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The air was stiff, almost non-breathable, recycled through the guardian's lungs more often than through the ship’s life support systems. The humidity made worse by the layer of perspiration gathering over his skin, soaking his clothes without truly bringing any hope of relief.
He groaned in discomfort and frustration, pulling the shirt over his head and unceremoniously throwing it onto the floor, adding to the pile that was his long coat, gauntlets and boots. Soaked in sweat, it landed with a soft thud, rather than soundlessly, like any dry fabric would.
His gaze slid then to his pants. Every inch of the rough material touching his skin was wet, changing its color from dirty-tan to dark-brown, sticking uncomfortably to his body. Without much enthusiasm, the guardian reached for his belt, starting to unbuckle it, tugging the pants down his legs and throwing them on top of his shirt, so the only item of clothing left still on him was his boxers.
For a moment he wondered about getting rid of them too. The cotton they were made of was soaked, making the fabric rather form-fitting, leaving nothing to the imagination of any onlookers. Thankfully, there were not many onlookers here, in space, in the guardian's jumpship. The only other being he shared the tight accommodations with was his ghost, but he doubted Ghost would care, even if he’d make it his habit to stride nude around the ship every day.
Yet, the moment his back touched the back of the pilot seat, he realized undressing fully to be a bad idea. The dump skin felt sticky and uncomfortable against the leather and he didn't want his rear to go through the same level of torture.
"Damn," the guardian sighed, rubbing his temples, his eyes sliding down to the control panels in front of him.
Usually pulled close to the controls, his chair was now moved back to free some space to stretch the legs. It made the ship’s control panels too far away to reach without moving, but he was still able to see every one of them. A myriad of faintly blinking lights was indicating the workings of the entire ship, starting from the settings of their warp core, and ending with a little digital clock. The majority of them were green, or blue, demonstrating all of the systems to be in perfect working order.
Almost all of them, the guardian mentally corrected himself.
It'd been only several hours since they returned from the planet surface, covered in dust and gore, tired to the point of fainting on the feet. The guardian dreamt of nothing more, but to sleep and have a shower, and he wasn't particularly picky about the order in which it was going to happen.
As the ship was too small to actually have a shower stall installed, he settled in for the best cleaning he could manage next to a tiny sink in the lavatory before reaching his bunk and collapsing, falling asleep the moment his cheek touched the pillow.
He was brought back from the realm of blissful, dreamless rest only an hour later, when a rather loud rattle sounded throughout the ship. He emerged from his bunk to find the cockpit in smoke raising from one of the panels and his panicked ghost trying to figure out what went wrong.
By now, the smoke was dealt with, but the broken air conditioning unit was letting know about itself in other unpleasant ways.
"Any progress?" The guardian asked, addressing his companion.
A low digital whistle sounded from under the panel with no lights, before it turned into a more coherent speech. "It seemed that the heating sinks burned out," Ghost said calmly, as a matter of fact, like the high temperatures in the cockpit didn't bother him. "I could fix it if we had any spare ones."
"None at all? Could we, perhaps, pull spare parts from any non-critical system?" the guardian asked, unable to keep a note of plea out of his voice. The thermometer on one of the panels was indicating the temperature to be 38 degrees Celsius. It wasn't the hottest the guardian had experienced in the relatively short period of time since his resurrection, but the high level of humidity was making it difficult to breathe, not to mention it made him sweat so profusely.
The humidity itself was coming from the excessive moisture condensed around the warp drive's cooling units. The air conditioning system was usually taking care of it, but with it down, the cockpit was turning into a sauna in a matter of minutes.
It was that kind of an old, beat-up jumpship, where one system falling apart was bringing down everything else, making the existence on board miserable.
That and the lack of decent sleep after the mission was making the guardian a little woozy, so he desperately wanted Ghost to find a solution for the problem, and he wanted it to happen soon.
"The only other system I can get the spare parts from is the life support," Ghost replied, "I doubt you will appreciate it."
The small floating construct was still preoccupied with the panel, his voice muffled by the thin layer of metal covering the console. He floated backwards from behind an open section, before turning around to meet the guardian's eyes.
And then he froze in the middle of the air, his single vision sensor making quick snapping motions up and down over the man in front of him.
