and that was what mates did. 

Dick traced his eyelids with kind fingers when they finally separated to breathe. Jason's body felt overwhelmed and hypersensitive, and his mind was still numb, but he felt completely at peace with himself and the universe now. This was where he belonged, touching and playing with Dick, letting Dick pet and ravage him back however he wanted. 

“You are so pretty Jason.” Dick whispered encouragingly, making Jason blush and preen under the praise. “Now, turn around so I can mate and breed you properly.”

Jason did just that. Turning on his front over the leaves, he lowered his face to the leaves and moss, and raised his ass in an offering. Dick immediately covered him, chest pressing to back, hands tracing his back and the shape of his ass before finally parting them and finding his hole. 

Using Jason's come still dripping from his abused cock, Dick pressed two fingers to the knuckles inside him and started scissoring them and playing with his hole. Jason’s body opened to him without complaint, little sights and moans escaping his mouth with every playful twitch of those fingers inside him. 

“You were so eager in our dreams too,” Dick whispered against his nape. “Stretching yourself for me, riding me so eagerly, tell me, beautiful, did you touch yourself afterwards while thinking of this?” 

Jason had. Several times. On those moments after he had woken up on the ship after a dream full of passion and debauchery, hard and aching, he had been unable to help himself. And then when worries and fear had been so overwhelming he had needed some release he had only needed to remember it to come undone in his hands. He had done a more times than he could remember, in his dreams and in reality, and every time, as he came all over himself with fingers deep into his hole, it had always been those blue eyes staring back at him. 

“Yes,” he confessed. “Everyday.”

Dick licked his nape as he added another finger. “Such a good mate,” he whispered. “So eager, preparing yourself for me, wanting so much to be mounted.”

Jason dug his fingers into the floor and pressed his ass back into those fingers. His head ached. He couldn’t even remember what he had been doing when he masturbated, he couldn't even understand why he had been there and not like this, underneath his mate, doing this. 

“Please, please.” Jason sobbed. 

“So good, so beautiful.”

“Fuck me, please!” He screamed in pain.

It took a second, one moment he was still being stretched and teased, and in the next, his mate was balls deep inside him, claws digging into his hips to keep him still, as that beautiful cock destroyed the last of his sanity. 

Jason came like that for a second time. He hadn't even realized he was hard again, but it could be nothing else than an orgasm. 

Dick growled by his neck again as his ass squeezed him. Strong hands held him still, as Dick planted his knees firmly on the floor, and started to thrust his hips forward in earnest. 

He claimed him. There was no other way to describe it, it was more animalistic than human, a need more than a desire. Dcik plowed Jason’s hole, hitting that sweet spot inside him as if they had been born just to destroy it. 

Pleasure the kind he had never known overwhelmed Jason. He felt his eyes rolling back in his head, his mouth drooled as he was unable to close it from moaning so much. This was exactly what he had needed, how he had always been meant to be fucked.  

Sounds of flesh hitting flesh, and the dirtiest moans Jason had ever heard his voice produce filled the cave. He realized the whole structure was glowing now as if hundreds of little veins were catching fire around them. Jason observed those veins grow under his fingers too, digging into his skin, and filling him with that strange light too. 

“Your hole is so tight, Jay,” His mate grunted against his neck making him moan again by how wretched he sounded. “It craves my seed like nothing I have seen before.” 

Jason was too blessed out to even answer him, his body didn't even answer to him anymore, but obediently, it clenched his ass around Dick’s cock as he was meant to do, milking him dry, and pleasing his mate. 

It made Dick crazy. Gripping his hips with clawed fingers he started to fuck into his limp body hard and fast, hips slapping violently against his ass, and cock pounding into his hole as if he wanted to ruin it for eternity. 

Jason was still in the orgasm, unable to come down from it. The light in his body was growing, changing him, connecting him with everything. He could suddenly feel Dick’s own pleasure as he destroyed his hole, he could feel his possessiveness, his need to claim him, but still, it didn't seem to be enough, this was not enough, something was stopping them. 

“Mine,” Dick growled, and the word seemed to come from all around him, from the planet itself, from inside Jason’s own head. 

And Jason surrendered, he let go of any control he had left, and he gave it all to his mate as Dick demanded. 

Yours.

The world shattered. Dick came inside him filling him up just like Jason had dreamed about so many times during the previous days, but so much better. His teeth also closed on his nape drawing blood. Marking him. Claiming him. Turning him. 

Jason's last trace of consciousness disappeared as they finally closed the deal. 

…oOo…

Jason soon realized tat his mate was way too hungry for his body. Like a child who had tried sweets for the first time, Dick went at it again and again. He had to be inside him every hour of the day, they had to be touching, kissing, or moving against each other to seek pure bliss in order to be happy. 

Soon, Jason’s body was a mismatch of marks and love bites, between his tights, over his nipples that Dick loved to bite on, and even his lips felt sore from kissing and sucking at his mate’s beautiful cock. His hole was always dripping now, stretched and ready for his mate to use, and use it, was all Dick’s did. 

Jason was not even safe for him when he fell asleep or unconscious because Dick just welcomed him there and fucked him again and again until Jason could not even distinguish what was real or a dream. He had cried sometimes, tired and overwhelmed, he had begged Dick to take a moment to rest, but Dick seemed to have no mercy when it came to fucking him, and he also seemed to love turning him into a crying begging mess.

Jason himself could not get enough of him either. He loved to tease his mate and drive him insane until Dick's incredible patience broke down and he mounted him in that punishing brutal way that Jason loved. He had even spanked him once for hours as punishment, but had gotten distracted by seeing Jason's ass turn bright red. The mating after had been the most intense they had had, and Jason had loved and adored every second of it. He was already planning on how to get Dick to do it again. 

And Jason especially loved the shape of his cock. Dick let him worship it for hours sometimes, with his mouth, with his chest, and even with his hole, and Jason was happy just bouncing on it until his legs cramped and they had to switch positions so Dick could keep on filling him.

Jason also loved other things about his mate, like his blue beautiful eyes. It reminded him of something big and wide, a faraway place he couldn't remember. He also loved his ever-present smile, how his arms fit around Jason's waist when they cuddled under the warm sun, or the way Dick was so smart and kind to him. 

Dick was so strong. Now that Jason was one with him and with the forest, he could appreciate the power he commanded. He was the biggest predator on the whole planet. No other creature could compare to him, his mind, his body, it all rippled with strength. Even the plants and creatures moved away when he walked in the forest, like a king walking his territory and making everybody bow to him. 

Sometimes, when Dick went out to hunt and provide for him Jason accompanied him and learned. He was still new and weak compared to his gorgeous mate, fumbling as they navigated the world, but his mate was always attentive and patient with him and was also happy to show him the ways of the world. Dick had waited for millennia to find someone like him, so Jason had a lot to learn if he wanted to be a good mate for Dick.

He felt incredibly grateful and happy that such a man had claimed him as his mate, and he was more than gleeful that Dick also seemed so besotted with him and his body. Mates should love each other after all. 

Sometime later after Dick had claimed him completely, Jason saw a strange object moving up the violet sky. It pricked at his mind, like a distant memory, as if he had forgotten something very important. The strange metal thing near the lake also pierced his mind, and feelings of longing and loss always filled him when he stared at the strange thing, but Dick was always there, taking him away, hugging and fucking him in their little nest again until Jason felt whole and happy again. 

A few days later the object in the sky and the other in the forest disappeared, and Jason breathed easier. They would be alone from now on and for eternity: him, Dick, and the forest that now pulsed in his veins. 

THE END