An exchange fic I wrote for Tracy (tumblr: polands-scrunchies / AO3: aph_pasta)! We settled on a common theme (Space AU) and sent each other a couple of ships to choose from so, as I have been wanting to write a pruita fic anyway, I ended up killing two birds with one stone.
Based very super vaguely on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Like, I took some uhhh themes (and we can't deny Gilbert is uncannily like Zaphod Beeblebrox in personality) and ran with them. I tried to write it in a way it should still be understandable to those who haven't read it, so don't let it discourage you! There's just a bunch of nods to those who have read the book.
The room was too hot, filled with too many people, pressed together in the pathetic little free space available in the living room.
Feliciano had lost sight of his brother, one stranger blending into another, and stood near the table that held an inordinate amount of alcohol. He may have upturned a bottle of rum into the fruit punch out of pure boredom. His own cup held some cheap lemonade mixed with equally cheap but strong strong strong vodka.
He calmly scanned the crowd, hoping to at least find some company for the night, but found little of interest.
He sighed and closed his eyes, tilting his head back until it hit the wall.
His life felt so unfulfilled. Stuck where he was, in the middle of nowhere America, with a useless degree in art and no prospects for a future.
A flash of light hair, coloured purple, then blue, then green in the changing lights. Feliciano sipped his cup, fluttering his lashes coyly as he caught the stranger's eye.
Tall, blond, pale, he appeared unassuming if not for a large grin, almost out of place, and deep eyes set on Feliciano only.
Placing his cup on the table, Feliciano pressed one foot back against the wall and rested his arms on the stranger's shoulders as warm, large hands settled on his waist.
"Hi," the stranger crooned, voice deep and croaky.
"Hey there," Feliciano replied.
The man eyed Feliciano, travelling down his body curiously. "And what's your story?"
"My story?"
"Why are you here?"
"I'm stuck."
"Stuck?"
Feliciano hummed.
"And you don't want to be?"
Feliciano shook his head. The man thought for a moment.
He leaned close to Feliciano's ear, whispers sending shivers down his spine.
"I'm Gilbert. Would you like to travel the universe with me?"
Feliciano laughed. "The universe?"
"The one and only." Gilbert grinned. "Want to see my flying saucer?"
"Oh my God." Feliciano had to hid the traitorous smile behind his hand, yet Gilbert took it, eyes shining. "Yes. Sure. Show me."
And Gilbert dragged him through the crowd, outside, and away.
Thinking back on it, Feliciano shouldn't have been as disappointed as he had been to be brought aboard a flying saucer—an honest to God spaceship.
He shouldn't have, but what other reaction was one to have to meeting a real alien, even one as strange as Gilbert. Because if there was one thing he had learnt from his years in space, it was that which he had assigned as being a weird alien habit turned out to be just a weird Gilbert habit.
Like his campaign to become the President of the Universe.
"What credentials do you even need?" Feliciano had asked.
Gilbert had laughed. "Feli, the President of the Universe is the biggest scam of the universe. They just want someone as a scapegoat."
"And you want to be that?"
Gilbert had showed him the salary then. Feliciano had arranged most of the business parts of the campaign after that, putting his business minor to work. Space business was still the same business and frankly, Feliciano learnt that humans tended to be far more overcomplicated with it than most alien species, mainly because humans got stuck on simple cultural misunderstandings. Most aliens didn't so much as blink and worked on transparency above all else. Feliciano could appreciate it.
Now, he stood in the crowd of a small press conference as Gilbert forgot a speech someone had painstakingly written for him and who was currently chatting about the weather. It still captivated the audience, of course. Gilbert was anything if not aggressively charming in his own bumbling way. The papers called him endearingly empty-headed, which was anything but the words Feliciano would use to describe him, but it was the perfect description for the President of the Universe.
"And so, um, oh!" Gilbert pointed at a cloud. "It looks like a Telbenaxis!"
Feliciano carefully extricated himself from the crowd. Gilbert glanced at him quickly, smiled, and pressed the button in his coat. The stunner made quick work of the crowd, freezing them, and Gilbert ran to the spaceship, the Heart of Gold.
It was beautiful for as far spaceships went. Sleek and oblong, it looked like a sideways egg, with a pearl-like sheen.
The interior was equally sleek, almost painfully white, and the computer welcomed them with a deeply cheerful voice. It was a little unsettling even as Gilbert already pressed away at buttons.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Feliciano asked as he sidled up next to him.
