Hermes awoke with desperate want and blind confusion.

Over the last year of having a corporeal form, he had endured nocturnal penile tumescence—colloquially called morning wood—but this was different. This was a searing heat that suffocated him.

He gasped, breathing in for what felt like the first time in an age, and opened his eyes. He was in his bed, laid on his side, facing the window. Behind him lay Cam, spooned against his back, still very asleep. He realized the feverish arousal was the subconscious want from Cam, too.

Cam’s mind, in sleep, wasn’t very comprehensible. It was an idle desire to touch, to feel, to release. Hermes, breathing heavily, turned to sit. A bead of sweat fell from his brow and he looked down to Cam’s sleeping face. His white hair fell around him like a halo and his skin was as pale and unmarked as freshly fallen snow.

Amidst all the swirling heat, Hermes felt amused at the contrast—Cam’s sexual inner thoughts juxtaposed against his perfectly innocent appearance. Somehow, seeing Cam like this, Hermes wanted him all the more.

Groggy still, it took Hermes a while to turn off the tap and close Cam’s mind to himself. When he did, his arousal dampened, but only slightly. After all, Cam was still naked, folded in the bedding, the many curves and planes of his body laid out before Hermes like a piece of art framed inside a gallery. He wanted to lift his hand and touch the pale space where Cam’s thigh curved into his hip, but patrons are not meant to touch the art on display.

Hermes pulled away, until they weren’t touching at all, and he sat back against the headboard on his wall. He caught his breath, mind clearing minute by minute.

It wasn’t long before Cam woke up. His brow furrowed, hands tightening into the covers, and then his eyes opened. There was a brief passing confusion before he hummed in understanding and reached up to clear the sleep from his eyes. “Hermes?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” said Hermes.

Cam jerked, obviously thinking he was alone in the bed and surprised by Hermes being but a foot away. He laughed, which dissolved into a yawn. “Your bed is gigantic.” He gestured between them. “Why are you all the way over there?”

“I was calming my arousal,” Hermes said honestly.

Cam blinked sleepily and reached into the blankets that were tented over his erection, and shuddered as he adjusted himself. “We can fix that.”

“I am still not in full control of my telepathy,” he said, voice a mumble, unable to look away from the silhouetted movements Cam made beneath the duvet. “My desire was not my own.”

Cam’s eyes fluttered open and closed as his hand continued to move—until he forced himself to stop. “Oh.” Cam swallowed, chewed his lip, and pulled his hand out from beneath the blanket. His fingers were damp—glossy with something that made Hermes feel on fire again.

It took them both a moment to speak again, as Hermes could hear only the pounding of his heart.

“That’s fine,” Cam finally said, sounding a little breathless. He reached up with his clean hand and rubbed at his face, like he was truly waking up. “Right. You’re right. We—” He snickered. “We should probably stick to basic hand-holding and kissing, until it’s—you know. Under control.”

“I am amenable to that,” said Hermes. Like the last several days, he wanted nothing more than to kiss Cam again. And again. And again. Perhaps twice an hour, every hour, would satiate his want? Three to be safe, he thought.

“Can I use your shower?” asked Cam.

“Yes.” Hermes shifted, placing his feet upon the ground, and stood out of bed. His spine popped as he twisted the slumber from his bones. He gestured to the closed door at the other side of his quarters, beside the kitchenette and his piano. “It is through this door.”

Cam didn’t reply or move, so Hermes glanced down, and found his eyes raking over Hermes’ tall, nude form, face flushed. They met eyes again and Hermes knew, if Cam asked—or offered—that he wouldn’t say no again.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

He wanted Cam to ask.

But he didn’t. Instead, he crawled out of bed, taking a sheet with him, and walked stiffly to the bath. When the door swished shut behind him, Hermes collapsed back onto his rumpled mattress and sighed.

The sound of the running shower, the peaceful darkness of Hermes’ room, and his seemingly endless exhaustion meant that he fell asleep without meaning to.

There was thunder at his door.

Hermes jolted to standing as the sound rumbled through his quarters again. Someone was knocking—instead of using the door alert. Blearily, he stumbled to the panel beside the door and looked out through the security cam.

