Drabble: Storm Season (Terinu/Matt, yaoi, PG-13)

[jeriendhal]

chaypeta's request was Terinu and Matt go camping on the beach near Aunt Vonnie's house at her suggestion.



“Let’s see. Stick the rod into the top thingie, then ya gotta bend it over and slip the other end through the grommet at the bottom.” Teri squinted at the tent’s instructions, turning the paper over to make sure he didn’t have it upside down. Fortunately it was all pictograms so it was easy enough to follow. He bent the plastic rod down, only to have it slip out of his hand and swat him across the face. “Ow! Fraggin’ piece a…” He jumped back and gave the tent a quick blast with his bion, melting the pile of plastic rods and nylon fabric into an unrecognizable mess.

“That was Miss Vonnie’s, y’know,” Matt said behind him. Terinu turned, wiggling the balls of his feet into the warm sand of the Freemans’ private beach as the sun began its slow drop into the sea. The tent had been borrowed true, after Vonnie had told the boys to get some air and camp on the beach. Terinu had been more than happy to go along with that idea, given that the Freeman’s house had been crowded with Vonnie, her husband Barry, Leeza, Lance, Gwen, Joleen and both Rufus and Melika. After the harrowing events the month before, this beach was the first time he and Matt had been truly alone since Teri had rushed down to see him post-surgery onboard the Navaho.

“Eh, I’ll buy her a new one.” Terinu frowned. Matt was looking paler than usual, swaying on his feet and looking green. “Hey Matt, you okay? Your legs hurting again? You need me to go back to the house and get Joleen to give you a pain shot?”

“No, it’s not that.” Matt ducked his head down closed his eyes. Then he fell forward, dropping onto his hands and knees before Terinu could catch him.

“Matt! What’s wrong!” He kneeled down beside him and wrapped his arms around his larger human friend, holding him tight as the older boy began shivering.

“Too much… too much sky,” Matt muttered, swallowing down something that threatened to come up out of his stomach.

Instantly Terinu realized what was the matter. He glanced over to a nearby hillside, spotting what he needed, the cave that Gwen had been chattering about before they took off, where she had liked to camp out. That had made it an instant disqualifier for Teri initially, but it looked like it was just what he needed right now. He got shoulder underneath Matt’s and helped to his feet. “Just stare at the ground Matt and go where I’m going. It’s gonna be okay. I’m right here with ya.”

“Okay. Okay…” Matt mumbled, offering no resistance as Terinu led him inside the cave. It wasn’t very big, the entrance low enough that even Teri had to stoop down, the interior maybe two meters wide and half again as deep. He sat down beside Matt, keeping himself being the larger boy and the entrance to the cave.

“Better?”

Matt drew in a breath, his shakes subsiding. “Yeah, better. That was stupid, sorry. I was just looking out at the ocean, then up at the sky and then all of the sudden I got dizzy and sick. Couldn’t stop thinking how there weren’t any walls keeping the air in, just gravity. Stupid.”

“Ya ain’t stupid, Matt. I was for draggin’ ya out here. Had something like that happen to me when I first got on planet.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Y’know how I can feel life with my bion? First time I get to Vonnie’s place I snuck out to the beach to take a look. Then I led my bion expand to taste what the environment was like. Trust me, there’s a lot more life here than just Galen space rats and cockroaches. The backlash knocked me out for half a day.”

“Shit. Me, it’s different.” Matt raised his arms to touch the walls of the cave. “My whole life was either on that crap mining station with my family or on Lady…” He bit back on the honorific. “…on Mavra Chan’s ship. Meter wide corridors. Two meter wide rooms. Ceilings not much taller than my head. I thought getting out of there would be better. Isn’t Earth supposed to be a paradise?”

“Don’t know about a paradise. Seems like just another place most of the time, ‘cept bigger.”

“Loads bigger.” The sun was below the horizon now, bathing the cave and gathering clouds outside in a warm red glow, while a cool breeze swept through the cave entrance. Matt stared at the scene in fascination. Maybe the frame of the cave making it look more like a vid wall than something real to be feared. “Maybe you ought to get the sleeping bags from beside what’s left of the tent. Aren’t black clouds supposed to be bad?”

“Think so.” Confident that Matt was feeling better, he jogged over to grab a sleeping bag under each arm, hooking the knapsack full of eats that Vonnie had pressed on them with his tail. By the time he’d made it back to the cave, the sky was completely black and loud rumbles were shaking the sky. Worse, so was Matt. “It’s okay Matt,” he said. “It only sounds like the Celestial Marauder is ramming a cargo ship.”

That actually got a laugh out of him. “Yeah. Lay the bags down would ya? They’re softer than sand over cave rock.”

“Sure.” By the time Terinu had them comfortably laid out fat drops of rain were slapping down on the beach. Matt didn’t object when he curled up next him, wrapping his tail around the older boy’s waist, as the sky turned almost pitch black. “Want me to crack a glow stick?” he asked.

“No, this is fine,” Matt replied, easing Teri’s head down onto his wide shoulder, his hand stroking the smaller boy’s silky, blue-black hair.

They both jumped when the first lightning strike hit the water, the flash leaving sparkling stars in front of Terinu’s eyes, the loud crack vibrating in his ears.

“Damn, that’s loud!” Matt exclaimed, laughing again. “And people actually camp out in the open when something like that happens?”

“That’s what Blake says,” Terinu told him. “She told me there are places in the middle of this landmass where the air can start spinning around at over a hundred klicks an hour, and tears up anything in its way.”

“I think she was puling your tail. They’d have to evacuate up into orbit if that started happening.”

“Kevin said it was true.”

“Maybe not then.” Matt turned his face towards Terinu, his breath softly stroking Teri’s neck. Unbidden, his hand slipped up underneath the younger boy’s shirt to stroke the tight muscles of his chest. For Matt it was pretty aggressive behavoir, but Teri thought he understood. He could stil feel the slight tremble in Matt’s hand, as the taller, stronger boy worked through his fear of the sky and the storm.

“Hey Matt,” Terinu said, looking to distract his friend from his fear. “Did I ever tell you I was sorry that I left, when I jumped ship from the Marauder and left you behind?”

“Sorry? For what?” Matt asked, looking at him in shock. Outside, the lightning flashed again. “You think I wasn’t happy that you got away from Chan and Brooks?”

“I coulda taken you with me, if I’d thought about it.”

“You weren’t in much shape for thinking, Teri. You went from gray to white that day, when your bion kicked in. I didn’t think you could even get out of bed, much less fly a lifepod down to Bolt Hole.”

“Still, I coulda saved you from that psycho bitch shooting you in the..” He clamped his mouth shut. Damnit, distracting Matt from one trouble by bringing up a lot more painful one hadn’t been his intention.

The older boy held him tighter. “Doesn’t matter. You came back for me, that was the important thing.” The lightning flashed again and Terinu could see the smile in Matt’s eyes just before the other boy’s mouth found his. It tasted clean and pure, and for once Terinu let Matt take control, as his tongue pressed between the Ferin boy’s lips, wrapping around his tongue and sucking slowly.

“Teri?” Matt said a few moments later, coming up for air.

“Yah?”

“We don’t need two sleeping bags do we?”

“Nah.”

They kept warm all night.