Archive of Our Own

He lies alone.

It is far too silent for his liking. But he is used to this. He must get used to this. Number One gets to have a room to himself. Number One gets to be alone. He gets to have these things. As if his solitude is a privilege.

It is lonely at the top.

He makes no mistake about this, though. He knows he is not really the only one. If he was, wouldn't this be over by now? That's what everyone has been saying to him — if it was only him, they could end things. If it was only him, they could take back these skies for good.

But it isn't only him.

His thoughts turn, once again, to memories of a sharp silhouette on terracotta skies.

He had borne witness today, to that star on the other side. The one, like him, at the tip of the spear, arcing through the sky and leading the trail of cosmic dust in its wake. The one upon whom everyone has placed their hopes and wishes.

He, too, finds himself wishing. For what, he doesn't know. He only knows that there is a pull, like gravity, but from deep within himself, toward that silhouette. The oddest feeling, like seeing a mirror in the dark and not recognizing the face within.

The shadow self. Or is he the shadow of the other?

The pull comes again, from deeper and lower than before.

There is something captivating in the way that star flies. He has always appreciated that skill in himself, and now, seeing that same skill reflected in the air as if a trick of the light, rouses something within him. A feeling of want. A desire.

He pushes the covers aside.

He does not fully understand it. Does it come from a need to conquer, to rip the skies from undeserving hands in a different, more intimate way? He is not the first, nor will he be the last, to think of the erotic as another arena in which to battle. Or perhaps it comes from some sort of grudging respect, a need to engage with the only one who could provide a challenge. It has been getting boring. Hasn't it?

The image of the dark star in the sky appears in his head again, and like a moth to flame, he follows.

Of all the benefits of solitude, this, perhaps, is the greatest one. No one to see as he pulls his shirt up to expose his abdomen, no one to witness his arousal as he pulls the waistband down, fingers brushing over the hardness at his groin in the dim moonlight.

To prepare is just as important as it is to execute. The one on the other side would know, if he's as good as he thinks. He imagines those hands. A pilot's hands, the kind he knows well, as if they are his own. They follow the same procedure he has known for years. The breathless anticipation as they move downward, stroking bare knuckles against flushed-red switches, the metal body groaning to life. Callused pads thumbing the ridges of center stick, fingers wrapping agonizingly slow around the shaft.

The nemesis flies overhead, taunting him.

He leans into his hand, and soon he is no longer in that empty room. He and his other side are weightless, high up in the clouds, circling over nameless landscapes like twin vultures.

He understands what this is. A taunt, a tease, a quiet begging for a fight. What else could he be asking for? There is nothing between them that could not be a battle.

He imagines angling himself toward the other. Thinks about the way the airframe shifts beneath him as it responds to his touch. Thinks about easing his thumb deep into glowing buttons, thinks about the machine's gentle groans of weapons set at the ready. Thinks about coming close enough to his dark reflection that the plane appears in a reticle of red, the closest thing he has to looking into the eyes of his nemesis.

The nemesis looks back. The eye contact sends a shiver through him, and he understands. It is a dare. Go on. Do it. Take me on.

He thumbs the missile release, circling it lightly with his finger before he presses down. He likes the response, knows it as innately as the response of his own body, the slight jolt of the craft as a missile is let loose. With ease he imagines what his opponent will do. A swift stroke on the joystick in a dodge, wind rushing past like a breath at his ear. It carries a message.

Do you like that?

A whine emerges from his throat. He teases the buttons again.

Do you want more?

He wants to whisper back. Yes. Please.

He circles around, accelerates after the dark star until they are in formation, and he lets himself feel the closing distance between them. It presses up against him, the body of the nemesis he does not know, sheathed in sleek, knife-thin armor. There's an aching as his hand grips the controls between his legs and his hips rise with every slide of his fingers against it. An urge. To demand from the nemesis what he wants, to be filled with him. To be both the commander and the vessel. For him.

The nemesis wants the same thing. He can tell. Their formation grows tighter.

