Chapter Text
Stubbornness, Tango had decided, took many forms. In this case, it meant repeatedly hiding on ships despite it never going well for him—like, never. He had become more acquainted with the reinforced glass of escape pods than anyone should have to be and he thinks something in his brain might finally snap if he gets thrown in one again. Logically, that meant that getting onto this ship without permission was a great idea.
Tango had needed to get to a planet that was around three light years away, but he had run completely out of credits and couldn’t afford the trip. The engineering gig there, which was why he was going, wouldn’t be available if he waited to save up, so he’d taken matters into his own hands.
He’d been scouting out the shipyard when a conversation between two crewmen caught his attention. They were loading crates onto their ship and discussing their next stop which conveniently was where Tango needed to be. He’d acted impulsively and hid himself in one of the crates. They were using hover carts to lift the crates, so as long as they didn’t notice the added weight on their scanners, he’d make it onto the ship just fine. When he’d made it onto the ship unnoticed, he’d kissed his lucky pin on his bag.
The vent he lay beside wafted warm, spiced air into the tube and Tango prayed his stomach wouldn’t rumble. It’d been a long time since he’d had any food from his homeworld and just the smell brought tears to his eyes. The dish was like a melting pot of different meats, fruits, and spices. Back home, it was made with whatever was cheapest at the market or scavengable around their home. He remembers cooking it with his brothers when his mother was gone and curling into their sides when the food-sleep kicked in.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply—while still being quiet—and felt the brush of his brother’s hand behind his ear. A tail wrapped around his wrist and the flames licked at his skin, at his blood, at his bone. High-pitched, crackling laughter echoed beside his ear and he could see the faint curve of his mother’s smile with the chipped canine tooth. He imagined the story again; his mother—young, fierce, fighting to protect her young child who was wrapped in cloth around her chest. Her teeth biting into flesh and chipping on bone. Her first kindness to him and his siblings was spilling blood in their names. Her love echoed out past galaxies.
The truth: he loved them just as much. He loved his mother, he loved his siblings, and he loved his home, but he was too desperate. Tango was a wild heat compared to their controlled flames. He needed the stars in a way they couldn’t understand and as much as he loved them, he could not stay. It hurt though. It hurt to stay and it hurt to leave– and–
The truth: Tango hurt, no matter how much he ignored it.
Tears dripped to the floor of the vent as he listened to a crew, a family, take bowls of food and pass them to one another. They laughed together and touched gently, kindly. Tango’s skin burned with envy, with grief. He stayed there, curled up and hidden, until they left and the air grew heavy in their wake. His previous plan of sneaking down to get food was forgotten as he went to bed hungry—his grief settling in his stomach like cold netherrack.
—
Out of all the crews Tango had seen, this was his favorite. Despite all having different jobs, they were frequently in each other's vicinity and talked often. Sometimes, the conversations were quiet and careful, with remarks that soothed one another but made no sense to an outsider; sometimes, they were loud and snarky, with quick quips and gentle hits to the back of heads. Their laughter filled entire rooms and echoed in Tango’s skull. He liked the warmth of it. The love that permeated everything, even the cold of the vents.
He’d been here for only two days before the third crewmate joined the others.
From what they said, he’d been at the helm plotting navigational courses and answering messages. From what they said, he was kind with a sharp sense of humor. What they did not say, is what he looked like. They didn’t say where he came from, but Tango knew.
The second the third walked in, Tango felt every instinct scream in terror and barely stopped himself from lighting on fire. Small sparks lit from his hair and his tail lashed against the metal wall. He pressed himself so far into the vent it hurt and he swore the metal would melt around him and swallow him whole. Every previous attempt to control his instincts was crumpled beneath the thick black claws of the Netherborn Daebolin that walked into the room.
He was tall (they all were, they always were) and his sharp, gold eyes took in the room. The other two smiled in greeting and waved him down to where they sat. They were both calm in his presence. Didn’t they know he could rip them in half? Didn’t they know Daebolins’ teeth could tear through flesh and bone? Didn’t they know?
Tango’s small claws dug into his face as he bit back desperate, terrified whines. His ears were pulled tight against his head and hid beneath his messy hair. The hair in front of his eyes had already begun to glow with heat and he knew he was seconds away from lighting on fire, but he couldn’t do anything. He was paralyzed in terror.
