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Tosh looks up from his drink, a quarter pint of dreadful Ferulian cider, to see the commotion at the other end of the bar. A lanky man with a deep brown beard and messy hair, around Tosh’s age, has grabbed the microphone to the internal sound system and has climbed up a table.
“Excuse me, citizens and transplants of the Junk Planet Ferul, I have an announcement to make. If you’re stuck in a time loop right now, I’ll buy you a shot. Hell, I’ll buy you forty if you need it. Thanks!”
Tosh recognizes the guy. It’s Laklan Brimgon, nicknamed Lak, two years ahead of him at the space academy on Terra. The best student in their program and the best pilot, to boot. A lot of people in Tosh’s class admired Lak, others hated him for the way he made everything look so easy. He rose up in the ranks pretty quickly, made Captain of the Sun System’s Front Defence by age twenty-six, and even got his own ship a year or two after. Lak did everything right. Tosh did not, which is why he’s stuck on Ferul, in more ways than one.
Tosh logged a horrible day at the Ferul Informational Center, so bad he was afraid he’d get reassigned by the academy, and the next day found himself in a loop with a Terran moon cycle-long duration. He woke up to the dreary first day of Ferulian winter, cold and rainy. His loop reaches the first sunny day, then goes back to the wet beginning of winter.
He’s lived through four loops now, the first two quite fun, a chance to relax and learn, the third demoralizing and this fourth one simply put, boring. He’s seen all the ways he could do his best in the loop, log in extra hours at work, do better in his private life, even clean up his pod space at the Academy Complex to its shiniest. None of this gets him out of the loop, which is why he’s at the same bar Laklan Brimgon is at, drinking the cider the locals make from apples recycled from other planets.
He seeks out Laklan, and introduces himself. “Hi, I’m Santosh Arumugan. Academy graduation class of 2766. I’m also in a loop.”
Laklan looks at him, assessing with a brow raised. Tosh’s cheeks heat up. Laklan is more handsome than he remembered, lean with compact muscle, a face they used to have on newsreel celluloid posters back on Terra. “What’s up,” he replies, the academy custom of introductions containing one's graduation year abandoned. Maybe Lak already knows that everyone is aware of what year he graduated. “How long?”
“Sorry?” Tosh asks.
“How long have you been in a loop, space cowboy?” Lak clarifies.
Tosh is not a space cowboy. That’s the name they use for fuckups and dropouts at the academy, the Terran men and women trying to make their own way in the world, outside of the academy’s careful system of job allotment.
“Four,” he says truthfully, rolling his shoulders back. “I’m assigned to the IC at Ferul. I gather data from the recycling systems.”
“Swell,” Lak says, knocking back his shot. “Sixty for me.”
“Sixty moon cycles?” Tosh is shocked. He can't even imagine such a long duration to be stuck in time.
“Sixty days.” Lak frowns at him. “Why’d you measure in moon cycles?”
“My loop is thirty sundowns,” Tosh answers. “Yours is only one?”
“You got it,” Lak says darkly, and points at the shelf of hard liquor behind the bar. “What are you drinking?”
“I like the caraway shot.” It reminds him of home, the heavy spice swirling in his mouth before it warms his chest. He hasn’t drunk a lot in the loop, doesn’t want to waste away or get into bad habits. He’s always been a rule-follower at heart.
Lak gestures at the barkeep to get them the drink from the dark red bottle with the seeds at the bottom. The barkeep pours two shots of mild, golden color. Lak looks over his shot at Tosh, which makes something flip in Tosh’s stomach.
It's been a while since he's gone drinking with someone. The Ferulians don't generally make friends with academy people. The longer Tosh has been in the loop, the more he has learned about his new home planet. The humans settled Ferul two centuries ago, and the locals have developed their own culture and customs. They don't warm so quickly to transplants, even if they need the academy’s help with the complex recycling systems.
“You shouldn't call it a Junk Planet,” Tosh tells Lak, armed with his new knowledge.
