Archive of Our Own

We have not touched the stars,

nor are we forgiven, which brings us back

to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes,

not from the absence of violence, but despite

the abundance of it.

Night 1:

The sun has set long before he opens his eyes. When he rolls onto his stomach, he lies in the dirt and the dust for a moment, unable to process for the ringing still in his ears. His head aches and there is blood, tacky and dry, against his forehead, beneath his nose and mouth, along the slope of his throat. He has taken several beatings in his life, but never before has he felt this damaged, this raw. He wonders if there is some kind of internal injury. As he blinks, trying to adjust his vision to the low light, he suddenly startles in that dust and dirt, his body convulsing with shock as it occurs to him that he is lying there in almost-total darkness. It is night time. They only had minutes on the clock before Destiny jumped back to FTL. It is night time.

He tells himself to get up.

For a long time, he cannot bring himself to move.

Eventually, eventually, he coaxes his body to shift, to spasm, to move. His limbs are sluggish and heavy as he gets his arms and legs under himself. One arm, then the other. One knee, then another. One foot, and then, he is on his feet. He waivers there, in the dusk and dirt of this alien world, feeling the oppressive weight of the cosmos as they seem to loom claustrophobic over his head. It is night time. Destiny is gone.

In his pocket, there is a knife, folded steel and bone, and he takes it in his shaking fist. He holds it there, a moment, as though it can ground him, before popping the blade open and holding it for another beat longer. Then, turning, he nearly stumbles against the hull of the wrecked alien spacecraft, where he brings the knife up to bear, sinking it into the seam of the sealed hatch.

He works it for what feels like hours. His fingers are numb and slick with what could be either sweat or blood. Finally, there is a snapping sound, a giving sound, so loud in the still and deserted night atmosphere. The hatch slips open with a hiss of compressed air, cold and dank in his face.

Behind him, in the dust and dirt and debris, remnants of the sudden and brutal rockslide that had come over them too quickly to be avoided, there is a long, low, but much-more organic hiss. Rush turns to look over his shoulder then, tossing his long, stringy hair from his eyes. On his back in all that dust and dark, Colonel Young opens his eyes and stares up into the star-swirled night sky.

We've read

the back of the book, we know what's going to happen.

The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left

broken in the brown dirt. And then it's gone.

Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye

Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all

in Heaven. But there's a litany of dreams that happens

somewhere in the middle.

Day 1:

Rush is pounding on the console, swearing under his breath, before he lets out a positively inhuman howl of rage. Young is sitting tucked in the far corner of the cramped alien vessel, watching the other man as he snarls and shouts, beating his fists on a dimly-lit array of readout screens and crystals and buttons. Finally, Rush's shoulders hunch and he bows his head, letting out a soft sob of agonized defeat.

"You'll get it eventually," Young hears himself saying before he has even made up his mind to speak.

"It's completely unfamiliar, and there's not enough power," Rush replies brokenly.

"It's only been a day."

"We only have three before the lack of water starts to kill us both," he mutters darkly.

"The sky to the south is darker today than it was yesterday. Could be a storm brewing." Young refuses to give in to the kind of despair the other man is already wearing like a shroud.

"We cannot count on 'Could be', Colonel," Rush tilts his head back, back arching because he is still half-slumped over the computer station. The slur of Scotch syllables is positively alliterative. In the dark of that spacecraft, Rush is elegance and despair.

"Come here," Young says softly. He doesn't know what it is he's actually asking, what it is he wants the other man to do. Shaking his head in defiance of the gentle demand, Rush begins to punch more mysterious buttons, cycling through more unreadable data.

Close your eyes. A lover is standing too close

to focus on. Leave me blurry and fall toward me

with your entire body. Lie under the covers, pretending

to sleep,

Night 2:

It is so cold on this planet — even in the shelter of the shuttle, it is so bitterly cold.

To conserve the limited resources, Rush has powered down all of the consoles, leaving only a very dim blue light glowing where the metal flooring meets the joints of the wall (because who knows how long they have before whatever reserves they are operating on dissipate completely?). There are no blankets, no pillows, by their standards, in this craft. There is a long, deep rectangle of a spongy material tucked in the corner that is clearly meant to be some kind of sleeping space, but it is only designed for one body and there is only one of the strange rubber-like mats they have found in one of the nearby storage compartments. They are huddled together under that mat, which does provide some base level of insulation, entangled in a manner that should be uncomfortable, could be awkward, but both men are pragmatists (and another body in the dark is also so very warm). Rush is lying, practically on top of Young, his dark, shaggy hair on the other man's throat where he has the top of his head tucked under Young's chin. The broader man is holding the more slender one in both his arms, wrapped around them both protectively. (The way he had held him the day before, a spur-of-the-moment impulse, a fellowship, a bulwark). It is not embarrassing, nor awkward here in this dark, stale space. It is still shockingly intimate even if it is only about survival, not romance.