Memories from when he was young invaded his mind. It was before they’d fled their last home. He had been young and naive. His mother had begun to get fussy and move quickly around their home which made him nervous, so he’d left. He had only meant to go down to the lava lake and dip his feet in the heat. Just a few minutes away from the stifling feeling of his home.
Then a growl, deep and rageful, sounded behind him. He’d been moving before he could understand what was happening with instincts crying for a protector. His hair had lit up and his ears had flopped as he scrambled to his feet and away from the noise. The Daebolin had been huge with glowing eyes and a face twisted into a snarl. Their face scales were torn and glistened with blood in the light of the suns. Deep scars marred their face where claws had obviously sunk in and made their mark. It was the eyes though, those glowing eyes that stuck with him. They were hateful and so very angry. The pupils were slits so small he could barely see, but knew they were focused on him. He had never forgotten the eyes, it had been years and he never forgot.
Right before his brother had come—screaming, just as scared as him but still running to his aid—Tango had wondered if this is what it was like to stare at a star.
Years later, when his brother’s cries to run had become mere echoes to haunt his dreams, Tango had decided that it was not, because at least a star would not stare back.
He felt the second that the Daebolin noticed him. Once again, gleaming yellow eyes locked onto him and teeth flashed threateningly. He began to walk towards Tango’s hiding spot in the vent, and Tango knew he needed to crawl away. If he was going to live, he needed to go deeper into the vents where there was no chance of being caught. The fear kept him still though.
The others questioned what their friend was doing, but the Daebolin only had eyes for him. Which, if Tango was being honest with himself—and one should strive to be honest in the face of death—he was terrified. Talk about the only person he didn’t want to notice him.
When his hand reached for the vent cover, Tango snapped into action. He let out a hiss, which sounded meak even to him, and began to crawl away. The cover was ripped off and a hand wrapped around his ankle. Tango clawed at the grip and snarled openly at his assailant. His claws, still too small to do damage, attempted to hurt him but only left small scratches. Metal screeched beneath him as he dug those same claws into it. He watched it tear beneath his grip as he was slowly, torturously dragged from the vent.
He blinked rapidly to adjust to the sudden light and continued to hiss violently at his attacker. There were voices yelling to one another in high-pitched panicked voices and Tango’s heartbeat pulsed in his ears and throat. His hisses turned to desperate warbles as he feebly clawed at the hand holding him by his foot. If Tango were less panicked, he would have paid more attention to the almost gentle grip the Daebolin had on him. He was panicking though, so he only cried desperately and thrashed in his grip.
Tango stilled.
The grip had changed from his foot to his scruff. He was being scruff. When Ardnires, Tango’s species, were young, they had a loose flap of skin around the base of their neck. It would absorb once they grew into adulthood and its main purpose was for parents to be able to control or calm their children. Being scruffed released near-instant calming agents into their blood and left them nearly paralyzed.
His vision grew fuzzy around the edges as he blinked, dazed. There was conversation going on around him and he knew he needed to be paying attention, but everything felt so very far away. His heartbeat began to slow from its thundering crescendo and his stuttering breathing began to even out.
He let out a soft mew, calling for someone to take care of him, to protect him. Tango was so vulnerable like this and there was a threat somewhere. In the back of his mind, something screamed and thrashed; I can take care of myself, it hissed and snarled violently; I need no one.
A deep rumble sounded behind him and he tensed instinctively. His legs curled to his chest and his tail wrapped around himself. He became as small as possible, hoping the threat either wouldn’t see him or would think he wasn’t worth the time. Tango shivered as he came into contact with something warm. It pressed into his back and wrapped around his shaking arms.
Tango leaned into the warm hand that threaded through his hair. Claws gently scratched against his scalp and a shaky purr broke free from his chest. It stuttered as he choked on it and tried to force it down. The chest, because it was definitely a chest, began to shake with a deeper purr and it reverberated through Tango’s entire body. If there was any fight left in him, it was gone now as he went limp against the person behind him.