“Oh yeah?” Lak looks at him intently, eyes moving from Tosh’s half-drunk shot to his face.
“The people here prefer Recycling Planet to be used, if anything.” Tosh pinches the glass between his fingers. He feels a level of trepidation to be speaking so boldly with someone as famous and talented as Laklan.
“What rank are you, cowboy?”
“I'm a lieutenant.”
“And you're correcting a captain of Terra's finest fleet vessel?”
Tosh swallows and feels some of his hero worship drain from him. Laklan may be blunt, but he's also right. He could report Tosh to his commanding officer and his word about Tosh’s insubordination would have significant weight. Tosh could be suspended or fined, put on mandatory leave even.
“I guess I am,” Tosh says, because he knows he's right. He’s used a lot of his time in the loop to understand Ferul better. He knows his shit now.
Lak laughs. “Cute.” His hand comes up to grab Tosh’s chin, sending a shockwave through his spine. “You always have this much of a mouth on you?”
“What do you mean?” Tosh asks, but he doesn't push the hand away, even Laklan's thumb traces his bottom lip, his eyes fixed on Tosh’s mouth. Tosh swallows, his breathing suddenly turns shallow.
“You and I both know Ferulians don't like fucking academy folks.” Laklan's own mouth grins. “So I’m guessing it's been a while for the both of us.”
“I don’t–” Tosh begins, but it lacks conviction. The touch has already had its impact on his whole body, his cock waking up to the tiniest sliver of attention, his lips tingling. His fingers are itching to bunch themselves in Laklan’s shirt. It has been a while, he has to admit, and he’s attracted to Laklan. The loop makes it easier to admit what he wants. “Okay,” he says finally. “Okay.”
Lak pulls him in for a kiss, hands grabbing his shirt. The kiss is sudden, brutal and needy. Lak kisses like he does anything in life, with overflowing confidence and astounding skill, and Tosh can only hold onto his shoulders, hoping he himself can be adequate enough somehow. He returns the kiss, moaning into it as his tongue slides over Laklan’s, hot and demanding.
“Easy there,” Lak says after he pulls back, voice rough and strangely sweet. “I know a place.”
The place, it turns out, is just the bathroom stall of the bar they’re in, away from prying eyes. Tosh thinks about saying how deeply the overly cleanly Ferulians disapprove of sex in toilets, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal to make the argument, not with Laklan’s hands groping him through during another searing kiss. One hand grabs his ass through the rough linen of his trousers, and the other tilts his head so Lak can bite on the exposed neck. Tosh groans, his cock filling up helplessly.
“Come on,” Lak grunts, his hips pressing against Tosh’s. Tosh feels Lak’s own hardness through the fabric, lengthy and delicious.
The slightest pressure of a hand on his shoulder is enough to get him on his knees on the surprisingly non-disgusting bathroom floor. Laklan opens his uniform’s trousers, the academy issued pair with the shiny silver buttons. Tosh looks up at him, trying to swallow his nerves. He’s given blowjobs before, plenty of them. Never to a guy as famous as Lak, a guy who could have anyone. The cock he takes out of his underwear is just as long as Tosh imagined, flushed and dark at the head. Tosh licks at the slit tentatively, his hand tight around the warm skin of the base, his eyes up and carefully gauging Lak’s reaction.
“Fuck.” Lak’s cock pulses against his tongue and Tosh feels his own erection twitch. Impulsive and weird, the whole situation is hot, and he squeezes his own trouser front to kill some of the pressure building in himself. His cheeks are burning. Lak’s hand moves over a cheek bone, the rough pad of the thumb caressing gently before he tangles his fingers in Tosh’s hair, grips it tight.
It’s Tosh’s turn to moan, his mouth sinking deep on the cock. Its smooth surface slides on his flattened tongue, and even as it hits the back of his throat, he does his best not to gag. He wants to do good, like this is a new academy exam, and wants to show Laklan he can give a superstar blowjob despite not being a superstar at anything else in his life.
