A Matter of Time and Telescopes
Aperture High was, to put it bluntly, everything but normal. It was a good school in Aperture City- always clean and supplied with enough money from the government to replace anything broken within the week, which the school had to do a lot it seemed. It didn't even cost much to attend other than the small fee payed for lunch and the optional breakfast and dinner if you stayed at the dorms or had early or late extra classes. Still there was a surprising lack of students. It was much less of a surprise when you took into consideration the sanity of the few students that did attend. To cut a long story short, staying and surviving for more than three days meant you were either just as insane as everyone else or just plain lucky.
Luck usually ended after the first week.
Out of the whole school, there were two that had tied for "Most Annoying" in the school yearbook. Having even one of them trailing you meant peace would not be found until the day was over- unless you were GLaDOS of course.. These two students were known as Space and Curiosity.
Space was a dark blonde with yellow eyes. He wore a basic white suit, like most of the students who stayed in the dorms with GLaDOS, with a yellow broach at the neck. Curiosity was slightly shorter than Space with light brown hair and eyes. She wore a white uniform like Space, but with a skirt and a bow held together by a light brown broach.
As his name suggested, Space liked space- obviously. Astronomy was the only subject he passed, yet continued talking about to everyone until they brushed him off on some other poor person, usually adding things such as "space cops" and "how to say hi to the Sun." When classes were over, he ran from one end of city to the other in order to be at the Aperture Science Museum. Needless to say, he spent his time is the space exhibit. At night, he would stay up until midnight stargazing. If there was an event such as a meteor shower at two to four in the morning, he slept through most of his classes to the relief of the student body as a whole.
Curiosity was a very active girl. In each of her classes, she was constantly asking questions- about everything. Half the questions actually had to do with the class; the other half were things she observed and wondered about from the two squirrels GLaDOS said were just dancing to why water is blue. Her grades were good enough to pass, but little more. She knew the answers to the questions on the tests, but actually focusing on each individual question instead of the speck of dirt on the wall or the scribbles on the desk was not her strong point. After school, she roamed the town, asking as many questions as she could until they pointed out something to her that she chased after to learn more about.
Normally, you would think these two knew each other quite well. In fact, neither knew the other existed in any way, shape or form. Everyone assumed it was just a matter of time before the two met and drove the whole school into deeper insanity with their annoyance, if that was possible. Either way, the two just never seemed to meet- their schedules were different, their dorm rooms were far from the other's, and their lockers were on two different ends of the hall. It seemed as if the two might just never meet- and if that happened to be the case, no one was complaining.
But, like an eclipse, some things are simply inevitable.
It was a regular day for Wheatley. He dressed in his simple white uniform with a blue broach at the neck of it, his light brown hair was parted on one side, and he wore his usual wire-rimmed glasses that covered his bright blue eyes. Classes went as they did every day: Chell helped him in all the subjects and Space rattled on and on about, well, space. Space was his roommate in the dorm, a punishment after... well, that is a story for another time. Simply, he ended up babysitting the blonde. Wheatley didn't mind the obsessed boy, at least much less than everyone else at the school. Still, it wasn't pleasant to have him screaming space in his ear class after class.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, when are we going to space?" he asked. It was lunch and yet again someone had pushed the job of watching Space over to him.
Wheatley sighed, "I'm not going to space, mate; you are. And I don't know when you plan to go to space."
"Can I go now?" Space asked, one finger pointing up at the ceiling, or rather, at space.
"No, I doubt you can go now, mate," Wheatley said, poking at the food on his plate. It was like talking to a child. You won't crush their dreams and tell them they can't- because there is the chance they could- but you don't honestly believe they will. "Why don't you go talk to someone else? You need to make some friends."
"All the planets and stars are my friends. Well, they will be when I say hi to them all when I'm in space. For now, you're my friend!" Space stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"I mean, other friends. Besides me and everything in space," Wheatley explained, realizing his mistake seconds too late.
"Space!"
Wheatley sighed plainly, "Never mind, mate. Never mind..."
After classes, Curiosity had four options: 1. go to the museum and ask questions 2. go to library and ask questions 3. walk around town and ask questions 4. follow someone and ask questions. She was fine as long she got to ask questions. The brunette opted for option four as she noticed someone who was just minutes late from leaving class. Curiosity grinned and ran up to the girl.
