[Infinite Space] The Lady Space
Title: The Lady Space
Fandom: Infinite Space
Pairing: sort of Yuri/Nia, sort of Yuri/the fabric of the universe
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Post-timeskip, spoilers for the end of chapter 8
The Lady Space
Sometimes, Yuri dreams.
When the lights shut off in the cell block for the night and it is so dark that he can't see anything, not the walls and not the mattress, not even the palm of his own hand, it's easy for the mind to wander, to procure images of other places from the recesses of his consciousness, where they have been stowed away, locked and guarded for safekeeping.
The first and most frequent visitors are echoes of the stars, painted across the inside of his own eyelids as if there is a mirror web of star lanes stored somewhere deep within him, mapped across his bones and woven into his veins. It wells up and surges like a roiling sea whenever he can't be close to its real counterpart, can't stand on the observation deck with the whole length of his body pressed flush against the glass dome, arms spread like wings and fingers feathered, nose and lips and eyelashes just inches away from kissing the universe.
Space is cold, an icy nothingness just a few degrees above absolute zero, the point at which all movement stops and everything freezes, and yet, he never felt hotter than when he could leave behind the artificial gravity of the ship, the protective metal shell, and feel himself spinning freely with the stars. It wasn't enough, the pressure suit and helmet forever in the way, but it was as close as he would ever be able to get.
Torlo caught him outside the ship on a few occasions, alone, floating motionlessly and soaking up the starlight, drinking in the overwhelming beauty of the Svarog nebula, the wafting golden tendrils of the iris spiraling into pools of blue and pink and red, so many more shades than the human tongue could possibly find words for. It had rattled Torlo badly the first time, finding him with his eyes closed and a smile on his face, oblivious even to the frantic calls filtering through his comm-link, white noise before the thrum of space.
Freaky, he would mutter under his breath as he hauled Yuri towards the airlock, and Yuri would let him, bemused at the strength of Torlo's grip, feeling as if the bits of himself that had scattered through space were being pulled back inside, and not entirely ungrateful for it. It used to scare him a little, how easy it was to lose touch with his body, with the comings and goings onboard the ship, even with the people who called him captain and vowed to follow him to the ends of the universe, when he was in the presence of the stars.
Freaky, freaky, as they made their way back towards the bridge where the late-night shift was just starting, Yuri mah man, ya know how to scare a guy shitless, thought ya gone and knocked yerself out or somethin', and don'tcha go spacewalkin' with a dead communicator, and later, after the second or third time, I don't get ya, man, I like bein' outside as much as the next zero-G dog, but that thing ya got goin' on there, I gotta tell ya, that ain't no healthy thing, ya better not be thinkin' stupid thoughts, ya hear?
Yuri shook his head and lowered his eyes in appropriate contrition at the time, said he was fine and that he'd hit sick bay for a check-up later, so Torlo could rest easy. He never went, though, knew somewhere deep down that even if he didn't understand it, even if it frightened others, frightened him a bit at times, it was no fever that got his blood boiling.
He understands it now, or thinks he does, stuffed in a cell like a rat in a cage, with the gravitational pull of this worthless hunk of rock tugging at his body and the everlasting magnet storms tearing through the sky, obscuring even the briefest glimpses of the stars. People are born for all kinds of destinies, places they feel they must go to, and his place is everywhere and nowhere at once. Orbital stations might draw him in out of necessity, planets might lure him briefly with their exotic vistas, but ultimately, they are not for staying. His body always knew, even before his mind, where he belonged.
Once upon a time, he might have wished to change that, but no longer. It was mostly a wish he held for Kira's sake.
She wanders his dreams, too, less often than the stars but sometimes tiptoeing into the vision in their blazing wake, less brilliant but by no means less precious, preserved in his mind as a girl of fourteen, thin and awkward and grasping for his hand, gazing up at him with wide green eyes. Trusting, always so trusting, dear and sweet and forever worried, earthy and comforting like the child of the ground she is.
It's strange how some memories get clearer as they ripen, sharper along the edges, while others dim and fade. He can still remember the last peaceful moments they spent together, the way the Volodarev forest smelled, the tang of moss and fresh leaves, aglow with the white petals of the lightning buds, and how his sister clapped and danced at the sight, flitting from one side of the path to the other like a fairy princess in her kingdom. Her happiness wasn't all hers, though, some of it was very much for his sake, as evident in the way she held onto his arm as it was in her words - beautiful, so beautiful, did you ever think such a place could exist, Yuri, oh how I wish we could stay, wouldn't it be perfect, you think, to live in a place like this...?
