churbooseanon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
churbooseanon) wrote2014-11-21 09:04 am
churbooseanon) wrote2014-11-21 09:04 am
Star Stuff (a Guns for Hire fanfic)
Story Request: I had a sudden inspiration for the GFH AU. Sleeping at Last's song Saturn, maybe with Epsilon (or one of the others) remembering Alpha. - Anonymous
Star Stuff
A crystal clear night is a rare thing on Adaptive. There were so many factors affecting the sky, from the obvious plague clouds, to the dust kicked up by the winds in the waste lands, to normal weather patterns, and right on down the line to the more mundane pollution that sometimes faded out the sky. And that didn’t even begin to take into account how light pollution washed the sky out on its own
A night where someone could just sit back, unafraid, and look up at the brief smattering of stars scattered about the sky was so very, very rare. And so, more clear nights than not Epsilon finds himself on the roof, helmet off, staring up at the limitless wonder of the star filled sky.
Omega stopped giving him dirty looks for leaving a ladder leaning against the back roof so he could climb up on those rare nights and lay there, stretched out on the roof, staring up at the meager offerings of the night sky. Delta stopped yelling years ago as well. They know why he goes up there, after all.
Or they think they do.
They can’t understand, Epsilon decides, lifting his hand, a single finger extended, as he traced constellations.
That’s the Outcast, he can hear Alpha’s voice whisper in his ear through the distant haze of time. It’s soft, briefly awed, and highly amused. And right there? That really bright point of light? That’s his heart. It’s the star Sirius.
Why’s that his heart?
Because of all the stars in the night sky that you can see from Adaptive, Sirius is the easiest one to find that our night sky shares all year with Earth, the birth place of Humanity. The stories say that when the first settlers of Adaptive were sent here, they were outcasts, sent from Earth. And they always held their home near and dear to their hearts. Sirius represents that. They say you can follow Sirius all the way home.
Can you?
Alpha always laughed when Epsilon asked that.
He never answered.
Never would, Epsilon supposed as he reached up and covered Sirius with his thumb, blotting it out of the night sky. He knew it backward and forward now. Knew all the constellations for the whole year, could identify them easily, even though he couldn’t see half of the stars that composed them.
Sometimes Sigma teased him for the posters of stars, planets, galaxies and nebulae that plastered his half of their bedroom. But Sigma…
Why don’t we ever show the others this?
His own voice as a child had been soft, nervous, high and he might even go so far as to say lilting. He knows it perfectly, knows these moments from his past almost too well. He can remember looking into Alpha’s eyes, marveling at the silvery color and the strange, almost iridescent sheen to them, looking into those eyes and feeling like all the limitless wonder of the night sky was nothing next to his biggest brother.
D is too worried he’d fall, Meg doesn’t like the sky all that much, and Sig is afraid of heights. So this…
Alpha’s arm sweeps up from behind his head to encompass the sky with a single, wide gesture.
All of this? It’s ours, Eppy. Only ours. We get to share something no one else does.
What’s that?
We’re looking into the past.
The past?
Yeah. The light from our own sun is almost six minutes old by the time it gets to us. But those? Those are way further away. So the light we’re seeing is probably millions of years old. Cool, right? Those stars could already be gone and we wouldn’t know it until way after.
Where do stars go when they’re gone?
Epsilon had gone still when Alpha reached down to run his fingers through Epsilon’s hair. He remembers that. He’s certain of that.
Into us, Eppy. You. Me. That plastic tree. This house. The whole planet. Space ships, other stars, whole galaxies. We’re all made from the tiniest bits and pieces of exploded stars. Somewhere, really far back, you were part of a star. Can you believe that somehow, somewhere along the line, the universe aligned in just the right way to make you out of stars?
Alpha always spoke like that when they were alone. Full of wonder and disbelief and awe. When he didn’t have to be their big brother, when he could just be a boy growing up like them, he was so different.
He sighs and lets his arm fall limply to his side. Maybe he should bring Theta up here some night. Show him the stars that Alpha had given him. Share the wonder and tell him that they’re all made of little bits of stars.
No, he decides, staring up at Sirius.
No. This would stay only his. He would stay up here every clear night and look at the stars and hope.
Hope that maybe the bits of star in him would call out to those in Alpha, and that some night his brother would just climb up the ladder and join him, as if nothing had happened in the years between. Or, at least, that Sirius would find a way to guide their brother home.