Chell was just leaving her class of Psychology/Sociology. She was generally happy after this class; it and P.E. were the only classes she was better at than GLaDOS, just barely but still. She wore her usual outfit: orange sweat pants with the jacket tied around her waist, a white Aperture High shirt on her shoulders, and white boots GLaDOS had given her for Christmas saying "You could jump off a building and not get hurt. Go ahead- try them out." While she never bothered testing if the statement was true, the boots were nice and posed no immediate threat regardless. Her plans for the rest of the day were simple: go to museum, draw a diagram of a plant for her science homework, go home and then chat with Wheatley and GLaDOS on the school's website. The small smile on her face vanished as Chell heard the rapid footsteps coming from behind her.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, HEY!" Curiosity said, running up from behind Chell. "Hey, You're the lady from the test!"
Chell nodded. "I helped you study for a test once, yes, but-"
"Where are we going?" Curiosity asked, looking everywhere but at Chell.
"The museum, but I have work to do and-" Chell attempted to say.
Needless to say, Curiosity was in now way patient enough to bother listening for the end of that sentence. "Ooo, what's there? I wanna see it now! Let's go!" With that, she grabbed Chell by the arm and began running out of the school.
"Oh no," Chell mumbled, vaguely wondering what being had thought she deserved this... Probably GLaDOS...
Things didn't lighten up once Chell had been dragged to museum. Curiosity was pulling her left and right, asking about everything as if she might somehow know the answer- and even if she did the brunette didn't give her a chance to answer before asking another question.
After fifteen minutes that felt like an hour went by, Chell had had enough. She stopped Curiosity from pulling her to the dinosaur exhibit and pointed to the nearest exhibit that was away from where they were already going. "Look at that! What's in there?"
Curiosity followed Chell's gaze to find two doors. "Ooo, I haven't been there before. What's in there? Can we go check it out?"
"Oh, no. I saw something else that I need to go look at. Why don't you go in there and I'll go look at that other thing and tell you all about it later, okay?" Chell answered. It was a lie of course, but at this rate she was willing to do anything just to get the other girl to look in one direction long enough for her to get as far away as possible.
As planned, Curiosity nodded eagerly and began walking towards the star-covered double doors. Chell grinned at her own cleverness before quickly walking to the entrance of the museum to leave. She would pull up the plant diagram on her computer and draw it from that- staying in the same building as Curiosity posed too great a risk for one small picture of a plant.
The brunette poked her head in through the black and white doors. "Ooo, what's in he~re?" Curiosity wondered aloud, her voice echoing around the simple room. When no answer came, she curiously wandered in.
The walls of the room were blackish-blue with scattered white bulbs twinkling inside the dark blue. The room itself was a basic square with models of strange things that Curiosity couldn't name. She walked over to each of them, looking at the cards on the glass to see what they were. That didn't help much. There were names of things and places, but nothing that was any use to her it seemed. So caught up in her own thoughts, she didn't notice that was anyone else had entered the room until the two collided.
Space was doing what he usually did- walk around the space exhibit of the museum. Halfway through looking at the models and pictures, his mind drifted to daydreams of one day being in space. Absentmindedly he walked into a different room of the exhibit with miniature models of probes and the like. He didn't hear anyone else in the room- why would there be? Most knew he came here after school and avoided the place like the plague for that sole reason. Space didn't notice anything besides space until he tripped and fell on top of the only other person in the room.
Curiosity fell back, hitting her head on the black and gray carpet floor that provided no comfort. After the slight dizziness faded, she picked he head up as much as she could with the weight of the other person on top of her. The brunette met the gaze of two confused, golden eyes. The boy on top of her had short blonde hair that jutted out in the front. He wore an Aperture High uniform, a male version of her own, with a yellow broach on his neck.
Space looked at the brunette, any thoughts he had vanishing. She had light brown eyes and wavy brown hair that fell down around her shoulders. She donned a white Aperture High uniform similar to his own, yet a shirt instead of pants and a dark gray bow on her neck secured with a light brown broach instead of a yellow broach like his.
"Who are you?" they asked simultaneously. Curiosity paused for a moment before giggling at the strange occurrence. No one had ever asked her a question at the same time as her own before- if they asked her a question at all.
Space smiled to himself. He like how the girl laughed. Her laugh was cheery and honestly happy, unlike some of the mocking laughs he was used to hearing from others. He pushed up off the ground and stood on his feet. The blonde held a hand out the girl to help her up, which she gladly accepted. "My name's Space," he said, introducing himself.
"I'm Curiosity," the brunette responded, once on her feet. She glanced at the picture Space had been looking at a moment before. "What's that?"
"Space," he answered automatically, as if it were obvious.
