Chapter 25
Jaime
Adam is different now. Thoughtful, deliberate, and at times somber. Whatever he’s remembered weighs heavily on him. Yet deep inside, he’s still my Adam.
He’s sweet and attentive, anticipating my every need like before, only now he understands why I ask him to make fire or boil water.
He still waits for me to ask for help instead of rushing in and doing things for me.
Not because he doesn’t want to help, but because he understands how important it is for me to at least try on my own.
He’s still cuddly and affectionate. His innocent, almost childlike curiosity might be gone, but the deliberate focus on my pleasure that replaced it is much better.
His need for me is as insatiable as mine is for him, and most of our stops end with at least a prolonged kissing and mutual masturbation session, if not outright sex.
After determining that we’re returning to my ship, we stop by Adam’s cave one last time to pick up the holoprojector and my fossil shard, and then Adam takes us through the rock labyrinth again.
It’s an incredible place. I know there are places like this on Earth but they don’t tend to be wheelchair-accessible.
With all the hospital bills, my family rarely had money to spare for trips, so I’ve never seen anything like this in person, only on television.
The real thing is much better, even if the pinkish rocks are still a little odd.
My sense of direction is completely off on this moon.
The green planet is almost always in the sky but rarely in the same place, and the same goes for the red sun.
There’s no northern star or anything else to easily orient myself with, so most of the time I’m completely lost, relying entirely on Adam’s knowledge.
This time though, I was fairly certain where the cliff was, until Adam turned and took off somewhere else.
There are rocks here just like everywhere else, but none of them look familiar, making me think that maybe my sense of direction was right for once, but Adam is choosing a different path.
Maybe to confuse the venomfang? That thing can’t still be waiting for us down there, can it?
Even if I killed her offspring, which I hope I didn’t, there’s no way it would have such a long attention span. Would it?
I could try asking Adam and maybe even get an answer since he’s able to talk a little now, but I'm afraid of what that answer might be, so I keep quiet and trust that Adam knows what he’s doing. He promised to get us to the spaceship, so he will.
I doze off, comfortable being carried in Adam’s many arms, my head resting against his warm chest. A soft tickle on my cheek wakes me.
“Jaime.”
I never really liked my name—who does?—but I love the sound of it coming from Adam’s mouth, especially after thinking he couldn’t speak for so long.
Now he speaks more and more, not in complete sentences, but enough for me to understand his meaning.
I guess it helps that he’s not actually learning new words, just remembering them.
His language is a mix of hissing and click-clacking, but my nodes have no trouble interpreting it, my brain understanding his words as if he were speaking English. It’s incredible technology.
“Jaime,” Adam repeats. His fingers circle the shell of my ear before pulling on my lobe. “Jaaaimeee.”
“Ugh, fine,” I mock-grumble as I open my eyes, only to find we’re surrounded by more rocks. “What is it? Are we lost?”
Chuffing, Adam sets me down, careful not to spill the shell full of water he boiled for me before we left. He used most of the twigs and roots from his pile of knick-knacks to make that fire.
“Jaime watch and like,” Adam says.
“Uh-huh. Jaime’s a little sick of looking at rocks, mate.”
Adam twitches as I say that last word, his eyes widening.
Crap. I keep forgetting that the word has a special meaning to some aliens.
My brother, for example, is the fated mate of a sexy, horned secret agent chick with three breasts.
They kept seeing each other in their dreams before they met.
If anyone else told me that, I’d call them a liar, but Steven is not one to make stuff like this up.
Out here, fated mates and soulmates are real, and I probably should stop throwing the word “mate” around like it means nothing.
“Okay,” I clear my throat, “what is it I’m supposed to be looking at?”
Adam points to a narrow crevice where a large piece of rock has separated from the massive rock needle. The rock face is smooth, like a drawing board, and…
My breath catches as I realize what I’m looking at.
Dozens of shapes are embedded into the rock, dark outlines etched into the pale pink surface.
Twisted shells, fern-like fronds, and skeletal impressions bloom across the wall in frozen chaos.
Some are only faint shadows, while others jut from the surface, their ridges and spirals crisp against the ancient rock.
“Fossils,” Adam says, fingering the small, broken fossil I found earlier. “Jaime—you liked fossils. I show you more fossils. You like?”