Lak’s cock fills him, and he lets himself get immersed in the feeling of it, bobbing his head on the beautiful length. Lak’s hand doesn’t guide him, just remains tangled in his hair. Tosh likes it there. He likes how Lak’s eyes are squeezed shut, lip tucked between rows of teeth to keep himself quiet. He doesn’t quite manage, and groans when Tosh gets him all the way in, cockhead pushing on the inside of cheek. Lak’s hips begin to move, slowly, little rolls towards Tosh’s mouth, and Tosh lets him. He lets Lak control the movement for a moment, the thrusts picking up speed before the fingers in his hair tighten considerably, a warning for him to pull off or keep up. Tosh keeps up. He sucks on the cockhead with focus and intent, tonguing the rim as Laklan comes with a hissing sound, barely controlled.
Tosh swallows him eagerly. He’s always liked this part, observing the way someone has been shaken and unraveled by an orgasm. He licks the cock clean, tucks it back in gently, and comes back up standing.
Lak looks at him through lazy, half-closed eyelids. “You did good, pretty boy.”
Tosh has never been told he’s pretty, doesn’t quite know if it’s sarcastic or not. Then Lak pulls him forward, and kisses him again, slow and exploratory this time. Tosh groans, his cock jumping when Lak pushes a thigh between Tosh’s legs. He isn’t that much shorter than Lak, but he’s a little hunched over. His hands grab onto Laklan’s hips for leverage.
“There you go,” Lak says softly when Tosh starts rutting against the thigh, feeling the much welcome friction against his hard cock over fabric.
It’s so good. His mouth falls open and Lak’s hand tangles in his hair again, pulling him close for a kiss. The sensation of the firm, muscled thigh on his cock, and Lak’s hot, careful tongue, the strong fingers in his hair, makes him forget their surroundings. The time loop, which could go on forever, the bathroom, the unfriendly Ferulians, it all falls away for a moment. He chases the tight feeling in his abdomen, and it bunches up until he gets over the brink. He spills, crying out tightly into Lak’s mouth, his smiling kiss.
Tosh is dazed. Laklan holds him up, his lips and beard tickling a trail down the side of Tosh’s neck. He opens up Tosh’s trousers, cleans him up with a gentle hand and some tissues. Tosh watches it happen, still sunken into the touch. He doesn’t really want to let go.
“That was hot,” Lak says, a murmur against Tosh’s skin. “You do that often?”
“Can’t say I do,” Tosh admits.
Laklan straightens to his full height, and puts a few inches of distance between them. His eyes carefully view Tosh’s face, the blushed cheeks, the wrecked mouth, the tired eyes. “Well, if you want to do that again, seek me out.”
“I will,” Tosh promises. “It’ll be a while, my time loop is –”
“Thirty sundowns, I know,” Lak says, a small smile at the corner of his lips. “And then when you finally get out, contact the Recruitment Center and get in touch. Got a job for you aboard my ship.”
Tosh is stunned. “What? I wasn’t a great student at the academy, you know.”
“You spoke your mind, called me out on my shit.” Lak tilts his head, his look assessing. “I need more guys like that on my ship.”
“Okay,” Tosh says, slightly disbelieving. “I guess I’ll do that.”
He tries to imagine what it would be like to work on Laklan’s ship, beneath him in more ways than one. He flushes, enjoys the thought. It might not even happen, but if it does, he wouldn’t mind it.
“Good job, cowboy.” Laklan’s hand holds Tosh’s chin, making him look up at him. “Now you’re going to tell me all about your loop, and these goddamn Ferulians. Teach me a thing or two about the planet I’m stuck on.”
Tosh grins. “In the bathroom?”
“No, I’ll buy you another drink,” Lak says and unlocks the stall door. “Let’s go.”
Tosh’s heart beats rapidly as he follows Laklan, and it only calms by the third drink, when he’s explaining the differences between South and North Ferulians, their ways of life and their different accents.
For the first time in a while, he feels the loop serves a purpose.