Rush shifts for a moment, his body tensing sharply in Young's tasteful, gentle embrace. He locks his limbs tightly and flexes. His hips stutter and his right joint pops audibly in the socket. When this happens, he lets out a quiet sigh and relaxes to boneless-ness. He is not content but he is safe.

"Better?" Young rumbles from below him. He lifts his gaze and takes in the colonel's eyes, large and dark in the dim light, as brown as his own and shining with an emotion he can't identify.

"I thought you were asleep," he replies, sorry to have apparently woken the other man.

"Tomorrow, we'll check the traps again," Young answers with a non-sequitur. Earlier, he had carefully placed several of the crates they had found in storage out in various positions around what they are referring to as Their Camp. The crates appear to be designed to capture small creatures. It looks as though this vessel is some kind of fact-finding craft, meant to gather samples and resources to be then taken for further study somewhere else. There are the small cages and various bottles and containers with strange measurements etched onto the sides. There is no potable water or food, at least by human standards. There is no sign of what became of the original crew of this craft, either. They are utterly alone on this drab alien rock with only the clothes on their backs.

Rush has managed to use kino remote Young had been carrying to connect to the ship's database. He still cannot read their alphabet, but their numbers and coding seem to correspond to the figures and constants Rush knows, so he has been able to send it limited requests, some of which have triggered output in reply, and some of that data he can actually translate, a mathematical Rosetta Stone. Young is impressed and tries his best to leave him to it. He doesn't know computers, doesn't know math. He busies himself with setting traps and collective containers on the perimeter, with digging a latrine with the spade he'd found in the craft, and with exploring the nearby areas, though he has not dared go too far. The rocks are loose all around them and the sun beats down so oppressively. There is still no water and he has forgotten what it feels like to know anything but thirst. There are a few rough and battered trees on the next ridge and he had left several traps around them in the hopes that they would attract creatures as either a potential source of food or of shelter. There are a few nut-like items from the trees, but they have no way to determine of they're edible.

As if on cue, Rush's stomach growls and Young clutches him to his chest a little harder in response. They won't have time to starve to death, Young knows. Rush had been right earlier — dehydration will kill them long before that point.

"I need to access the computer's star charts and navigation," Rush whispers, in a non-sequitur of his own.

"Could we dial the Gate with that?"

"Possibly. Assuming I could calculate potential Gate addresses. But, with no kino, we'd literally be flying blind."

"So it maybe the best to just stay put?"

"They can't come back for us, Colonel," he whispers morosely in the dark. "If we don't use the Gates, or get this ship operational…"

"I'm not giving up on us yet, Rush," he admonishes, but his voice is gentle, almost tender in its kindness.

"Such optimism," Rush chuckles, a bit bitterly, but there is real humor there, "...Didn't realize you had it in you."

Young smiles into the other man's soft, oily hair. "I contain multitudes."

Explaining will get us nowhere.

I was away, I don't know where, lying on the floor,

pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you

but the victory is that I could not stomach it. We have

swallowed him up, they said. It's beautiful. It really is.

Day 2:

They had been fighting (of course they had been) when it had happened. He'd calmly accused Rush of duplicity, of betrayal; Rush had calmly agreed that he had framed Young for murder because he was a failure and a disgrace. In his rage (cold and chilling and oh-so calculated) Young had simply lifted his hand, lips drawing back, half-grimace, half-grin, all stable instability, and punched Rush in the face.

Rush had gone down with the shock of the blow, pure surprise on his narrow face, loose hair floating around him like a halo. But halos were for saints and angels and Rush was clearly neither, and, in that moment, Young had wanted to hurt him so badly and so strongly that it had caught him by pure surprise as well. But Everett Young had never been a man with the strength to resist temptation and repress impulses and desires. He'd wanted to murder Rush, in that split-second in time.

They had scrabbled and scrambled in the dirt, arms and fists and elbows, knees and feet and thighs, meeting again and again in progressively more violent and harried blows. Finally, Rush had managed to close his fingers around a rock, one large enough to weigh a solid amount but small enough to clutch in his tight fist. When Rush had pulled the rock away from the cliff-side they had been brawling against, he'd managed to brain Young in the side of the face with it, badly cutting his forehead open and making Young's left eye short circuit for a moment, so all he'd seen was grey, pulsing dimness, and then, he'd blinked and the sight had been restored.

Then, then, there had been a groaning sound, and, at first, Young had not been sure which one of them it was coming from, only to realize it wasn't coming from anything organic at all. The cliff above them had gurgled, had grumbled, and then, with a low roar Young could still feel in his bones, the cliff above had buckled and rained down on top of them. He had reached for Rush, as Rush's flailing arms had closed around his waist. Bowing his back like a shield, he had covered Rush with his body, trying to protect the man he had only just moments ago decided to kill. And the rocks had grown larger, fallen faster, and hit harder, and he had known nothing more for some time.