"Not a clue." Gilbert laughed. He turned to Feliciano slyly. "Hey, Computer?"
"Hello!" That same deep voice piped up. "How can I help you today?"
"Can you get us the fuck out of here?"
"I certainly can, sir!"
A beat passed where Gilbert drummed his fingers against the dashboard before giving a frustrated sigh. "Computer?"
"Yes?"
"Get us out of here."
"Certainly! Where to?"
"Anywhere is better than here." Gilbert thought a moment. "To the Betelgeuse."
"All right-y, sir! Please have a seat while I start the Improbability Drive."
Feliciano giggled as Gilbert tugged him to the seating area, a low dip in the centre with couches surrounding the edges. Falling against the squishy cushions, Gilbert wrapped his arm around Feliciano's waist and kissed his cheek. Feliciano smiled and kissed him deeply, running his hands through Gilbert's hair almost teasingly.
The Computer warned them they were jumping in three, two, one—
The next moment, Gilbert turned into a flamingo.
It took three days for the news of their theft to take hold with the people. They had thought it a joke at first; a silly Gilbert Beilschmidt stunt meant to keep the press entertained.
It took three weeks for people to realize that the probability of catching a ship working on an improbability engine was not high at all. In fact, it was so improbable that it was a miracle in itself the improbability drive hadn't picked up on it.
It took three months for the whole debacle to be forgotten as people moved on to heckle a new President.
Feliciano tossed the newsreader on the couch next to him. Not a single mention of Gilbert Beilschmidt or the Heart of Gold. Not even a scathing remark on Feliciano, little Earthling from the Milky Way sector who didn't even know what a Ylkesaauiorfgt was, nor how to pronounce it.
Gilbert was hunched over the control panel, muttering to himself. He had taken to reading the manual because he had begun to loath the ever-cheerful Computer.
Feliciano tore his eyes from his ass and asked, "Do you think we can ever go back to Earth?"
Gilbert glanced past his shoulder, frowning. "Why would we want to do that?"
"I've just vanished from the planet, Gilbert! Literally!"
"So? I haven't seen my family in…" He trailed off, pushing himself away from the control panel. "Anyway, what's the fun of going back to a place you've already been to? I make it a point to never—"
"Gilbert, please." Feliciano had taken his hands, going for the Kicked Puppy expression that got him almost everything.
Gilbert pursed his lips. "I guess I can make an exception, just for you."
Earth was exactly where it used to be, thankfully. Or well, in relativity's sense as galaxies catapulted themselves around empty space at ridiculous speeds.
But Earth was still Earth, with its blue oceans and its mostly green and brown landmasses. In a way, it really was a beautiful planet. Sure, it didn't have mountains of silver and oceans of purple, but that, at least, meant that their mountains still stood and their seas could be swam in.
Feliciano stood on the doorstep to his brother's house. Gilbert hadn't wanted to come, instead sulking on the ship, though Feliciano planned to introduce him to his brother one way or another. He had the right to know the man who had offered Feliciano the universe.
Lovino looked so very tired when he opened the door. For a tense moment, he just stared at Feliciano.
"Hey, Lovi," Feliciano said softly.
Lovino swayed a little on his feet as he reached toward Feliciano, who caught his hand with a small smile.
"Oh my God," he whispered and pulled Feliciano in a bone-crushing hug. "Where have you been?"
"Around the universe," Feliciano mumbled against Lovino's neck.
Lovino pulled back, fingers digging into Feliciano's shoulders. "Not funny, Feli." He looked like he had a lot more to say, paused, then lead Feliciano inside.
The house hadn't changed. Lovino had inherited it from their grandparents and was doing a decent job of taking care of it. Feliciano had always thought it a little sad Lovino lived all alone in the huge three story building.
They sat at the large dinner table, two cups of steaming hot tea in between them.
"I can't believe you're really home," Lovino said. "We all thought you had been kidnapped or… or had died."
"That's a bit of an overreaction, isn't it?"
Lovino stared at him incredulously. "Overreaction? We go to a party together and you vanish! We call; the line's dead. We ask people; they say they saw you leave with some man. The police told us to give up. It's been three years, Feli!"
Feliciano evaded his eyes, staring at his tea instead. "I'm sorry." He glanced back up. "I was given an opportunity and I took it."
He could see the muscle work in Lovino's jaw, a bad habit he had when he was particularly furious yet didn't want to be. Feliciano saw the mild desperation in his brother's eyes, the conflict.