He surrendered to the floatiness as his eyes glazed over. His fingers gently twitched as he yawned and began to purr again. It felt like the space between wake and sleep. Where you were too comfortable to move but not tired enough to let yourself go. Instead, he basked in the warmth and the feeling of safety he had not been gifted in so very long. Tango was so tired, he thought blearily as circles were rubbed into the sleeve covering his arm.
There was a conversation happening above him but the words were distant. They floated past him like ash clouds on a full night and he felt drunk on emotion. If he let his eyes unfocus enough, he’s sure he would hear the bubbling of fiery lakes and see the stars of his homeworld again. He only saw them in his dreams, but he’s sure he could now. He’s sure if he tried, he could see them again.
“Where did he come fr—”
The stars danced around the corners of his eyes and shook violently in their brightness.
“—ow long has he been here?”
“Probably since we left Endoras.”
He swallowed the taste of them. They tasted like blood and flame, like white quartz that tanged bitterly in his mouth.
“Gods, he’s so tiny.”
His body was failing to process the change from adrenaline-fueled terror to this false calm. It left him dizzy and off-center. His mind buzzed with anxiety, but he couldn’t understand why. Something let go of him, and the cloudiness seemed to lighten. He licked his lips and blinked again.
“Is he…okay?”
“Yeah, just give him a second.”
“I don’t get paid enough for this.”
“You don’t get paid shit Etho.”
Someone sighed to his left and his ear twitched at the noise. His fingers curled into his sleeves and he lethargically rubbed the worn material. A small yawn escaped him as he wiggled his toes and stretched.
The smell of smoke filtered into his nose and for a second, he felt relief to know one of his kind was nearby. Then he remembered that there definitely wasn’t anyone like him on this ship. Except…fuck.
Tango lept from the Daebolin’s arms and scrambled across the floor. There was no way he was making it to the vent so he opted to just put as much distance between them as possible. When he reached a wall, he turned around and crouched low. His teeth bared in threat as he took note of where everyone in the room was.
The white-haired man stood farthest from him. His arms were crossed in front of him and he almost seemed disinterested if not for how his large ears were swiveled in Tango’s direction. They reminded him of the ears of Vulpecula, a star constellation on Terra that translated to Little Fox.
Large wings were slightly raised in alarm on the back of the other crewmate. He stood beside the Daebolin and seemed almost protective of him. Tango held back a snort at the idea of him needing any kind of protection. This man was fully focused on Tango, and despite the frown on his lips, his eyes were soft.
Then there was the Daebolin. His hands were spread wide and open in a gesture Tango had learned as surrender. It wasn’t one from either of their cultures, neither being species to admit defeat of any kind, but was common among other species. It confused Tango, because he couldn’t understand why the Daebolin would be admitting any kind of defeat in this situation. Tango was clearly outnumbered and much smaller than all of the others. He was on their ship too, which gave him another disadvantage.
Yet, the Daebolin stood eerily still in surrender and breathed softly, evenly.
“We aren’t going to hurt you,” He spoke softly. Tango watched as his fangs peeked out from behind his lips. They were sharp and long, made for crunching through bone like it was nothing.
“Bullshit,” He growled at the trio. His tail lashed dangerously behind him as he lowered even further to the ground.
The Daebolin turned to the angel crewmate and whispered something to him. His eyes widened and his wings fluffed up before he relaxed and lowered his wings from the battle-ready stance they were in.
“You aren’t comfortable with me here,” The Daebolin said. Tango held back a dry ‘obviously’ and watched as the other man shifted uncomfortably, “So, I’m going to leave, and you can talk to these guys.”
Without another word, he quickly walked out of the room. Tango watched him go before snapping back to the other two crewmates. Both were watching him with equal parts wariness and curiosity. Neither seemed particularly worried, but he doubted they’d get into biting range.
“Hey there,” The white-haired man said. He crouched down to Tango’s height and waved his hand in greeting. His mask covered the lower part of his face, so Tango couldn’t really see his expression, but his eyes crinkled like he was smiling. He didn’t know what there was to smile about right now. “I’m Etho, and this is Skizz. Welcome aboard the I.E.S.”
—
Adjusting was…hard.