It was Gwn.

“One moment,” Hermes said into the speaker, voice rough with sleep. He made his way to the closet at the end of his bed and began to fish out a pair of casual trousers and a button-down shirt.

“What’s going on?” asked Cam, walking out from the bathroom, hair damp, wrapped in a towel.

Hermes stepped into a pair of back slacks and buttoned them, moving swiftly. “Gwn is at my door.”

Cam had a sour look. “What? Why?”

“I am uncertain.” He shifted the button-down shirt over himself and saw Cam go for his wrinkled clothes on Hermes’ floor. “Would you like to wear my clothing? Yours is unwashed.” Hermes moved to button the shirt at his wrist.

“Your stuff won’t fit me, babe. You’re like nine feet tall.”

Babe sent an electric zap up Hermes’ spine. He said, evenly, “I am six feet, eleven inches. You are six feet, two inches. Our height difference is not that disparate.”

Cam ignored Hermes’ calculations and looked at his wrinkled formal attire from the memorial service. “Shit. Damn it. She’s definitely going to know.”

“Know?”

“That we slept together.” Hermes’ confusion was written across his face. Cam leaned in to snap his leg bracers around his legs. Cam glanced up to see the question in Hermes’ eyes and snorted a laugh. “She has a thing for you, remember? Seeing that you had sex with someone else is going to upset her. Probably. Even if we didn’t actually have sex—she’s going to see me, in here, in yesterday’s clothes, and draw a conclusion.”

“Okay. What do we do?”

Cam pulled on his shirt and snorted. “Nothing. She’s gonna know. Might as well pull the bandaid off.”

“I understand.” Hermes went back to his door and opened it with little preamble. Cam quickly zipped up his pants, huffing from behind Hermes.

Gwn’s wide eyes went from Hermes to Cam and back again.

Hermes said, “Hello, Gwn. Cam and I did not have sex.”

Cam made a sound roughly equivalent to that of a dying cat before collapsing into his hands. “Hermes. Oh my god.”

A muscle in Gwn’s jaw jumped. “Well, that solves our problem this morning.” She pointed to Cam. “You weren’t answering your communicator and you weren’t inside your room. You can’t disappear during an investigation, Cameron.”

“It’s Ollis,” Cam corrected, voice barely more contained than a snarl. “I’m allowed to stay wherever I’d like.”

“I was under the impression you were meant to be healing from your grievous injury,” Gwn said, arms crossed.

“I am,” said Cam. “Like Hermes said, we didn’t have sex. We just slept. Following the doctor’s orders.”

Gwn looked unconvinced and turned to her communicator on her wrist and started typing out a message. “I’ll let the rest of the team know you haven’t, in fact, stolen an escape pod and disappeared in the middle of the night.”

“How the fuck would I do that?”

“Stranger things have happened.” She looked back to Hermes, eyes hard and unfeeling. “We found something last night while searching Wha’s quarters. We need you both to come to Conference C. Shear’s waiting.”

Conference C was the largest of the conference rooms on Soter. “Now?” Cam said. “I need to go grab clothes—”

“Yeah, now,” said Gwn. She tilted a hip, waiting. “I’ll be your escort.”

“Please give us one moment,” said Hermes, closing the door in her face. Not to be rude—but to talk privately. Her expression, visible on the security panel by the door, was wracked with displeasure.

Cam sniffed his own shirt and wrinkled his nose. “This smells like sweat.”

“Wear mine,” Hermes said. Insisted, really. He moved to his wardrobe and pulled down a blue button-down. “This one is tight on my shoulders. It should fit your frame acceptably.”

Cam didn’t argue this time and rushed to change shirts. He then combed through his damp hair with his fingers, hissing. “This is bullshit. We just woke up.”

“I do not disagree,” Hermes mumbled, moving to his bathroom to rush through a fragment of his morning routine—urinating and swishing mouthwash over his gums at the least.

Minutes later, they opened the door to an even colder-looking Gwn.

“After you,” she hissed, pointing in the direction of the conference rooms.

Cam gave her one of his trademark grins and she didn’t respond.