The excitement of someone who grew up on a featureless desert planet, and yet, he knew even then that he was meant to agree, to promise her that they would settle there, or in another place like there, in a place as safe and cozy as two cats in a sunbeam, side by side. It hurt Kira that he couldn't promise her this, that he didn't love her enough to stay, that whatever devotion she lavished upon him was returned split, shaved in two, one half for her and one half for the thing she didn't understand, the dark, all-consuming void.
Everything about it scared her, though she tried so hard not to show it, to smile and wave away the cold sweat on her brow as the result of the engine heat. She wasn't born for space, not like him and not at all, couldn't bring herself to stop shaking whenever they approached a warp gate, needed months before she worked up the courage to step into the observation bay and take in for herself the kind of enormity with which she had to compete. For a while, Yuri tried to ease her into the idea, took her hand and led her to the window where he drew imaginary creatures in the myriad points of light and made up stories for them, so Kira could laugh and protest that his mystical rainbow eel was clearly just part of Elgava Gamma, she knew her star charts, thank you very much. Beyond the practical-mindedness of her words, though, lay the realization that she didn't belong, that she couln't possibly follow where his heart flew.
He's absurdly glad he got her off the ship in the end, that circumstances are what they were, though there are a hundred ways to feel guilty about the thought - that he is happy she'd come to harm and had to be hospitalized, that he is grateful she can sit and worry herself to tears thinking about the fate of the brother who had never sent word again - but not guilty enough not to embrace it, knowing that she isn't rotting in a cell somewhere or worse, sharing the fate of many a pretty girl in prison, a prostitute at the wardens' mercy. This might be a different galaxy, but all that changes with the territory is the rhetoric, the LMC by no means more civilized than the dinkiest outposts in Ropesk, and damn if the term 'pleasure girl' doesn't make his stomach turn more than 'sex slave' ever did.
Better that she worry, better that she weep and curse him and entreat the stars every night for a sign of life from him.
He's tried to picture it before in his mind, how ten years might have changed Kira, whether her cheeks have lost their roundness, whether her eyes still betray her every thought, whether she got any taller than she used to be, forever two heads shorter than him and loathing how it made her hair so very easy to tousle. Whether she is still where he left her, in that station orbiting Ermeno, or whether she hitched a ride back to the lush forests of Volodarev and is living in a little house somewhere, studying to be a doctor like she always wanted to. Whether she found someone, a kind young man who is just as earth-bound as she is, whether there is now a tiny niece or nephew waiting to be lifted from their crib upon his return. It would be sad if Kira closed her heart and remained alone, waiting in solitude, longing for things that he as her brother would never be able to give. He can acknowledge that now, with all these years behind him, when he couldn't even see it before.
Sister complex, murmurs a voice right beside his ear, its husky tone so painfully familiar that his insides clench even at its echo.
Yuri doesn't turn, doesn't tilt his head to look, though he knows he could. This is the last stage, the bottom layer, the naked bedrock of his mind where dreams are lucid and bound to reality, no longer trailing among the stars or wrapped in the haze of wishful thinking. He doesn't come here often, too light a sleeper not to start awake before he ever gets there, and he doesn't dare try when his day was filled with anything other than perfect monotone, which happens far less often than he likes.
He can't trust himself to bring what it takes otherwise, the calm, deep fatigue that comes with scraping jezelmite in the mine all day, helped along by mind-numbing, physical exertion. He tried a few times against his better judgment, and what it invariably ended with were fragments he could neither control nor recall in full, figments born from grief and longing and hearing that voice scratching towards him over the comm-link, its swagger buried under pain, speaking of regret and hope. Those are the kind of dreams that end in wet pillows or wet sheets, the kind that leaves him poking at the sore on the right side of his heart for days on end, and then he's of no use to anyone.
Well, you aren't of much use to me right now, that's for sure. How long are you going to pretend I'm not here, anyway?
A hand snakes across his chest, fingers spider-walking from one end to the other and reeling him in. He lets her, amused, the darkness of the cell no match for the inner eye, and that's how he knows her fingernails are a light blue this time around and still impossibly manicured, though no amount of cream can hide the fact that she's got a mechanic's hands.