Under the stare, the guardian couldn't hold a shiver running down his spine, even while the temperature decreased not in the slightest. He felt like he was being appraised, and realized he was wrong thinking Ghost, being a piece of sophisticated alien machinery, wouldn’t even notice his state of undress. An urge to squirm and pick up his clothes to cover up settled in him, but he knew it was irrational. “Is something wrong?” he asked instead.
His words seemed to brake Ghost out of his momentarily stupor. The small construct spun around, away from the guardian, to face the viewport occupying the entirety of the ship's nose. “Forgive me, Guardian, I did not mean to stare,” he said.
"Would you prefer me putting my clothes back on?"
Ghost shook his frame the way a humanoid would shake their head, "no, it's unnecessary," he said. “I don't mind it, I just find an organic bodily functions to be a fascinating subject, so your current condition intrigued me.”
“Huh?” the guardian mumbled unsure, watching his companion with interest, “what do you mean?”
Ghost turned back to look at him, the top flippers of his frame narrowing around his optical sensor as if in a frown, “your ability to lower your body temperature through perspiration, for example,” he explained, “you would not be able to cope with the current ship’s conditions otherwise.”
The guardian could not help to snicker at that, shaking his head, “it’s gross,” he said, “besides, unlike you, our bodies can only withstand an extremely small range of temperatures. So we need to improvise. It’s uncomfortable, unpleasant. In fact,” he added reaching for a plastic bottle next to his chair and opening it, before making a toasting gesture towards Ghost and moving the neck of the bottle to his lips, taking several gulps, “we need to replenish the lost water, then we also have to pee. And I'm not even starting on the food digestion topic."
"I always thought that ingesting food was a pleasant thing," Ghost interjected.
Even not feeling all too well, the guardian laughed, "well, not the food I've been eating for the last several days" he said, "those rations, I wouldn't wish 'em for my enemies."
Ghost went silent for a moment, as if contemplating, "but there are things, pleasant things you can do," he said after the pause.
"Well, yes," the guardian shrugged, "there are good kinds of food too, and there's sleep, even if it's only pleasant because we, organics, get tired. There's also..." he tried to come up with something else which he would consider to be pleasant, but the only other pleasant thing about being an organic that he could come up with was not among the things he really wished to discuss with Ghost, "...physical pleasures," he finished none the less, feeling his face flushing.
He didn't think it was going to be difficult to mention sex in a rhetorical conversation. Even if he had no memory of the life he had before his resurrection, and the complete lack of sexual encounters after it, he didn't feel the topic to be all that unfamiliar. He simply started to realize their conversation was going a little off the kilter and was sincerely hoping Ghost wouldn't pick on it.
Unfortunately, he was absolutely out of luck.
"Sex?" Ghost provided, sounding way to enthusiastic about it than he had any reason to be.
"Well, yeah, we have sex," the guardian nodded. "Organics, that are," he added quickly, feeling the statement to sound a little strange on its own. "And, well, exos too, if what I heard was correct."
There was another pause from the Ghost's side, "I think it's amazing," he said finally. His top flippers rose up, and he added: "can you tell me about it?"
The guardian sighed, bringing his palm to his face and rubbing the bridge of his nose between two fingers, "do you want me to give you 'the birds and the bees' talk?" he asked.
"I'm rather familiar with the theory," Ghost replied, "I simply want to know how it feels."
The guardian coughed a little uncomfortably. No matter how he looked at it, there wasn't anything simple in his companion's request. "When do you think I had time to indulge?" He chuckled, trying to hide his discomfort, "I don't even remember if I ever been with anyone."
"You did it on your own on several occasions," Ghost provided, making the guardian feel like wanting to fall through the deck's floor and into the open space, "you did it a few times in your bed after especially stressful missions, and a few times when taking a shower, and once you--"
"Ok, that's quite enough," the guardian interjected. His face flushed even harder now and he started to feel like the air around him became even hotter, even if the thermometer on the panel was showing the same 38 degree number. He hid his burning face into his much cooler palm and took a deep breath. "An orgasm. You want me to explain you how an orgasm feels," he said, making it sound like a statement, rather than a question.
"Well, that's an important part, isn't it?" Ghost confirmed.
