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i.
When Jim is eight, his father leaves.
He’s young. Too young. He still has a chest overflowing with toys next to his bed, and pencil drawings covering nearly every inch of his walls, and one too many holo-books about pirates, and the glowy stars on his ceiling are a child’s version of the stardust scholars use to map out constellations. He can’t reach the top shelves in the kitchen or walk by himself at night, and he’s only allowed to go downtown by himself during daylight because his mother is acquainted with pretty much everyone who owns a business in their satellite.
Jim is just a kid. But he is also a son, and when it comes down to it, he’s never been anything else.
There are a thousand ways someone can leave before they’re truly gone. Everywhere they go, parents leave silence behind them. Jim’s father wore his quiet like an old coat, like something so settled into his skin he didn’t even realize it was there, most of the time. He smiled without teeth and laughed without making any noise and mutely shook his head whenever Jim approached him. Not now, son. Your father’s busy.
Not I’m busy . Not Dad’s busy . Your father. Because when you put the weight on someone else, you strip away your own guilt. Because while Jim can’t help being a son, fatherhood has to be earned. Doesn’t it?
In years to come, Jim won’t know if this is actually how things went down. Surely, there must have been something else. A moment he forgot, words he let go by without actually hearing. There must have been something between waking up and knowing there was something missing, between his mother crying in the kitchen and the heavy footsteps leading away from the house, between stumbling on his own feet as he barrelled down the stone and bricks towards the pier, his own shrill cries of Dad, Dad! Where are you going? You didn’t say goodbye! You didn’t say goodbye!
But no matter how it went down, there is one thing Jim knows for certain:
Father doesn’t look back.
The ship gets smaller and smaller, the blaze of fire dimmer and dimmer, and Jim screams. He reaches with both arms out to the sky, throat raw and mouth tasting of metal and salt, until the words he’s saying are lost between the air and his own ears, nothing but a caricature of longing, a measure of pain. He screams until there is no more voice in him, and his knees hit the wood of the pier with a dull thud. Then, silence. Only an emptiness of blue and stars, below him, in front of him, all around this small piece of rocks and grass he calls home. Jim twists the word between his tongue for a moment or two, before he spits out a mouthful of blood and tears.
Looking back means acknowledging what you’re leaving behind. Jim doesn’t know if that’s a comfort or if it’ll haunt him for the rest of his days.
Mother is still sitting in the kitchen when he makes his way back in, hands and knees and throat scraped and smarting from pain. She’s holding a handkerchief with both hands in front of her mouth, her wiry frame trembling like a leaf in autumn, hair askew from the braid she usually wears to sleep. She isn’t crying anymore, but her face is wan and pale, eye twitching as she breathes in and out, in and out. Jim closes the door behind him, and she says nothing.
“I’m going back to my room,” he says, or thinks he does. His mouth forms the words, and sounds come out. Certainly, that’s it.
Mother says nothing.
There’s a haziness to her, now. Maybe Jim’s eyes are only full of tears. Maybe his mind is already coming up with a thousand different ways in which she can start to disappear until there’s no one else between him and the cold night air. Mother trembles like she doesn’t know how to stop, but she makes no sound. No sound at all.
It takes him years to figure out what was it about this moment that unsettled him. Why it never really from behind his closed eyelids, no matter how many suns passed or how much he washed himself clean.
She looked so human, then. The look in her eyes, and the downwards tilt of her mouth, and the silent, greedy breaths she took. A heart broken, but still beating. When you’re a kid, you take aliveness for granted. You’re eight years old and your parents will never die or leave or hurt you, and you will be young forever. It will always be a summer’s day and your mother’s arms will always hold the whole world and the stardust between your fingers will never slip away.
Jim is young. Too young. But there’s no forever about the woman sitting in the kitchen, and there are no tears left in him. There’s an empty space that’s been ripped open, and the gravity has tilted.
He’s young. But he’s old enough to know that things like that never really matter.
ii.
