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---- The only good thing about being trapped in space are the stars. Day in, day out, whether it’s near tail end of alpha shift or the beginning of gamma shift, lower the window guards and as steady and peaceful as the sound of waves crashing ashore, they blink back in hues of red and white and blue in greeting. It’s mesmerizing in the way that awes and terrifies him all at once. The long, wide windows in Yuto’s quarters are never shut. His captain has developed the habit of leaving them open at all hours, sleep or no. Feels protected by the vastness of sleep, he says, like space is a gentle mistress who caresses his skin while he slips into unconsciousness, cradling him safely in the dark. Yuto sees the unexplored wonders and feels the excitement tingle his skin when he looks at the beyond. Yamada sees nothing but the dark, deep, and empty vacuum of space ready and waiting patiently for its turn to strike. For a moment he stands motionless at the edge of the room. Just a while, he thinks, as the door hisses shut less than a foot behind him. A long gone memory, buried deep, the second his eyes catch the sight of Yuto’s tall frame. The pale neon glow lights of the lights that line the window silhouettes, creating valleys and shadows along the large expanse of his back. If he was braver he might have reached out to touch, his fingers running along each curve, each rise and bump and ridge and scar. It’s a weakness, he knows, but still he lets Yuto sink into him again, stretching the seconds out as long as he can before he snaps back to reality. Yuto knows he’s there. He knows Yuto knows. It’s like a game. Only really, it’s not at all. They don’t talk about it. Instead Yuto keeps looking out and beyond and he swallows the words he’s not allowed to say. Like always. Finally it snaps, hot and hard like a rubber band. Yuto breaks the silence and they let the moment slip away. “Ryosuke,” he says and his voice is laced with the warmth and affection he never allows when they’re both on duty and it’s “Commander” or “Yamada.” “Ready?” he asks in return, cool and calm, nothing betraying the humming that thrums beneath the surface inside of him. They don’t talk about it, this thing between them save the one time. It’s there in the awareness they have for each other, a constant push and pull that will never have a winner. It clings in the air wherever they go. People whisper about it. They wonder. But they don’t know. They can’t say for sure. And they won’t ask. Sometimes he thinks he wants to tell someone. He wants to say it terrifies him. It leaves him flushed with a heat in his chest that buzzes and tingles like something underneath his skin is ready to give way. Like he’ll explode if he can’t calm down fast enough. “Hold on a sec,” Yuto says, then finally turns towards him, a hand subconsciously reaching out to graze the tips of his fingers along the glass in a caress. He takes a few strides to his closet, pushes a button to open the door, takes another ugly mustard colored Captain’s shirt off it’s hanger and pulls it on. When he faces Yamada it’s with an easy grin on his face, the corners of his mouths quirking upwards. Loose and easy, like the relaxed line of his spine from a minute before. Feels an eternity ago. Dinner in the mess hall, for the most part, is uneventful. Just like the evening before and the one before that. The 500 and so odd days before even. They don’t tell you that in the academy. When you’re there, trapped on land and only the known, they fill your ears with stories of begone youth, of adventure and new discoveries. They promise alien races new and ancient and planets where the skies shimmer a burnt orange and the leaves are the deepest hue of violet the eye can perceive. They don’t tell you about the bland meals or the long days of nothing, nothing, nothing. They don’t tell you about the days and nights you fight to stay awake at your station because nothing is happening. They don’t tell you about the inbetween when nothing but stars and the deep vacuum of space pass by. They don’t tell you how even something as big as the Enterprise can feel so small, so limiting, like you’re trapped and there’s nowhere to go, no new places to see or explore because after five years you know every nook and cranny of your ship. Yuto’s ship. Your ship. Because Yuto always say whatever is his is yours. It’s circular, this notion. He supposes they’ve forgotten, trapped in the rose-tinted haze of nostalgia, but that’s not a luxury he’s able to enjoy. In all honesty he doesn’t understand how someone can forget anything, not when everything burns so sharp and clear for him. ---- In tandem they slip back into Yuto’s room together. It’s larger, even if only by a little. They’re so close they’re almost touching. The hum inside of him grows a fraction bigger. They keep themselves in check, a hair’s breadth away at least. Propriety. It’s okay as long as they don’t say it. It’s okay as long as they never touch, most of all