"It depends," the guardian sighed and closed his eyes. He honestly had no idea where to start, didn't know how to explain the feelings of it to an AI, how to tell the difference between a desperate attempt to let off some steam, trying to put himself to sleep quicker, and a passion, desire of being physically intimate with someone, the importance of that someone's touch. The caress of someone's lips and fingers mixed with occasional rougher grips, soft moans escaping lungs.
Two bodies moving as one in the most ancient of dances.
A soft tug of a familiar sensation spread around the guardian's nerves. His heart started to beat faster, his breaths deepened in a desperate, subconscious attempt to get more oxygen into his system, despite the difficulty he had with breathing. His skin started to feel too small for his body, sensitive, as if prickled with a thousand little needles.
It was not an arousal, at least not only, but rather a different kind of desire. He didn't know who he was, what kind of life he'd used to have before Ghost found him and brought him back from the dead. He was pulled out from the eternal rest and was thrown into a fight that had became his own, he was set on the mission to save lives.
But his own life was not even a life, rather a never-ending race with time he’d never had enough of. And during all that time, he'd never even stopped to think about what he wanted.
The friends he'd made were closer to acquaintances, because each time they talked they only discussed strategies and tactics, mixed only sometimes with an occasional mingle. None of them were really close, none of them could...
"Guardian?" he heard a little concerned voice of his partner, then even a softer whisper of: "Nathan?"
There was something profoundly wrong with Ghost using his name. He himself had never even used it, hiding behind his title to help him forget he'd ever been someone else. Yet, there was also something that felt really right. He opened his eyes to see his companion floating on the level with his face, closer to him, almost to the point he could feel the raw energy of the Light radiating from his small constructed frame.
The presence of him made the guardian shiver, made him want to reach out for his friend and run away from him at the same time. On a reflex, he tried to move away, almost imprinting his bare back into the leather of the pilot chair, his hands gripping harder into the hand rests.
"I'm afraid, I can't provide you with an answer to your question," the guardian said, remembering what he was asked about, realizing how strange his own voice sounded to his ear, rough and heavy, "it's not something I can describe with words."
"Nathan," Ghost repeated his name for the second time, which brought yet another weave of shiver running down his spine, "maybe... maybe then you could show?"
That request made the guardian laugh, but not because there was something funny in it, but more in a quiet hysteria. "There are plenty of very educational videos you can find online," he proposed.
The next thing Ghost said, although, cut his laughter short: "none of them are about you," he said.
The guardian gulped. "I'm not going to jerk off, just so you could watch," he replied, sounding a little too weak to be convincing, but it wasn't a lie.
No matter how much he tried, he couldn't deny he was aroused now, be it because of the heat, or his own thoughts about wishing he could have someone. He could even agree it was partially Ghost’s fault, because the way his companion spoke, his intonations, his gentleness was playing havoc with his body. He didn't mind finding a quiet place somewhere on the ship to have a little alone time, but thinking he could do it in Ghost's presence, knowing that his companion was watching him, was a little too weird.
"I'm not talking about simply watching."
The guardian had to hold his breath for a moment. The heat was most likely starting to play tricks with his mind, because there was no way his ghost actually proposed what he thought he did. It couldn't have been a dream either, because he didn't believe his subconsciousness could conjure it. One needed to feed subconsciousness with something, before it could bring up those kind of dreams to the surface, and he had never even considered his companion to be a sexual creature to begin with.
Yet, the guardian's body was responding to Ghost's proposition, like it didn't belong to him anymore, like he was unable to control anything about it, but the verbal responses, and even they more often were not what he intended to say.
He surely needed to cut this conversation short -- the thing between them had already went too far beyond his comfort zone and became too strange. He was sure, he could ask Ghost to drop it, knew that his companion was going to do it no matter what, but the words escaping him did not sound like anything resembling a request to stop: "and what was you talking about?" he asked licking his lips.
It looked like Ghost himself was beginning to glow even brighter. He didn't move closer, but his small frame was visibly shaking, as if he was shivering. "I can," he started, but stumbled over the words, which was a surreal thing to hear from any AI, "I can connect to your neurological network. I could share your every physical sensation," he explained.
"That sounds kinda intrusive."
"Would you call sex with another organic intrusive?" Ghost asked, frowning with his top flippers, his voice changing for a moment from sensual to confused.
