Bit of No Man's Sky AU writing of my and @jiuchives's guys !! brief context is that for the background of this au port i have straight up plucked them up by the scruff from their original setting and plopped them down in NMS and told them to figure it out <3 dropped them directly into anomaly/traveler rebirth loop :D so they still have their wings and tails from their original setting, if and when they choose to have them because //handwaves// its magic idk and they got to navigate how to deal with everything that comes from being ripped away from their native timeline and deposited unceremoniously into a different one with their memories and biology intact - this takes place some months or years after that, having survived and thrived long enough to put together their own little ramshackle corvette starship, have run-ins with Sentinels, and travel the vastness of the universe(s) together in their journey for answers or a way home or perhaps just a cozy life in eternity. Enjoy!! (Below the cut!)
The high of adrenaline pounding through your veins after a near-miss with a squadron of Sentinel interceptors is unlike anything Hawthorn's ever felt and he hopes to whatever fucked-up gods might be in this universe that he never has to feel it again. There'd been seven of them. Hawthorn was in the cockpit gunning them down, one after another, but not without a hailstorm of gunfire rattling down on their shield system—they've handled one or two interceptors before just fine after some mishaps with collecting resources planetside, but seven jumping them at once in a particularly triggerhappy solar systen had been nearly too much for their starship, in rough shape to begin with. By the end of it their shields were down, hearts pounding, Daikyu desperately feeding materials into their systems to keep everything running while Hawthorn ran their photon cannons far too hot in a desperate bid to take down the last ship. And then, gloriously, the Sentinel went down, and the interference with their engines faded, and Hawthorn slammed his fist down on their hyperdrive to launch them as far away from the wreckage as he could, burning fuel until they were in the clear and he could cut the engine again. The momentum carries them at hundreds of units per hour and it feels like stillness in comparison. Hawthorn slumps back in his seat, chest heaving, eyes screwed shut. He'd nearly lost him. He'd nearly lost everything. He didn't, though. He hears Daikyu click something into place in the panels behind them and then feels his arms from behind, hugging him close and then—as Hawthorn twists to reach for him, too—the frantic press of lips. He can feel his husband's heart pound, rapid beat-beat-beat in time with his own in the heat of their mouths, holding each other crushingly close and only parting when the back of the pilot seat becomes too annoying a barrier to tolerate. Even then, it's only long enough for Hawthorn to tug Daikyu around to sit on his lap instead, taller and leaner frame swallowing him and the enormity of stained-glass wings falling around him like a cocoon. Later he'll scold him for tearing another shirt, letting wings manifest in clothes not meant for it, this universe not made for their flavor of divinity. Right now, he barely has it in him to keep his own under control, something in his mind knowing his exosuit would be a bitch to repair compared to the thin crew shirt Daikyu had been wearing in the safety of their cargo bay...