in public. If they do people might know. So they slip in and Yamada keeps his hand behind his back, one hand curled tight around the wrist of the other, and before the door closes they move to opposite sides of the room, him to the shelf and Yuto to the Sake. He sets up the game on the only table in the room, right next to the still open windows and before he’s done Yuto has trekked across the room and is making himself comfortable in the seat opposite his. Yuto offers him a drink and he takes it for the pretense. Their fingers brush but it’s okay now. White stones for Yuto. Black ones for him. Yuto never could beat him at Go. Not once in all the years they’ve been playing, gifted in strategy and battle as he is. Something about Go clicks for him in a way that it never has for Yuto. Never will, a whisper inside him says. He anticipates every move, sees every single combination, hundreds upon hundreds in the blink of an eye, and before Yuto even decides his first move Yamada has already won. When Yuto inevitably loses there’s that stupid, happy grin on his face all the same -- his lips quirked in the way that makes Yamada want to brush the flesh of his thumb along Yuto’s thin bottom lip. And there it is again. That buzzing underneath his skin. It’s happening all the time now, quicker and quicker in succession. Every time he looks at Yuto his senses overload like his body and his heart can’t process the flood of information. He mirrors a subtler version, feels the slight give and curve of his mouth. He feels it coming, senses how it grows and grows until he’s going into emergency shut down, vision whirring, and then the whole world tilts as he falls over. Yuto rushes to his side but it’s too late. His mouth moves but Yamada can’t hear a thing. A pinch of worry between Yuto’s brow appear and he wants to reach out, sooth it away but before he can do anything there’s nothing but black. ---- He remembers in ways that others don’t. People remember moments, feelings. They remember segments, or the punchline of a joke. He remembers everything. Yuto, eighteen, tall and skinny, lanky, like a sharp gust of wind would do him in. He remembers the lines of Yuto’s face -- too sharp -- and all the awkward angles. He remembers each strand of frizzled mess because the idiot couldn’t be bothered to waste two minutes in front of the mirror. Even now, he muses. He really shouldn’t let Yuto get away with it and yet he does. Because when it comes down to it he’s an idiot too. All his life -- their life, really -- Yuto had been skinny. From an overly excitable toddler to his always looking for trouble ten year old best friend. Fifteen and sixteen when he suddenly shot up. Sometimes when the light hit Yuto wrong he’s still skinny. Scrawny. Only difference is he isn’t gawky anymore. Somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-two he’d grown into himself properly. He’d filled out with lean muscles and an easy smile. Yamada hears their whispers. He’s gorgeous, they say. Devastatingly so. But Yamada had always known. He knew it from the moment he opened his eyes. It’s weird. He is weird. Different. From all of them. They remember moments, feelings. He remembers everything like it’s all saved in a memory bank somewhere, buried deep within him, easily accessible but not quite understandable. He remembers it all. From the first time he opened his eyes and saw Yuto’s gurgling, drooling face mashing against his to the last time Yuto lost his tooth and all the ones before. He remembers the light on Yuto’s face when he took his first step and he remembers Yuto’s face contorted in pain the first time he skinned his knee. Yamada remembers the first time Yuto gripped his bony hand in his as a child and said to him, “Ryosuke, you’re my best friend,” to the last time he’d been bleeding and choking on the ground while Yamada tried to keep him alive long enough for help. A hand pressed down hard against the wound to stem the flow of blood -- so much of it too, so dark and red, slick and warm and everywhere on him and under his nails and in his skin, staining the ground and his clothes and his hands -- but Yuto, runway crown-prince and the only friend Yamada has ever really had, had laser focused on him through the haze and said to him, “I love you,” like he knew he was going to die -- like Yamada Ryosuke was going to let him die -- and it was his last chance to say it. When Yuto woke up in medbay, eyes bleary but finally open after hours of staying shut, he didn’t have it in him to be angry anymore. He should have reprimanded at least, quoted regulation at him about how Captains are supposed to stay aboard the ship when exploring new worlds even if none of it has ever stuck before. Instead Yuto scooted over, hand pressed against his side to dull the pain, until there was enough room for Yamada to silently climb in. He curled himself against Yuto’s side like they were children again. Soft pressure against the top of his head and he answered with a gentle curl of his lip hidden into Yuto’s