Right Back After This

Episode 27

The beeping warns them that they have ten minutes left. Riz is laying on Kiel's chest, because he can. They're both silent, but the heavy breathing that Riz is feeling underneath him tells him Kiel is only catching his breath. Or maybe he just needed to be fucked into silence.

Riz feels spent, in a good way. It's impossible to tell if he enjoyed that more than Ares because of something physical, or something mental; your brain is just part of your body, at the end of the day, so maybe it's all the same. He can probably say Kiel was better just because he came twice.

Less good is the way Kiel says, as if he's actually been thinking about it, "...uh, thanks."

Riz laughs, and sits up now, sitting himself on the floor beside Kiel. "Thanks?"

"What? I'm sorry. Look, I don't know what to say, alright?" Kiel sits up, too, and Riz goes about redressing- and he notices, as he stands, the way Kiel leans towards him, as if reaching out for him.

"You've never had casual sex before?" Riz looks at him with a raised eyebrow, as if he's got plenty of experience. He's got some. "You don't need to act like I did you a favour."

"That's- not what I meant. Whatever." Kiel crosses his arms, and Riz watches him curiously for a moment.

"That wasn't your virginity, was it?" Riz asks, and Kiel looks at him, confused. "Was that the first sex you've ever had?"

"What? No. Sort of. I dunno, define sex."

Riz raises his eyebrows at that. "Oh, really?"

Kiel looks at him, and he's slow to get up, to start redressing himself. He bites his lip again, and it looks almost bruised, the shark's teeth always coming too close to breaking skin. "First time I've actually done it because I wanted to." He looks shocked at his own words. "Sorry."

It takes Riz a moment to parse what that means. "Oh. Fuck." He almost says I'm sorry, but while he hasn't had that experience, he's had close enough that he knows sympathy isn't what Kiel is looking for. It's just that when you're wide open like this, the deepest parts of yourself show- and those wounds go as deep as your soul. "Are you sure that was okay? If I knew I would've-"

"You didn't press me at all." Kiel won't make eye contact, but Riz has to believe him- they don't have time to argue back and forth about it, so presumably Kiel is telling the truth, or else he isn't ready to. "You were explicitly waiting for consent to do anything. That shouldn't be a high bar, but sometimes it is."

Riz isn't sure if he should push on this, not when the clock is ticking down and they probably need to leave a few minutes apart anyway. Kiel doesn't give him a chance, regardless. "Can I ask what the fuck you mean you're not from Deliquet?"

"Oh." Riz closes his eyes, turns the situation over in his head; can he tell the full truth to Kiel? "It's something hidden from the fans for a lot of reasons. You much into politics?"

"You don't learn shit about politics on Ellery*." That rings a bell as Kiel's home planet- a silver world, but not much else sticks out to him. "Politics lets you be informed enough to change the world, change the universe. They wanna keep you ignorant so you can't challenge the way of life they've set out for you."

"Is that a yes?"

Kiel looks at him sideways, and says, "it depends what you're afraid of. I have nobody to tell and nothing I can do right now. Nothing I can do ever, really. What is it? Frater Raro embezzling your money?"

Riz crosses his arms. "I'm surprised you know that much of the story."

"I read your wiki. People think it's hate-reading, or figuring out how to tear you down. It's great cover for simple curiosity."