He refused to see Impulse, the Daebolin’s name according to Skizz, and hid when he even slightly smelled the familiar ash. The others were kind about it. Kinder than he deserved for breaking onto their ship.
Etho was the ship’s cook and made him meals from his home world. Sitting in the kitchen with Etho was like sitting in their family’s small kitchen on Netharia. Spices made the air thick and warm around him while the heat of the stove brushed against his cheeks. Etho kept the lights low in the kitchen which cast familiar shadows over everything in the room. Sometimes, Tango caught himself drifting to sleep with his head pillowed against the warm countertop. Etho’s soft chitters and laughs as he spoke to himself were like white noise.
“Tango, wake up,” A hand brushed against his arm and he shot up. His eyes blinked to adjust to the dim room but Etho’s high-pitch laugh settled him again. Etho was slightly bent over so he could be at eye-level and his ears flicked with mirth. “You fell asleep on me.”
“S’rry” Tango slurred before shaking his head to dispel the sleepiness.
“Don’t have to apologize to me,” Etho stood to his full height and walked back to the stove. He lifted the lid off a pot and swirled the soup around. Tango’s ears perked at the familiar smell and his mouth began to water. “Just wanted you to be awake to get some dinner in you.”
Tango blinked.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the others?” Tango asked uneasily. He hadn’t seen Skizz all day and had guessed he was with Impulse working on something.
Etho turned and raised an eyebrow before grabbing a bowl and beginning to dish out a serving. He then slid the bowl across the table to Tango. His fast reflexes were the only thing keeping it from flying right to the floor. Etho then placed a spoon beside him before going to get himself a bowl too.
“Those two won’t be coming out to eat for a while. Figured I’d make something for the two of us.” Etho smiled as he sat beside Tango and slowly swirled his soup with his spoon.
“This is a pretty complicated meal for just two people,” Tango murmured as he lifted a chunk of mushroom out of the soup and let it fall back in. It bobbed up and down before sinking below the murky red broth.
“Well,” Etho drawled and took a bite, “For one, it’s not really that hard, it's soup. Two, the others will come eat eventually. And three, you like this soup.”
Tango froze and turned to Etho. The other man kept his eyes on his soup and continued to eat. It was obvious he was not willing to say more on the topic. He turned back to his own soup and lifted a spoonful of broth to his lips. It was warm going down his throat and the spices made his mouth tingle in delight. Once he had a taste, he couldn’t stop and quickly ate the rest of the meal.
Before he could even think of what to do with his empty bowl, Etho had grabbed it and taken it back to the pot. He watched as another bowl-ful was ladeled in and Etho slid it back to him. They exchanged no words as he reseated himself and continued his first bowl. Tango ate the next bowl slowly. He savored the tastes and the textures. He savored the warmth.
Tango, for this first time in forever, felt warm.
—
He didn’t know when sitting in front of the observation window became routine. Maybe it was because he was finally on a ship where he didn’t need to hide. It could be that his birthday was ticking closer and he was preparing himself for another year of watching the day pass without a word. He was missing home, just a bit.
Tango’s obsession with the stars had gotten much worse once he left Netharia. It was like the second he left his planet’s atmosphere and was truly exposed to space, he’d gotten a taste for something he could never forget. His love for space was like a familiar scent that pulled on some nostalgic memory. A little fragment of emotion that tugged on his chest and made him yearn for something. He thinks it’s home. Not Netharia though, or the little cave he grew up in, or even his family. Tango didn’t know what home he was looking for, but he knew he had been looking his whole life and that the ache had only grown more acute the longer he spent in space.
So, he didn’t really know when he’d made a home for himself in front of the window. What he did know was that by now he’d amassed a pile of blankets and pillows, stolen from other crewmates, which he sat in while watching the stars pass by. They moved slowly like space shuttles across the sky and he traced new constellations inside his mind.
Tango wasn’t stupid. He was well aware they only appeared to move because the I.E.S. was moving and there were definitely no constellations at these coordinates. Constellations were made from planets or areas where civilization stayed long enough for their stars to become familiar. Only then could they make stories about the ways their sky was formed. Before there were constellations, there were homes. Tango, almost in spite of this, tried to make his own.
