Archive of Our Own

When Parker completes his internship at the delta-sector research facility, he's asked where he sees himself going next. The facility is the best of its kind for biomedical research; anyone with ambition would cling onto their position when their time was up, angling for a more permanent appointment with the lab.

But Parker has always wanted to see the stars, and hasn't the ambition for that sort of social-climbing.

When Parker is asked what position he desires for his next post, he's honest. He admits that he would love to be stationed at a research outpost, even one at the farthest fringes of known space. He's dying to see new places, new things, to be in an atmosphere no other human has experienced before him. There isn't a horizon on the delta-sector facility; the station is still too small to support one. Parker wants to be stationed someplace with a sky, with oxygen that's photosynthesized the old-fashioned way.

Parker's bosses smile at him when he makes his desires clear, sharp little slices with their mouths that don't quite reach their eyes. But Parker is used to working with scientists, with technicians who know to be calm and calculating at all times. He thinks nothing of it.

They ask him, would he be comfortable working with a non-human colleague? Can he handle the culture shock of being stationed with someone whose biology is nothing like his own, who will have been socialized in ways that are entirely foreign?

Parker shrugs, and says that he doesn't see a problem with that. He does like to meet new people.

And his bosses smile, wide and bright and with too many teeth, and tell him they have just the appointment that will meet his unique and challenging needs.

After cryo-sleep, all sensations feel dialed-up and too intense, everything perceived with perfect, startling clarity. There's a sterile smell to the inside of Parker's ship, one he hadn't noticed when he climbed into his pod but which assaults his senses when he climbs out. It's sharp like antiseptic but blunter on his nose, the sort of smell which intrinsically feels false. When Parker steps out of the ship and onto the planet, that all changes.

The planet smells moist and green, the air heavy with humidity as well as with the smell of things growing and still water collecting, cloying and thick and rich. For a moment Parker is dizzy with the unfamiliar scents that surround him — or maybe just dizzy from the planet's atmospheric mix, more oxygen-heavy than the thin, artificial air inside Parker's pod — but he likes it. The planet feels real, in a way few things did back at the research facility where he'd spent the past three years of his life.

Parker hadn't spent the entire journey in cryo-sleep. He's a long way from home, but he'd still been allotted two weeks of wake-up time, a period long enough for him to be briefed on the planet he's been sent to.

It's earth-like enough to support humanoid biology, as well as being home to various flora and fauna whose flesh have not been observed to have a negative impact on the human digestive system, or on any other vital processes in the human body. Several research expeditions have been made to the planet in the past century but the bulk of research has been done remotely, through robotics-based observation and sample collection.

Parker is the first human being sent to directly observe first-hand in two decades. While the planet is occupied by some countless varieties of local fauna, none are classified as sapient or sentient. The only other federation-recognized thinking being on the planet is an alien Parker has been slyly warned "might seem a little buggy," who has been occupying the planet's research outpost for the last on-world year in order to conduct biological research of interest to his own species.

Parker received a map of the area local to his landing point while on the ship. He knows exactly where he ought to go to meet up with his new and only colleague.

The research outpost appears from outside as a domed shell, all chromed struts and smooth glass panels, though Parker knows those are nothing so fragile as the old-earth sort. Since it was built, the outpost has become overgrown with the local plant life, draped in vines and ivy and covered by the great spreading leaves of what pass for trees in the area, camouflaged until it appears to belong. Parker thinks he's getting close, as he approaches it. But every time he believes he's near he ends up walking farther, and farther, and farther still, until the vast dome of the outpost looms far higher over his head than he'd thought to expect.

It's more of a wall than a building, a protective exoskeleton huddled around smaller structures that have been erected inside. Once Parker passes through its gates he can see the barracks where previous researchers have slept, several storage buildings, and the main lab of the complex. Under the dome, the sunlight tints green, everything cast in cool, shifting shadows.

"Earth human Parker," a calm, crackling voice says, the sound of it undercut by a noise like very rapid clicking. "I received notice earlier that your ship would be arriving today."

It takes Parker a moment to place the speaker. He's stepping out of the sheltering dimness of the trees, black skin blending into the shadows cast from above. Or... Not all of it is black. His flat, triangular face is more of a sandy, dull orange, that color extending down the smooth, narrow column of his neck before it hits a ring of black, chitinous protrusions sticking out around his throat. Past that point the texture of his skin changes, his chest glossy and hard like armor. Parker cannot help but stare; he's never seen a pompilid before.

(Or that's what humans call their species. A name taken from a variety of insect that had once inhabited the human home world but which lives there no longer. The aliens have another name for themselves, one full of too much clicking and buzzing for any human throat to accurately reproduce. Parker doesn't plan on trying.)

"H-Hello," Parker makes himself say, once the alien has moved close enough to be at a comfortable speaking distance. He's handsome and strange, foreign in a way that draws the eye. Parker cannot stop looking.

The alien smiles, the expression unexpectedly human on his uncanny face. Its shape isn't so different from Parker's own; it's maybe a bit more bluntly angled, a sharp pyramid poised on a narrow neck and with a single blunt facet facing outward. Two nostril slits are the only evidence of anything like a nose; when Parker looks closer, he can tell that they're more ornamental than functional. The alien's eyes are wide, black almond shapes, utterly lacking in sclera, broken up into hundreds of tiny, winking facets.

Parker realizes the alien is looking expectantly on at him, and yanks his gaze away, staring off to one side as he collects himself. It occurs to him only then that the alien must have been looking him over, too.

"Sorry," Parker says. "I told my bosses that I wouldn't mind working with non-humans, but I've... Never really been around any before. Not besides the federation diplomats who sometimes came by the station, anyway."

"I don't mind," the alien says. "I've never seen a human face to face myself, this can be a learning experience for both of us."

He makes a clicking noise deep in his throat, one that rattles faster and faster until it's more of a steady drone than individual sounds, then cuts off. Parker realizes, that must be his laugh. He offers a chuckle of his own, but it's weak, fragile. The smile that he cracks is a bit more sincere.

"The literature I was given on the ship says your name is Vaska," Parker confides. "Is that from your own language, or was it chosen to better communicate with the federation? I mean... If you don't mind me asking."

Vaska clicks in his throat again, a shorter sound that still has some mirth to it. "That is my name, no qualifications to it. Since joining the federation some two centuries ago, my species has largely conformed to speaking the common federation tongue. We use our own language more for... Mating instances, moments of intimacy. It's not something we learn, but something you know, here."

He taps his head, but at the base of his skull where it joins the neck, rather than at the temple where Parker is used to seeing that gesture made. He wonders for a moment about the workings of pompilid brains and how they're situated within exoskeleton and skull, before shaking off the thought as pointless wool-gathering. Vaska is not what he's come to study.

"I can show you around the outpost," Vaska offers, when Parker doesn't get around to voicing any more questions. "Do you need to bring in your things from the ship?"

"Oh, no," Parker says. "They'll come in on their own, if we give them a minute."

Besides housing the pod where Parker passed most of the journey in cryo-sleep and the control room where he'd studied his post before putting himself under, most of the ship Parker journeyed on is taken up with storage. It's full of many kinds of surveillance robots, monitors, cameras, as well as all variety of recording devices and sensors. They're controlled by the intelligence of the ship and capable of being given remote commands from the facility overseeing Parker, back in delta-sector. They can take care of themselves.

There are also supplies for Parker aboard the ship, mostly familiar foods and materials that cannot be easily harvested planet-side, but those will take care of themselves, too. The ship's robots will stow them where they need to go, more familiar with the research outpost than Parker can ever hope to become.