"No, because there would be a reciprocation from another side, not a simple tapping into the nervous system," the guardian explained shaking his head.
"You think I won't be able to reciprocate?" Ghost chuckled, speaking now almost fondly.
The guardian wanted to raise an eyebrow, to ask what his companion meant, but before he could do it, he saw Ghost's outer shell expanding, a gentle blue light from under it spreading outwards. It continued to grow, until it reached his skin, making him flinch in non-expectancy of a real, physical sensation of a touch.
No, it wasn't just any light, he realized, it was the Light, the very soul of the being in front of him. Somehow, no matter how many times before the guardian saw that Light, it made the entire experience even more intimate.
The gentle caress spread around his torso with a cool pressure, making a quiet moan tear from his lips. That sound was like a catalyst for him, bringing him out from whatever haze he was under, jerking him wide awake.
He grabbed the small, floating orb of metal and Light in front of him, pushing Ghost away, his eyes wide in panic about the reality of what was happening.
Ghost himself flinched violently in his hands, the small parts of his shell gathering back around his spherical frame. His visual sensor met with the guardian's eyes and the next moment he dissipated from the man's grip, reappearing a meter away from him.
"I'm, I'm sorry," Ghost said, sounding as if he was out of breath, even if the guardian knew the construct didn't need to breathe, "I have no idea what have gotten into me," he started to apologize.
The guardian watched him astonished, each inhale and exhale of his own too harsh. "It's... It's fine," he replied, "perhaps the heat was affecting both of us," he said.
Ghost nodded. He watched his fiend for another moment, before turning around, flying towards one of the panels of the jumpship, resting on it. If he noticed a raging erection between the guardian's legs, he didn't comment on it, perhaps trying to save his friend at least a little bit of dignity.
The guardian turned his gaze away from his companion, relaxing back into the chair and closing his eyes, and the next several minutes they spent in silence.
It was so quiet in the cockpit, that the guardian was able to hear every single hum of the machinery, every beep coming from the direction of the control panels, even the beats of his own heart thumping loudly in his ears. He felt sick, uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally, not even knowing the real reasons for the latter. It was so easy to convince himself he was simply disgusted by a thought about having a freaky, light-show sex with his companion, but that was not entirely true.
Yes, the idea was a strange one, but his body seemed to be completely on board with it, and his mind was not completely averse either, because if he was completely honest with himself, he wondered what it might feel like.
He looked up into the viewport, watching the bright flashes of blue and purple passing the ship, as they warped towards their destination. It looked soothing and cool from where he was sitting and he found himself wishing for that coolness to touch his overheated skin just for a fraction of a second, to swipe away his tiresomeness.
The idea of stepping out of the spacecraft while it was warping was a horrible one and he knew it, but he needed something to distract himself, even if it were unrealistic calculations about his chance of survival. Perhaps, if he was to wear his helmet and clench tight to his Sparrow, he could end up with only couple of broken bones, instead of being turned back into stardust.
A droplet of sweat rolled down his forehead, returning him into reality of his current situation. He was still sitting in the pilot seat, his back uncomfortably sticking to the upholstery.
He wiped the sweat with his forearm and looked down, towards his abdomen, realized he was still incredibly hard under the thin fabric of his boxers, he still felt sick about it too. He knew a simple act of self-service was not going to help him, not this time, because what he felt, what he really longed for, could not be satisfied that way. The sudden feeling of loneliness overwhelmed him, making him want to curl into a ball and never see the light of a day again.
What made it even worse, was the lingering sensation of Ghost's touch on his skin. No matter how surreal, he could not deny how good it felt to be touched by another being, even if that being was his non-organic companion, who was so small, he could fit in his hand.
The guardian bit his lower lip, trying to gather his thoughts, but no matter how hard he tried, he didn't feel any less confused. He was tired, filthy, but wanting, and nothing was making any sense.
He was most likely going to regret it too.
"Ghost?" he called quietly.
"Yes, Guardian?" his companion replied in the same manner, still resting on top of one of the panels, facing the viewport. He was using the title, rather than name now, trying to distant himself, the guardian realized.
"Us having sex would be weird."
"You are right, it would be."
"And if anyone would find out, they'd look at us like we are freaks."
Ghost turned to look at him, his expression blank, "do you want me to keep agreeing with you, or do you really want to know what I think?" he asked.