He never asked her, how she managed that.
Girl's gotta have her secrets, she purrs, though hey, I'm generous. If you want to be pretty that bad, I'll do yours, too.
"No, thanks. You stabbed me with the mascara last time you tried, remember?"
Well, you were the one who couldn't sit still.
"You were dressing me up as a girl. In public."
A snicker. And you made a damn cute one, if I do say so myself.
He laughs, the memory of being manhandled into a frilly halter top one of the better ones despite the fact that he was praying for the ground to swallow him up back then, in a time when he wasn't quite sure what to do with her, how to place what she said and did and what it all meant, for him or them or the universe in general.
It's safer to think of this, though, because he doesn't quite have the courage to ask what she thinks of him now, not sure if the answer would be hers or his, what he wishes or fears she might think. There aren't any mirrors on this planet, nothing that can be broken and fashioned into a knife, but he still knows he's changed, can see it in the shortness of the bed and the tightness of his shirt, the scar that pulls on his cheek when he chews, the mess of hair that can't really be trimmed worth anything, unless he wants to piss off a guard that badly. Not at all the kid she picked up back in Ropesk outback, whom she ruffled and called 'pup' and gave pecks on the cheek to, and he never asked about that either, too young to understand and liable to get laughed at - what sort of man would a woman like Nia Lochlain like, anyway?
She kept saying he was growing up fine, but now, he's not so sure.
You know, we really gotta do something about this. You finally got me into bed, kiddo, and here I think I'm bunking with a space monk.
"Sorry, Nia."
Extricating an arm from behind his head, he winds it around her waist, a move that shouldn't be as easy and comfortable as it is, since he never tried. He doesn't touch, though he gets the feeling she wants him to, too afraid it might not all be smooth, dark skin. That's the way a lot of his nightmares started early on, fueled by the knowledge of what sorts of noises a human being makes when it's trying to hold its gut closed, and he's not about to test the structural soundness of this dream.
Still, it seems like it's good enough for her, because she moves closer, drapes an arm across his chest in earnest. She never held him, not like this, nothing beyond the casual sling of an arm around his shoulders, the grind of knuckles in his hair. Forever someone he couldn't place, too far above him to be a sister, too rowdy and loud to be a mother, too bewildering to be a friend, constantly dancing through the corner of his eyes like a comet's trail, flaring brightly to inevitably draw his gaze.
Does it matter, kiddo, what we are?
"No, no, I guess not."
See, that's what I thought. That kind of stuff only gets complicated if you go around stickin' labels on it.
"Yeah. "
She's right, of course, always was, though a part of him wants to try, regardless, the part that's still trying to wrap its head around what Nia was, Nia is, not just to him but to the world at large, how anyone can be so many different things - launcher, spacefarer, pirate, bride to the mad heir of a conquering army - and not go crazy. Maybe it's like him and space, something you just diffuse into because it's part of you and you're part of it, no matter how you might try to keep your distance.
He never told her that he has dreams where he scoops up a handful of dark matter and kisses it, feels it murmur back a kiss in turn.
Well, what do you know, she says, a little surprised but earnestly thinking about it. Makin' out with Lady Space, huh? Takes guts.
Yuri nods, more because it's the sort of thing he knows he ought to agree with and less because it's actually true. Though a lot of things to do with space take courage, this was never one of them, something that comes easy, like he's been plucked and set apart from the rest of humanity at a young age, existing by himself in a bubble where the thought of curling and stretching and grasping onto space while it twined around him was as natural as breathing air, and wondering about human attachments was something complicated to shy away from.
He never did work up the nerve to ask her why she kissed him that time, when she had to bend down to grab his collar and he had no clue what to do with her tongue in his mouth, and who it was that kissed him - Nia the launcher, who just goes that extra mile for her charge, Nia the pirate, who steals things that catch her fancy, Nia the bride, who was saying goodbye, or maybe Nia the woman, who...
Who.
Sometimes, he wonders if she resents him for not understanding her, for still not understanding her, for not being man enough to comprehend what she wanted, wants, needs.
The Grus are you talking about, kid?
He shrugs as well as he can with one arm behind his head and one arm around her, feels more than hears her sigh.