collarbone. “Idiot,” he said, low enough for only the two of them. “Yeah,” Yuto agreed, low, drowsy, like a secret. “‘S why you keep me around.” “You could have died.” “Could’ve.” Truth is “could’ve” is an everyday possibility for him. For all of them. Truth is every additional day they spend in space “could’ve” shifts closer and closer to “will”. He drops the thought because if he keeps going he’ll never be able to breathe again. ---- Yuto once told him that it’s photographic memory. There’s a dread tangling itself into knots in the pit of his belly that says that’s not right. It’s something more. Something terrible. Something horrifying. ---- Yamada doesn’t remember having parents. It’s not just that he doesn’t remember their faces or the way they smelled or the feel of their hand as they cupped his cheek. He doesn’t remember how they smiled fondly down at him or that he was even loved. There are no soulless silhouette in their places. There’s nothing. It’s not the same as not remembering his parents. He knows what it means but it eludes him, slips slightly out of his grasp every time he tries, like a part of him is unwilling, scared. It’s at the tip of his tongue, something he knows he once knew but has chosen to forget. ---- When he opens his eyes there’s nothing but black. Not even a speck of light shines through. He’s disoriented, lost and confused and wondering where the hell he is, why it feels like he’s floating in nothingness. Then there’s a quick, electric zap, a slow humming buzz, and he boots up. He’s still sluggish, unsure if he can move. He squeezes his eyes tightly, keeps them closed and breathes evenly through his nose. “Stay calm,” he tells himself. “This is a dream.” But he doesn't dream. Not like how others dream. All his dreams are memories. When he blinks them open again it’s to the sight of the medical bay ceiling, made familiar by all the times he’d shared a bed in this room with an injured captain, waking up or drifting off to sleep. There’s yelling in the room, Yuto’s familiar voice unfamiliar, loud and angry and demanding, a little desperate, shouting at who he presumes is Yabu, their ship doctor, an old man with graying hair and a slouch in his back that suggests a height to rival Yuto’s in his youth.
Do something! Now!
He can’t see, can’t turn his head to check, can’t open his mouth to subtly reprimand his captain about proper crew treatment. He attempts to move, to sit up, fights to do so, but he shorts out again. ---- He puts two and two together, and figures he must be dying. It’s true, what they say. The entire history of you flashes before your eyes when you die. All his memories are of Yuto, every single one of them, the ones he kept and stored away, and they whiz by in old holo films, circling and circling and circling him, encasing him in white. There, toddling side by side in their swaddle-clothes. And there, hands reaching out for the other in case they fell, so high up in the tree. And there too, playing. Crying. Laughing. Hurting. All around. All archived inside his mind, waiting and ready for him to recall perfectly. Yuto had been careless as a child. No. Carefree. Skinned knees and scratches from the branches of trees they would climb together with raw hands. Yamada couldn’t not follow. It’s like it’s been written -- programmed -- into his very DNA. He reaches out, touches one, feels himself engulfed in it. ----- They’re eight and exploring the caves of the Old Ones near the castle for the first time. It’s ancient and frail, and forbidden by royal decree. No one is supposed to come in here anymore, dangerous, they say, least of all two children but Yuto is good at doing what he’s told not to, and Yamada is good at following his whims. The images on the walls tell a prophecy, one that’s been repeated to them so many times now it’s become nothing more than a bedtime story. The man with an iron heart that glows an unnatural hue of blue, encased in red and gold and flying through the air. It’s enraptured Yuto, the solid form of that armor, the flight. He wants to say he can’t remember how many times they’ve visited those caves in secret after but he knows better than to lie to himself. Three hundred and twenty seven, he says to himself in answer. He snaps back to white again, reaches out, and drowns in another memory. ---- They’re ten and a half -- the “half” had been very important to them both back then -- and had snuck off into the woods behind the castle in the middle of the night. Yuto wanted to reach for the stars and Yamada wanted to be there with them. One branch after the other. Higher, higher. Maybe it was the added weight of the “half” in their age that made the branch snap under Yuto’s sure feet. He remembers this in slow motion. The sound of a snap sharp in his ear, the branch gives way with a creak and Yuto comes tumbling down above him back first. Fear grips his tiny heart, gives him the speed to move faster than he ever thought possible back then. He lets go, holds onto his sturdier branch with one hand. The