Chapter 13
“Can you stand?” Stroud’s voice came from somewhere above his ear, hoarse from coughing up floodwater.
Yuji’s legs folded twice before he managed it. Stroud hauled him upright, and they staggered together toward the top of the ramp, boots squelching, water streaming off their clothes.
They sat on the wet stone, backs against the chamber wall. Yuji’s teeth chattered hard enough to make his jaw ache. The dark was absolute—no headlamp, no ambient glow, nothing. Just the drip of water from the ceiling and their breath still uneven.
“Radio’s dead.” Stroud’s weight shifted beside him. “Lamp too.”
“How long until they look for us?”
“Morning. Maybe earlier if the roads wash out worse than expected.” A pause. “We’re not getting out tonight.”
Yuji’s wet shirt clung to his chest, wicking what little heat remained. He pulled his knees up, wrapped his arms around them. The shaking wouldn’t stop.
“Your pack.” Stroud’s hand found his arm in the dark. “Where is it?”
“Don’t know. Lost it when we went under.”
Stroud was quiet for a moment. Then his fingers moved up Yuji’s arm to his shoulder, testing. “You’re hypothermic. We both are.”
“I know.” Yuji’s voice came out thin, chattering. “Wet clothes. No fire. No insulation.”
“Wet clothes have to come off.”
Yuji heard him moving—soaked fabric peeling away from skin, the slap of a shirt hitting stone. Belt buckle. Zipper. The wet thud of pants.
Yuji’s fingers fumbled with his own buttons. The cold had stolen his coordination. He managed three before Stroud’s hands replaced his, working the buttons free with steady efficiency despite the dark.
“Lift your arms.”
Yuji did. Stroud peeled the sun shirt over his head and dropped it somewhere behind them. Then his hands were at Yuji’s belt, working the buckle, tugging the wet cargo pants down over his hips. Yuji braced himself on the stone and lifted so Stroud could pull them free.
Naked. Both of them, in the black quiet of the chamber. Stroud gathered the wet clothes into a pile and arranged them flat on the stone—makeshift padding against the rock. Then he pulled Yuji against him, chest to chest, arms wrapped around his back.
The contact was a shock. Stroud’s skin was cold too, but warmer than the air, warmer than the wet stone. Yuji tucked his face against the side of Stroud’s neck and felt his own shaking ease by degrees.
“Better.” Stroud’s breath stirred his hair. “Body heat’s the only thing we’ve got right now. Just stay close.”
They lay on the flattened clothes, limbs tangled. Yuji’s cheek rested on Stroud’s chest, rising and falling with his breath. His fingertips traced Stroud’s ribs, counting them in the dark.
Stroud’s hand closed over his. The silence stretched.
“I built my whole life around not needing anybody.” The words barely carried past Yuji’s ear. “Years in the desert. Told myself I was self-sufficient. Self-reliant. Whole ranger-hermit thing.”
Yuji waited.
“It was a lie. You already know about Ray. That was the pattern—see something I want, tell myself I don’t need it, watch it leave.”
Yuji pressed his palm flat over Stroud’s heart. Stroud’s laugh was small and mirthless. “Real healthy, right? Real adult way to handle it.”
“You let me in.”
“Yeah. Terrified the hell out of me, if I’m being honest. Still does. But I couldn’t seem to stop.”
Yuji lifted his head. The dark was a cocoon, a confessional. They could say things here that they couldn’t say with the lights on.
“I’m not much better.” Yuji found Stroud’s jaw with his fingertips, traced the stubble there. “Without the work, I’m nobody. That’s what I’ve always believed. My whole identity is wrapped up in being useful, being brilliant, finishing things.”
Stroud’s hand came up to cover his. “That’s not true. You’re more than what you do—I could see that the first day, before you’d finished a single thing.”
“It feels true. My grandfather—he was the only person who ever made me feel like I mattered just for being me. Not for what I could do. After he died, I turned his research into this… this test. If I could finish what he started, then I was still worth something.”
He was quiet for a moment. The words came harder now.
“He had a stroke. I was sampling a spring in the Owens Valley—four hours north of where he lived. My phone was in the truck. By the time I got back to it, he’d been gone for three hours.”
Stroud’s grip tightened.
“I tell myself I would have answered if I’d had the phone with me.
That I would have dropped everything and driven to him.
” Yuji’s voice cracked. “But I don’t know if that’s true.
The reading was almost done. Another twenty minutes and I would have had the full data set.
And part of me—the part I can’t stand—I think that part might have let it ring. ”
The confession hung in the dark.
“I can’t get past it.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “The fear that the work mattered more to me than he did. That I’m the kind of person who would choose data over my grandfather’s last moments.”
Stroud didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then his arms tightened, pulling Yuji closer.