"What opportunity?" Lovino asked quietly.
"I already said."
"You didn't go around the universe."
"It's true."
Lovino shook his head. Feliciano took his bag from the floor and turned it upside down, a myriad of miscellaneous items he had collected throughout his travels scattering across the table.
"My boyfriend's an alien too," Feliciano continued. "He's from the Sagittarius quadrant. Well, they don't call it that, obviously, but I can't pronounce its real name."
Lovino stared at a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which Feliciano had received from a very frazzled looking alien in Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. He seemed to be going through a handful of stages. Not necessarily grief, but maybe on the way to accepting Feliciano had lost his mind.
"Boyfriend?"
"Yeah! Gilbert. Well, again, not really Gilbert. That's the name he used here when I met him. He's been teaching me his real name, but it's ridiculously long."
Lovino looked ready to sputter something else, but never got to as the front door opened and Gilbert hurried into the dining room, out-of-breath and hair windswept.
"Gil?" Feliciano had raised from his seat partially.
"We have to go," Gilbert said urgently, taking Feliciano's arm and tugging him to the front door.
"Hey, wait!" Lovino followed after them. "This is your boyfriend? What the hell is going on?"
"Gilbert," Feliciano said, extricating his arm from his grasp. "What's wrong?"
Gilbert clenched his jaw and repeated, "We have to go."
A terrifying screech deafened the world for a harsh moment. Gilbert's expression twisted into something between fear and disgust.
"Vogons," he said. "Feliciano, we have to go."
Feliciano looked at his brother, who seemed more confused than anything. "Not without Lovino."
Gilbert threw up his arms and stalked to through the door. "I don't care. We have four minutes."
Feliciano grabbed Lovino's hand and tugged him with, running across the street, past the people staring and pointing at the sky where the ships prepared the demise of Earth.
They had about one and a half minute when they stumbled aboard the Heart of Gold. Feliciano left Lovino standing in the middle, gawking around. He joined Gilbert at the control panel.
"Computer," Feliciano called. "Get us to the Andromeda quadrant right this instant."
"Sure thing, sir! May I remind you the planet Earth will be destroyed in T-minus forty seconds."
"We're aware," Gilbert said irritably.
"What the fuck," Lovino whispered as he ambled to the centre couches.
They blinked out of existence just as the eradication beams were turned on.
Feliciano did like the eccentricity of the huge cities around the universe. No matter how many years passed by, there was always something new to find, a new booming city to discover, ransack and turn upside down together with Gilbert.
They had travelled with Lovino for about two years before his brother had found a place where he wanted to live. They had stumbled upon it by accident, which, in the case of the improbability drive, wasn't as accidental probably. But Lovino had really hit it off with the aliens living there, glad he could make use of his sculpting degree in some way (even if designing planets was a bit strange of a profession).
The brothers made sure to send messages at least once a month however, especially because they were the last bit of humanity left in space.
Gilbert wrapped his arms around Feliciano's waist, pressing a kiss behind his ear. "What are you thinking about?"
"Life." He thought for a moment and grinned. "The universe."
"And everything?" Gilbert moved around him to do a grand sweeping gesture.
Feliciano snorted as he walked toward him, now placing his hands on Gilbert's hips. Standing on the tips of his toes, he kissed Gilbert slowly. "I was actually thinking about our time spent together, and about how I don't regret a single moment of it."
Gilbert's eyes softened. "Really?"
"Really really."
Gilbert wound Feliciano in a firm hug, breathing deeply. "I'm glad." He hesitated for a moment. "I always feared I had, in some way, stolen you away from your life on Earth."
Brushing a hand through Gilbert's hair, Feliciano hummed. "I mean, you did. Kind of. But I didn't have much of a life there anyway. I meant it when I told you I felt I was stuck then."
Gilbert leaned back, eyeing him seriously. "And you don't feel so now? With me?"
"Not even once," Feliciano said.
Gilbert breathed out deeply and kissed Feliciano, slowly and lovingly. With a small smile, he walked Feliciano backward until his back hit the wall. Placing his warm, large hands on Feliciano's waist as Feliciano rested his own on his shoulders, he admitted, "I'm glad you're here with me, travelling the universe. I think I was stuck too, in a way."
Feliciano smiled. "And you're not now?"
"There is nowhere I'd rather be," Gilbert whispered.
Kissing him, Feliciano agreed.
Hope you enjoyed! I certainly did writing it, especially keysmashing random alien names!