Hope desperately through a star scattered night sky even as he spent his days, and other nights, certain that Alpha was never coming back.
Star Stuff
A crystal clear night is a rare thing on Adaptive. There were so many factors affecting the sky, from the obvious plague clouds, to the dust kicked up by the winds in the waste lands, to normal weather patterns, and right on down the line to the more mundane pollution that sometimes faded out the sky. And that didn’t even begin to take into account how light pollution washed the sky out on its own
A night where someone could just sit back, unafraid, and look up at the brief smattering of stars scattered about the sky was so very, very rare. And so, more clear nights than not Epsilon finds himself on the roof, helmet off, staring up at the limitless wonder of the star filled sky.
Omega stopped giving him dirty looks for leaving a ladder leaning against the back roof so he could climb up on those rare nights and lay there, stretched out on the roof, staring up at the meager offerings of the night sky. Delta stopped yelling years ago as well. They know why he goes up there, after all.
Or they think they do.
They can’t understand, Epsilon decides, lifting his hand, a single finger extended, as he traced constellations.
That’s the Outcast, he can hear Alpha’s voice whisper in his ear through the distant haze of time. It’s soft, briefly awed, and highly amused. And right there? That really bright point of light? That’s his heart. It’s the star Sirius.
Why’s that his heart?
Because of all the stars in the night sky that you can see from Adaptive, Sirius is the easiest one to find that our night sky shares all year with Earth, the birth place of Humanity. The stories say that when the first settlers of Adaptive were sent here, they were outcasts, sent from Earth. And they always held their home near and dear to their hearts. Sirius represents that. They say you can follow Sirius all the way home.
Can you?
Alpha always laughed when Epsilon asked that.
He never answered.
Never would, Epsilon supposed as he reached up and covered Sirius with his thumb, blotting it out of the night sky. He knew it backward and forward now. Knew all the constellations for the whole year, could identify them easily, even though he couldn’t see half of the stars that composed them.
Sometimes Sigma teased him for the posters of stars, planets, galaxies and nebulae that plastered his half of their bedroom. But Sigma…
Why don’t we ever show the others this?
His own voice as a child had been soft, nervous, high and he might even go so far as to say lilting. He knows it perfectly, knows these moments from his past almost too well. He can remember looking into Alpha’s eyes, marveling at the silvery color and the strange, almost iridescent sheen to them, looking into those eyes and feeling like all the limitless wonder of the night sky was nothing next to his biggest brother.
D is too worried he’d fall, Meg doesn’t like the sky all that much, and Sig is afraid of heights. So this…
Alpha’s arm sweeps up from behind his head to encompass the sky with a single, wide gesture.
All of this? It’s ours, Eppy. Only ours. We get to share something no one else does.
What’s that?
We’re looking into the past.
The past?
Yeah. The light from our own sun is almost six minutes old by the time it gets to us. But those? Those are way further away. So the light we’re seeing is probably millions of years old. Cool, right? Those stars could already be gone and we wouldn’t know it until way after.
Where do stars go when they’re gone?
Epsilon had gone still when Alpha reached down to run his fingers through Epsilon’s hair. He remembers that. He’s certain of that.
Into us, Eppy. You. Me. That plastic tree. This house. The whole planet. Space ships, other stars, whole galaxies. We’re all made from the tiniest bits and pieces of exploded stars. Somewhere, really far back, you were part of a star. Can you believe that somehow, somewhere along the line, the universe aligned in just the right way to make you out of stars?
Alpha always spoke like that when they were alone. Full of wonder and disbelief and awe. When he didn’t have to be their big brother, when he could just be a boy growing up like them, he was so different.
He sighs and lets his arm fall limply to his side. Maybe he should bring Theta up here some night. Show him the stars that Alpha had given him. Share the wonder and tell him that they’re all made of little bits of stars.
No, he decides, staring up at Sirius.
No. This would stay only his. He would stay up here every clear night and look at the stars and hope.
Hope that maybe the bits of star in him would call out to those in Alpha, and that some night his brother would just climb up the ladder and join him, as if nothing had happened in the years between. Or, at least, that Sirius would find a way to guide their brother home.
Hope desperately through a star scattered night sky even as he spent his days, and other nights, certain that Alpha was never coming back.