The jump was different this time.
It wasn't that the pain was missing—it was there, as always, deep in the bones, in the marrow, in the roots of their teeth. But this time, Mason felt something else. The prototype didn't scream like it had during previous jumps. This time, it groaned. A deep, metallic, structural groan, as if the machine itself knew it was carrying them to the wrong place.
The cabin shook, but not violently—rhythmically, like the last beats of a dying heart. The displays didn't flash white and black. This time, a single color dominated them: red. A deep, dark red, like drying blood.
Then, silence.
Not the ringing silence that had greeted them after the 14th-century forest. This silence was different. Heavy. Dense. As if the air itself carried a weight. No birdsong or rushing wind reached Mason’s ears—only a deep, steady, mechanical hum that came from somewhere in the distance, and from everywhere all at once.
Mason opened his eyes.
The cabin was dark, but a reddish-brown light seeped through the viewport. Not the warmth of sunlight—something else. Something artificial. As if an eternal fire were burning on the horizon.
"Are you guys okay?" he asked, his voice raspy, like someone who hadn't spoken in hours.
Elena sat in the pilot's seat, her hands resting on the console. Her face was gray with exhaustion, but her eyes were sharp.
"I'm alive. The ship... I don't know. Diagnostics are showing strange data."
"How strange?"
"According to chronometry, it's 2187."
Mason’s stomach dropped. 2187. More than a hundred and sixty years after their own time.
"Adrian?"
The voice came from his lap. Adrian was there, curled up against Mason’s chest, his face buried in his neck. His skin was hot, but not like in the 14th century. His fever had broken. The penicillin—the begged, scavenged, forest penicillin—had worked.
"I'm here," Adrian said, his voice weak but clear. His blue eyes opened, and Mason saw in them what he always saw: the light that never went out. "Where are we?"
Mason didn't answer right away. He looked out at the world through the viewport, and words failed him.
Because the world stretched out beyond the viewport wasn't a world.
It was ruins. Ruins as far as the eye could see. Whatever city had once been there—the concrete blocks, the steel frames, the melted glass—had all frozen into black shards and torsos. The sky was red, not from a sunset, but from something else: metallic, shimmering particles drifted among the clouds, and the light filtering through them looked like drying blood.
The smell of the air flooded through the cracks. Mason recoiled. It wasn't the smell of damp earth or rotting leaves. This was different. Ozone. Burnt plastic. And something sickeningly sweet, as if decay itself were an industrial process.
"The future," Mason whispered. "Our future."
Adrian raised his head and looked through the viewport too. His face, which had started to regain a little color, went pale again.
"My God," he said, his voice not a whisper, but a prayer.
The First Night
Elena worked on repairing the ship, but the news wasn't good.
"The core’s energy cell is down to a third. The jump destabilizer is mostly intact, but the chronometric module is damaged. I don't know exactly when we'll jump, if at all."
"How much time?" Mason asked.
"Days. Maybe more. But we have a bigger problem."
"What is it?"
"The machine can't take repeated jumps. If it takes another impact this heavy, the core will disintegrate. We have one jump. Just one. Back to our own time—or somewhere else. We can't gamble."
Mason nodded. One chance. Not to be wasted.
Adrian lay in the sleep berth—a narrow bed in the back of the prototype that Elena had fitted for long jumps. His body was still weak, his fever had dropped, but the wound on his side, burned into him by the Lord of Time, was healing slowly. The skin around it was pink, tender, but not infected.
Mason lay down beside him. The narrow bed forced them to press close—Adrian’s back pressed against Mason’s chest, their rear ends touching, their legs tangled together.
Adrian turned his head back, and his eyes—that blue that had always been Mason’s undoing—found Mason’s in the dim light.
"I'm afraid for you," Adrian said. Not like someone feeling sorry for himself. More like stating a fact.
"I know," Mason said. "You're afraid for me too."
"No. Not for you. I'm not afraid with you. I'm afraid because of the world. Because of what's out there." Adrian gestured toward the viewport where the red sky bled in. "This happens. This is going to happen. And we... we are the ones who saw it. And we can't stop it."
Mason didn't answer right away. His hand drifted to Adrian’s hip and stayed there. Not sexually—not yet. But the way a man holds the one he loves when he’s afraid of losing him.
"Maybe we can," he said finally. "Maybe we're here precisely to stop it."
Adrian didn't answer. He leaned back, his body relaxing into Mason’s, his breathing slowly growing even. Mason felt his heartbeat through his back—slow, strong, alive.
Outside, the red sky didn't darken. There was no night. Only the red light shifted—turning to a deeper, darker shade, as if the world were slowly going limp, but not sleeping.
Mason didn't sleep. He watched over Adrian, as he had for the past weeks—his hand on his hip, his face in his neck, his ear pressed over his heart.
The Body That Remained
The next morning—if it was morning at all; you couldn't tell from the red sky—Adrian was better.
Not well. But better. His eyes were clearer, his movements less unsteady. He sat up in the sleep berth and pressed his palm against Mason’s chest.
"It hurts," he said, not pointing to his wound. To his heart.
Mason knelt in front of him on the edge of the bed. In the cramped space, their knees touched. Mason’s hand cupped Adrian’s face, his thumb tracing the cheekbone, the jawline, the corner of his lips.
"I know," he said. "Me too."
"No," Adrian shook his head. "Not the world. Not the future. Not the robots or the Lord of Time. You. You hurt. Being here with you and not touching you. Not really. Not the way I want to. I was always afraid, we were always rushing, something was always chasing us. I..." his voice cracked, and his eyes welled up, but he didn't cry. Adrian didn't cry easily. "I want to touch you. Just you. Not because of survival. Not because of fear. But because you are you, and I’m alive, and you’re alive, and we’re here, and the world outside is dying, and I don't want death to be the last thing I feel. I want you to be the last."
Mason didn't answer with words.
His hand slid to the back of Adrian’s neck, his fingers threading into his hair—dark hair, slightly salty with sweat, still soft behind his ear. Mason leaned closer, his lips touching Adrian’s forehead. It wasn't a kiss. Not yet. A touch. The warmth of a mouth on skin. Adrian’s eyes closed, and a sound left his throat—neither a sigh nor a groan, but something between the two, something standing on the border of surrender and desire.
Mason’s lips drifted down. The temple. The cheekbone. The bridge of his nose, where Adrian’s skin was warm and smooth. The cheek, where stubble was starting to grow back—rough, dark hairs that brushed against the fine hair on Mason’s lips. Adrian’s head tilted, and their lips finally met.
They didn't rush.
That was the first thing that was different. Their previous kisses—in the warehouse, in the prototype, in the forest—had all been urgent, desperate, as if every kiss might be their last. Not this one. This kiss was slow, like a deep breath. Mason’s lips settled against Adrian’s and didn't move. Just stayed there. Feeling the warmth, the soft tissue, the slight parting of lips as Adrian opened his mouth, and his tongue—slowly, carefully, like someone remembering injuries and not wanting to reopen them—slid forward and touched Mason’s lips.
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