The dip of one star was the curve of a warped tree’s branch, like the ones he climbed in childhood. Or maybe that smooth line was the top of a starship. He blinked as the stars moved again. His constellations were wiped away like they were never there to begin with.
Constellations were stories important enough to be permanently affixed to star patterns so that others would know the stories of the past. Significant ones about heroes, warriors, and gods. Tango wasn’t any of these, so it makes sense his constellations would be erased. He tried not to think about what it meant that he wasn’t important enough to be remembered.
He looked over his shoulder at the opening hiss of the door. Skizz smiled and waved as he walked over to where Tango was sitting. His hands fell to his hips as he looked down at Tango’s set up.
“Nice spot you got here,” His eyes were light, but Tango still looked for any sign of agitation.
“I can move this out of here,” Tango began curling the edges of his blanket nest towards the center so he could pick it all up quickly.
“No, no,” Skizz crouched quickly and gently grasped Tango’s wrist. He flinched away from the contact and Skizz didn’t follow him. “You don’t have to clean up anything.”
“But,” Tango trailed off uneasily.
“No buts, I’m saying this with my whole face homie,” Tango snorted at the colloquialism he hadn’t heard before, “This is a nice spot. You don’t have to mess it up on my account.”
“It’s your ship though,” Tango reminded him as he twisted the blanket between his claws. He kept his eyes on his fingers.
“Our ship,” Skizz corrected gently. Tango felt anxiety well up in his chest at the mistake.
“Shit, yeah, the ship belongs to all three of you. Sorry.” Tango flicked his eyes up to meet Skizz’s and watched as his smile fell. When he noticed Tango’s eyes, he was quick to pull it back up, but his eyes still looked sad.
“Well, do you mind me sitting with you?” Skizz asked and Tango realized that for their entire conversation, Skizz had yet to so much as touch his blankets. “You don’t have to say yes.”
“Sure,” Tango said after a long pause. Skizz sat beside him, still outside the blankets, and stretched his wings out behind him. He watched as the feathers shone in the overhead light and rustled with Skizz’s movements. They settled behind him, laying gently against the floor, and Skizz leaned forward with his elbows on his knees which were pulled to his chest.
“You stargazing homie?” Skizz’s voice was quiet and he kept his eyes locked onto the stars outside the window.
Tango turned his head to them as well, “Yeah, you could say that I guess.”
Skizz snorted at his non-answer and the two lapsed into silence. Tango kept himself stiff and made sure his tail didn’t accidentally touch Skizz. He quieted his breathing so he didn’t disturb the other and tried not to look at him. Skizz sighed and Tango tensed. His mind ran through all the worst possible outcomes to this encounter; he was told to stay in his room until they got to the planet, told he was overstepping boundaries or breaking some unknown rule, or they were going to throw him out the airlock.
His fingers twisted into his shirt.
“You see that line of stars?” Skizz asked, keeping his voice low. Tango jerked at the unexpected topic, but dutifully focused back on the stars passing by them. He hummed in confusion when he couldn’t spot the exact line Skizz was talking about.
Skizz shuffled a little closer and pointed one talon out. “There, slightly to the left of us. That line of stars that seem almost too straight to be natural and has another below it to the left.”
“Yeah,” Tango’s voice pitched up when he correctly identified the stars. His tail began to wag behind him and a small grin pulled at his cheeks. “Yeah, I see it!”
“It looks kinda like a cliff, right?” Skizz asked.
“Yeah…I guess it does,” Tango conceded, curious as to where Skizz was going with this.
“When I was a kid, there used to be this giant cliff by our village. Once a year, they’d take the kids whose wings had developed out to the cliff and they’d jump.”
“What?” Tango asked incredulously. He turned to face Skizz directly who was grinning at him. There was no way he was telling the truth, he decided. Skizz was a prankster and enjoyed catching the others in a trick or two. It was obvious now that’s what he was doing. “You aren’t gonna get me with that, Skizz.”
“Oh no, I’m so serious,” He laughed a little at the end and turned back to the stars, “It was like a right of passage. Like, taking a leap of faith or something. One of my friends always said that it was like a test to see if you had enough courage to survive in this shitty world.”
“That’s awfully cynical,” Tango remarked.