slim fingers of his other hand are a death grip around Yuto’s dainty wrists, accompanied by the sick pop of dislocation. Yuto had cried back then, loud at first from the pain, drowning out every other noise around them. And when they quieted down to sobs, he fearfully, grimacing through the pain, says to Yamada, “Don’t let me go, okay?” He wouldn’t -- could never -- this is what he was built for. He sees this moment now for what it was. That night he had held on as Yuto’s tears finally ran dry, turning into dry hiccups and then nothing, until the first rays of sunshine came through, bleeding into mid-morning light, and finally frantic shouts calling out for him and Yuto. It was never that he wasn’t strong enough to get them both down to safety. It was never that he wasn’t strong enough to pull them both up onto the branch he’d been holding that night. He just hadn’t known he could. Or, more precisely, he’d chosen to forget that he could. Because he wanted to be a real boy too. He closes his eyes and when he opens them he’s surrounded by white again. This time he sees it, finally willing, accepting. It’s locked away, hidden behind all the blinding white. He reaches out and opens it, unafraid. ---- The moment he is turned on - power core dropped into him -- and he opens his eyes he’d belonged to Yuto. A companion. A friend. A brother. Because he was a lonely child. A protector. Because Yuto was wiley and precocious. Still experimental, but made for him.
Amazing! You’ve achieved something brilliant here. To think, artificial life!
This is only the first model...
Yes, yes… A non-committed wave of a hand. The royal family will keep funding you. But how does it work? It’s so small? Yuto will need someone to grow with him until he’s at least of age to take the throne. They walk away and the answer gets muffled by the distance that separates him from them. When they return they close him up and they heal the incision -- no scars, no trace -- and they erase this part of his memory but he’s the first and there are still glitches, unknowns. There is a truth they’ve forgotten. Nothing ever really disappears. He gets placed in a box, carried away, and when he sees again it’s Yuto, dopey grin, drooling, excitedly screeching while mashing their faces together. ---- He opens his eyes and he sees the familiar ceiling of the private medical bay room. He can move again. He turns, unsurprised to see Yuto seated in the chair next to him, back ramrod straight, eyes cloudy in thought. He looks grim, his brows pinched together. Still handsome though, that bastard. Yuto knows now, he can see it. He does too. He’s dying, his core depleting. He’s too old. Technology has moved beyond him, stripped his parts bare. He’s lasted longer than he was meant to, longer than his expiration date. An unexpected gift. They’re just buying time now. They never talk about it, the important things. Them. Unacknowledged. Maybe this time too. Maybe they’ll just let time slip away until he becomes a memory, and then fade into nothing. A void. But he wants to say it at least once before he goes, wants to tell Yuto I have always loved you. Maybe people, the non-artificial ones will scoff at him, look down at him and tell him he can’t love, that with his model what he thinks is love is nothing but programming but they can’t take this away from him. Twenty plus years together. His entire life. He knows better than anyone else. I have always loved you, from the very moment I opened my eyes he means, says instead, “Who will take care of you when I’m gone?” Something breaks in Yuto’s eyes in that moment but it hardens quickly, just like Yamada expected him to. His nostrils flare gearing up for a long, drawn out battle, the lines of his mouth tightening. There’s so much intent in his eyes. Yuto doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios. “I’m going to save you,” he says with so much conviction Yamada almost believes him, wants to at least. ---- There’s a black, empty void inside of him that seeps into everything he is. It grows and grows, consumes him until there’s nothing left, not even the fire to keep going. He tells himself he won’t cry, won’t let himself, repeats it like a mantra over and over and over. This isn’t it. This can’t be it. He’s going to find a way. He always does. He doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios. Pillow beneath his head, the heels of his hands pressed so hard into his eyes he’s seeing stars. He fights back hard, doesn’t want to lose but feels hopeless. The seed of a sob grows in his chest, infects his lungs, claws up his throat like ivy. What finally comes out is half cry in anguish, half shout in frustration and anger, tears leaking, rolling down his skin before disappearing into crisp white pillowcase. Yamada isn’t there. It hits him while he’s down that Yamada might never be there again.
I’m going to save you.
How silly of him to declare that. What a childish notion.
No.
Not silly. Not childish. He’s going to do it. There are no no-win scenarios. ----