"Human technology is so fascinating," Vaska comments, and says nothing more.

"Do your people not use the same kind of tech?" Parker asks. "I thought most of what we use was federation standard, now that we've got their funding. I didn't realize you might do anything different."

"We do," Vaska says. "But I'm afraid it's nothing interesting enough to bear explaining. My people always have been quite solitary, so we don't enjoy the same comforts you favor in your human societies."

Parker purses his lips, saying, "It sounds as if you know a lot about what humans are like, for someone who's never met one."

"I've done my research," Vaska says. His face contorts, lips thinning and stretching out in a much less human approximation of a smile. "I do like to read."

Parker supposes he can accept that.

"Come along, then," Vaska says. "There's a lot to see."

Parker follows after him, taking the opportunity to give the all of him another looking-over. From the back, the long, sharp line of Vaska's abdomen is more obviously pronounced, a teardrop shape that starts where a human waist would be before curving out behind him like the train of a lady's dress. His legs are reverse-jointed, bending backwards rather like a horse's rear legs might, then forward again at the heels. He's wearing boots, ankle-length ones. But as Parker is learning: his species has very long ankles.

Vaska glances back at him, flashing him another closed-lipped smile. The wings on his back flick, hanging loosely from his shoulders like a cape and translucent in the low light inside the outpost. Slender beams of sunlight shine through them, making their edges shine violet and turquoise and gold along the membranes. For a moment Parker is overwhelmed by the desire to touch them; the filmy panes of Vaska's wings just look so unexpectedly soft.

"This is the mess hall," Vaska says, as if his voice will orient Parker's attention back to where it belongs. "I never eat in here, because its intelligence is calibrated to human digestion and I don't much like the yawning, empty space. But it will make you meals, if you need them prepared, and you can take the food wherever you like."

"Do you sleep in the dormitory?" Parker asks, catching up to Vaska. "I read about it on the ship, but it doesn't seem like it would be much better than the mess hall, with just the two of us."

"No," Vaska admits. "I've renovated one of the storage barns. It is much more to my species' tastes."

"Huh," Parker says. "I wonder if I could do something like that..."

"There are all manner of small buildings I haven't had need to make use of," Vaska says. "If one of them seems a more comfortable sleeping place to you, by all means, choose at will."

"Thanks," Parker says. "I just might."

They continue their tour of the facility, visiting all the active storage buildings, the greenhouses where Vaska is cultivating local flora under controlled conditions, the kennels where Vaska has kept live specimens of the local fauna alive for study. Beyond the outpost there are fields of local plants growing in the open, ones Vaska admits he has been tending. It's all rather like an incredibly scientific farm, with the way Vaska conducts his studies.

"I don't use much of the equipment in the main lab," Vaska admits. "That has all been brought by human ships, human researchers. It's quite good for the purposes those tools are meant for, and modern. But my people don't have the same scientific interests as yours."

"Huh," Parker says again. "I'll have to look at everything myself, then. See what my bosses want me to do."

"If there's anything you need help with," Vaska says, "I am happy to assist. Many of my experiments are slow, time-consuming processes, with a lot of downtime between stages. Having other things to occupy me may turn out to be a relief."

"I'll keep that in mind," Parker says.

They finish their loop around the outpost, swinging back around to the front gates where Parker and Vaska first met. Their arrival coincides with Parker's ship's robots coming in, spindly yet rugged devices capable of carting great weight and equipped with all sorts of environmental recording devices. For a moment, Parker simply stops and watches them go, towing his federation-allotted possessions along with them.

When Parker glances up, he sees that Vaska is watching them, too. "Kind of funny little things, aren't they?"

"They remind me of my species' young, in a way," Vaska says. His voice is softer than before, almost wistful, though Parker cannot be certain whether that is just his human projection. "I haven't seen any of that kind in, oh, several years. It brings back memories."

"Do you have kids?" Parker asks.

"Kids?" Vaska echoes, before he laughs, the long one that builds to a droning buzz before he's done. Even after he trails off, a few last clicks follow, like he's having difficulty suppressing his mirth. "Not in the human sense. If you mean, have I hatched a brood... A few times, certainly. Not with much evolutionary success."

That, Parker has no idea how to respond to. He'd been warned that his companion at the outpost would be biologically different from him, socially different from him, but it hadn't quite hit him what that meant. Listening to Vaska talk about his species' eating habits, and research habits, and the sorts of things they mean to discover in studying the planet both Vaska and Parker are on, had simply sounded like listening to another scientist.

Listening to Vaska talk about his species' offspring, about broods and eggs and the process of evolution, that feels foreign. That feels like a place where Parker might easily misstep.

He can't help but forge ahead anyway, when the silence between them starts to draw out. "Do you want to?" he asks. "Have a... More successful brood, I guess?"

"One day, maybe," Vaska says. His eyes shake, a subtle kaleidoscoping that strikes Parker somehow as being wry, joking. "It does very much beat the alternative."

Parker cracks a smile, hoping he's being let in on the joke. "I hope you get the chance."

Vaska looks at him a long moment, a slow, weighing appraisal that rests heavy on Parker's shoulders. "I might, sooner or later. I choose to keep an open mind."

The last of the robots from the ship trundle past them and Parker takes another moment to watch them disappear into the outpost's complex. His eyes rise back to Vaska's after, only to find himself already being stared at. The directionality of Vaska's multi-faceted eyes is hard to place but Parker thinks the alien is looking at his stomach specifically, at the slight curve of his belly visible through the fabric of his shirt.

It seems a strangely innocuous thing for an alien to take an interest in. But all of Parker's own body seems innocuous to him; how is he supposed to know what would be strange and fascinating to an alien?

(Maybe it's the softness, he thinks, casting another glance at Vaska's chest. Much of it is covered in hard chitin, like armor that extends from the neck down to Vaska's waist. It fans out about his arms — all four of them — in a spray of delicate spikes. It's only the skin past that, covering deceptively human-seeming biceps, human-seeming hands, that appears softer, vulnerable.)

"Do you want to, hmm, how did you say it... Have kids?" Vaska asks.

Parker startles a moment, having forgotten their previous subject of conversation. He laughs, and shakes his head, looking down. "Not really. Humans are funny about wanting to give their offspring a good life, stability, opportunities. After all, we don't have a lot of them. I never really wanted to settle down like that."

Vaska hums to himself, a low, thoughtful clicking that's almost at a level beneath what Parker can hear. "I'll keep that in mind."

Parker isn't certain what to make of that. Vaska doesn't allow him much time to consider.

"If that's everything from your ship," he says, changing the subject. "You may want to go and get settled in. Look at the rest of the out-buildings yourself, find a location for your sleeping quarters. I won't bother you. If you need me, I'll be in the greenhouse, tending the specimens."

"Alright," Parker says. He turns to head off in the opposite direction to Vaska, weaving his way through the compound alone.

"Pass the clippers," Vaska asks. "If you please."

Two of his hands are already occupied with sample bags and gardening tools, but Parker is happy to pass their small set of shears into a third. Vaska snips off a clipping from one of the plants he's been growing, depositing it into the bag he's prepared and sealing it shut with a label held in another hand.

It's been two weeks since Parker landed on the planet and he still remembers Vaska's initial offer, If there's anything you need help with, I'm happy to assist. Somehow Parker has ended up helping Vaska instead and he doesn't regret the choice in the slightest. There's something so satisfying about watching the alien work, all four of his arms moving with smooth coordination, potting or watering or trimming the plants, tending to the tasks the greenhouse requires with admirable efficiency.