The boy shoves a glassful of cold ale into his hands, and Jim blinks. The boy motions for him to take a drink, mouth curling in amusement at Jim’s hesitance. The bar is dimly lit and stuffy, exactly the kind of place one goes when they don’t want to be found, and there are no beautiful things here.
This boy might be halfway towards it, though.
“You look like you need it,” he says, gesturing to his own face. “Got jumped good, huh?”
Jim snorts. “Just a normal Tuesday,” he says, running one finger over the rim of the cup. “You should’ve seen the other guy.”
The boy runs his eyes over Jim’s face once, twice, and Jim tries not to blush under his wandering gaze. He’s pretty sure he fails, but between the gloom of this corner and the black and blue that is the upper left half of his face, he doubts it’s noticeable. He raises one eyebrow, still pointedly refusing to take a sip of the drink, as he leans back down on the wooden chair, slouching as far as he can without jostling his bruised ribs.
He never thought he’d get used to the taste of blood, but since he was eight, it never seems to leave his mouth.
Jim bites back a wince, breathing through his nose. But maybe he shouldn’t have picked a fight with Garrett. The guy might be a thousand years old and have nothing to his name except the old junk yard at the far south side of Lower Town, but he can throw a mean punch. And kicks.
He’s working on something, okay? Garrett’s yard is the hardest to break into, but it’s by far the best scavenge he’s ever had. And if he wants this to work, he needs the best of the best. Or the best of the worst. Whatever he can afford. Which isn’t much.
His mother’s tired face pops into his mind, but he blinks it away. Jim has known he isn’t a good person for a while, but he doesn’t need a reminder that he could be working towards something better. He helps out at the Benbow Inn whenever he can—which, again, isn’t much; he has his own business to deal with, even though Mother doesn’t know that—but he’s wildly aware that he could be doing more. He could do something to stop Mother’s face from caving into itself day after day after day, to fix the creaking boards of the inn that’s barely holding itself afloat, to make it so they don’t have to scrape money together for food every month.
A few months ago, he came back home late at night or early morning, staggering drunk and bleeding from a stab wound on his collarbone. The cut was shallow but long, curling into a scar from the edge of his right shoulder down to the center of his chest. Mother cleaned up his mess, and held his hair while he threw up, and tucked him into bed. I know there’s more to you than this, Jimmy, she’d said. I know there is.
One parent leaves. But the one who stays knows exactly how to hit where it hurts the most, and that’s the sort of thing they’ll never know.
(Being a parent is like being a blanket that’s always too small. No matter how hard you try to cover everyone, there’s always someone who’s freezing. And though Jim doesn’t know that, his mother does. Only she’s not sure which one of them has been left out in the cold.)
The boy is still staring at him.
“Take a picture,” Jim says. “It’ll last longer.”
The boy laughs, sharp and sweet, as he slides into the seat in front of Jim. His hair is shorter than usual around these parts, tight brown curls just above his ears, and Jim tries and fails not to stare at the way his dark skin seems to glow on its own, how every inch his face moves in feels practiced and poised. He takes a long sip of his drink before answering. “Aren’t you forward?” His tone is frustratingly amused. “You seem nice and all, but I’m an honorable felon. I don’t go around taking pictures of complete strangers, warranted or not.”
Something thrums under Jim’s skin. “Don’t you mean honorable fellow? ”
“No,” the boy says, easily, eyes twinkling. “Do you?”
Jim feels his lips twitch, but doesn’t give him the satisfaction of laughing. “What business?”, he asks instead, one hand loosely grasping his glass, the other curled into a fist on his lap. “Or does an honorable felon like you spend his free time scouring around Lower Downtown and buying drinks for complete strangers?”
“No, not usually,” the boy answers. “I only buy drinks to the very pretty ones.”
Jim lets this smile bubble up, no matter how small. Call it an indulgence. Call it a practiced play. “What do you want?”
The boy sighs, rolling his eyes as if to say killjoy , before his face goes still and calm, like the air before a sunstorm. He leans forward on his elbows, and although the bar is alive and packed, people shouting over each other to be heard, singing shanties and breaking glasses, Jim feels as if there’s a breath everyone in it is holding.