Curiosity tilted her head sideways. "Space?" All she saw were a bunch of white dots.
"Well, the space we can see with our eyes at night. You wanna see more?" Space asked, smiling hopefully. People didn't usually ask him to tell them about his favorite subject- even though he did know a lot about it. Much to his delight, Curiosity agreed eagerly.
For the next few hours, Space described to Curiosity all the planets, stars, comets, asteroids, and galaxies, pointing out pictures of such things on the walls as they passed them in the space exhibit. The blonde even described things that weren't in the pictures like "space cops" and "space jail."
Throughout it all, Curiosity was quiet and focused- well, much more than usual at the very least. While she did ask questions, she didn't interrupt any of Space's short speeches. The brunette tried to focus, but doing so was easier said than done. It was hard to focus on what the blonde was saying when it was so much easier simply to stare at those honey-colored eyes. Curiosity, for once, kept these musings to herself. She didn't want Space to stop speaking, to stop holding her hand and leading her to one room after another. She couldn't explain it, and a piece of her thoughts did question it, but Curiosity had no intent on exploring those thoughts. No, she much preferred to spend this moment learning about space and all in the things in it and occasionally getting lost in those golden eyes.
On top of it all, Space actually cared about her questions, answering as best he could. The blonde admitted when he didn't know the answer and they would spend a few minuted trying to come up with an answer together. This was new to Curiosity- most just answered her to get her off their backs, which was why she had stopped waiting for them to answer long ago. She wanted to know, but after she had her answer the brunette stopped them from finishing and forming a reason to desert her. Chell had done it just moments ago, had she not? Curiosity had let the girl leave- she was beginning to get bored with her and the unknown exhibit posed a greater interest to her than the other girl. But Space cared about her questions and seemed to respect her for her "strange" musings.
As for Space, he felt happy. But that one word couldn't describe it- there was more to it than simple happiness. This was the first person to ever listen to him willingly; everyone else had avoided talking to him about space, or anything else for that matter. They always found some reason to make him "someone else's problem" or just plain leave. But Curiosity was different- she listened to him. She even smiled and laughed at things such as the funny shape of this and that. The brunette didn't mock him, didn't insult him, and didn't ignore him. Her attentiveness intrigued him. She asked things that had never quite crossed his mind. Did space cops eat space donuts? If the Great Red Spot is a storm on Jupiter, why aren't storms on Earth known as "Great White Spots?"
Space had heard a little about Curiosity- lack of privacy of conversations in the hallways and all. They referred to her as an annoying idiot. How could anyone think someone so inquisitive was an idiot? Curiosity seemed more intelligent than everyone else at the school combined- well, maybe subtracting GlaDOS...maybe...
Space continued their personal tour of the exhibit. He led her to the dark theater room showing a 3D biography of team of astronauts. The theater was smaller than a regular movie theater, but that was expect. How many people would sit down for two hours for a space movie in a museum? Currently, only two, meaning they could choose the best seats and act however they wanted. When it showed the team eating M&Ms and several flew out to the audience of two, both reached up to try and catch it. When things seemed slightly boring, they talked about the most recent events. Who was going to stop them? It felt right with no one but the two of them.
As the movie ended with the astronauts returning home, a polite yet monotonous voice came on over the intercom system. "The Aperture Science Museum will be closing it 5 minutes."
Curiosity frowned. It couldn't be that late, could it? "What time is it?"
Space frowned. "According to the museum, 9:55."
The brunette soon mimicked the expression. "So we have to go home now?"
Space thought for a moment. "Well, there is one thing left to show you about space... That is, if you don't mind staying out late."
Normally, Curiosity would grow tired or bored and eventually fall asleep around a decent time, but this was turning out to be a not so normal day- and honestly the brunette couldn't imagine her time with Space ending so soon. Without a second thought, she nodded.
The blonde smiled at her and took her hand. "Come on. We'll never see it if we get locked in here."
With that, the two ran out of the museum, eagerness quickening their steps. Once the white tile floor was replaced by pale concrete, Curiosity began to realize just how late it was. Nearly every store or restaurant was closed for evening. Many of the houses located on the street were dark, their residents already asleep for the night. Light-orange street lamps remained as the only lights illuminating the sidewalk- the circles of light failing to completely reach the ones beside it.
With Space leading the way, they walked past all of these. Curiosity slowly noticed the stone sidewalk go from white and clean to gray with small bits of grass growing in between the cracks. Soon, the concrete sidewalk disappeared completely and the two walked on a dirt trails through the forest just outside Aperture City. Finally, Space stopped underneath a tall tree with a rope ladder dangling from somewhere unseen.
