The hours were waning, an artificial day-night cycle interrupted by untended hours of sleep. How many nights have you spent sitting cross-legged in front of that window into space, staring as if searching for something unseen? You looked as if all the answers to your problems would spell themselves among the glitter and gold beyond the glass to tempt you into the void.
Yet no matter how intently you lost yourself in the galaxy, it was hard to miss the familiar warmth of the Angara at your side. This was not the first time you found each others company in the dark, illuminated by the glow of the cosmos.
Most nights there was long silence, unburdened by words. Though occasionally a conversation brewed, the weight of worries spilled out over open tongues like fresh wounds bleeding over the stones. Bared ivory with unladen concerns. You’re not sure how it ended up like this, with the both of you spilling your guts for one another in a desperate plea for comfort.
Jaal was patient, compassionate. He wore his heart on his sleeve, a show of his bravery. You were his opposite, hidden emotions veiled by a false confidence and a bravado. You envied his people’s openness, longed for a life where you trusted yourself enough to not get hurt by prying your ribs open to any who would house you.
It was hard not to find yourself attached, though you couldn’t FATHOM why he continued to return. His gentle eyes matching the gentle soul within him. The first time you leaned against his shoulder would not be the last, and it wouldn’t be the first that he pulled your visor from your eyes to see your amber glow in dim light.
You trusted him. Perhaps that would be your downfall. But if you were to burn up in the atmosphere, you would do so willingly. As long as you had this moment to remember as the molten fires peeled your carapace away.
It was a slow action, the meeting of lips, his were soft like a humans and yet just slightly firmer then you’d expected. And the hand on your cheek and the way he moved all spoke of the most precious softness you’d ever been awarded. The kiss was like the feeling of freshly washed sheets, the ocean air over the beach, the sight of a summer sunrise –
Perhaps neither of you really had much, him with so much to prove to his people, and you with no place to feel a belonging to. But, at least for these nights, when the stars illuminated the brush of sky beyond the glass, and the hours melted away to nothing – You would have each other.
