Page 64 of Habibi: Always and Forever

STARS ABOVE

T he Bastard , home for the past four weeks, was named by consensus vote barely two hours into the flight from Victus Station.

It was… functional. That was the best that could be said about it.

It hummed concerningly, unless it was clanking in ways that made the small engineering staff bolt for the engine room, and that was if it hadn’t gone suspiciously quiet and sweet without a worrying grind or click or rattle to be heard for hours.

That’s when it was most worrying, when it was behaving.

It was like a child who’d been loud and hyper all day suddenly going quiet, the no I’m not doing anything! call from the next room over that told you that yes, they were doing something and yes, it would cost you a lot of money to repair.

Ev had a sneaking suspicion that the Bastard was biding its time, waiting until they were past the edge of corp-controlled space, before really fucking them over.

Drifting along the null-gee corridor, they trailed their fingers over the ridges of the exposed paneling, all decorative touches long gone from the ship, stripped to make shelters on the ghost colony of Pasiphae now hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.

One of the kids—or maybe several—had drawn little smiling faces peeking around the ribs of the wall, some with pointy ears and long tails poking out around the edges where their legs should be.

Where the corridor dipped, gently leading to the lower levels away from the defunct lift bank, the drawings became loopy wild things.

Huge faces with snarling mouths, claws wrapped around the ridges of the panels.

Monsters eating the ship from the outside in.

Those were drawn by the adults, Ev suspected. They all feared something outside coming in.

As grim as the journey from the hab deck to controls was, Ev couldn’t stop the smile tugging at their lips when they reached the open door to the large, dimly lit control deck.

Stopping just outside the open door, they leaned against the wall and closed their eyes.

For years, they only knew Tobit by voice and sometimes it was still their favorite way to experience him.

Even though the rumble of voices and the Bastard ’s clanking, the hiss and spit of the ancient comms unit with its tentative link to Wildcat Station, Tobit’s voice was clear and sweet and theirs .

Probably a sign I need a head shrinker, Ev mused, following the thread of Tobit’s voice as he received updates from Wildcat. They can have his work voice. His real one is mine.

“Hey, Ev. Here for Tobit?”

Ev groaned inwardl y . Busted. Sure enough, they opened their eyes to the entire comms group staring at them, Dolores’ sunny smile pinning them to the spot. “Hey, Dol. Just passing through and was arrested by the melodious sounds of your mellifluous voice.”

“Oh, you charmer,” she giggled, slapping his arm hard enough to sting. “I was wondering when you’d stop by. We all were. Tobit?—”

“Hey, Dolores!” One of the comms trainees— Sellers?

Cris? Wait, no, Milton!— popped up from his seat and all but threw himself across the narrow compartment to grab Dolores around the middle in a sort of one armed hug combined with a wrestling move Ev had seen at an exhibition match on Achilles IV.

“I have a question about the channel hopping.”

“How would I know about that?” she demanded, not really putting up much of a fight as Milton tugged her away. “Tobit?—”

“Tobit’s busy,” Milton ground out. “Hey, Ev! Bye, Ev!”

“Er. Bye?” Ev chuckled, turning his attention to— Ah, there he is— Tobit.

Beautiful as ever, even in grubby ship knits and at the end of a ten-hour shift.

The slow, lazy flip in their belly spread heat up Ev’s neck and into their face, their smile suddenly shy like this was the first time seeing Tobit.

Tobit’s own smile answered back, small and curly, quickly tucked away before anyone might dare think he could be in a good mood. “Ev. I wasn’t expecting you until half past.”

Ev slid their arms around Tobit’s middle, face tilted up in silent request. They were only a little stung when Tobit didn’t close the rest of the distance, didn’t tilt his face down to meet Ev’s, but Ev knew the way Tobit’s body moved when he was feeling affectionate, when he was missing them.

The slight softness of his posture, the gentle press of his fingers to Ev’s arm, the way he let Ev pull him closer, took their weight against his.

Ev hummed happily under their breath, breathing in Tobit’s familiar scent of burned ship coffee, the citrus-sharp soap they all used, and sweet washing powder overlaying Tobit’s warm skin and salt smell, the sting of ozone that Ev sometimes thought came from being born stationside instead of into the dust and rocks of a planet.

“Well, surprise?” Ev offered, the drop in chatter around them finally wiggling into their awareness.

“What’s going on? Why is everyone staring at me? ”

“Because you’re so pretty,” Tobit murmured, just for Ev to hear. That smile was back and quicker than ever. “Why are you down here so early? Not that I mind…”

“Ah, Eve didn’t need my help in the hydroponics lab,” a generous name for the hodge podge set up Eve and her group of trained and trainee botanists were babying into fruition one bean sprout at a time, “so I decided to head down early. See if you wanted to grab a bite before crew movie night.”

Tobit grimaced slightly, just enough for Ev to notice even though it was barely a flicker. “What? I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“I am. I really am,” Tobit hurried to assure them. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be early.”

Dolores’ bubbly voice piped up. “Did you tell them yet? Oh my gods, it’s so romantic,” she swooned. “What? Milton! Stop pinching my arm! Ow!”

Ev leaned back, gently breaking Tobit’s grasp. “What is she talking about? Show me what? Is it about Wildcat Station? Oh! Is there another station closer? Wait, why would that be romantic? Is it?—”

“It’s…” He sighed, closed his eyes and took a moment. “Do you know what today is?”