Not that hard to figure out, is it. Her other hand has wormed its way behind his head, too, trailing from the jagged scar on his cheek to twine in his hair, stroking slowly back and forth.
"No, maybe not."
Another sigh, and then she's shifting, sliding upwards until she can rest her chin on his head the way she used to before he ended up too tall, nudging him until he ends up with his ear right above her heart, though the beat isn't human, too strong, inaudible and ancient, the pulse of space.
These things take time. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, I was more than happy with what you did offer?
He smiles, knows it's not her speaking, but himself, hoping that maybe it was enough to puff himself up three sizes and try to be the best captain he knew how to be, trying to live up to whatever expectations he thought she had.
Or maybe it's me speaking and you're just nursing an inferiority complex. Man enough, honestly. The Grus does that even mean?
"Beats me."
Another sigh, affectionate but slightly weary, as she pushes her nose into his hair in something that's part kiss, part breath. She's put a drop of perfume between her breasts, he realizes, the sun-lily fragrance there stronger than on the rest of her, though he can't for the life of him figure out how he knows that - it's not like he ever saw her do it, but it's not the sort of thing he just thinks up, either.
Nia offers no commentary, though he thinks he can feel her smile.
After a while, she shifts again, rubs a bit at his neck, which is going stiff. You're so quiet these days. Could hardly shut you up before.
"Sorry."
I'd hate to think this is something I put there.
Yuri blinks, frowns, tries to pull back but stops. In all her visits, she never apologized, not for leaving him or not telling him or for getting him mixed up in all that, and he doesn't want her to start doing it now. It sounds too much like the words permanently edged into his brain, staring at the wreckage of the alien ship and realizing that he couldn't help her, that she was hurt and bleeding and leaving him behind, and doing the unfair thing of unburdening her conscience.
"Don't."
Well, then, come on. You're making a girl worry, when you get like that.
He resists pointing out that it's a fair bit pointless to tell her about his day, not just because it's uneventful eat-work-sleep interspersed with punching idiots who think it's a good idea to pick a fight with him, but because everything he knows, Nia knows too. He doesn't, though, shoos the thought out the back door because keeping it real, or as close to real as it can be, is the goal of the whole game.
"Franny's nanobot should have the database hacked by tomorrow. Maybe then we can start figuring out a pattern to the storms, get ready for some real action."
You still don't know where they keep the ships, though.
"I'm more concerned with where they keep the guns. Should be smooth sailing as soon as we know that."
My, my. Awfully confident.
He might have imagined it, Yuri thinks, but she sounds pleased.
"They're more focused on keeping us on the planet than in the cells. I think we'll manage."
I know you will.
"A vote of confidence from myself?"
No, a vote of confidence from /me/. You've come a long way, kid.
His lips twitch. It's better not to examine that too closely. "And yet I'm still 'kid'?"
As long as you keep the snugglies to this bunk, hell yes you are. It's your dream. You could at least imagine something that's not lumpy if you're invitin' a lady over.
"Once I get a ship back, I'll install a new cabin, how's that sound?"
And get everyone wondering what you're doin' with a king-sized bed, when it's just you and your hand, doin' kinky things with Space?
He laughs, can't quite imagine anyone wondering that in earnest, trying to figure out what sheets Nia had in her cabin and whether she liked them or just never got around to swapping them for something better. It's silly, and frivolous, and she eggs him on with the idea of spending five-thousand on real satin, just for the hell of it. It's better to leave the thinking and strategizing for the day, where all the people he talks to are vital parts of his plan and the grind of work lends itself to wandering minds.
For now, though, it's good to just have this, to spend one night holding off the demands of Lady Space with one hand. She'll still be there tomorrow, and tomorrow night, and the day after this, harsh and rough and smooth and welcoming, intangible and solid and real and unreal, now more like Nia than ever.
In the gloom close to his ear, Nia with her new pulse laughs and shifts again, and when she bridges the gap, her lips are as cool and smooth as dark matter.
-Fin-
-----
A/N: I should note that I haven't yet completed Infinite Space, but this idea jumped me and demanded to be written anyway. It always seemed pretty obvious to me that Yuri's desire to go into space went a lot deeper than just simple "I want to be a space pirate" boyhood dreams, but no, I didn't think he was going to be making out with it, either. XD At any rate, C&C is much appreciated.