Following in Vaska's wake, Parker is more like one of his own helper robots, a dumb assistant best suited to carrying tools and doing what it's told. He should be insulted by the thought. But he isn't.

Vaska continues with his procession down the line of his plants, pretending like he isn't aware of Parker following after him, eyes heavy on Vaska's strangely-jointed back. Parker has given up on his attempts not to stare. He thought he would get used to working with an alien and that the exotic nature of his biology would cease to be novel. It hasn't happened, and Parker reckons that barring his colleague's appearance beginning to strike him as normal, he might as well enjoy the view.

"I can smell that, you know," Vaska chides, not bothering to turn around or do so much as level Parker with a look.

"Smell what?" Parker asks. All he smells is the warm red-brown of the local soil, the moist scent of growing things, the spicy aroma of some of Vaska's plants. The way the planet smells, Parker has begun to get used to. But he hasn't gotten bored of it.

"That," Vaska says again. He waves one hand vaguely in Parker's direction, the other three continuing to move in unison while he does. "The smell that you make when you look at the way my body is put together."

That makes Parker flush, startled to learn that he's been so obviously giving himself away, embarrassed by the way Vaska makes it sound in talking about his body so calmly that Parker cannot tell whether it's only him reading it as something prurient. He isn't certain he was thinking anything prurient, staring at the curious way Vaska's joints fit together, at the smooth curve of his abdomen contrasted against the sharp lines of his too-many limbs. It's an aesthetic appreciation, really. Admiration for something beautiful, the likes of which only thousands of years of evolution on a foreign planet would be able to bring about.

"I didn't realize I made a smell," Parker finally says, his voice coming out very small.

That's when Vaska glances back at him, eyeing Parker's face with only one of his multi-faceted eyes. It twitches, shakes, and Parker knows that Vaska is laughing at him. "I rather like it, if that makes you feel any better. It's warm like sunlight, and sweet. I can almost taste the flavor on my tongue when you look at me."

If anything, hearing that only makes Parker more embarrassed.

"You may want to leave off with it, though," Vaska continues, much of his attention returning to his work. "I didn't think humans were meant to harbor attraction for my species. It's liable to end badly."

"I didn't..." Parker says. "I don't feel attracted to you. Or... I don't think I do, anyway."

"You don't?" Vaska says. "That's not what your smells say."

There are two antennae atop Vaska's head, poking up from points above Vaska's eyes and a bit to the side, almost where human temples would be. They sway gently when Vaska says smell, moving consciously to take in whatever scents are currently passing on the air. Parker watches them do it, shrinking reflexively in on himself as if he might clutch whatever unconscious stink he's exuding back into his body. He knows it isn't going to work, but he tries.

Vaska places the clippers he's holding down on the table, then the pile of sample bags, then the little watering can he's been using to tend the plants. He turns toward Parker, two of his hands on his hips in an approximation of human sternness, the other two moving in front of him, reaching out for Parker's face. Vaska's palm is cooler than Parker expects, when it slides against his cheek. Reflexively, he draws in a breath, and holds it.

Vaska rubs his thumb across the meat of Parker's cheek, right beneath his eye. Tilts his face one way, then the other, staring down into it from the vantage point of more than a foot of additional height. Parker swallows, thickly, unwilling to pull away but uncertain about what is happening. Vaska doesn't let go.

"That's a nicer smell," he says, the clicking sound that vibrates beneath his voice coming thicker than usual. "Richer, sweeter. With a sharpness to it as well. You're scared now. But you're still turned on."

"Scared" hardly covers it. Parker is absolutely mortified. He also cannot deny what he's being accused of; his cock is unmistakably hard in his pants and even if Vaska doesn't know human biology well enough to look for that sign, it's abundantly clear he doesn't need to. Everything he wants to know he can pick out of the air, as simply as breathing.

Vaska releases Parker's face.

He shakes his head, a slow, even back-and-forth, like he's trying to clear it. It takes Parker a moment before he realizes, Vaska is trying to clear the scent from the air, trying to bring something else to his senses. It's a strange sort of flattering, learning that an alien can't stop paying attention to him. (To his sex pheromones, Parker reminds himself. The sex pheromones that smell like alien candy.)

"Like I was saying," Vaska says, turning back towards his work. Two of his hands settle against the edge of the gardening table, but he doesn't pick up any of his tools. "You may want to stop making that smell, if you're able. I don't think I'm going to get used to it, and it's... Hmm. More than a little bit tempting."

Oh, Parker thinks. He's been loudly broadcasting I want to fuck you in alien-speak, and his new coworker is having a hard time turning the message down.

That's even more flattering. Parker's breath catches again in his throat, catches and holds as he waits to calm down, waits for his heart to stop beating quite so fast and for his cock to stop throbbing in a way he cannot convince himself just means that he thinks wasps are pretty. He hears it when Vaska breathes in because it rattles like his laugh, rattles like bones shaking around in a jar and then Vaska really is laughing, the laugh that makes his eyes shake before he squeezes them both shut.

"You smell like a fruit that exists back on my planet," Vaska says, very softly. "It's terribly sweet, and tangy, and the taste coats the inside of your mouth and stays there. When I was smaller, this fruit was my favorite thing to eat. I haven't had a bite of its flesh in years."

He isn't looking at Parker. He's looking at the plants arrayed before him at the table, and though his voice doesn't shake, it's uncommonly still. There's no buzzing, no clicking, none of the usual noises that Parker has begun to learn for the emotions they represent during the two weeks he's already spent with Vaska on the planet. He realizes, what he's hearing is very, very carefully maintained self-control, the sort that is only grasped by desperate, white-knuckled hands, grabbed onto and clutched close lest it be lost entirely.

He realizes, he is advertising how fuckable he is way, way better than he could have known.

"I want to..." Vaska starts to say. His lips part, twisting curiously, something thin poking in and out between them which Parker realizes only after some consideration must be Vaska's tongue. It's tasting the air, flickering against his mouth with not-inconsiderable agitation.

Parker realizes, he is way, way too willing to take what's being offered to him.

Vaska starts again, with a single click in his throat before his voice again goes as calm as still water. "There is something humans do in the course of their courtship rituals, is there not, where they touch the tips of their mouths together, and exchange saliva?"

It's not the most appealing description of kissing that Parker has ever heard, but his chest has drawn taut and his pants feel far too tight, and he isn't in a position to be criticizing cultural differences.

"Yeah," he says instead. "Yeah, humans call that kissing."

Vaska leans in, slowly bringing his face very close to Parker's indeed. "May I?"

Parker holds his breath, staring into Vaska's too-large, too-dark eyes, his gaze periodically dropping down to the little flicker of tongue that peeks out between Vaska's parted lips. He's already decided his answer to that question. He's frozen for a minute anyway, bracing himself for the reality of an alien wants to kiss me.

"Yeah," he says, once the breath he's been holding finally lets itself out. "Yeah, go ahead."

Vaska's mouth is almost as cool as his palm was, thin-lipped and broader than Parker's by a fair margin. It doesn't conform to Parker's like a human's might; instead, Vaska waits, until Parker's lips part on their own and the hot exhale of his breath sighs against Vaska's mouth. He breaths it in and his eyelids shudder, the thin, transparent ones that close when protecting Vaska's eyes from dust, or when he's pleased.

His tongue darts out, curling past Parker's lips and coiling itself into his mouth, longer and longer than he'd thought to expect, deftly prodding against the insides of his cheeks, at his tongue, along the roof of his mouth. The tip of it drags against the inside of Parker's mouth so it tickles, so that he realizes, Vaska is tasting him for the flavor of that fruit, the one which Parker's sex pheromones smell like.