They circle one another as they press forward. He keeps track of where he is, where his hand is. Up and down and up and down. A rhythm for a songless dance. The nemesis is so close to him. He admires him as the rhythm gets faster. The grooves in the metal, the light reflecting off burnished skin, the angles that point him to the apex, to where the nemesis looks back upon him, and smiles.

Take me on.

He imagines that his hand is not his own anymore, that the nemesis has taken the controls, guiding him, sheathing him inside his grip. A gentle coaxing as a moan falls from his lips. Very good. Isn't this what you want?

"Yes," he whispers.

The hand closes on him, rising and falling. His eyes roll back and flutter closed as he thinks. This is what he wanted, isn't it? To be at the whim of his nemesis while being pleasured by him? To take an action and be acted upon in response? It stops mattering to him whose hand it is that is running along his length.

The movement beckons him higher, and he follows. His left hand claws into the sheets where the throttle would be. Fabric curls up in his palms to form the lever. Another push forward, another acceleration, and the thrust of the afterburners shoves him against the bed. He feels the force of it like desperate hands on his hips, feels slickness on his tip like a mouth slipping around him.

He imagines his smell, his taste. Salty like sweat, bitter like jet fuel. And underneath all of it, the tang of metal on metal, of whirring gears and pistons, of a mechanical pumping and gliding of cool and feverish skin against his own.

There you go. That's it. You wanted this, didn't you?

He can barely speak as the hand pumps faster.

What do you want me to do?

Take me, he wants to whisper. Take me down.

But fingers brush again along the ridges and buttons at the tip of the controls, and all that comes out is a shaky breath and the ghost of a moan.

Higher and higher they fly, engines thrumming, muscles quivering as they ascend and break through the clouds. Behind the lids of his eyes he sees the night sky, afire with starlight. Burning plasma from lightyears away, igniting them in turn. The heat forms a sheen of sweat on their bodies, and he looks at his dark reflection again, the one that is like him but is not him but is still him, but it no longer matters who is who. This is the Star upon which he had wished. He is the Star. His breath comes in shallow gasps as they near the edges of the atmosphere, where the air is thin, where the peak of their encounter nears.

The name. His name. It slips out of his mouth the way he imagines a tongue sliding off his own, a breath colliding with his in midair, a jet in the split-second moment before the missile hits. The tenseness before the euphoria of bloodshed. An aching lust, muscles seized up and frozen at the crest of an agonizing bliss.

And then.

Impact.

Explosions. Falling. Red and orange and blinding hot white behind his eyes and along his skin, and he can feel the violent shuddering of the airframe around his form, the airframe that is him but not him, claimed by force and up in flames. The metal spine arches in the heat of it, warping around itself in a fit of pleasure. He grips the center stick harder, trying to regain control of the spasms that have gripped his body. A wetness drips down his fingers and in his ecstasy he believes it to be blood. His blood. The thought of being covered in the blood of his nemesis sends a shiver through him, growing into another inevitable full-body shudder and a barely restrained groan.

He holds fast, controls twitching in his grasp, spiraling out of the air in a deep intoxication, enamored to be both the conquered and the victor, to take and have been taken. The ground fast approaches — just a little longer, he thinks, and looks back for a glimpse of the falling star on the other side before he crashes into his bed again, a wreckage of sweaty sheets and discarded clothing.

It takes him a long moment to open his eyes, to greet reality once again and come to terms with what he has done. His clothes have spilled off the side of the bed, his hand still holding his length and covered in his seed. Wearily he goes about his usual routine to clean himself off, his mind too foggy to fully comprehend the illusion it had so eagerly and vividly conjured up.

When he is done, and his clothes have returned to his body, he opens the window a few inches and gets back into the bed. When he closes his eyes, he imagines himself there again, in a smoldering crater of mangled metal remains, the trail of his stardust still hanging in the sky, mirrored by another trail leading miles and miles away. The cold spring air washes over him in the darkness, blowing away the billowing smoke, and he breathes it in and stares overhead. The night sky remains deep and dark without the two of them in it.

He lies alone in the wreckage, spent, and terribly alive.

And on the other side, in a wreckage just the same, lies the nemesis.