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Fandom: Infinite Space
Pairing: sort of Yuri/Nia, sort of Yuri/the fabric of the universe
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Post-timeskip, spoilers for the end of chapter 8
The Lady Space
Sometimes, Yuri dreams.
When the lights shut off in the cell block for the night and it is so dark that he can't see anything, not the walls and not the mattress, not even the palm of his own hand, it's easy for the mind to wander, to procure images of other places from the recesses of his consciousness, where they have been stowed away, locked and guarded for safekeeping.
The first and most frequent visitors are echoes of the stars, painted across the inside of his own eyelids as if there is a mirror web of star lanes stored somewhere deep within him, mapped across his bones and woven into his veins. It wells up and surges like a roiling sea whenever he can't be close to its real counterpart, can't stand on the observation deck with the whole length of his body pressed flush against the glass dome, arms spread like wings and fingers feathered, nose and lips and eyelashes just inches away from kissing the universe.
Space is cold, an icy nothingness just a few degrees above absolute zero, the point at which all movement stops and everything freezes, and yet, he never felt hotter than when he could leave behind the artificial gravity of the ship, the protective metal shell, and feel himself spinning freely with the stars. It wasn't enough, the pressure suit and helmet forever in the way, but it was as close as he would ever be able to get.
Torlo caught him outside the ship on a few occasions, alone, floating motionlessly and soaking up the starlight, drinking in the overwhelming beauty of the Svarog nebula, the wafting golden tendrils of the iris spiraling into pools of blue and pink and red, so many more shades than the human tongue could possibly find words for. It had rattled Torlo badly the first time, finding him with his eyes closed and a smile on his face, oblivious even to the frantic calls filtering through his comm-link, white noise before the thrum of space.
Freaky, he would mutter under his breath as he hauled Yuri towards the airlock, and Yuri would let him, bemused at the strength of Torlo's grip, feeling as if the bits of himself that had scattered through space were being pulled back inside, and not entirely ungrateful for it. It used to scare him a little, how easy it was to lose touch with his body, with the comings and goings onboard the ship, even with the people who called him captain and vowed to follow him to the ends of the universe, when he was in the presence of the stars.
Freaky, freaky, as they made their way back towards the bridge where the late-night shift was just starting, Yuri mah man, ya know how to scare a guy shitless, thought ya gone and knocked yerself out or somethin', and don'tcha go spacewalkin' with a dead communicator, and later, after the second or third time, I don't get ya, man, I like bein' outside as much as the next zero-G dog, but that thing ya got goin' on there, I gotta tell ya, that ain't no healthy thing, ya better not be thinkin' stupid thoughts, ya hear?
Yuri shook his head and lowered his eyes in appropriate contrition at the time, said he was fine and that he'd hit sick bay for a check-up later, so Torlo could rest easy. He never went, though, knew somewhere deep down that even if he didn't understand it, even if it frightened others, frightened him a bit at times, it was no fever that got his blood boiling.
He understands it now, or thinks he does, stuffed in a cell like a rat in a cage, with the gravitational pull of this worthless hunk of rock tugging at his body and the everlasting magnet storms tearing through the sky, obscuring even the briefest glimpses of the stars. People are born for all kinds of destinies, places they feel they must go to, and his place is everywhere and nowhere at once. Orbital stations might draw him in out of necessity, planets might lure him briefly with their exotic vistas, but ultimately, they are not for staying. His body always knew, even before his mind, where he belonged.
Once upon a time, he might have wished to change that, but no longer. It was mostly a wish he held for Kira's sake.
She wanders his dreams, too, less often than the stars but sometimes tiptoeing into the vision in their blazing wake, less brilliant but by no means less precious, preserved in his mind as a girl of fourteen, thin and awkward and grasping for his hand, gazing up at him with wide green eyes. Trusting, always so trusting, dear and sweet and forever worried, earthy and comforting like the child of the ground she is.
It's strange how some memories get clearer as they ripen, sharper along the edges, while others dim and fade. He can still remember the last peaceful moments they spent together, the way the Volodarev forest smelled, the tang of moss and fresh leaves, aglow with the white petals of the lightning buds, and how his sister clapped and danced at the sight, flitting from one side of the path to the other like a fairy princess in her kingdom. Her happiness wasn't all hers, though, some of it was very much for his sake, as evident in the way she held onto his arm as it was in her words - beautiful, so beautiful, did you ever think such a place could exist, Yuri, oh how I wish we could stay, wouldn't it be perfect, you think, to live in a place like this...?