The kiss is strange, a careful, testing thing, without the heat that Vaska's inquiries — or Parker's own physical response — had led him to expect. Vaska's hands are at his face, holding his cheeks from both sides; his other hands settle at Parker's waist and trail up and down, exploring the soft, vulnerable planes of Parker's belly and sides. It's a little bit ticklish; he squirms beneath the touch and Vaska holds him firmer, so that he's still.

He wasn't expecting to like that, either, but he does.

Parker tries to kiss Vaska back, poking his tongue past Vaska's lips, accidentally pricking it on something sharp housed within Vaska's mouth. It doesn't hurt quite enough for him to flinch back; Parker probes further, tonguing the prong that had stabbed him, curling his tongue against the roof of Vaska's mouth. He tastes like cool, clean water, the sort that has that bite from too many minerals in the liquid, but sweeter, stronger. Parker suspects that he likes it.

He drags his tongue against whatever had pricked him one more time, letting its edge poke at him as he traces the whole length of it. Vaska makes a disapproving couple of clicks in his throat, and starts to pull away.

His mouth is stretched wider than Parker has ever seen it, little dips of indentations cutting into his bottom lip and poking up into the top one, like he's grown a cupid's bow. It's only a little bit strange, in that drawn-out moment. But then Vaska's mouth splits wider, a seam opening straight across his face from one side to the other while another parts his mouth vertically, all the way down the length of his chin.

Inside the much wider gap where his mouth should be there are a pair of glistening mandibles, pointed wickedly at the ends and shiny with what might be spit — or might be something else. Vaska clacks them twice, so that they click against each other and grasp at the air, then pulls them back inside the yawning void where the bottom of his face existed before. His skin closes back over it, sealing it shut. It squirms as it settles back into place.

"Sorry," Vaska says, once he's gotten it under control. "I didn't mean to bite you."

It takes Parker that long to realize that his mouth is strangely, uncommonly numb. He moves it, slowly, mouthing around words just to see if he can form them. The motion feels too sluggish, clumsy. He wants to feel alarmed but that comes too slowly as well, seeping into the back of his brain and then draining right back out again.

Vaska reaches out, touching Parker's face with one of his hands. He prods gingerly at Parker's lips, at his cheek. To Parker, it feels like Vaska is poking rubber.

"Venom," Vaska says, as if this is perfectly normal.

"Can you," Parker starts to say, though the words come out slurred. "What do I do?"

"It'll wear off, before too long," Vaska says. He leans in again, gently brushing his mouth against Parker's numbed lips, like a little peck of a kiss... Aside from the part where his tongue flicks out, tasting Parker one last time before he pulls back and away. "You aren't making quite the same smell any more, just so you know. Do you mind if we go back to work? Or should I allow you to recover?"

Parker feels strange, almost guilty, once Vaska says work. Whatever he'd been feeling before has settled to a low simmer, putting itself on the back burner. Parker doesn't know how to pretend like nothing happened, like everything is normal. But when he nods his head, Vaska picks back up the clippers as if nothing is amiss.

The way his hands work in tandem is as beautiful as ever, cleverly coordinating with each other and lending to the most marvelous efficiency. Parker watches him, and in those moments even manages to forget that his mouth is numb, that his dick is still hard even though he's lost the urge to do anything about it.

As he's watching, the antennae atop Vaska's head sway back and forth, sensing, detecting. They vibrate slowly every minute or two, like Vaska has taken in something particularly nice.

Maybe Parker still smells like he wants to get fucked. Maybe he hasn't totally changed his mind about that.

"You can set it in the corner," Vaska says. "The exact placement doesn't matter."

He sets down the heavy pot in his own hands to the left of the door; Parker places the one he's carrying off to the right. He's walked by Vaska's storage shed dorm before, during the time he's been at the outpost, but he's never dared to come in. That always felt like a violation, like entering protected space. Even aliens must have concepts of privacy.

But this time Vaska has invited him in, asking whether Parker could just grab one of these pots of saplings for him and help him carry them inside.

Parker is surprised at how green the inside of the shed is. He would have thought that after tending the outdoor gardens, and the greenhouses, and all of Vaska's scientific samples he wouldn't want to live in a room full of plants, but he does. There are vines trained against the walls, ivy climbing up their sides, and in several places small trees grow up toward the ceiling — mostly in the room's back corners.

Seeing where Vaska has settled the pots, Parker can only assume he plans to even out that distribution.

"Is there anything else you needed?" Parker asks, straightening up.

Vaska isn't looking at him, fussing with his pot's placement as he gets it into just the right spot. But the antennae atop his head are visible, vibrating sharply enough that Parker can easily see them shake. He hasn't stopped smelling like sex hormones; Vaska has gotten much better at kissing him. His hands are strong whenever he turns Parker by the shoulder or the hip, heavy on his body where they touch him.

(Parker has taken to imagining Vaska's hands when he masturbates, holding him down, pressing him into the bed. His own hand cannot jerk himself off fast enough, thinking about how many places Vaska could touch him simultaneously, thinking about Vaska holding him down, and fingering him, and tugging at his cock all at once, until he comes and is forced to remember that the only hands on his body are his own.)

"You smell like sugarcane," Vaska says, which Parker has learned is more or less alien-speak for, I want to kiss you. But then Vaska turns, eyes falling on Parker, wings vibrating slowly where they hang down his back. "You're doing it again. That thing you do."

"I don't know what you mean," Parker says, and it's entirely true.

Vaska flicks one wing, irritable, but with himself for his inability to convey his species' ideas in human thoughts. "That thing," he says. "Where you think about things you want, and it colors the way you taste on the air. I can almost place some of your thoughts, by their smells. This is the spicy one... the guilty one."

Parker's face heats, hearing it put that way, knowing he cannot make himself disagree.

"If you're not going to stop doing that smell," Vaska says (and he always does, always cautions Parker that he should stop, that it is very much a bad idea but of course if he doesn't then there's no reason for Vaska not to kiss him, taste him, is there?), "I can do something about it."

His wings flick again, a gesture that's rarely in his repertoire. Parker realizes, it's one of excitement, is evidence that Vaska is only just holding himself back from the thing he's circling around to suggesting.

"I did more reading," Vaska says. "I can fuck you. That's what it means, the guilty way you get, doesn't it? You realized I want to. And now every time you think about it, you want me to even more."

Parker is motionless, unable to deny.

"I don't think you'll stop wanting it," Vaska continues. The buzz is there in his voice, the one that's a happy thrum of anticipation. "I'm going to take advantage of that."

Suddenly, Parker's dick is way, way harder than it was before. He swallows thickly around the lump caught in his throat, around the breath of nervousness he doesn't know how to forestall because even if he wants so badly to let this alien restrain him and fuck him until he sobs through his orgasm, it's still something new, something he's never done before. Vaska says, I'm going to take advantage, and Parker does realize: this is his last chance to pull the breaks.

"I want to," Parker says.

Vaska's eyes are bright, glittering in the low light of his bedroom. He glances from Parker's face, to a place somewhere behind him, and says, "Get on the bed, Parker."

Parker scrambles to do as he's told. It's not so much a bed as a low sleeping platform, heaped with heavy, smushy pillows that Parker realizes must be there to cushion the strange shape of all of Vaska's limbs, cradling the varying bulges of his body and the funny way he's put together. It's a little lumpy for a human but the cushions are firm, and Parker is able to sit down on them.

"Take off your clothes," Vaska says as he walks toward the bed. He's slow about it, deliberate, glittering eyes watching Parker's every move.

