Free Walking to the Stars by Laney Cairo

sleep."
    Samuel shook his head. “Me, too,” he said.
    "Ask Josh,” Nick said. “He's in the top paddock, fixing up a fence that a procoptodon took out. He wants to talk to you about the thylacines, too, see if we can move them somewhere."
    Talgerit nodded. “I'll find Josh, and have a look around for thylacines. I can ask Ed if you're allowed to move them."
    "Do you like the ‘roo?” Nick asked later, over dinner, while Samuel chewed another mouthful.
    "It's good,” Samuel said. “I've never eaten so much meat before in my life. We usually only eat poultry in Guyana, there isn't enough land to run ruminants, but this is good."
    It was, thick and gamey and tender, in gooey gravy, all the corn and vegetables cooked down to a pulp, and Samuel appreciated the quantity of food, too. He'd been hungry on the freighter, but it hadn't been cold, not down in the engine rooms, not like it was on the farm, and the cold made him ravenous.
    "I'll take your plaster off tomorrow,” Nick said around a mouthful. “Time to take the sutures out, before the skin grows over them. Then I'll re-plaster you."
    "Oh,” Samuel said. “I'd forgotten about that bit."
    "Won't hurt,” Nick said, and Samuel decided he couldn't trust him the least bit on that.
    After dinner, they sat on opposite sides of the stove, a candle each, and when Samuel glanced up from a novel of dubious literary purport, Nick was watching him.
    It was quiet; the stove crackled faintly; the wind whistled a little around the gaps in the floorboards, and when Nick didn't say anything, didn't shift his gaze, Samuel put his book aside. He could wait for Nick, at least for a while. He wasn't going anywhere for the next few weeks.
    The wind picked up a little, making the roof creak, and Samuel could hear the branches of the gum tree beside the house rattling against each other. Harold barked once, quietly, on the back verandah, and Nick's face was in shadow, half-hidden by beard and darkness, completely unreadable.
    Samuel closed his eyes slowly, deliberately, and breathed out slowly, let his shoulders relax, his hand unclasp from the arms of the chair.
    He heard a creak, a whisper of movement, and fingertips pressed against his uninjured thigh briefly, then a moment later, something drifted across his cheek. The pressure trailed down his cheek, across his beard, and the touch intensified.
    It was too much to bear, and Samuel opened his eyes. Nick's eyes were hooded, and his thumb stroked across Samuel's cheek, slow and smooth and so good that Samuel could hardly breathe.
    He felt like he was melting, and it seemed to him that he'd never wanted someone to touch him so desperately before, never needed it.
    Nick's cheek was fire-warm, stray beard hairs wandering up the curve, coarse and strong against skin that time had marked. His temple was scored, by worry lines and sunshine, and Samuel flattened the lines out with his thumb, coaxing the skin smooth, trying to catch a glimpse of the young man that Nick must have been.
    When Nick lifted his gaze, meeting Samuel's eyes, he looked so uncertain that Samuel longed to speak, longed to tell him that it was going to be all right, he didn't need to look so scared, but words might have broken what was happening between them; and Nick would ultimately have to live with himself afterward.
    Nick's hand was around Samuel's neck now, cradling, and the fingertips of his other hand were floating under Samuel's eye, brushing his eyelashes, making his eyelid flicker, and they shared a sound of mutual amusement, exhalation and rumble.
    Samuel was smiling, he could feel it, feel his cheeks folding and the cool air on his teeth, and Nick smiled back at him, and it seemed like they were going to reach some kind of mutual understanding after all.
    Laughter bubbled up inside Samuel, overflowed, and then they were both laughing. Samuel slid one hand around behind Nick's neck and guided their mouths together.
    It was better than the first time, more