“You don’t know what you would have done.” Stroud’s mouth pressed against his temple. “You’ll never know. And beating yourself up about a choice you might not even have made—that’s just another way of hurting yourself.”
“I’m good at that.”
“I noticed.” Stroud’s thumb traced his cheekbone. “First time I found you, you were damn near collapsed from heat exposure because you forgot to drink water. You’re not exactly gentle with yourself.”
“Neither are you.”
“No.” A pause. “Maybe we both need to work on that. I’ve got a decade of bad habits to unlearn, but I figure you’re worth the effort.”
They lay in silence. The dripping had slowed—the flood draining back through the cracks in the rock. Yuji’s shivering had stopped. Their bodies had reached some equilibrium, skin warming where it pressed together.
Stroud’s hand found the back of Yuji’s neck and pulled him into a kiss—slow, deep. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but this. Yuji’s body responded despite the cold, blood warming, skin prickling where Stroud touched him.
Stroud’s hands moved down Yuji’s back—slow, reading him in the dark. The lean muscle along his spine, the dip at his waist, the flare where his hips began. His palms spread wide, taking in as much skin as they could hold. Over the swell of his ass, pulling their hips together.
Both of them half-hard already, cocks thickening where they pressed. Stroud’s rough palm cupped Yuji’s balls, rolled them gently, and Yuji groaned into his mouth.
“Been thinking about this.” Stroud’s mouth moved down his throat.
“Since when?”
“Since you passed out on my couch.”
Yuji’s cock thickened fully, pressed hard against Stroud’s hip.
He shifted, straddling Stroud’s thighs, and their cocks slid together—skin-on-skin friction.
Stroud exhaled hard through his teeth, hands clamping on Yuji’s hips, grinding him down.
Stroud’s cock heavy against his own, precum wet against Yuji’s stomach.
Yuji ground against him, and Stroud’s grip tightened.
“How do you want me?”
Stroud didn’t answer right away. His thighs shifted apart beneath Yuji. “I want you inside me.”
Yuji’s cock stiffened further. He lifted his head, though he couldn’t see Stroud’s face. “You sure?”
“Asked, didn’t I?” Stroud’s hand moved to the back of Yuji’s neck, held him there. “Never let anyone do that. Never wanted to. But with you—” His thumb pressed harder, circled. “I want to know what it feels like. You inside me.”
Yuji kissed him again—deep, searching. Then he pulled back.
“Relax. I’ll go slow.”
Stroud settled beneath him. Yuji slid down his body, hands mapping the terrain—the hard slab of his chest, the ridges of his stomach, the coarse hair that thickened below his navel. Yuji wrapped his fingers around the shaft.
“Christ.” Stroud’s hips bucked. “Your hands are cold.”
“They’ll warm up.”
Yuji stroked him slowly, base to tip, felt the pulse of blood beneath the skin.
Stroud’s cock stood rigid, curving toward his belly—long enough to reach past his navel, thick enough that Yuji’s hand couldn’t close around it.
The head flared wide, a bead of precum already gathering at the slit. Yuji bent and took him into his mouth.
Cool skin warming against his tongue. Heavy, filling his mouth. Stroud groaned and his hand found the back of Yuji’s head, fingers threading through his wet hair.
“Fuck. Your mouth?—”
Yuji sucked harder, took him deeper, jaw stretching around the girth. He braced himself on his elbows between Stroud’s thighs, his own cock hard and untouched, pressed against the cold stone. He wanted to take his time with this.
His mouth came off Stroud’s cock, a string of spit trailing between them.
He moved lower. His hands pushed Stroud’s thighs apart, thumbs pressing into the crease of his groin.
Stroud’s balls hung heavy, drawn up tight, and Yuji mouthed them—first one, then the other, rolling them gently with his tongue.
“Lower.” Stroud’s hips lifted off the stone. “Keep going.”
Yuji lifted Stroud’s hips, bent him nearly in half, and buried his face in the cleft of his ass. His tongue found the hair-fringed pucker of Stroud’s hole, and Stroud grunted above him.
“Jesus Christ.”
Yuji licked in long strokes, flat of his tongue pressing against the tight muscle. He circled the rim, felt it flutter and clench, then pressed the tip of his tongue inside.
Stroud jerked at the first touch, his breath catching sharply. His hand tightened in Yuji’s hair, holding him there. “Don’t stop. Holy shit. Don’t stop.”
Yuji worked his tongue deeper, fucking him with short, rhythmic thrusts. Stroud’s thighs trembled on either side of his head. His cock leaked steadily onto his stomach, a thin strand of precum connecting the head to his skin.
When Yuji finally pulled back, his jaw ached. He lowered Stroud’s hips to the stone but kept his legs spread, then spat onto his hole and pressed one finger against the opening.