With the Stars Above My Head; Space Cases, PG
So, I wrote a Space Cases fic, because those are the kinds of problems I have. Anyway...
With the Stars Above My Head
PG for the word "damn" and very vague ho-yay.
Space Cases fic-a-thon Prompt: side effects from transformations in "Both Sides Now"
Author: ladyophelia14
2,073 words
Under the...
Disclaimer: I do not own Space Cases, and I use the characters without permission. No profit is being made from this work, it is purely an exercise in fan creativity.
Brief notes: Okay, for anyone waiting on fics from me in one of my other fandoms… please don’t hurt me. This Space Cases muse fell in my lap! I can’t be held responsible! It’s Radu, for Christ’s sake. There are some forces a person cannot be reasonably expected to withstand!
For Space Cases fans: I took some minor liberties with exactly what they mean by psionic with regards to Radu. I also am testing the waters with regards to Andromedan principles of group harmony and unity, and whether the psionics and heightened hearing might play a role in that aspect of their society. Please let me know what you think. Also, Harlan/Radu subtext. Or just text. It’s hard to tell with them.
This fulfils the prompt: “side effects of transformations in Both Sides Now” in the first annual Space Cases fic-a-thon!
Lady_Ophelia14
With the Stars Above My Head
Well, it seems like so long ago,
But it really ain’t, you know
I started off a crazy kid.
Miracle I made it through the things I did…
Someday I’ll go
Where there ain’t no rain or snow
‘Till then, I travel alone
And I make my bed
With the stars above my head
And dream of a place called home…
A Place Called Home
Kim Richey
Harlan was dreaming of going home. Or, more accurately, he was dreaming of trying to find home. As he tossed and turned in his bunk, the stars on the Christa’s view screen refused to resolve themselves into a recognizable pattern. Stars are stubborn, he knew, and the feeling of being unmoored and adrift refused to abate. Frustrated, Harlan turned to the right, looking over his shoulder to demand co-ordinates--alright, reassurance-- from Radu.
Neither the reassurance nor the co-ordinates were forthcoming. Navigation was empty.
Harlan shot awake with a gasp, barely missing braining himself on the triangular top of his bunk. Flinging off the flimsy space blanket, he swung his legs over the side and gripped the edges of the bed. It was nice to be able to grip things, to really let his feelings out through his muscles and not shatter everything in sight.
After being Andromedan for a day, Harlan had no idea how Radu didn’t explode from the tension of never being able to exert himself. Even back in his own form, he felt like he was buzzing with energy he hadn’t dared exert that day. Between all that stored up strength and being able to hear a pin drop ten decks away, it was a wonder Radu ever slept. But sleep he did, and he didn’t even need to use ear muffs anymore.
No wonder the Spung liked Andromedan slaves so much. Forget the strength, the discipline was crazy.
Glancing over at the Radu’s bunk, he wasn’t surprised to see it empty despite the Andromedan’s normally regular sleep patterns. Bova, on the other hand, was safely ensconced in his bunk, dead to the world. It would take more than a brief foray to the ‘sunny side of the street’ to put Bova off his sleep cycle. Harlan ruthlessly suppressed any feelings of envy for the Uranian’s easy rest. He’d walked far enough in someone else’s shoes, thank you very much.
Rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes, Harlan slouched off his bunk and out into the Christa’s night quiet corridors. He didn’t know how he knew, but he had a pretty good idea of where Radu was.
Minutes later he was proven right as he entered the Com-Post. The slight figure of the youngest crew member was outlined in silver against the light of stars passing the Christa. Harlan entered and unceremoniously threw himself down next to the Andromedan. The human boy knew from personal experience that there’s just no such thing as sneaking up on Radu.
Of course, it never occurred to Harlan that his company, while not unexpected, might still be unwelcome. After all, humans ‘fit in anywhere,’ didn’t they?
The two boys sat in silence for a time, watching the stars streak by as the ship made its way ever closer to home. Maybe he was imagining it, but Harlan could almost feel home out there, as though he could trace the invisible path of the Christa through the galaxies, finishing at an unassuming yellow star and a tiny blue planet spinning around it.
Home.
He could sense it! Home!
Like catching movement out of the corner of his eye, acknowledgement seemed to make the nebulous sense of direction dwindle, even as his body’s memory of extraordinary strength and balance had slowly drained away in the past few hours.
With a pang of regret and guilty longing, he tried to grasp at the lingering traces of home, fumbling with clumsy mental fingers at the spider silk path that had so recently wound its way through his consciousness. He heaved a frustrated sigh and opened eyes he didn’t remember closing to see Radu watching him, blue eyes dusky in the low light of Christa’s simulated night.
Harlan saw the familiar look of shy uncertainty that always preceded Radu speaking, and restrained the urge to groan out loud. Yes, they’d been through something together that day, a big, life changing something, but the very last thing he wanted to do was talk about it!
The dread he was feeling must have translated itself onto his face, because Radu bit his lip and visibly swallowed whatever he’d been about to say. The younger boy’s eyes dropped, before returning to the view screen. The peace of the moment was broken.
Harlan Band, you are an ass.
Fantastic. His conscience sounded like Catalina. But then, that wasn’t surprising. However annoying their rivalry had been, it had always pushed Harlan to be the best cadet he could be. Even in another dimension, Catalina represented the feeling that he could be better, do better, if he tried harder. Damn her.
