Everything stilled around them. Simon felt Gurren Lagann's arms relax through the quantum interface, the metal shuddering into a more compatible configuration, settling against itself. Kamina groaned.

The Gunmen that had been following them were trashed. Crumpled scrap lay steaming at their feet.

"Turn off the com," Kamina instructed him. Simon called back a short affirmative and made sure that their communication was insular.

"You alright?" he asked.

He was thinking about opening up the physical connection between their cockpits so he could see his copilot, but Kamina grunted out a quick, "yeah, be quiet."

Simon heard him wrestling with his clothing. "Bro?"

"Shut-up."

"Are you okay?"

"Just give me a minute and be quiet."

They were linked up through the machines, Simon hooked into Lagann, and Kamina hooked into Gurren, the both of them hooked into each other. Kamina groaned again, and Simon almost felt it, like there was the ghost of a hand in his pants. He pressed his lips together and held his breath.

There were about six to eight inches of metal between them. Simon could feel the space Kamina occupied through his feet, a hollow in the guts of Gurren's figure, suspended on a gyroscope. He groaned again, voice picked up by Gurren and broadcast into Lagann. The sound crashed over Simon in waves of fission.

"Bro, Yoko and Leeron will be here any minute," Simon tried, mortified by the situation, and his over enthusiastic response to it.

"I'll be quick," Kamina told him. "I'm really hard, so-"

Simon swallowed. His saliva felt thick in his throat. Kamina was swearing, grip tightening, and Simon knew it. He wasn't lying when he said it wouldn't take long. Simon was wholly aware of him shuddering. He was only three feet away, and tapped into the quantum matter of Kamina's consciousness.

He checked around, trying to see if he could spot the rest of their party. They were out of sight, probably a good way behind and trying to catch up. One of the other gunmen had gone in a different direction. It was entirely possible Yoko had decided to take it on by herself and Leeron had tagged along. Now, with the com and the link it broadcast off, they'd probably be having a bit of a hard time tracking Gurren Lagann down.

He tried to be quiet when he dropped his hand into his own lap and kneaded himself through his shorts.

Kamina's breathing was labored, and when Simon closed his eyes he got half flashes of thoughts from the other boy, the feeling of hands imagined on bodies, movement, fantasies no one should have been privy to that Simon was now obtusely aware of. They felt the same as the echoes of physical stimulus, just as intangible, and just as compelling.

His hips came up off the seat and ground into his hand hard, back arching as he used his toes to push for more leverage. He wanted to cum just as badly as he wanted to drag it out, get caught in the wash of hormones transferred between them. His head was light and so were his legs as his body clamped down around the sensation.

"I'm really fucking close," he heard Kamina mutter quickly.

Simon's bottom lip throbbed lightly where Kamina was biting his own, and he focused on that as he leaned his head back against Lagann's seat, finishing silently into his underpants. Kamina swore as he came, the sound of his sandals skidding across the floor of Gurren's cockpit underscoring his voice and the whine it trailed off into.

Simon shivered and covered his crotch with both his hands, hoping the wetness wouldn't leak through onto his outer clothes.

"Kamina?" he asked when there was a long moment of silence. He listened for a moment longer to Kamina's breathing as it continued to calm. The whole situation was a bit fucked up. They were fresh out of a deadly fight, and they were likely standing over the corpses of several sentient beings.

"Yeah, you can turn the com back on," the older boy said. Simon listened as he did his pants back up, and then reconnected them to the party conversation.

There was chatter on the other end of the line, slightly frantic in nature, Yoko looking for their signal.

"We're right here," Kamina said, calmly. He sounded slightly winded, and when Simon looked at him where he'd popped up on screen, his face was a bit flushed. He felt his dick jump in his pants, half eager for more attention, and tried his best to ignore it.

"Kamina, where were you?! We thought the two of you got into real trouble! You can't just go offline like that, what were you thinking?" Yoko yelled through the link immediately.

Kamina chuckled softly. "Just needed to take care of a little business is all. Everything's wrapped up on our end."

"How's Simon?" Yoko asked.

"Simon? He's fine. I think?" Kamina said lazily. The physical connection between Gurren and Lagann yawned, and Simon looked down through his legs to see Kamina sitting in the pit beneath him. "How ya doin', buddy?"

"Good," he said, knowing his voice came out tight.

"Yeah, all good."

"You're sure?" Yoko questioned.

"Never been better. I feel all loose! That was a fuckin' fight!" Kamina said. Simon could hear Yoko roll her eyes.

"Let's get moving," he said. His head felt slightly fuzzy, but it wasn't negative. There was a pleasant buzz in the back of his skull that found a twin in his stomach.

He heard Kamina clear his throat as they started back up, and began to home in on Yoko and Leeron's position, but the other boy didn't say anything about what had just happened. Simon's stomach sat on pins wondering weather or not Kamina knew he'd joined in.

By the time they'd disconnected their units and gotten out to turn in for the night, Kamina had removed all evidence off the incident from Gurren's interior. He never mentioned it.