Parker moves, quick in shucking off his shirt, in kicking off his shoes. His pants come slower, fingers fumbling the fastenings as he tries not to brush his dick through the fabric, tries not to distract himself or spur himself into doing anything embarrassing like groaning over nothing more than the touch of his own hand. The pants come down with some doing; Vaska is next to him by the time he reaches for the waistband of his underwear.

"I was curious about that," Vaska says, soft, a little bit wondering. One of his hands reaches out, tracing the shape of Parker's cock through the cotton. Parker hisses a breath in, and Vaska smiles. "It isn't much like mine."

His abdomen sways behind him, curling around so that the long, slender point at its end is brought into Parker's view. He's noticed it before, more than once, the foot-long stake that hooks off the back of Vaska's abdomen. He's wondered about it, too, but never had reason to ask whether it was simply ornamental, or if there was a reason it looks like a tail Vaska could stab someone with.

"Is that your dick?" Parker asks.

He's a little dumbfounded; Vaska only smiles. "Not exactly," he says. "But close enough."

After that, his hands are back on Parker's groin, teasing, poking, stroking him through his underwear just to see if Parker will groan, or hiss, or whine. He gets very good at making Parker whine — he must like the sound of it, Parker dimly thinks, rather than believing it's an acknowledgment-of-pleasure sound that means Parker likes something best.

Vaska peels Parker's underwear down, once he's had his fill of teasing; his cock curls up when its freed, jutting away from his body in want of attention.

"We're only so biologically compatible," Vaska confides, regretfully. He manages to make it sound sweet, rather than like something that should be killing Parker's boner. "But I think this will be nice."

He pushes Parker down onto the cushions, then slides up the length of Parker's legs. From where he's lying, Parker can see the reverse fold of Vaska's legs, can see the insides of his thighs where they're muscled and firm, but soft. Vaska doesn't wear anything humans would consider to be clothes, not when he's naturally protected with biological body armor. Parker has always known there's nothing like a dick between Vaska's legs; sometimes he wishes that there was, just so he could press his face to Vaska's thigh and mouth at it.

Vaska scoots past Parker's midsection, hovering over Parker's belly with his abdomen curled up behind himself in a graceful arc. The prong at the end of it extends above his head, shining wetly in the dimness of the room. Parker isn't sure if it's a trick of the light, something about the angle, or whether it really is wet; he doesn't think he needs to know. Vaska reaches behind himself, long fingers curling around Parker's cock. Then he leans back, and something else swallows Parker's cock instead.

Vaska sits back onto it, his eyelids fluttering, the low purr of his droning rising in his throat. One hand is behind himself, two more poised against Parker's chest. The lower one holds Parker's hip for balance; the other slides up to his shoulder, skating across his nipple and making Parker gasp. Vaska does it again, and it's almost perfect. Whatever orifice Vaska has sunk Parker's dick into is tight and wet, sucking at him rhythmically in a way that feels like swallowing.

"It was the only place I could think to put it," Vaska says, as if Parker really needs an explanation. For his part, Parker only groans loudly through his teeth.

Vaska's eyelids flutter again, his antennae vibrating constantly where they perch atop his head. He looks blissed out as he rocks slowly back and forth, back and forth, drawing off Parker's dick only enough to suck it back into himself harder, squeezing around him like Vaska plans to wring an orgasm out of him by force. Parker thinks, he wouldn't really object to that.

He's hot all over, a spreading warmth that starts at his groin and spirals outward, reducing his entire body to a limb, trembling puddle. He tries to fuck up into Vaska a few times, but can't keep it up, sinking again to the soft cushions beneath him and letting Vaska do with him however he pleases.

He doesn't notice when Vaska's tail uncurls, bending back around the other way. Then something is poking at the inside of his leg, the underside of his ass, before prodding oh-so-gently at what he knows to be his asshole. Parker's eyes widen, but it doesn't occur to him to feel alarmed. Everything around him feels warm and welcome; he pushes down against what's poking him, so that just the tip of it presses inside. It is wet, slippery with some substance Parker doesn't know to identify; he's abruptly aware that it's Vaska's not-dick trying to push into him.

"Do you mind?" Vaska asks, staring serenely down at him.

Parker shakes his head. The slim length of it presses into him. That pace Vaska controls as well, with a steady rhythm that builds and builds, thrusting into Parker again and again. The combined stimulation rapidly becomes too much; his back arches, and he comes, and Vaska's body keeps sucking, keeps tugging at his cock.

"Humans usually," Parker gasps out. "Stop when they... When they, um, meet their uh, genetic quota. That thing. That I just did. ...Did you feel it?"

"Oh yes," Vaska purrs, voice rich and layered with his usual clicking. "That was wonderful."

But he keeps going, manipulating Parker's cock, thrusting into Parker's ass, pushing him from both sides until he whines through his teeth and fists his hands in the cushions. It should be too much for him, but it... Isn't. His dick is still hard, submitting to its treatment, and the blissful look on Vaska's face is enough to kill any protests before they come together on his tongue.

He's surprised when he comes again, shuddering and shaking his way through his second orgasm.

"One more," Vaska says. "Let's go for one more."

Parker wants to protest but he can't, can't even pry his lips apart to croak out the words. Vaska is no longer so much fucking him as teasing him, tilting the tail end of his abdomen so that he gets just the right angle, jabbing into Parker's most sensitive spot so that he jerks against the bed, groans between his teeth. Vaska sets to grinding and rubbing, manipulating his prostate and his cock until he coaxes Parker through just a little bit more, one last trembling, half-dry orgasm.

Vaska slides off of him, slipping his dick free with a lewd, wet pop. It falls to lie against his stomach, still mostly-hard and slick with whatever secretions Vaska's insides make, glistening in the room's low light. Vaska reaches down, runs one finger up the too-sensitive length of it. Parker jerks so hard he almost shakes Vaska off of him.

"Too much?" Vaska asks.

"Almost," Parker manages to say. "Almost too much, but that was..." He trails off, at a loss for words, using the moment to instead catch his heaving breath. "That was. Really good."

There's still a rod in his ass, left there carelessly while Vaska focused on other things. Parker shifts, trying to get comfortable with it caught between his legs, and only then does Vaska slowly, slowly pull it out.

"I feel like a spent dishrag," Parker says.

"You smell like salt, and sweet, and me," Vaska returns, as if the two things have anything to do with each other. He leans down, nuzzling at Parker's sweaty face, licking some of the moisture from his damp cheeks with just the tip of his narrow, clever tongue. "You smell exactly like sex with me."

"Do you like that?" Parker asks, laughing.

Vaska slowly folds himself up, arms slotting against his body and legs collapsing in, fitting himself to a space on the cushions that's just to the right of where Parker is stretched out and boneless. He lies down on his side; all the awkward points of his body fit into cracks between the cushions, lining up perfectly.

"That was all that I wanted," Vaska says, "for weeks."

There's a calm vehemence to his words, a finality like it is some grand accomplishment. Parker doesn't know that it isn't. He likes to think that he's learning how Vaska ticks, figuring out how to best communicate with him, but he's hardly an expert on alien socialization. Maybe he gave Vaska a better gift than he knows.

"Stay in my bed," Vaska adds. His inner eyelids are completely closed, not fluttering, covering his eyes in the way that means he's cutting the light and preparing for sleep. "I want to smell your sweat and your pheromones when I wake up."

It sounds disgusting. Parker doesn't argue with it.

