Gravity (Male x Male)

Chapter 5 - The Arrival

I was still on cloud nine a full ten minutes later, when I finally stopped grinning insanely. I packed the chess board and pieces back into their box, since they were still strewn over the bed and the floor. Still smiling, I made my way into the cockpit of the small spacecraft to join Keleon.

He was just climbing out of a hole in the floor, his toned arms showing off his tight muscles either side of his armless T-shirt as they lifted his weight out of the cavity. I wanted to press rewind and watch him do that again.

"I couldn't find anything wrong with the artificial gravity," he said thoughtfully, as he looked up at me with those crystal blue eyes, wiping his hands on a cloth.

"Do you think it could have just been a glitch that rectified itself?" I asked.

"I thought that too," he replied. "So, I checked the system. According to the logs, there was no glitch. As far as the computer's concerned, the gravity was fine."

"Maybe the computer got it wrong?" I offered. I hadn't had much experience with computers, so I didn't really know if this was possible.

"I've never known a computer to not log a technical glitch," he said. "However, I guess it could be possible, theoretically." He shrugged. "Well, we saw things floating, and it seems like the only explanation left. Still, it's probably a good idea to check the other systems in case we have a bigger problem."

Keleon got to work, checking various other systems. He talked me through what he was doing and how he was doing it, and I felt like I learned quite a lot from him. I asked lots of questions, but I didn't feel like I helped that much, other than pass him tools now and again. Best of all, I got to see yet another side of him; a side that had a great depth of knowledge about ships' systems. I remembered he also had a great deal of knowledge about nuclear reactions in different star types as well as being a good pilot. He was certainly intelligent.

After we finished the system checks, I grabbed some food and water from the ration store and sat in the co-pilot chair next to Keleon, who was back in the pilot's chair.

"Hey," I started. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," replied Keleon, facing me with his feet still up on the dashboard.

"So, you're pretty amazing. You know all sorts of things about stars and planets. You can fly a ship, fix a ship and break someone out of a medical facility ... but you seriously didn't recognise I was flirting with you?"

"I don't know what 'flirting' is," he admitted.

"Oh, OK," I uttered, although I probably shouldn't have been surprised, given the way he'd been acting. I wasn't sure how to describe it though. "Um, flirting is when one person is saying suggestive things to another person, or acting a certain way, hoping that it may result in something like kissing."

"And you were doing this with me?" he asked, looking slightly confused.

"Yeah," I admitted, slightly sheepishly. "I guess you haven't had many people flirt with you?"

Although with him looking that gorgeous, I couldn't imagine why not.

"I've spent a lot of time on my own," he said. "I like exploring. Being out in space. I don't often have a lot to do with others."

"Right, makes sense."

And it did. If he wasn't around other people much, he wouldn't have experienced innuendo and flirty banter before. I hadn't too much myself, being essentially behind a forcefield for three years, but there were other people there, and some of them did a little flirting. And of course, there were films.