…

He comes to with the sounds of that rockslide still echoing in his ears — a thundering, a rasping; part torrent, part kiss. Putting his hand to his scabbed and scarring wound above his left eye, Young sits up with a groan, and the rubber blanket falls away, along with Rush's battered, overlarge tan jacket where it has been tucked around him as an added, insolating layer against the cold. Rush is not in the bunk.

…

When Young eases his way through the dented hatch, he sees Rush, upright and stationary a few feet away, in the dim grey light of morning. He is standing with his arms spread wide, head thrown back, mouth open in a sloppy, elated grin. His eyes are closed and his hair and clothing are plastered against his pale skin. He looks boneless and content and alive. The dark sky is pouring oceans of cool, dark rain.

Imagine

my legs crossed, my hair combed, the shine of my boots

in the slatted light. I'm thinking This is where

we live. When we were little we made houses out of

cardboard boxes. We can do anything. It's not because

our hearts are large, they're not, it's what we

struggle with.

Night 7:

"Nakai," Rush says softly, as though sounding the word out with his mouth, working it with his throat contemplatively.

"I'm sorry?" Young asks, looking up from the small lizard he is peeling the skin from with his knife. The lizards are the only things getting caught in their traps. They'd appeared during the rainstorm, and now that time is passing after days of sturdy, steady rain, Young is regretful to realize the lizards are going with it. Perhaps this area's climate is just too dry for them, he muses. It's certainly too dry for two beings made up of roughly 43 to 73%. water.

"I think that's what these aliens call themselves," Rush replies, still hunched over and typing on the input panel they have decided to call a keyboard. The aliens have similar height to humans and an upright posture, Rush has determined, based on the physical positioning of their technology. The ship's life support has fully engaged now that the rains have come and the air is close enough to their own oxygen needs that it is a blessed relief, but there are low-grade amounts of moisture being pumped into the air as though the creatures are potentially amphibious. Rush has hypothesized that they are, as well as bipedal and containing either an extra digit on either hand, or perhaps one other is noticeably longer than the rest, if their keyboards are any indication.

"I thought you couldn't read any of that," Young murmurs. In the low blue light, Rush looks pale and wane, as though he clearly needs the sunlight they haven't seen much of in the past week of time.

"Lingua Cosmica. Lincos."

"Math as a manner of language," Young says, in one of those moments of insight that always seem to catch Rush off-guard.

"Tower of Babel to Rosetta Stone," he sounds contemplative, but he's smiling.

"So tell me about these Nakai?" He murmurs, finishing with this lizard and starting on the next. (There is a cook-plate built into one of the wall stations, directly catty-corner to where Rush is losing his mind trying to translate enough mathematics to push some buttons, and, for all intents and purposes, in the process, as the process, as a result of the process, Young is cooking, Rush is cooking, they are cooked.)

"Their ship replenishes more power when it's cold. This is clearly designed for convenience when in the depths of space, but it also means that more systems are coming on all the time now that it's finally rained."

He pauses what he's doing to frown at something on the main monitor. Holding his little stub of a pencil out like he's reading a sextant against the horizon, he adds, almost absentmindedly, "That's what the word 'Nakai' actually means to them. I think they worship it."

"The cold of space?" Young is confused once again by Rush's leaps and bounds in logic.

"Water," he replies cryptically.

And then, without warning, the main console explodes.

My dragonfly,

my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing

for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw,

and this is the map of my heart, the landscape

after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is

a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me

tight, it's getting cold.

Day 8:

After some of the precious, precious water had been used to put out the resulting fire, Rush had regrouped and attacked the computer setup with renewed (and terrifying, terrified) vigor. An alarm had sounded, a subspace signal had been sent. The ship arrived on the edges of their limited instruments roughly four hours ago, and, if Rush's estimates are correct, in the next half-hour, it will finally reach the planet they on which they are stranded.

"What if they're … not friendly?" Rush is saying, staring up at the clear afternoon sky, eyes trained on a small dot that is becoming a noticeable smudge, a streak against all that overwhelming blue.

"We'll face it together," Young says simply. They had come to this planet as rivals, had come in violence. They are leaving it connected, both intimately and profoundly. Everett Young does not know if he has ever been in love, really in love. Doesn't know what that looks like, or what that kind of thing even is. But he is a soldier with unclean hands and Rush is a scientist who can only learn by doing. They are kinetic men and that makes for a pair of tactile learners as well.

As if reading his thoughts, Rush reaches out his left hand then, fingers half-curled into a lazy sort of fist, but his palm is spread wide and beckoning. An invitation. Young takes it in his own.

The ship breaks atmosphere above their heads.

Whatever it is, they'll face it together. Whatever it is, they're not alone. We are all going forward, he thinks, the solid weight of Rush's hand in his as an alien forced named for water hurtles down to a golden-skied planet of dust to either rescue them, or kill them, or something, anything else. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room

where everyone finally gets what they want.