For days after they sleep together, Parker feels warm and boneless. He's never sore, though he suspects maybe he should be, and something inside of him aches in a way that borders on being too much, too good. He spends much of those few days alone in his room, one hand on his dick, the other pressing insistently inside himself.

It's not nearly as satisfying as when Vaska had done it.

By the fourth day, the clumsy, heavy feeling begins to drain from Parker's limbs and he concludes it's high time he return to the lab. Vaska's plants have grown well in that interlude and he welcomes Parker's renewed presence in his greenhouses. Those are full of the familiar red-brown smell of the alien soil, as well as the wet, heavy scent of growing things.

They're full of a new smell, too, one that coats Parker's tongue the moment he breathes it in. It's sweet, a little bit spicy, and undeniably coming from Vaska. The longer Parker stays in the greenhouse, trimming the plants, weeding them, watering them, the deeper that smell settles into his lungs and weighs down his bones, leaving him sluggish and sleepy and aching all over, warm beneath his skin like some strange sun is shining onto him.

"Are you doing that on purpose?" Parker asks, the next day in the greenhouse when the feeling is no better than before.

"Doing what?" Vaska asks. His eyes are focused on the plant before him, all of his hands in motion as he appraises and prunes it.

"Making that smell," Parker says. "It's coming so thick it's making me dizzy."

Vaska hums to himself, a rattling sound low in his throat. For that moment all of his hands pause, but then they're moving again, as if nothing was amiss for even a second. He doesn't give Parker any more of a reply.

"I guess not," Parker says, and turns back to his own work.

But the itch stays in his skin, crawling along his nerves and keeping him on edge. He stops masturbating. Jerking himself off isn't working; he tugs at his cock until it chafes and still there's no relief, even when he coaxes himself into coming his body continues to ache. He remembers Vaska saying, we're only so biologically compatible. He remembers Vaska saying, too, I think that this will be nice.

(It was nice, it really was, but Parker needs— more than that. Something Vaska has yet to give.)

"Do I smell the same?" Parker asks.

They're once again in the greenhouse, always in the greenhouse, tending to alien plants which have foreign names. The antennae atop Vaska's head vibrate and tremble, shaking with the force of whatever he smells.

"You do," Vaska says. There's a purr in his voice, a low, contented vibrating. "Very much so."

Parker wants to ask, then why don't you fuck me, wants to know why suddenly Vaska has the composure to resist what he'd posed as an undeniable charm before. He wants to ask but the words stick in his throat and trap themselves on his tongue, until he has no choice to swallow them back down, heavy, unspoken.

"You must not be able to stop that, even if you had tried."

Parker can't say whether he's tried, not really. But he is well beyond the point of being able to stop. Vaska's throat is making a pleasant droning, a low sound almost beneath the range of Parker's hearing which goes and goes and goes, never relenting, seeping into his bones and vibrating beneath his skin.

"I don't mind," Vaska says, more to himself than anything. "I always did like the scent that you make."

Parker burns hot, at the compliment, at the way the scent on his tongue continues to erode his composure. He says nothing; they both return to work as the drone of Vaska's buzzing continues to hum in Parker's ears and vibrate on the air.

Parker can't sleep. It's nighttime on the planet, everything dark and shadowed beneath the sheltering curve of the outpost's external wall. His body is too warm and itching and the feeling drives him from his bed, sets him to walking outdoors between the buildings of the complex. Virtually all of the lights are out, but there's a faint glow coming from the storage shed Parker knows belongs to Vaska.

He's never gone in there without the alien's permission. But his feet follow the glow of their own accord, his nose picking up on that sweet note that's been in the air of late whenever he visits Vaska in the greenhouses. He stands outside the storage shed and the scent of it is so thick as to nearly choke him.

The door is ajar; Parker steps inside.

The glow he's been seeing is coming from what appears to be moss crawling up the walls, something Parker hadn't previously noticed between the vines and the ivy but which is phosphorescent in the nighttime, illuminating the space with a soft blue-green light. He thinks Vaska is there, sitting down. Before his eyes adjust entirely Vaska has risen, moving across the room and into Parker's space.

He's still making that droning sound, the long, ceaseless one he's been producing for the past two days. It should be aggravating, unsettling, an unfamiliar noise that lodges in Parker's brain like a ringing in his ears. But the inside of his head feels soft and pliant, and the sound of Vaska's purring buzz doesn't strike him as out of place.

"You smell like sweet fruit and summer sunshine," Vaska tells him, and Parker automatically translates the words as, I want to kiss you, come inside.

He pushes the external door shut behind himself, hears it close with a final thump of metal landing against metal. For a few moments, the sound echoes. Parker doesn't think much of it; he can hardly hear it over the sound of Vaska's buzzing, winding its way deeper and deeper into his head.

Vaska backs up; Parker follows him, instinctively, naturally. The room is filled with plants from the planet, spreading ivy, tangles of vines, wide white blossoms which only open in the dark and whose throats glow faintly golden in the gloom. The plants brush against Parker as he crosses the space between the door and Vaska's bed. Vaska stops before they reach it, fingers light against Parker's jaw, delicately tipping up his face.

Vaska has gotten much better at kissing him since the first time Parker tried it. He closes his eyes, lets himself be handled. Vaska's mouth is thin and dry and wide, brushing against Parker's gently, like a teasing caress. He feels it when Vaska's lips split apart, separating so that his mandibles stretch into the open.

They snap shut on Parker's cheeks, puncturing him with a pinprick to either side of his face. Immediately, he begins to go numb.

"What—" he starts to say.

"Venom," Vaska tells him, much as he had the very first time they kissed. His wings flick once against his back: excitement, anticipation. Parker's heart speeds faster with the awareness that something is happening.

"Why?" he asks, though the numbness in his face causes him to slur the word.

Vaska's eyes shine in the gloom, glittering with a hundred reflections of the soft phosphorescent light. His face is unmistakably alien, split apart and with mandibles working, the dry, papery skin that had covered them flapping loosely with the wind of Vaska's own breaths. The words don't come from Vaska's mouth, from the mandibles. They come right from his throat, layered with too many qualities of vibration for Parker to know how to place.

"You smell like the sweetest fruit I have ever tasted," Vaska reminds him, somewhat regretfully. "And my species weathers its brooding heats thrice a year. I expected to spend those days alone, riding the tide of it, struggling to pass my eggs. I did not expect to have company. You should not have smelled so sweet, nor so interested, earth human Parker."

The too-quick rhythm of his heart is battering itself against the inside of Parker's chest, some stunted survival instinct screaming at him, this is a predator, fight, run away! But Vaska has bitten him much more deeply than on that first day, where only Parker's face went numb. He can feel the venom coursing through him, making his entire body clumsy with building paralysis. Besides that, a very large part of him feels no desire to flee.

"Come here, Parker," Vaska says, drawing him forward to kneel on the sleeping platform.

Parker is too uncoordinated to undress himself; Vaska peels his clothes off of him, four hands moving with that admirable coordination, all of them undeniably deft. It should be alarming; instead Parker remembers that night from a week before, the way Vaska had pinned him down, the way Vaska's body sucked at his cock. Vaska's hands splay across his chest, stroking and petting and heat blossoms in their wake, arousal pooling in Parker's gut, stirring his cock where it hangs between his thighs.

Vines wind around his arms, pulling him back until his shoulders touch the wall. Parker resists them reflexively, struggling to slip free, but the vines only curl themselves tighter around his limbs. When Parker fights them again, Vaska pushes his palms against Parker's shoulders and Parker immediately goes still.

He drags in a breath, a ragged inhale that's loud against the room's dead air. When it's Vaska pinning him, he wants to roll over and immediately concede.