“Do I like them? Oh my god, I love them. Adam, this is beautiful, and it’s sweet that you remembered, that you did this for me.” Seriously, how much more perfect could my sweet alien be? This is the best date I’ve ever been on. The best date anyone’s ever been on.
Crawling closer, I reach out to touch the fossilized remains of creatures and plants that lived here millions of years ago.
Gently, worried I’ll damage it, I trace the most prominent outline of what must have been an ancient mollusc shell.
It’s longer than my forearm, twisted into a narrow, pointy spiral.
“Wow.” I wish I could take part of this wall with me, or at least take a picture of it, but my memories will have to do. “Thank you, Adam.”
Adam crouches beside me, his fingers following my path around the shell. “You remember this,” he says. “You remember me.”
“W-what do you mean?” Tearing my eyes from the beautiful piece of history, I look at Adam, who appears more somber than usual.
“Adam, what are you talking about? Why would I need to remember you?” Is he planning on leaving me once we get off the moon?
Did he remember more about his life and realize he doesn’t have space for a needy human in it?
Or that he has obligations? A partner? A family, even?
Instead of answering me, Adam picks me up again. “We go. Long way.”
“Okay, but…” I want to demand answers, but what right do I really have to pry into his privacy?
We’re a casual hookup born from trauma bonding and need for intimacy.
He doesn’t owe me anything. I’m the one who owes everything to him, and I better remember that.
Still, his words make me uneasy, like there’s something he’s not telling me, something important I should know.
We descend a different cliff from the one we used to escape the venomfang and, once we’re in the jungle, Adam grows completely quiet.
Following his lead, I keep my usually busy mouth shut, my ears straining for any sound of danger approaching.
Not that I heard the venomfang the last time before it attacked us, but the jungle did grow quiet when it was around, so I keep my ears peeled for any change in the sounds around us.
So far, a flock of tiny dragon birds Adam calls clatterbeaks has been following us, which I hope means we’re safe for now.
Adam told me about the cute names his primitive self had created for various local creatures, and they’re pretty much spot on.
Like the damned worms. Wiggletails. They sound all cute and sweet, but fuck.
I’ll be the happiest man in the universe if I never have to see another worm in my life, but they’re pretty much the only edible thing here.
Adam tried to bring me meat, both from the turtles and from something that resembled a tiny antelope, but something on this moon makes the creatures’ meat incredibly bitter. I couldn't eat more than two bites before my stomach turned. The worms are the best choice here, and isn’t that just sad?
The clatterbeaks suddenly dart away, the forest becoming silent. “Adam,” I whisper, my body tensing as I scan the foliage for threats.
“I know.” Veering off our path, he heads for the root system of a nearby tree and enters a cave just big enough to shelter us both.
“Venomfangs?” I ask quietly, somehow feeling more vulnerable in the enclosed space because I can’t see outside.
“No, Jaime. Sharp light.”
“Oh. A solar storm.” Now that he mentions it, I realize the jungle has been brighter because the leaves have begun rolling up to hide from the sun. I haven’t noticed the northern lights yet, but the forest clearly senses the danger coming.
Carefully removing our meager belongings from my lap, Adam sets me down before curling around me. “Solar storm,” he repeats, as if mulling over the words. “The sun. Hmm. Makes sense. Hide from…radiation?”
Damn, every time he speaks like this, I realize Adam’s probably a lot smarter than I am.
My bet is that he’s highly educated and he had a brilliant mind before ending up here.
It doesn’t make sense, though. How long would he have to be here to forget everything?
Surely longer than a few years. Decades, perhaps?
He doesn’t look old, but for all I know, his kind might live for centuries.
Wouldn’t the process of him losing his mind be gradual?
Wouldn’t he try to stave it off by taking notes and keeping track of time?
Wouldn’t he have built a better shelter and accumulated more supplies before forgetting what it was all for?
Yet his cave was more like an animal’s den, its walls bare, not even marked with scratches to count the passing days.
I’m missing something here. I’m sure of it, but maybe Adam will explain it once we get out of here. If he still wants me around. Sadness wells in my chest and I curl into Adam’s chest, determined to enjoy what little time I have left with him.