“Yeah,” Skizz’s voice turned melancholy, “He was.”
“Did you jump?” Tango looked at Skizz out of the corner of his eye and watched as a small smile twitched at his lips. It seemed a little bitter. Not at all like the smiles he was used to seeing on Skizz.
“No.”
The two sat in silence and Tango found that this time, he didn’t like it. This silence felt heavy and unnatural. It was uncomfortable to say the least.
“You see those stars that make a Y-shape?” He asked tentatively. Tango didn’t know where he was going with this, but he knew he couldn’t bear to sit in the silence any longer.
“Yeah, I do.”
“They look kind of like a stick,” Tango took a deep breath. Skizz didn’t interrupt. He just waited patiently for Tango to continue. “When I was a kid, there used to be a forest by my home. The trees were always gnarled and tall with their branches only growing far above what we could reach.
“One day, my brother decided we would be getting up to where the branches were. So, he put me on his shoulders and had me stand up on them. I swore we were going to fall, but he held me up and I was able to lean against the tree. The branch was so close I could graze my fingertips on it. My brother tried to jump so I could reach it, but it threw us off balance. I was able to grab the branch before he fell, but I was left dangled by a hand. Just a hand!”
Tango waved his hand in emphasis. Skizz had leaned his head against his arms and was watching Tango with a smile. He nodded along encouragingly.
“So I’m like, how am I supposed to get down now? And he’s just laying on the ground laughing at me. Eventually, the branch couldn’t hold my weight and it snapped. I’ll never forget the look on my brother’s face as he saw me start falling towards us. By the time we made it home, we thought our mom was gonna kill us for getting hurt.”
“Was she mad?” Skizz asked.
“Nah, but she let us hang the branch inside the house. Said it was a reminder not to be stupid.”
Skizz snorted before turning back towards the stars. Tango blinked when he felt the other’s arm brush against him. Somewhere during his story, he had gotten closer to Skizz. The two were now touching and Tango felt his face flood with heat.
“Dude, I’m so sorry,” His hands flew around in front of his face as he tried to apologize while scooting away. “I totally didn’t mean to touch you.”
His ramblings were cut off when Skizz let his wing curl around Tango. He blinked at the wing and at Skizz, but the other said nothing and continued to watch the stars.
“See those stars in a circle?” He said, pulling the wing tighter. Tango nodded. Skizz launched into some elaborate story about Etho and him on some planet in another star system. Tango, for the first time all night, let himself breathe.
—
Tango felt nauseous the second his foot touched solid ground. As a hater of all things not space and stars, this was not entirely unusual, but it was worse than it ever had been. His hands were shaking and he was sweating more than he had in his entire life. Behind him, he heard Skizz and Etho bickering as they unloaded the ship’s crates. Impulse had left ahead of them to go talk to the people purchasing their goods—and to avoid Tango, he had no doubt.
What did matter though, was that they were here. This was the planet that just a week ago Tango had been dying to get on. He had been willing to risk everything to step foot on it. This planet held all his hopes for the future and his dreams of finally belonging somewhere.
Etho let out a shrieking laugh and Tango felt his chest be swallowed in a blackhole.
He pushed his shaky hands into his pockets and tried to ignore the wave of despair threatening to shatter his self-control. The loud noises of the docks contrasted harshly to the warm sounds of the ship that had slowly been soothing his edges. He almost laughed; one week and suddenly he’d forgotten how to be left behind and survive it.
Tango would remember.
He glanced at the other two who were still trading sharp quips and slowly walked away from the I.E.S. His instincts mourned the distance, but he kept walking. He kept his head low and his hands concealed as he weaved past aliens he both recognized and didn’t. Tango had long since become skilled in the art of making himself as small as possible. What point was there in being memorable when it only got you hurt.
The exit of the docks was coming up and he mentally ran the path he needed to take through his head. Before he’d left, he’d memorized the location of the engineering interviews and the quickest way to get there from the docks. His body operated on muscle memory as he began walking through the gates.
Just as he was leaving, a hot hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him back. The force and surprise of it caught him off guard and he barely kept himself on his feet. A snarl peeled back the edges of his lips and his flames licked dangerously as his scalp and tail. Instinct built from years on his own made him puff up his chest to make himself bigger and scary.