Vaska seems to realize this; he spreads Parker's thighs apart with his own hands, petting down the lengths of them, cradling Parker's cock against his palms. He's already half-hard; Vaska strokes him until he's aching, wheezing. Precome dribbles out of the head and Vaska rubs his thumb across it, smearing the stickiness between his fingers and looking down at his handiwork.

His fingers spread the opening to Parker's urethra open; the pleased buzz he makes is more telling than a smile.

"I had to think of places to put them," Vaska explains, almost pityingly. "Your body is less forgiving than mine."

His abdomen curls up behind him, in a smooth arc that brings the prong at the end of it into the light. It's thick and shining, slick with some viscous liquid Parker still doesn't have a name for and for a moment he's alarmed, thrashing against the restraints that have taken hold of him. Panicked though he is, his struggles remain weak, neutralized by the venom coursing through his blood.

"That isn't going to fit," he insists, over the clumsy failing of his half-paralyzed tongue.

The prong splits itself apart, sectioning into segments like the blossoming of some otherworldly flower. The petals spread away, leaving the long needle within standing straight and tall. Vaska's naked ovipositor is narrow enough for what he intends, if only barely.

Parker makes a small whimper in his throat, but holds still.

There's something slick and sticky that drips onto the head of his cock, leaks into his urethra where Vaska's fingers are holding it open. The needle follows, more gently than Parker might have feared. The head of it is rounded, meant for probing rather than stabbing; it stretches Parker wide as Vaska shoves it inside. He hisses through his teeth; there's resistance, for the first few inches, a slow slide that works against Parker's muscles attempting to force Vaska back out.

But then he's too deep to be contested, and the rod of the ovipositor slides right in. Vaska sighs, a fluttery, sudden sound that draws Parker's attention. The alien's eyelids shudder, just the inner ones, vibrating in the way that means pleasure. Parker wonders at that, for all of a moment.

Then he feels the pressure, the press as something small and round drops to settle against his bladder. The pressure comes again, and again, making his spine jerk and his thighs tremble, his breath shaking where he holds it tremulously within his lungs. Vaska is pushing against his prostate, nudging at it with each deposit that he makes. Parker's body feels heavy — or maybe that's just his bladder, too-full with its new contents and pressing on him with sudden urgency.

His crossed wires insist that he needs to piss. His aching cock demands a different release.

Vaska's fingers wrap around it, jerking him off slow and sure. The insides of his dick drag against the unyielding rod that's still stabbing into him; he breathes in sharp through his teeth, shaking with how sensitive his insides are, as the pressure builds and builds but still he cannot come. He won't, with something shoved down his cock. All Vaska is doing is rendering him a shaking, overstimulated mess.

Vaska draws the rod back out and Parker sags within his bondage, pulling against the vines that keep him pressed against the wall. His chest heaves, and his cock aches, and Vaska's fingers are light against his face, stroking along his jaw, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Don't rest yet," Vaska says. There's that crackling beneath his voice, quick clicks that come out too long, dragged from him as if under duress. "I have much more left to give."

The vines pull Parker's legs apart, tilt him until they tip his body back. This time, Parker doesn't fight them. He does wonder about them, in a half-coherent delirium, wonders about the trees he'd seen on his last visit to Vaska's room and the vines draped down from them in long, snakelike coils. They're something native to the planet — Vaska has been studying them, that much Parker knows. He never questioned why Vaska was studying them. It sinks in with him, perhaps he should have asked more questions.

Vaska isn't leaving time for that now. The sections of his ovipositor snap back together with an audible clack, drawing Parker's eye to where Vaska's abdomen curls around his thigh. Vaska shakes the closed prong of it back and forth, letting the viscous fluid from before flow out to coat the length. As he prods between Parker's legs, Parker catches onto Vaska's intent.

"You liked this before," Vaska reminds him. "I made sure of that."

He isn't wrong. As two of Vaska's hands pet down Parker's thighs and a third strokes insistently at his cock, he cannot help but relax into the vines that are holding him. Tension drains from his limbs and Vaska easily slips the end of the ovipositor prong inside of him. It's slick with its own sticky secretions; Parker can feel it stretching him open, pushing in just a little bit at a time, easing the way. His breathing shakes as he struggles to acclimate to the feeling; before he can brace himself, Vaska pushes the prong of it all the way in.

Parker gasps, but the prong isn't thick. It's something he can get used to — Vaska works it into and out of him, fucking him slowly with just the first few inches. The build of arousal is coiling in his gut, with a heat that fans hotter with each new pass of Vaska's prong against his prostate, with each stroke of Vaska's hand where it slides over his cock, once again jerking him off, faster than before. His pleasure builds until he's shaking, breathing hard, but there's a pressure on his bladder, and Parker cannot make himself come.

"Please," he says, though he's uncertain what he's begging for.

He isn't asking for what he receives, a strange pressure as something stretches his insides wider than the girth of the ovipositor alone. The first eggs Vaska passed were the size of peas, or maybe marbles; whatever is being deposited now is nothing so diminutive. Each new addition presses against his inner walls, negligible on its own but in a way that builds, one after the other after the other. Parker's guts feel heavy, full. Vaska smooths his hands across Parker's belly, feeling the swell as the skin starts to stretch.

Vaska has always admired the gentle curve of Parker's stomach, soft and without much definition when he's never found the time to work out. Vaska admires it now, petting it as he pushes into it from the outside.

He sighs, when he releases the last of his eggs. It's an exhale that vibrates with the force of his exertion, paired with a last push of Vaska's prong into Parker's hole. He fucks Parker shallowly, gentle little thrusts too short to reach where his eggs have piled up inside. Spasms wrack Parker's body; Vaska pulls at his cock until he shudders his way through it, shaking and still not as spent as he expects.

His cock is still hard. The pressure is still there, weighing on him from the inside, leaving him unable to relax.

"You won't be able to void yourself," Vaska points out, as if this is only a minor inconvenience. "But I'll take care of that."

"Please," Parker says. "I still... Can't..."

Vaska strokes his cheek, holds his chin in his hand so Parker's head stays up. He pulls out the prong, with a soft, wet sound that's followed by Parker's muffled gasp of reaction. His lips part, and Vaska strokes his thumb across them.

"It will be like that," Vaska says. "At least until they grow. Which I gather will be... Unpleasant, for someone of your species who isn't used to being so constantly in flux."

Parker groans disapprovingly, not having the energy to put his strain into words.

"Don't worry," Vaska says. "You will weather this just fine."

It's a surprise to Parker, that he sleeps. His insides feel too heavy and full while his flesh feels too tender, so oversensitive that the lightest breeze across his skin sends him to shaking and shuddering all over again. He's almost grateful for Vaska's plants — the vines keep him cradled in a remarkably comfortable position, preventing him from rubbing himself on anything accidentally lest he drive himself to distraction.

He sleeps, and Vaska is there when he wakes up.

"Eat," Vaska says, sliding the fingers of an empty hand across Parker's parted lips.

Parker opens them wider; the fruit Vaska presses against them is slippery and cool. It's cut into segments small enough for Parker to draw into his mouth with his teeth and he chews the offerings Vaska makes to him slowly, carefully, letting the juice trickle down his throat before he allows himself to swallow.

Vaska feeds him until the plate that he holds is empty of food, everything Vaska had to offer devoured by a hunger Parker has never known before. It's sharp in his gut, demanding over and over that his appetite be sated. Vaska seems to expect this; every time Parker starts to ache with want of more fruit Vaska is there, feeding him berries and melon and pitted fruit that taste like peaches, though Parker knows they must not be the same as those peaches he is familiar with from home.