The excitement of someone who grew up on a featureless desert planet, and yet, he knew even then that he was meant to agree, to promise her that they would settle there, or in another place like there, in a place as safe and cozy as two cats in a sunbeam, side by side. It hurt Kira that he couldn't promise her this, that he didn't love her enough to stay, that whatever devotion she lavished upon him was returned split, shaved in two, one half for her and one half for the thing she didn't understand, the dark, all-consuming void.
Everything about it scared her, though she tried so hard not to show it, to smile and wave away the cold sweat on her brow as the result of the engine heat. She wasn't born for space, not like him and not at all, couldn't bring herself to stop shaking whenever they approached a warp gate, needed months before she worked up the courage to step into the observation bay and take in for herself the kind of enormity with which she had to compete. For a while, Yuri tried to ease her into the idea, took her hand and led her to the window where he drew imaginary creatures in the myriad points of light and made up stories for them, so Kira could laugh and protest that his mystical rainbow eel was clearly just part of Elgava Gamma, she knew her star charts, thank you very much. Beyond the practical-mindedness of her words, though, lay the realization that she didn't belong, that she couln't possibly follow where his heart flew.
He's absurdly glad he got her off the ship in the end, that circumstances are what they were, though there are a hundred ways to feel guilty about the thought - that he is happy she'd come to harm and had to be hospitalized, that he is grateful she can sit and worry herself to tears thinking about the fate of the brother who had never sent word again - but not guilty enough not to embrace it, knowing that she isn't rotting in a cell somewhere or worse, sharing the fate of many a pretty girl in prison, a prostitute at the wardens' mercy. This might be a different galaxy, but all that changes with the territory is the rhetoric, the LMC by no means more civilized than the dinkiest outposts in Ropesk, and damn if the term 'pleasure girl' doesn't make his stomach turn more than 'sex slave' ever did.
Better that she worry, better that she weep and curse him and entreat the stars every night for a sign of life from him.
He's tried to picture it before in his mind, how ten years might have changed Kira, whether her cheeks have lost their roundness, whether her eyes still betray her every thought, whether she got any taller than she used to be, forever two heads shorter than him and loathing how it made her hair so very easy to tousle. Whether she is still where he left her, in that station orbiting Ermeno, or whether she hitched a ride back to the lush forests of Volodarev and is living in a little house somewhere, studying to be a doctor like she always wanted to. Whether she found someone, a kind young man who is just as earth-bound as she is, whether there is now a tiny niece or nephew waiting to be lifted from their crib upon his return. It would be sad if Kira closed her heart and remained alone, waiting in solitude, longing for things that he as her brother would never be able to give. He can acknowledge that now, with all these years behind him, when he couldn't even see it before.
Sister complex, murmurs a voice right beside his ear, its husky tone so painfully familiar that his insides clench even at its echo.
Yuri doesn't turn, doesn't tilt his head to look, though he knows he could. This is the last stage, the bottom layer, the naked bedrock of his mind where dreams are lucid and bound to reality, no longer trailing among the stars or wrapped in the haze of wishful thinking. He doesn't come here often, too light a sleeper not to start awake before he ever gets there, and he doesn't dare try when his day was filled with anything other than perfect monotone, which happens far less often than he likes.
He can't trust himself to bring what it takes otherwise, the calm, deep fatigue that comes with scraping jezelmite in the mine all day, helped along by mind-numbing, physical exertion. He tried a few times against his better judgment, and what it invariably ended with were fragments he could neither control nor recall in full, figments born from grief and longing and hearing that voice scratching towards him over the comm-link, its swagger buried under pain, speaking of regret and hope. Those are the kind of dreams that end in wet pillows or wet sheets, the kind that leaves him poking at the sore on the right side of his heart for days on end, and then he's of no use to anyone.
Well, you aren't of much use to me right now, that's for sure. How long are you going to pretend I'm not here, anyway?
A hand snakes across his chest, fingers spider-walking from one end to the other and reeling him in. He lets her, amused, the darkness of the cell no match for the inner eye, and that's how he knows her fingernails are a light blue this time around and still impossibly manicured, though no amount of cream can hide the fact that she's got a mechanic's hands.