None of that meant anything in the face of the Daebolin. This one was different from Impulse. They were bigger and quite honestly, meaner than him. Their teeth were bared and their eyes alight with the kind of rage that meant bad things were going to happen to him. His teeth were covered in an instant as he stumbled away from the obvious threat.
Everything in him screamed danger when the Daebolin followed him with a guttural growl. Their claws left their sheaths and their horns glimmered dangerously in the light of the planet’s twin stars (not quite suns, he had excitedly told Etho over breakfast).
Tango swallowed down bile as his breath came harder and he clutched his bag straps. They were worn beneath his fingers and he heard a tear when his claws dug in. He thinks it’ll be his skin tearing next. Something tells him he isn’t making it to that engineering job offer.
“You fucking stole from me,” Their voice was deep and crackled like netherrack crumbling beneath boots. It sounded like his head being smashed repeatedly into the dark red stone and promised blood just the same. Their eyes glinted with the heat of death and collapsing stars and inescapable fates.
“I didn’t steal anything,” Tango’s voice trembled and broke. He knew he didn’t take anything and he also knew it didn’t matter. This Daebolin had seen his flaming hair and his small stature and everything else that marked him as an Ardnire and decided it was good enough. He didn’t even know if they genuinely thought he stole or if they just wanted a reason to kill him.
He wondered if they would still kill him if they didn’t have a reason.
As they snarled and advanced forward, he decided the answer was yes. He felt panic sink into his bones and the weight of it locked him to the ground. His sharpened survival instincts must have left him somewhere between getting dragged out of a vent and falling asleep at a table but still waking up in his bed with no memory of walking there. The Daebolin was getting closer and Tango couldn’t move or breathe or even call for help.
He wanted to laugh suddenly. Hysteria bursted through his panic and left him weightless. To call for help implies there was someone who would answer. There was no one who would ever answer and even if there was, he left them on Netharia years ago. Tango was alone, as he always was, but he had somehow in the course of a week managed to convince himself he wasn’t.
The Daebolin was in striking distance and was raising their claws. They glinted like shooting stars in the night, like meteors that burned and crashed and tore through things that were once living, but Tango was already dead. Tango had been dead since he left home and he’d been dead since before that. His mom had been wrong.
Tango was the afterimage of an already dead star casting echoes of itself out to space and hoping someone would recognize him for what he was.
He was heat, and flame, and hope so scorching hot that it burned through his skin and left him cold. Tango was the star without a constellation or a story or a home. He was constantly looking to belong somewhere but how could a dead thing ever belong?
He hadn’t even said goodbye to them.
The Daebolin swung. Tango closed his eyes and felt stardust exit his lungs like the final plume of smoke from a doused fire. Then there was ash in his throat. It was smokey and warm like the flames of his childhood. He was afraid to open his eyes.
There was a snarl behind him. It was vicious and loud and so terribly protective it made a lump form in his throat. His eyes shuddered open only to see the Daebolin having backed away from him. Their eyes are wide and burning and afraid. They looked at something behind him and Tango followed their gaze.
Impulse stood behind him like a supernova about to go off. His eyes were alight like twin-suns and his teeth bared like sharp comets. There was a threat beneath his growl that Tango knew was not aimed at him.
He moved gracefully to shield Tango behind him. His back was tall and ridged like an impenetrable wall and his throat vibrated with something violent. The other Daebolin seemed to curl in on themselves under the weight of Impulse’s white-hot rage. Other aliens had begun to gather, each preparing for a fight.
The other Daebolin ducked their head and turned. Impulse stood unwaveringly until even their sharp, burned smell had left. Only then did he turn to Tango. His eyes were tight with concern and his hands wavered in front of him like he wanted to check Tango for injuries.
Tango wasn’t used to the worry. No one had ever looked at him like he was something valuable. Yet Impulse kept his eyes on Tango despite the yells of other aliens and the calls of Skizz coming closer. He kept his eyes on him even when Skizz arrived, all loud calls and worried hand gestures.
He held out a hand in front of him. It was steady between them and Tango watched it with bated breath. He waited for it to be pulled back, for Impulse to leave with the rest of the I.E.S. and confine Tango to a life of searching for something he couldn’t find.