It's hot in the storage shed; Parker sweats constantly, surprised when instead of building up a stink, his body smells sweet.

"It's the fruit," Vaska says, when Parker wonders about it. "All I'm feeding you is fruit, and you have no other way to pass waste. You've become a little bit more like me, earth human Parker. Mating with my kind will change you."

It sounds like something that should give Parker pause. But as he turns the words over and over in his head, tastes the sound of change on his tongue and debates whether he protests it, he cannot see the problem. Vaska has already changed him, since the first time they kissed. He's given Parker a new appetite, a craving for physical contact that no other species could provide. That should be alarming, too. But it isn't.

Parker's belly feels heavy, increasingly so with each hour that passes. It presses on him, stretched so his skin is impossibly taut, so that it stays tender from the constant stimulation. Parker's erection never really goes away; it flags during periods of downtime, while his hunger is sated and he can rest within the vines' hold. As soon as Parker moves, shifts, sends it any sort of message, his dick stirs, demanding attention.

"May I?" Vaska asks, one hand extended, his head nodding down toward Parker's crotch.

"Please," Parker says in response.

Vaska doesn't get him off. He strokes and he coaxes and he eases Parker along but Parker's body isn't having it, balancing on the edge until he's ready to cry with frustration. That feels like a release, when the dam breaks and tears stream down his cheeks, when Vaska keeps going until it's tender and painful and the crying won't stop.

He never expresses alarm, at Parker's shaking and sobbing and shoving up into his hand. Maybe he thinks this is just another kind of human arousal.

Vaska brings Parker more fruit, and towels to dab the sweat off his body, off his face, and leaves him to rest when night slips over them, dropping them back into phosphorescent gloom. Sleep is more fitful, as time stretches on. It's exhaustion that gets to Parker, more than the knowledge that the hour is right for rest.

Parker knows it, when the eggs start to hatch. There's a squirming in his gut, a roiling from his insides. It's strange, for the first few long minutes of the process, before it abruptly becomes painful. Parker screams, and that's what calls Vaska back from the greenhouses.

He freezes in the doorway, immediately catching on to what's come to pass.

"Push them out, Parker," Vaska says, settling on the sleeping platform beside where Parker is spread. "This is your only chance. My kind need incubators — or they need hosts. I would rather my children not eat you alive."

That gets Parker's attention. He jerks, pulling against the restraints of the vines as his hips jerk and everything within him clamps down. There's a pressure, the building, steady sort of something that knows it's about to blow, pressing on his guts, pressing on his bladder, until there comes a soft, wet splop and for a single moment, the pressure yields.

Parker glances down between his legs. There's something wet and pale squirming on the storehouse floor, writhing with such a motion that Parker immediately averts his eyes. He doesn't need to see the grubs he's forcing out of himself.

The next one is easier, though with less alarm fueling him Parker can't help but notice the way his asshole stretches wide, yields to something foreign, strange, that's pushing its way out of him. The sound of the grubs hitting the floor is sloppy and gross, like the patter of raindrops but heavier, thicker, with soft little thuds that make Parker's stomach roll with nerves. He keeps pushing. Part of his brain is saying, any minute now, they'll learn how to chew.

The grubs rub at Parker's insides, pressing against his inner walls, creating pressure against his prostate. The more of them he passes the more sensitive he feels, shaking with exertion and with the sensation of someone touching him inside and out. Vaska doesn't touch him while Parker does it; he simply watches, an empty glass terrarium held between two of his hands.

When Parker presses and pushes and still nothing else comes, when he feels lighter but still not empty, he turns to Vaska with desperation on his face.

"Ah," Vaska says. "Allow me."

One of his hands wraps around Parker's cock, tugging insistently until he's hard enough that it hurts. There's still that feeling inside of him, the too-full, urgent feeling like he maybe needs to piss, but this time it doesn't stop his arousal from building. That sweeps through Parker like wildfire, a heat that sears beneath his skin and yanks the breath out from his lips, leaves him panting and shuddering and pushing into Vaska's hand.

When Parker comes, it hurts. He comes with thick white spurts over Vaska's dark fingers, doesn't stop until Vaska coaxes him all the way through. Vaska keeps stroking and stroking and still there's more to milk from him, until there's a puddle on the floor and Parker sags forward, spent.

Vaska sets to scooping the grubs into the terrarium, quick and efficient, plucking them up with his bare hands.

"What are you doing?" Parker asks, voice weak but undeniably curious.

"I wouldn't want to be wasteful," Vaska replies.

Something about the way he says it stops Parker from inquiring any further. The vines loosen from where they've had him in their hold, just as Vaska is finishing and setting the lidded terrarium aside. He catches Parker, so that he sags against the smooth, chitinous shell that is Vaska's chest, too spent to complain about the hardness of it where it's pressing into his cheek.

"You did well," Vaska says.

Parker murmurs something unintelligible back, rubs his face against the slick carapace that has been offered to his cheek. Vaska laughs, the long, rattling one that builds to a drone Parker can feel vibrating against his cheek. The sound is familiar, unexpectedly soothing. Parker laughs in return, soft and breathless.

"I think," Vaska says, so that Parker suspects it's more to himself than anything, "perhaps you ought to rest more."

He settles Parker onto the sleeping platform, and leaves him to his recuperation.

It's some days later, when Parker is rested and rehydrated and returned to work in the greenhouses, almost as if nothing beyond the ordinary has happened at all, when he happens to venture into the small room where Vaska keeps live specimens of the local fauna. He recognizes the terrarium resting on one of the tables immediately.

"Vaska!" Parker calls. "Did you mean to leave this here?"

He senses it, when Vaska comes to stand in the doorway. It's a side effect from — from mating with an alien, or so he's been forewarned. He's growing into pompilid senses, mostly their aptitude for smells and for vibrations. Parker is especially attuned to Vaska; anywhere Vaska might be in a room, or a crowd, Parker can pick him out.

"Oh," Vaska says, gaze settling on the terrarium full of his own grubs. (Their grubs, part of Parker's brain supplies, before he's horrified at the possessiveness to his mental voice.) "That."

"Yeah," Parker says. "That."

They both stare at the glass container for a long minute, the insides of which are crawling with young insects, all squirming and writhing and moving against each other.

"I thought I'd save that for an evening snack," Vaska says. "Whenever I'm feeling sufficiently peckish."

Parker simply stares at him, a slow, dawning horror spreading across his face.

Vaska laughs, the laugh that makes his eyes shake with his mirth. "You didn't think I was going to keep them, did you? I've had more than one brood before, when I've been in a position to pass fertilized eggs. But as I said, it's never been with much evolutionary success."

Parker continues to stare; Vaska only smiles, his too-wide, closed-lipped, not quite human smile.

"I'm not ready to pass on my genes," Vaska says. "And if I recall correctly, neither are you. Besides, we can hardly overrun the local environment with a non-native species. Much better if we eat the fruits of our labor."

Parker feels rather a lot like he's going to throw up. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not."

Vaska laughs again, eyes set to shaking, throat set to buzzing, laughing the building laugh that settles on the air as a warm, mirthful hum. Parker likes that laugh, even when he doesn't understand the humor behind that. He likes Vaska, for all his handsome, exotic, waspish majesty. He still smells like sweet, ripe fruit and summer sunshine, but he supposes it won't be a problem, when he knows what to expect.

"Suit yourself," Vaska says.

Parker laughs, his soft, human laugh. "Yeah, yeah I think I will."