He isn’t dumb. Jim has spent the better part of his time in Lower Downtown since he was twelve, taking on odd jobs for a coin or two, playing messenger boy between faction leaders, breaking into junk yards and the never ending abandoned houses up and down dead end streets, scavenging for anything he can find useful. He’s quick on his feet and his hands are light, and even after the growth spurt he went through when he turned sixteen, he’s still wiry enough to go unnoticed in his little adventures. In spite of all that, he does have a reputation. Jim’s always had a knack for building things from scratch, taking the old and making it new again, making it better.
He might be flunking school, but he knows how things work. He can make two pieces fit together. He can fix what’s broken. And regardless of what his teachers and Mother think, he is not dumb.
And this boy in front of him—this halfway to beautiful boy, with the sharp laugh and the warm eyes—is one of the most wanted men on this side of their rocky piece of land. Cal for enemies, Callum for friends. The kind of boy not even worth a last name, as the old women in Upper Town say. Slippery as oil, dirty as a ditch.
“You want my service, convince me,” Jim says, before the other boy even opens his mouth. “Things aren’t easy on my side of the satellite. Or any side, actually. Don’t know if I have enough a reputation to name a price,” he adds, drumming his fingers on the table, “but I know my own worth.”
The boy smiles, all edges and teeth. “Oh, I’m sure we can work something out,” he says, and holds out his hand to Jim. “But first things first. Call me Callum.”
Jim takes Callum’s hand, shaking it firmly. “Aren’t you forward,” he mimics, and then leans back down. He raises the cup of ale to his lips. “However can I help you, Callum?”
Callum’s smile is almost as sweet as his laughter, and just as sharp.
. . .
Turns out that breaking into the mayor’s house in the middle of the night with no backup plan is not the best idea Callum has ever come up with. The man’s—decidedly shrill—scream of outrage is still ringing in Jim’s ears as he and Callum dash through the midnight streets, taking shortcuts by jumping up on rooftops and fences, grinning madly at each other whenever they get the chance to breathe. By the time they finally slow down, Jim’s knees are trembling, and he slides down to the floor of the alley, head tilted up so he can glare at Callum, who looks infuriatingly composed.
“How the fuck have you survived this long?” Jim wheezes out, not really expecting an answer.
Callum shrugs, twirling a box of matches in one hand and patting his pockets for a smoke in the other. “I’m a master of stealth,” he says, and fuck him, he doesn’t even sound breathless.
“You broke open a window ,” Jim says.
“You sound way too judgy for someone who screamed like a little kid at their cat,” Callum answers, placing a hand on his chest in mock offense.
“You broke open a window,” Jim repeats, “while it was already open. ”
Callum winces at that, lightning up his cigarette. “Not my finest moment.”
Jim grumbles something, wiping at his brow. It isn’t summer, but the night is warm enough. His cheek stings though, just below his eye, and he doesn’t need a degree to know that he didn’t get out unscathed from climbing out a broken window. “If this scars, I’m turning you in,” he tells Callum. “Did you even get what you were looking for?”
Callum smiles. “Oh, I wasn’t looking for anything,” he says, airily, smoke twirling around his words. “ That was an excuse.”
The laugh that startles out of Jim comes unbidden, and even though he manages to bite it down, he can’t fight off the helpless smile painted across his face. “Oh, yeah?” he says, voice low. “And your ulterior motive was?”
Callum is still smiling as he crouches down in front of Jim, his glowing eyes twinkling. There’s only a faint oil lamp glowing from the streetlight behind them, but Jim can see every detail of Callum’s face as if they were under stark sunlight. He smells of firewood and smoke, something solid and stoic to hold on to. His eyes flicker to Jim’s lips, but he doesn’t move any closer. “This was fun,” he says, instead. “We’ll do this again sometime.”
Jim’s voice is rougher than he intended it to sound. “No goodbye kiss?”