As if in spite for his rejection of Radu, the lingering ability to sense the path home had vanished. Which put a very nice cap on his feelings of guilt and rejection.
Knowing that once rebuffed the timid Andromedan would not make a second attempt at conversation, Harlan began speaking himself, softly, in deference to the extraordinary ears mere inches from his mouth.
“You know, the best part was always knowing where I was. Before, I envied the strength and hearing, but, man, that sense of direction. It’s like--like--” Harlan struggled for an analogy suited to the soul filling sense he could now only remember.
“It--it’s like being at one with the universe. Like there’s a map of everywhere written on your heart. I missed it.” Radu didn’t speak much, but he could really hit a nail on the head when he wanted to. Now that Harlan had opened the door, it seemed that Radu couldn’t help but spill out everything to the one person who would understand.
“I don’t think I had any hope of ever coming up with a plan today. I-I felt so--so cut off and isolated. I didn’t know where I was, and I couldn’t hear so I didn’t know where everyone else was. I was so f-frustrated!”
The Andromedan paused, bracing himself for a confession. “T-that was the worst. Not knowing where everyone was. With everything that’s happened, Ms. Davenport getting downloaded in that secret room, and Catalina… leaving, I started listening f-for all of your heartbeats, subconsciously keeping track, you know? Except I didn’t know I was doing it until I couldn’t do it anymore. Suddenly you were all gone. That was the worst part.”
Harlan studied the view screen, absorbing the knowledge that Radu kept constant tabs on the crew like a nervous hen counting her chicks. Or… like someone without a real family desperate not to lose the quasi-family he had left. Harlan felt comforted despite himself, knowing Radu would realize immediately if something happened to him, to any of them.
Looking back, the constant sounds of his fellow crewmembers, though deafening, had been reassuring. Between the constant sounds of other living beings and the psionics, Harlan realized it must be incredibly hard for Radu to be alone, cut off from other Andromedans. Radu had made the crew his family, had filled the empty place Harlan had felt earlier that day, the place most Andromedans filled with the psionic harmony of their group oriented culture, with the Christa and its crew. Radu had adopted them. He’d had to.
The loss of any of them would be… the loss of Catalina which Harlan refused to let himself face must be… like a constant open wound. The wayward pilot groaned and rubbed his forehead. It was way too late, or maybe way too early, to be thinking so hard.
“So… are we still on the right track, navigator?” Harlan may have just had a few revelations, but he was still a guy. So no alk-tay about the eelings-fay. Besides, he had a feeling Radu already knew what he had just figured out, and had known for a while.
Radu hesitated for a long moment, his eyes, so much more noticeable now to Harlan now that he’d seen them without the distraction of the ears and all that hair, fixed on the older boy. Harlan felt uncomfortably like Radu could see-- or rather hear-- straight through him.
“Y-you can’t tell anymore?” Radu’s voice was almost wistful to Harlan’s ears.
The pilot shrugged. “Nah… it’s all gone now.”
The Andromedan studied his face, more direct than Harlan had ever seen him, even when he’d briefly been human. With a long glance back out the view screen, as if listening for some distant cue, Radu seemed to come to a decision.
“Maybe not,” he murmured, turning back to Harlan and hesitantly sliding off one of his gloves. Carefully, without his gloves’ dampener he could easily crush the delicate bones in Harlan’s very human hand, he grasped one of the older boy’s hands in his. Startled, Harlan didn’t pull away, waiting to see what would happen.
At first, nothing happened, though Radu was concentrating very hard on something, ever careful that his grip didn’t tighten dangerously. Harlan marveled that a hand so much smaller than his solid muscled hand could so readily rip said hand right off. With that chilling thought, the moment swiftly became awkward.
Suddenly, like a door swinging open on silent hinges, the invisible path laid itself out at his feet again. Radu had pulled him into his universal map-- a map of everywhere printed on my heart-- so that they could stand together in the comforting sense of home coming ever closer. It wasn’t as clear as it had been when he’d been Andromedan, and he had a definite sense of Radu holding him on the path, but it was there.
It was amazing.
Even more amazing was the feeling of home the Christa had for Radu. Harlan had been right about Radu’s dependence on the crew and the ship. Christa felt like home, Andromeda and the Sol System felt like destinations. Standing in Radu’s mental map, he could see how everything had its place. We are here, here is home. Earth was Harlan, Mercury was Rosie, and so on. Even Suzee had a place on the map, although the concept of Yensid was vague and diffuse, and currently mixed up with Catalina.
Harlan had a sudden thought that the other crew members would be as comforted by this as he was, even as he jealously shied from the idea of sharing something so private and Andromedan with people who wouldn’t understand.
“Did Suzee see this when she read your mind?”
Radu seemed surprised by the question, but smiled readily. Harlan had never seen him so confident and at ease. He wondered if this is what Radu would be like all the time, if he had other Andromedans to depend on and share with.
“Nah,” the blond replied, still holding Harlan’s hand and projecting his mental map. “It’s something you have to be Andromedan to understand.”
Harlan thought that over for a minute, before grinning back at his young shipmate. “Oh. Cool.”
Radu smiled back but didn’t reply, as the boys sat together and watched home get closer and closer.
fin