He never asked her, how she managed that.
Girl's gotta have her secrets, she purrs, though hey, I'm generous. If you want to be pretty that bad, I'll do yours, too.
"No, thanks. You stabbed me with the mascara last time you tried, remember?"
Well, you were the one who couldn't sit still.
"You were dressing me up as a girl. In public."
A snicker. And you made a damn cute one, if I do say so myself.
He laughs, the memory of being manhandled into a frilly halter top one of the better ones despite the fact that he was praying for the ground to swallow him up back then, in a time when he wasn't quite sure what to do with her, how to place what she said and did and what it all meant, for him or them or the universe in general.
It's safer to think of this, though, because he doesn't quite have the courage to ask what she thinks of him now, not sure if the answer would be hers or his, what he wishes or fears she might think. There aren't any mirrors on this planet, nothing that can be broken and fashioned into a knife, but he still knows he's changed, can see it in the shortness of the bed and the tightness of his shirt, the scar that pulls on his cheek when he chews, the mess of hair that can't really be trimmed worth anything, unless he wants to piss off a guard that badly. Not at all the kid she picked up back in Ropesk outback, whom she ruffled and called 'pup' and gave pecks on the cheek to, and he never asked about that either, too young to understand and liable to get laughed at - what sort of man would a woman like Nia Lochlain like, anyway?
She kept saying he was growing up fine, but now, he's not so sure.
You know, we really gotta do something about this. You finally got me into bed, kiddo, and here I think I'm bunking with a space monk.
"Sorry, Nia."
Extricating an arm from behind his head, he winds it around her waist, a move that shouldn't be as easy and comfortable as it is, since he never tried. He doesn't touch, though he gets the feeling she wants him to, too afraid it might not all be smooth, dark skin. That's the way a lot of his nightmares started early on, fueled by the knowledge of what sorts of noises a human being makes when it's trying to hold its gut closed, and he's not about to test the structural soundness of this dream.
Still, it seems like it's good enough for her, because she moves closer, drapes an arm across his chest in earnest. She never held him, not like this, nothing beyond the casual sling of an arm around his shoulders, the grind of knuckles in his hair. Forever someone he couldn't place, too far above him to be a sister, too rowdy and loud to be a mother, too bewildering to be a friend, constantly dancing through the corner of his eyes like a comet's trail, flaring brightly to inevitably draw his gaze.
Does it matter, kiddo, what we are?
"No, no, I guess not."
See, that's what I thought. That kind of stuff only gets complicated if you go around stickin' labels on it.
"Yeah. "
She's right, of course, always was, though a part of him wants to try, regardless, the part that's still trying to wrap its head around what Nia was, Nia is, not just to him but to the world at large, how anyone can be so many different things - launcher, spacefarer, pirate, bride to the mad heir of a conquering army - and not go crazy. Maybe it's like him and space, something you just diffuse into because it's part of you and you're part of it, no matter how you might try to keep your distance.
He never told her that he has dreams where he scoops up a handful of dark matter and kisses it, feels it murmur back a kiss in turn.
Well, what do you know, she says, a little surprised but earnestly thinking about it. Makin' out with Lady Space, huh? Takes guts.
Yuri nods, more because it's the sort of thing he knows he ought to agree with and less because it's actually true. Though a lot of things to do with space take courage, this was never one of them, something that comes easy, like he's been plucked and set apart from the rest of humanity at a young age, existing by himself in a bubble where the thought of curling and stretching and grasping onto space while it twined around him was as natural as breathing air, and wondering about human attachments was something complicated to shy away from.
He never did work up the nerve to ask her why she kissed him that time, when she had to bend down to grab his collar and he had no clue what to do with her tongue in his mouth, and who it was that kissed him - Nia the launcher, who just goes that extra mile for her charge, Nia the pirate, who steals things that catch her fancy, Nia the bride, who was saying goodbye, or maybe Nia the woman, who...
Who.
Sometimes, he wonders if she resents him for not understanding her, for still not understanding her, for not being man enough to comprehend what she wanted, wants, needs.
The Grus are you talking about, kid?
He shrugs as well as he can with one arm behind his head and one arm around her, feels more than hears her sigh.