Callum gets up slowly, like he has all the time in the world. “I didn’t lie about the honorable part,” he sing-songs, walking backwards out into the street. “No kisses on the first date. Or the second. Maybe a peck on the cheek on the third.”
Jim watches him go. His skin is thrumming, blood buzzing in his veins. When you’re a kid, you take aliveness for granted. When you grow older, you’ll do anything to remember what it feels like.
iii.
There are many boys like Jim in Lower Town. There are many boys like Callum, too. There are girls with dirt under their nails and bared teeth, with nothing to their name but the thing itself. This satellite is a house to many, and a home to few. Surely it was called something, once upon a time. Surely the first settlers named it when they first stepped off their ships and began their lives anew. Surely, surely.
But this is the kind of place not worth a name. It is nothing without the people that make it, and it gives nothing back. For how long can empty hands stay empty? How many stories must end before they’ve even begun?
There are many boys in this satellite, and there are many factions they fall into. Because when a land gives you nothing, you demand it. And when there is nothing to hold on to, you take it. And the taking sometimes ends in tragedy. Sometimes it ends with a bloody knife and an alleyway full of broken bottles, and a boy with dark skin and bright eyes looking towards the sky for the last time. It ends with news that travel way too fast and morph into rumors, and another boy biting his own tongue until he tastes blood, a goodbye kiss pressed into his open palm. It ends when the warmth has barely seeped away, when the story book closes on its own accord, when a mouth snaps itself shut.
We take a step back, then. Many boys like Jim will grieve for many boys like Callum. But this one will trace his fingers over the scar on his left cheek, and he will break a mirror and he will not come home for two days. He’ll apologize and buy his mother a new one, and will never breathe a word about any of it to her.
There are a thousand different ways for someone to leave before they are really gone. There are a thousand different ways that someone can haunt you after they leave.
iv.
Jim doesn’t need to look to know that Silver is trying to sneak up on him, or whatever his version of sneaking up is. Between the normal, two-hundred pound human leg, and the monstrosity that is the metallic one, the old cyborg isn’t really a master of stealth.
But Jim knows it’s him, because he knows these steps. He’s been at the Legacy for the better part of two months now, and he hadn’t noticed how much he relied on familiar sounds to feel calm before he was deprived of the noises of the lower city and creaking floors of the Inn, of Mother’s quiet way of moving around when she thought Jim was already asleep. When something familiar is taken away from you, it comes back in different ways. But Jim is not going to associate the word family with Silver. This is dangerous territory.
“What do you want?” Jim asks, arms crossed inside his jacket to fight off the chill of the night.
Silver snorts, the sound of metal clanking making it clear that he’s holding something. “Ya didn’t show up for dinner, lad,” he says, rough voice amused. “Thought I’d be kind enough not ‘ta let you starve, but I figure you’re just making a point, now, are ya?”
“I’m not making a point,” Jim says, still not looking at Silver. “Just not hungry. Thanks, or whatever. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure thing,” Silver’s voice sounds cheery. “You’re fine. I get it. But Jimbo, lad, would you please step away from that railing before you beat me into an early grave?”
Jim leans his head back so he can stare at Silver upside down, both legs still holding on tight to the railing. He smiles. “Aw,” he says, “are you worried about me?”
Silver rolls his human eye, a steaming plate of porridge on the opposite hand. “Laugh it up, wanker. You and I both know I’m the sole thing keeping you alive right now.”
And it’s like—something shuts down in Jim’s brain. Because Silver is fun to be around, and he’s reliable, and he seems to genuinely enjoy Jim’s presence, which is saying a lot. And while Jim wouldn’t call him trustworthy by any measures, he feels comfortable enough to drop a few pretenses in front of him, to unclench his jaw and stand a little taller. If Jim were someone else, he’d even go as far as saying that they are friends.