“Er. No?” Dolores made another sound, this time muffled.

Ev peeked around Tobit to see Milton with his hand over her mouth and two of the other trainees trying their hardest not to laugh.

“Is it your birthday? Is it my birthday? I’ve lost track of time since leaving the station. Hell, since before?—”

Tobit straightened, his mask slipping into place and hardening the soft edges he usually kept just for Ev. “Come with me. I can’t do this here.”

* * *

E v tripped along after Tobit, his longer stride making Ev nearly trot to keep up.

The stern expression he’d slipped on in the comms room was still in place, making the happy wiggle Ev had felt earlier dissolve into rather worried butterflies.

They strode down the corridor, back the way Ev had come, until it branched off, left going towards the hab deck and right towards the closed off wing of deck six, once an entertainment chamber and now blocked off to conserve resources and make it harder for the kids to get into trouble.

“This way,” Tobit ordered quietly when Ev started to head left. “Quickly.”

Ev hurried to catch up, coming alongside Tobit as two people emerged from the usually locked chamber and, after a brief start at seeing Ev, gave Tobit a nod.

Tobit returned it with a tight-lipped expression that could generously been interpreted as a smile, finally taking Ev’s hand as they passed the other two crew.

“Just over a month ago,” Tobit murmured, slowing their pace as they reached the closed door, “we met face to face for the first time.”

Ev stopped in their tracks, breath catching hard in their throat. “Oh my gods. I… I can’t believe I didn’t realize! Tobit, I’m so sorry. I?—”

“Shhhh, shhh. No, don’t fret so,” he urged, pulling them tight against his chest, free with affection now that they were alone. “I’m not mad. I do have something for you though. Come here.”

Ev was pulled along again, stopping when Tobit motioned for them to.

Tobit pressed his palms against the dull metal door and gave it a sliding shove, the scraping sound as it opened loud even over the Bastard ’s clanking.

A gust of stale air hit them square in the nose, making Ev sneeze several times in quick succession before turning a rueful smile on Tobit. “Usually ships aren’t dusty.”

“Usually ships are kept cleaner than this,” Tobit pointed out, drawing them into the chamber and giving the door a shove to close it behind them.

“Um. So, I… Oh, gods, I feel ridiculous but damn it. Okay. I feel like today… Well, a month ago today… that was the start. Until that point, it felt… theoretical. I cared for you. I care for you. And I was worried. Terrified, really, when you told me about your plans. I knew I couldn’t let you do it alone. And I…”

It was Ev’s turn to shush. Leaning in close, looping their arms around Tobit’s neck, they silenced him with a soft kiss that was barely more than a brush of lips but slid slowly, inexorably, into something deeper.

Something so exquisitely tender that Ev wondered if they would just burst into a thousand stars and weep.

Tobit’s shuddered breath as he pulled back had Ev chasing him for more, but Tobit gently pushed him away once more.

“I love you, Ev. I hope you know… I hope you know that even when I don’t say it, even when I’m in my head or working or a dozen other things, I love you.

And I’m in this for as long as you want me to be.

Not just this,” he waved one hand vaguely at the ship around them, taking in the escape, the refugees, the run for their lives.

“ This .” He reached for Ev but, instead of pulling them back in, pressed his palm to Ev’s chest right over their heart.

“I told you when we left Victus, I wanted to take you out properly one day.”

Ev’s breath shuddered, barely voicing the words.

“You did.” Everything felt alive, happiness and possibility fizzing in their veins as Tobit’s hand moved to their chin and tipped their chin up.

Across the dark ceiling over the old chamber, thousands of tiny blobs of light shone.

Casting no real glow, they ranged in size from the head of a pin to the size of Ev’s thumbprint, scattered with no discernible pattern across the entirety of the ceiling. “What am I seeing?”

“The station had the viewing chamber, where you could float and see the stars and planets all around you, like you were just adrift.”

“It was the one nice part of the damn place,” Ev murmured, slowly moving further into the chamber, staring at the array of spots and blobs above. “What about it?”

“I, um… I had fantasies of taking you there. When I first started having these feelings. Before we met. Then when I knew… Well, I knew it was too late for that, but it’s a favorite day dream of mine. Taking you to drift in the stars.”

Ev lowered his face to look at Tobit once more, tears stinging his eyes. “You made me stars?”

“It’s just the goop from that batch of glow bulbs that were leaking.

I had Simon and Tyla help,” he added, making a half-hearted gesture towards the door, towards the two crew mates they’d passed in the corridor.

“I was hoping to bring you here for dinner later, spend some time under these stars since we can’t see any from inside the ship, and it’s at least another three weeks till Wildcat Station and this should last at least two weeks so… ”

Ev took two long strides to Tobit, barely giving him warning before leaping into his arms. “I love it. I love you . And it’s our anniversary. Monthiversary? Oh, hell, I don’t know. Kiss me, please. Kiss me and help me name our constellations.”

“There’s no pattern,” Tobit admitted, coming up for air minutes, hours, days later. “I just asked them to splatter?—”

“That’s why they’re ours . No one else has ever seen them. And no one else will. So show me the stars above, Tobit Sinclair, and love me and let me love you.”

“Neither of us are on duty until tomorrow.”

“Good. I think this might take us all night.”