“Hey kid,” Skizz whispered beside him, watching the encounter, “Totally not biased or anything, but you should take the chance on us.”
Tango snorted and met Impulse halfway. His hand was careful as it curled around Tango’s. It was hot like his and beat with the lifeblood of their home. There was a gentleness to it though that Tango was starting to realize was all Impulse.
That gentleness felt a lot like home.
—
Tango sat in a blanket pile and watched the stars through the window. They whizzed by as the ship slowly traveled through space. The planet, where Tango had once believed his future was, had long since disappeared from view leaving only the blackened void of space and small twinkling stars in the distance.
The door behind him opened, and this time he didn’t turn to see who it was.
“I’m just saying, you should have put your name on it if you didn’t want it eaten,” Etho’s voice was high as he fought laughter.
“I’m the only one that eats it?!” Skizz yelled incredulously.
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Etho’s eyebrow raised and his eyes crinkled up with a smile.
“You-” Skizz started before Impulse pushed past both of them and walked over to Tango.
“Girls, girls, you’re both stupid.” Impulse grinned at their outraged yells and sat down beside Tango in the blanket nest. The other two grumbled and bumped shoulders as they walked over but easily settled into the blankets.
Etho sat the snacks from the kitchen down on the ground in front of them and Skizz sat down with even more blankets. He unfolded one of them and placed it over their laps. The material was soft against Tango’s legs and he almost purred as he ran his fingers through it.
“We don’t even need these blankets,” Etho laughed as he leaned against Skizz’s shoulder, “We’ve got two living furnaces sitting beside us.”
“Hey,” Impulse grimaced in mock offense and shoved Skizz.
“What was that for?” Skizz said as he shoved Impulse back. Tango jostled at the movement before resettling into Impulse’s side.
“Figured if I shoved you, it’d shove Etho too. Then, I got the pleasure of shoving both of you.” Impulse grinned as he was shoved again. Tango leaned forward and grabbed a bag of chips to avoid the shoving match going on behind him. They were a spicy kind that Impulse had gotten him hooked on when they first left orbit.
Tango resituated himself against Impulse and began munching on his snack. Impulse reached over to grab one and Tango held the bag open for his friend.
Skizz groaned in disgust, “I don’t know how you two can even eat that.”
“Just because your stomach is weak doesn’t mean ours are.” Tango bit into another one for emphasis and barely held back a laugh at Skizz’s exaggerated grimace.
“More like I have respect for my taste buds.”
Etho leaned forward, “Yeah, total respect. That’s why I caught you eating week old leftovers the other night.”
“Okay, uncalled for. I thought we agreed not to bring that up.”
“You ate what?” Impulse threw his head back and laughed.
“Oh, that’s so funny to you isn’t it? I’m going to put spinach in your next meal. We’ll see who's laughing then.” Skizz snarked. His wings puffed up behind him, but they were still curled around the crew so Tango figured he wasn’t actually agitated.
“Spinach, the horror,” Impulse gasped and covered his chest like he’d been stabbed, “My greatest enemy. How would I ever recover from such a betrayal?”
Skizz let out an offended noise and said something else, but Tango had zoned out.
The bickering was like background noise as he traced patterns in the stars. He was far away from Netharia now, and the stars weren’t the same as those from his childhood, but the feeling was the same.
That sense of belonging that only the stars could give him flooded deep into his bones. Tango was older now then he was when he’d clung to the stars to feel like he was wanted somewhere. He wasn’t a gangly mess of limbs that curled in on themselves and a head always tilted to the sky. With a sudden burst of clarity, Tango realized he had finally found what he had been looking for all those years ago.
Tango turned away from the stars and looked to his crew who were all laughing together. Their limbs were tangled under the blankets and their hands were never far from each other. A mess of laughing, loving people who had found a home in each other.
His own personal stars.
Home was the stars. It always has been. He just needed to find the right ones.
“Hey Tango,” Skizz smiled at him before pointing out the window, “Look at that cluster of stars, looks a little like our ship, right?”
Maybe, this time, he could let himself be remembered.
“Yeah, it does.”
Their own little constellation.