Jim knows about parents and what they leave behind, but there is nothing silent about Silver. He’s loud and rambunctious and his laugh can be heard from miles, bright and bouncing and rough at the same time. He never yells at Jim when he does something wrong, and when he does something right, he smiles like he can’t help himself. Skies and stardust, whenever Jim walks into a room Silver beams at him, face lighting up like the fucking sun, and everything under Jim’s skin yells at him to get away, shake this warmth off before it coils in too deep, before the wrong wall is taken down and too much of everything comes rushing in. The thing about trust is that it’s hard to earn, but it shatters as if meant to be broken. And Jim is a lot of things, but he has seen this story way too many times. He isn’t keen on a retelling.
So Jim keeps his face carefully blank as he takes the plate off Silver’s hands, begrudging, and flops down on the ground with his legs splayed out in front of him. The porridge tastes like water and mush, but Jim doesn’t look up from it as he eats, his movements practiced and mechanical. Morph twitters around his shoulders before nestling against his neck, their softness warming something up just below Jim’s chest. He doesn’t dwell on it.
Silver crouches down in front of Jim, his metal leg straining with the effort. “So, Jimbo,” he says, conversationally. “You gonna squeal about what’s botherin’ you, or is a guy supposed to be a bloody mind reader?”
Jim moves the food around the plate. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Just miss home, I guess.”
They both know he could have come up with a better lie, but Silver humors him, nodding along. “Ah, yes. That wee old satellite, north of nowhere?”
Jim can’t help a small smile as he answers, “Where else?”
“Don’t be daft, lad,” Silver says. “Home isn’t only where you came from. Home is where you make yourself.” He claps one open hand against his thigh, as if they’re sharing a joke. “Still plenty of place out there to call home, if you let yourself.”
“Home is wherever you go back to until you get away,” Jim says, too heatedly, the palms of his hands prickling. He places the empty plate next to him and crosses his arms again. “It’s not a big deal. I just wanna be alone now, yeah?”
Because he knows how to deal with alone. He isn’t used to having someone watching his back, peering over his shoulder, reminding him to eat, tucking him into bed when he falls asleep outside of it. He’s good with alone.
(Jim is the kind of person that can’t help himself. Silver is the kind of person who can rile up a room, but when it comes down to this kid—his gestures become clumsy. His words become tentative.
Sometimes, those are worth the most.)
It’s been ten years, Jim doesn’t say. Ten years since I woke up and he was gone. Here are a thousand different ways I can break apart without anyone noticing, Silver. Here is the black hole that’s been taking away pieces and pieces of me ever since.
And what the hell can you say to that?
Time heals all wounds. But sometimes when glass cracks, it shatters. When a bone breaks, it leaves behind a limp. And there’s still a small boy somewhere in Jim’s mind with his throat scraped raw and his arms flung out, reaching for the endless sky. There’s still a boy that never stopped crying after he closed his bedroom door.
Silver nods and stands up, metal creaking under him. Jim holds his breath as he leaves, quietly whispering goodnight to Morph as they go, too. But just when Jim thinks he’s finally by himself, Silver’s rough voice rings out again, stark against the dark sky.
“Hey, Jimbo?”, he says. “Remember what I told ya, eh? Greatness doesn’t walk on empty hands and bare feet. You’ll walk on your own, but it doesn’t make itself. Remember that. For me.”
Words from a man clumsy with love, to a boy terrified of it. Sometimes, those are worth the most.
( I was only nice to the lad to keep ‘im off our scent.
Of course. Of fucking course.
Jim wasn’t keen on a retelling, but he is the sort of person that can’t help himself. When trust breaks, it shatters like glass. It cuts just as deep.
He should have seen it coming.)
v.
“Silver,” Jim says. “Why did you do that?”
Silver laughs, but it sounds ragged. “Nothin’ to worry your wee head about, lad. It’s only a life long obsession.” A lopsided smile. “I’ll get over it.”
Jim’s heart is still racing from the—multiple? Or should he just count all of the past hours as one?—near encounters with death, his hands shaking with leftover adrenaline. The Legacy is headed back the way they came, towards Montressor Spaceport, and Jim has cuts and burns covering nearly every inch of his arms and neck, his clothes so torn and charred they’re barely worth the effort they take to keep on. And everything’s fine. Well, mostly fine. Captain Amelia is alive, and Doppler is alive, and so are Morph and B.E.N., and Jim. Is. Fine.
