openmisc | Kent/Feldspar

"Just once more," they had said when Ellie's team petitioned for it. She was busy with Palmer, falling in love with science while he fell in love with God, and Kent was left to pick up the pieces. He wanted another damn go at it. The Machine had a pricetag in the billions; it was begging to be used again.

But they wouldn't let Ellie go. They wouldn't let just anyone go. They wanted someone who knew how it worked, who had been there from the beginning, but someone who isn't completely taken in by Ellie's words.

That leads them to a dozen people and they end up with Kent. He's blind, but that's not what decides it. They claim that he wouldn't hallucinate the way Ellie did. That he has a unique perspective.

And, he's already proven himself steady and loyal.

He experiences it all the way that Ellie does, but something goes wrong on the other end. Maybe another terrorist attack. Maybe not. All he knows is that he's in the sphere and then, suddenly, he's floating, unable to find his footing until a great crash and he slams into the bottom of the machine.

He groans, pulling his helmet on with a grunt and a wince.

"Fuck this," he mutters, finding the edge of the sphere with his hands. There was a door there somewhere. He just - has to find it.

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There's a lot to process in that simple sentence. Kent doesn't make many facial expressions and so the emotions he's feeling only result in a blank expression for a few seconds. He starts to talk, stops, and then nods.

"Start from the beginning?"

“Come sit with me.”

They take Kent’s hand and bring him to the bed. “Lapis took me to finally see the inside of that big structure they were being so cagey about. There’s a whole separate world beneath our feet.”

Fortunately Feldspar’s natural inclination for storytelling helps paint the picture of everything Lapis had shared with them that morning. They talk about the aliens and the whole reason they ended up in the star system, the destruction of their home in the pursuit of something called the Eye of the Universe. They explain how they were fearful of what they found and isolated themselves, and then punished one of them who had tried to release the Eye’s signal.

And then Feldspar talks about the simulation and the prisoner. “They died over and over again - I think Lapis was terrified to see them again and lose them forever.”

Kent sits with them and takes their hand in his, listening to the story with his head tilted. More strangeness, more oddness, more weird mysteries. But the important part of all of this is their Hatchling. Their Lapis, who had decided to follow in their parents' footsteps and fall in love with someone impossible.

"So what happened?"

“I coached them through it. They’re still stuck in that loop in a lot of ways, not able to see the forest for the trees. But they’re able to talk, the two of them, and I think Lapis was able to tell them this time about how we’d come to live on their ship and that they’re not a prisoner any longer. So that’s where we ended it - they didn’t lose them, and things are kind of up in the air.”

Kent squeezes their hand and then chuckles, shaking his head. "Welcome back, Felds," he says softly. "To uh...parenthood."

Truthfully, Kent's been waiting for this moment for a while. For Lapis to let down their walls, for Feldspar to take those steps. And this is a damn weird way of doing it, but - it happened. And Kent couldn't be happier.

Feldspar exhales low and exaggeratedly. “It was in there, I just had to find it again.”

A simple way of summarizing all of those insecurities they felt about their return and being whoever it was they are now that they’re some washed up astronaut. But they’re still Feldspar - they’re still Kent’s spouse, Lapis’ Mapa, friend of Gossan, Slate, Hornfels and Esker, little troublemaking hatchling raised by Gneiss and Tektite.

“There’s a lot of good still to be had here at the end of the universe. I think maybe I just had to find my place in it again, y’know?”

"I know," he says softly. "And I think you're doing it. And I'm goddamn proud of you for it."

He brings them in for a quick kiss.

The kiss also reminds Feldspar of those not-so-distance feelings they’d carried back with them from their visit to Lapis’ prisoner. They smile and pounce on Kent, pushing him back by the shoulders onto the bed.

Kent lets out a soft laugh, falling back on the bed. "Did you lock the door?" he mutters, wrapping his arms around them. He's not sure what's gotten into them, but he isn't going to waste this moment.

“Door doesn’t lock,” Feldspar reminds them, “but I can drag a chair to it while you take off your clothes.”

They grin a little more lecherously and finds the hem of his shirt to slip their fingers up underneath it.

He laughs. "You dirty old man," he teases, but he is eager to have them back like this. He is eager to touch them and kiss them, and so he raises his arms to slide out of his shirt.

“Not a man,” they happily tease right back, tugging the shirt over his head. “But I am old and dirty, yeah. I thought about this a lot while I was by myself all those years ago. Thought a lot about you, and what I’d do to you when I got myself back into our bed.”

They’re rambling a bit, but only just, their focus on the silver hairs on his chest and those curved muscles they’ve wanted to get their hands on since looking at them in the shower. Their mouth instead latches on to one of Kent’s earlobes, and they leave a trail down his neck as they bite and suck their way to his nipples.

He shivers, goosebumps appearing on his skin in small patches as he reaches back for one of the pillows. "Did you touch yourself?" he mutters. "When you were in space? Did you think of what it would be like to touch me?"

“All the time,” they murmur, dragging their hand over Kent’s thigh. “I thought about having you out there in the fog and vines, what you’d sound like as I made you come without taking off your clothes.”

And to illustrate their point, they cup Kent through the front of his pants. “Ah, stars, that big cock of yours. I didn’t get to touch myself too much out there, but then I did…”

He hisses softly and raises his hips into their hand. He hasn't been touched, except by himself, in years. He knows the same is true of Feldspar, and that just isn't fair.

He groans, an arm around them. "I love you," he mutters. "But if I don't get to fuck you right now, I might lose my fucking mind."

“I forgot how fun it is to frustrate you,” they laugh, finding Kent’s cock through the fabric and stroking the length. “Isn’t it nice to take it slow though?”

It’s not - their own pants are making them crazy and they want Kent so badly they’re practically shaking, but it is fun to see how long they can push things.

Kent/Feldspar

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