"I want to know if I blew it up," the guardian confessed with a sigh.
Ghost's expression changed then, his flipper plates raising either in surprise or, perhaps, even hope. "Nathan?" He called gently.
"Come here," the guardian beckoned.
Ghost flew up in the air, but did not approach, "are you sure?" he asked.
"No, I'm not, but I don't care right now," he confessed. He bit down his lower lip and, not moving his eyes away from his companion, reached down for the last item of clothing standing between them, starting to slowly pull them off.
It was somewhat liberating to get rid of the underwear, freeing his aching member from the confinement. The seat felt rough and unpleasant under him, but a soft gasp he heard from Ghost was worth the discomfort.
"You gonna just float there and watch, or you want to do your nerve-link too?" he asked throwing his undergarments on top the pile with the rest of his discarded clothes.
Ghost hovered a little closer, before something inside his corpus clicked and the guardian saw a ray of light generating from his companion's optical sensor. The light of Ghost's sensors touched his head, and he could feel a slight tingle on his skin, a sensation strange, but not entirely unpleasant.
"This is incredible," Ghost said finally, "what you experience is--"
He tried to continue, but the guardian chose that moment to slide his palm down the plane of his torso, stroking lightly over one of his nipples, tearing with that yet another gasp from his friend. His hand traveled down his stomach and lower towards his groin, before it finally reached his member taking a firm grasp around its shaft.
It was the guardian's turn to gasp now. The desire to touch himself this way was a long coming one, and to be finally able to do it felt incredible, but never the less, it could not compare with the reaction he received from his ghost.
The little construct screeched and trembled in the air, his little form thrown backwards until it collided with the glass of the viewport with a loud thud. "Oh," he whimpered, the lights under his protective outer shell blinking rapidly.
A wide smile spread over the guardian's face. The realization of such a reaction being caused by his actions, the revelation about him being able to pleasure his friend was making him feel a little giddy. He wanted to find out what else he could do to Ghost, what other reactions he could provoke in him.
The guardian started to move his palm up, gripping the head of his member, squeezing it gently, then softly tugging down, before repeating it again and each swipe of his hand prompted more mewls from the ghost.
"Nathan," Ghost called. He seemed to be finally able get a better grip on his reactions, his vision sensor locking gaze with the guardian's eyes. "I want to touch you," he said as he started to approach. "I want us to feel everything," he added more quietly, whispering his words into the guardian's ear, his intonation seductive.
The guardian shivered, "yeah," he nodded, perhaps even too eagerly to be dignifying, "please," he asked.
The small metal body in front of him expanded again, the flippers of his outer shell moving apart, letting the brilliant Light out. The Light spread further, covering the guardian's torso again, making him feel like many tiny hands started to caress his skin.
From the torso, the Light traveled down his hands and stomach, it enveloped his hips. Every inch of his body it touched felt as electrified, the sensation gentle, yet so intense, that it made him hiss.
"Damn," the guardian chuckled breathlessly, "I had no idea it could feel this good."
"Neither did I," Ghost replied sounding astonished.
The spherical part of his frame traveled upwards, until it was on the level with the guardian's face. The Light radiating from it moved to touch the guardian's lips and he could feel pressure on them, like if another set of lips covered his. He opened his mouth, allowing the Light to slip in, to touch his tongue. Instinctively, he started to move his lips, first only slightly, experimentally, then faster, more passionately, and the Light responded.
The pressure on the points of contact between them started to change, imitating the guardian's movements and he couldn't believe how realistic their kiss was. He thought that perhaps he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference from the real thing if he didn't know better.
Except that it was a real thing. Ghost was not an organic, breathing being made of muscles and bones and skin, he was a machine, an artificial intelligence, but he was alive and he was here with the guardian. They were here, because they decided so, because, no matter how bizarre the concept was, in the end it simply came down to them wanting each-other.
They parted only the moment the Light reached the guardian's member. It gently pushed his hand out of the way, enveloping the shaft.
A hot, tight pressure the guardian found himself enveloped in, made both of them cry out. Every muscle in his body convulsed, and he saw the lights coming from the Ghost's vision sensor flicker even more rapidly than before.