And the elephant in the room. Captain John Silver, in the flesh and metal, leaning against the railing right next to him. His expression is what Jim can only describe as sheepish, and maybe he’s going into shock, but that makes him want to laugh his ass off.
He doesn’t, though. He trusted Silver enough to make sure these people survived, and he trusts him enough to not be stabbed in the back right now, but he has no idea where they stand. Jim rubs his hand against his left wrist, tender and slightly bruising. He dimly recalls the way Silver caught his arm when he fell, his desperate encouragements for Jim to just Hold on, lad, just a wee second, it’s going to be okay, as Jim nearly hyperventilated with his legs dangling on top of a scorching abyss of nothing.
Silver betrayed him. Silver knew about his father, and he knew how much whatever that was between them meant to Jim, and he betrayed him. Silver also saved his life when he had a choice not to. He looked so damn heartbroken every single time Jim saw him between the mutiny and the treasure, always just this side of saying something else, of wrapping Jim in a hug and running away with him.
Jim isn’t an expert on father-son relationships, but he’s pretty sure it’s not supposed to be this fucking confusing.
“Your life long obsession,” Jim stresses, trying to sound nonchalant and failing. He isn’t breathing quite right, but he’s not in the mood to think too hard about that. “The treasure of a thousand worlds. You wanted it more than—”
“More than everything,” Silver finishes, keeping his gaze on the horizon. His cyborg hand opens and closes into a fist. “I wanted it more than everything.”
“So why me?” Jim asks, genuinely at a loss. “You had a choice. Why did you pick me? ”
Silver finally looks at him, his mismatched eyes shining. “I said I wanted it more than everything,” he says, “but not more than anything .” He smiles ruefully. “You give up a few things chasing a dream, lad. But it’s always worth it.”
“Word play,” Jim mutters. “You think you’re so smart.”
His eyes are stinging, and his face feels wet. Is he crying? He hasn’t—cried, actually cried in front of anyone in years. Not since Callum. He doesn’t like how exposed he feels, like all of his feelings have been scraped raw and laid on top of his skin. He rubs the back of his hand against his eye, biting his lip.
“Jimbo,” Silver says. “Jimbo, look at me.” Jim looks somewhere north of his face, but Silver puts his human hand under his chin, guiding Jim’s gaze to meet his. “Listen up, kid, ‘cause I think ya need me to spell it out. I would always have chosen you, hear me? I would always have chosen you. If the treasure of a thousand worlds is the price for your life, it is worth every penny, diamond, and gold piece. All of it. And a small price, at that.”
Jim doesn’t know where he’s going from here. He feels too small for his skin and too big for his body, eyes burning like nobody’s business and heart so full it feels about to burst. Silver’s words settle somewhere inside his chest, draining something out and yet filling something up, like a wound that’s made entirely of light.
(Callum once told him that there are people who cry out of love. Because love fills up every single corner of your body, and it has to come out somehow, he said. If you pretend to love enough people, you will never go to bed hungry.
That doesn’t make any sense , Jim answered at the time. Kiss me again.
But he thinks maybe Callum was right, now. Maybe Callum knew more than he did back then.)
Jim lets out a sob, and then another, until he’s crying like a child against Silver’s chest. Jim is the kind of person that can’t help himself, and he cries and cries, for everything he has been, everything he could have been, for every old hurt, for every old happiness, for the little boy on his knees in the pier and his hands so full of nothing, for Mother’s tired face and gentle smile and unwavering conviction that he could be more than he ever thought there was, for the old cyborg’s booming laughter and kind smiles and for all the space and starts whistling behind and above and among them. Jim cries because he is many things, but right now, he thinks he might be making his way home. Silver’s arms are a parent’s arms, holding the world whole around him.
There are a thousand different ways you can break apart without anyone noticing. There are a thousand different ways to stitch yourself back together.