Not that hard to figure out, is it. Her other hand has wormed its way behind his head, too, trailing from the jagged scar on his cheek to twine in his hair, stroking slowly back and forth.
"No, maybe not."
Another sigh, and then she's shifting, sliding upwards until she can rest her chin on his head the way she used to before he ended up too tall, nudging him until he ends up with his ear right above her heart, though the beat isn't human, too strong, inaudible and ancient, the pulse of space.
These things take time. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, I was more than happy with what you did offer?
He smiles, knows it's not her speaking, but himself, hoping that maybe it was enough to puff himself up three sizes and try to be the best captain he knew how to be, trying to live up to whatever expectations he thought she had.
Or maybe it's me speaking and you're just nursing an inferiority complex. Man enough, honestly. The Grus does that even mean?
"Beats me."
Another sigh, affectionate but slightly weary, as she pushes her nose into his hair in something that's part kiss, part breath. She's put a drop of perfume between her breasts, he realizes, the sun-lily fragrance there stronger than on the rest of her, though he can't for the life of him figure out how he knows that - it's not like he ever saw her do it, but it's not the sort of thing he just thinks up, either.
Nia offers no commentary, though he thinks he can feel her smile.
After a while, she shifts again, rubs a bit at his neck, which is going stiff. You're so quiet these days. Could hardly shut you up before.
"Sorry."
I'd hate to think this is something I put there.
Yuri blinks, frowns, tries to pull back but stops. In all her visits, she never apologized, not for leaving him or not telling him or for getting him mixed up in all that, and he doesn't want her to start doing it now. It sounds too much like the words permanently edged into his brain, staring at the wreckage of the alien ship and realizing that he couldn't help her, that she was hurt and bleeding and leaving him behind, and doing the unfair thing of unburdening her conscience.
"Don't."
Well, then, come on. You're making a girl worry, when you get like that.
He resists pointing out that it's a fair bit pointless to tell her about his day, not just because it's uneventful eat-work-sleep interspersed with punching idiots who think it's a good idea to pick a fight with him, but because everything he knows, Nia knows too. He doesn't, though, shoos the thought out the back door because keeping it real, or as close to real as it can be, is the goal of the whole game.
"Franny's nanobot should have the database hacked by tomorrow. Maybe then we can start figuring out a pattern to the storms, get ready for some real action."
You still don't know where they keep the ships, though.
"I'm more concerned with where they keep the guns. Should be smooth sailing as soon as we know that."
My, my. Awfully confident.
He might have imagined it, Yuri thinks, but she sounds pleased.
"They're more focused on keeping us on the planet than in the cells. I think we'll manage."
I know you will.
"A vote of confidence from myself?"
No, a vote of confidence from /me/. You've come a long way, kid.
His lips twitch. It's better not to examine that too closely. "And yet I'm still 'kid'?"
As long as you keep the snugglies to this bunk, hell yes you are. It's your dream. You could at least imagine something that's not lumpy if you're invitin' a lady over.
"Once I get a ship back, I'll install a new cabin, how's that sound?"
And get everyone wondering what you're doin' with a king-sized bed, when it's just you and your hand, doin' kinky things with Space?
He laughs, can't quite imagine anyone wondering that in earnest, trying to figure out what sheets Nia had in her cabin and whether she liked them or just never got around to swapping them for something better. It's silly, and frivolous, and she eggs him on with the idea of spending five-thousand on real satin, just for the hell of it. It's better to leave the thinking and strategizing for the day, where all the people he talks to are vital parts of his plan and the grind of work lends itself to wandering minds.
For now, though, it's good to just have this, to spend one night holding off the demands of Lady Space with one hand. She'll still be there tomorrow, and tomorrow night, and the day after this, harsh and rough and smooth and welcoming, intangible and solid and real and unreal, now more like Nia than ever.
In the gloom close to his ear, Nia with her new pulse laughs and shifts again, and when she bridges the gap, her lips are as cool and smooth as dark matter.
-Fin-
-----
A/N: I should note that I haven't yet completed Infinite Space, but this idea jumped me and demanded to be written anyway. It always seemed pretty obvious to me that Yuri's desire to go into space went a lot deeper than just simple "I want to be a space pirate" boyhood dreams, but no, I didn't think he was going to be making out with it, either. XD At any rate, C&C is much appreciated.
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