The new sensation could not be mistaken from a feeling of being buried in someone's body, it was something else entirely, but the fact didn't make it any less pleasant, any less intense. Any less right.
And then the Light started to move around him, wriggle, push and pull, until he was incapable of having any other thought on his mind, but one of his ghost. His hips started to raise and fall on their own accord, trying to meet the movements of his companion.
He leaned in, trying to kiss Ghost again, his eyes closing. Ghost met his movement halfway, recapturing his lips in his Light, mewling something incoherent when it happened.
The guardian did not hold back anything this time, projecting as much passion into the kiss as his body possessed, the entirety of the build-up tension, the desperate longing to have someone he didn't dare to dream about quenching until now.
His hands, which he didn't know what to do with, reached up, blindly trying to grip into something, anything, until they reached the globe of Light in front of his face, touching it, getting a hold on it as if it was a tangible thing, clenching into it, pushing it closer to himself.
From now on, they moved together, like one being made of two minds. It was raw, it was powerful and despite being resurrected months ago, for the first time, the guardian felt truly alive.
"Something's happening," Ghost said, his voice excited, but frightened at the same time, his intonation making the guardian smile into the kiss.
"Yeah, something's happening," the guardian replied, tearing his lips away from Ghost.
He felt it too, the muscles in his abdomen tensing up in anticipation of the approaching release and no matter how much he wanted for it to never end, he also wished to show Ghost everything, make him feel everything.
Slowly, still clutching into Ghost's Light with one hand, he slid down the chair, until his knees was touching the ground. He pushed them forward, landing on the metal floor on top of Ghost, the small construct's Light providing a cushion for his body to lean on. "Look at me," he whispered and started to thrust, "keep looking at me."
The metallic sphere in the middle of the Light shivered, but the gaze of his optic stayed on the guardian's face. "Please?" he whispered weakly, like if he had no idea what he was asking for.
The guardian, on the other hand knew, he was all to happy to give it to his companion. He thrust several more times, and his body gave in. A white heat enveloped him, sending his every nerve haywire, every muscle began to spasm. He wanted to close his eyes, to cry as weave after weave an immense pleasure washed over him.
But the guardian didn't close his eyes, because the picture before him was worth the effort of staying in control. He heard his Ghost shriek, trembling almost violently under him, his optics blinking in and out, colorful electrical discharges dancing around his frame, but not hurting the guardian.
Then it all quieted down.
The Light around his companion started to dissipate and the guardian rolled over to lay on the hard metal floor of the jumpship next to him, watching the metal parts of his outer shell gathering back around his central frame.
They laid in silence for a few moments. The guardian was catching his breath, feeling utterly exhausted and boneless, but incredibly good, and Ghost, well, he wasn't sure what ghosts were experiencing in the afterglow.
"You alright?" the guardian asked with a lazy smile.
Ghost moved his optic to look at him, and the guardian noticed it took him several attempts to focus, "I..." he said, "you were right, it is impossible to describe with words."
The guardian laughed at that, "see, that what I meant," he said and yawned. "How long we have left until we reach the Tower?" he asked.
"Emm," Ghost replied. It took him several moments to come up with an answer on something he always knew from the top of his head, which made the guardian strangely proud, knowing he was the reason of it, "a little over six hours," he said finally.
"Good," the guardian nodded, "I might have time to take a nap then."
"On the floor?"
"Tis cool," the guardian confirmed with another yawn. It was true. Even if the metal layer of the cockpit flooring felt hard and uncomfortable to lay on, the surface of it was also significantly colder to the touch than the air.
"As you wish," Ghost sighed, "I'll wake you up when we start approaching the docks. I assume you would wish to dress before our arrival."
"Good thinking," the guardian chuckled. He imagined for a moment Holiday finding him sleeping naked on the floor covered in sweat and own cum and shivered internally. That would be all kinds of awkward.
Speaking of which, he should have probably tried to find some strength to stand and clean up, but he couldn't bring himself to move a single digit on his hand. It meant he would have to deal with that later. He tried to think about Ghost and what just happened between them, realized that he was not as freaked out by it as he'd expected, felt too mellow to care about it even.
Gradually, his thought started to become more and more incoherent, until any of them stopped to make any sense. His consciousness started to float away, but before the sleep overtook him, he thought he could feel someone gently touching his cheek.