"Ladies first," he said happily. Curiosity smiled at the gesture and gripped a wooden rung. She pulled herself up onto the ladder and began climbing. The ladder shook slightly as Space soon followed.
Curiosity brushed past twigs and leaves as she neared the top, her hand reaching the final rung. She looked up and saw a small trap door. The brunette looked down at Space and, after a reassuring nod from the other, pushed open the door. It fell inside with a resounding thud. Curiosity pulled herself through the door and stood on the inside of a small room as she waited for Space. He climbed in and flicked an electric lamp on.
With the room now illuminated in white light, Curiosity quickly set to seeing every bit of it. In one corner there were pieces to something accompanied by a few blankets in side a box, a basket, a radio and a book. One wall held cabinets, all currently closed. As she watched, Space walked over to them and pulled out several packaged Moon Pies.
The blonde held out one of the packaged marshmallow sandwiches to Curiosity. "Do you want one?" She accepted it gladly. The two had talked their way past dinner at the dorms and her stomach felt ready to cave in on itself. While she munched on the vanilla Moon Pie, small crumbs falling on her shirt and bow, Space shoved a box of Moon Pies into the basket followed by one of the blankets, the pieces to who-knows-what and the white radio.
"Where are we going?" Curiosity asked between bites.
Space pointed to a wooden ladder standing on one side of the room. "Up there."
"Why?" she asked, wondering how she didn't notice the ladder before.
Space grinned. "It's a surprise."
"Surprise..?" the brunette said, as if testing the word. She didn't know whether to hate the word or love it.
Space nodded and, basket in tow, began climbing the wooden ladder. Curiosity followed him, wishing she could jump ahead of the blonde and reach the top first. As the two ascended higher and higher, the leaves and branches thinned. Finally, the top was reached and Space disappeared through a small opening on a platform. Flying through the final rungs, Curiosity joined him.
What she saw took her breath away.
They were currently on a wooden platform at the top of the tallest tree in the forest just outside Aperture City. The city itself had dwindled to mere dots of light in a sea of darkness. "I feel so tall standing here," she said, to herself mostly.
As Curiosity gaped, Space simply grinned and unpacked the basket. He spread the blanket out, the cloth now covering most of the platform. The basket was set aside, minus the pieces. Space assembled them with ease, deciding it was time to snap Curiosity out of her daze. He tapped her lightly on the shoulder. The girl blinked before looking at him quizzically. "That's not the best part," Space said, looking up happily. Curiosity followed his gaze, any sense of power vanished. Underneath the thousands of tiny dots she now knew as stars.
Curiosity reached up to try and touch the twinkling lights, refusing to close her hand with the knowledge that she would only hold thin air. "Space?"
"Space," the other confirmed. The brunette's hand fell limp at her side. Space took that hand and pulled Curiosity over to the object. "Look in here."
Curiosity bent over and looked into one part of the object. Suddenly all the stars seemed much closer to her than they were before. "What is this?" she asked.
"A telescope. You should learn how to use one," Space said, looking up at the sky hopefully. "You'll need it to see me when I go into space."
Curiosity glanced up from the telescope at Space. "Won't you need one too?"
"Why?" the blonde asked, looking at her confusedly.
"To look back and see me, of course," Curiosity answered.
Space grinned. "Why don't you just come with me, then? We can see all of space together."
Curiosity smiled back at him, realizing that he had never truly let go of her hand. "I'd like that."
While there are some things that can be avoided, there are some things that are as inevitable as a comet streaking across the sky or the day when a star dies- it's simply a matter of time and telescopes.
To clarify, this is an AU.
I could've sworn when I started this I said it was gonna be a one-shot. While it is still a one-shot, it turned out to be ridiculously long... Well, I learned something out of this- I cannot mix good and short in my writing. O well, I'll work on that some other time.
Writing as these two was harder than I originally thought. If I failed to capture completely either's usual speech, forgive me, this is my first time writing for these two.
As for the Moon Pies- I couldn't let my characters go hungry so I had to think up something fitting for them to eat. I thought of hot chocolate- but this is summer/spring time and hot chocolate is for winter usually. So I thought, what would Space like? I kept thinking moon until I remembered the Moon Pies they used to serve at school. It fit so I figured what the heck.
This is my entry for the contest the Spacosity group is holding.
I hope you enjoyed it!
Human core designs are not mine- they belong to forte-girl7 on DeviantArt.
Characters belong to Valve