Title: Stargazing
Summary: A relaxed night spent looking at the night sky.
Rating: K
Genre: Friendship
Lance pushed open the door across the hall from his room saying, "Hey, Matt, have you seen my…" His words trailed off when he realized that the room was empty.
The bed was messed up, which wasn't so unusual given Matt's lack of ever making it up after using it. A few swords leaned against the wall and hung on a couple racks. There were a few supplies for cleaning and polishing weapons sitting on a simple table. A chair pushed away from the table had a discarded jacket over it. A closet door was open a little ways to reveal a laundry basket. The window was open, the curtains blowing in the evening breeze. But the swordsman was nowhere to be seen.
"Weird, I thought he was in here," Lance mumbled before heading back out into the hall. He had misplaced his tablet, and had been hoping Matt knew where it was.
With a shrug, he decided he'd ask Natalie or Anna if they'd seen it. A couple knocks and questions later revealed they didn't know. They also didn't know where Matt was. Natalie glanced up from the book she was reading on her bed, and asked if he'd checked the backyard where they'd set up some training dummies. Lance hadn't but a quick check out the window revealed it was empty. Anna had jokingly asked if maybe Matt had finally set up residence in the fridge, but the swordsman wasn't in the kitchen either.
"Matt?" Lance called from the platform of the stairs.
He was beginning to worry that the swordsman had slipped off again. The little solo excursions usually ended with the swordsman on bed rest for some reason or another. That was part of the reason the team was at their little-used house at all: Matt had been jumping across rocks on one leg, slipped, and sprained his ankle. Natalie had flatly told him she wasn't healing a stupid mistake, and so they'd taken a break from adventuring. His ankle was well enough to walk on now, but certainly not well enough to be fighting on.
"Still can't find him?" Anna called from the living room.
Lance walked down the stairs and, looking around, "I'm pretty sure he's not in the house. Did he walk past here?"
"Nope, you were the last one in the door," Anna replied, sipping at a glass of juice.
The gunner sighed and moved to tug his boots on, "I'm going to go poke around the yard. Be back in a little while."
"Good luck," Anna called cheerfully.
Lance stepped outside into the night. The area was quiet; their location far from any real civilization, and only nighttime bugs and distant monster cries could be heard. The night sky was clear, a waxing crescent moon hung halfway into the sky surrounded by stars. There was no sign of Matt anywhere on the unkempt lawn or the bench against the wall. He wasn't by the pond. He wasn't in the training field. Lance ran a hand through his hair and sighed in exasperation. If they found Matt collapsed on the ground somewhere in the woods, he was going to chain the man to a chair until he was recovered.
"What're you looking for?" Matt suddenly called.
Lance jumped and spun around, looking up. He saw Matt reclined on the roof above his open window. "You, actually," Lance replied. "What are you doing up there?"
"Stargazing," Matt called back, sitting up. "What did you need?"
"Nothing important, I just lost my tablet again," Lance sighed. "Mind if I come up and join you?"
"Plenty of space," Matt said cheerfully.
Lance headed back inside and told Anna, "Found him. He's on the roof."
"The roof?" Anna repeated with a confused look. "Why's he up there, and how did he get up there?"
"Climbed out his bedroom window, I guess, and he's stargazing," Lance replied, walking past.
"Sounds fun, do you think he'd mind if I came up?" Anna asked.
"Probably not, that's where I'm going now," Lance said as he climbed the stairs.
The ranger sprang up to follow, pausing only to ask if Natalie wanted to come. The mage stood up with a smile and trailed behind the other two. They headed into Matt's rooms and Lance clambered out the window to haul himself up onto the shingles. He reached a hand down to help Natalie up, while Anna lithely flipped herself up. Matt grinned a greeting at them from further up, his arms crossed behind his head, and one knee bent.
"It's a party, now, huh?" Matt asked cheerfully.
Anna chuckled as she picked a spot to settle down on not far away, "Something like that."
Natalie clambered up the roof to lie beside Matt with a shy smile. Lance settled down between Natalie and Anna, and they all fell silent, looking up at the stars. The sky spread out in all directions with the Milky Way a glimmering stripe in a velvet blanket dotted with sparkling gems. The crescent moon shone a gentle silver, with the dark side just noticeable. The stars glinted and twinkled in various colors of blue, green, red, and white. The air was warm with a light breeze, and the only sounds for the moment were the insects chirping. It was beautiful, and peaceful.
"It's pretty," Anna suddenly said in a hushed voice. It felt wrong to speak too loudly. "You could never see a sky like this in Greenwood. There are too many trees blocking your view," she added.
Lance nodded from her right, "Yeah, and where I grew up, there was too much light pollution. I used to spend a lot of time looking at them in books and stuff, though it never really matched up to reality."
"I used to look at stars all the time as a little girl," Natalie sighed. "It was a family tradition to go out on nights where there was a new moon to look at stars. It was never like this, though."
"Yup, we picked a good spot for the home base," Matt chuckled.
Natalie rolled her head to the side to look at the swordsman, whose eyes were fixed on the sky, his expression peaceful. "What about you? Did you look at stars as a kid?" she asked.
"Of course I did," Matt replied lightly. "My childhood home was smack dab in the middle of nowhere. I got to look at sight like this almost every night. My parents and I used to go camping in the wilderness in the summer, and we'd eat s'mores while making up stories for constellations."
"Sounds fun," Lance commented.
"It was," Matt agreed with a smile.
There were several moments of content silence as they returned to watching the sky. They didn't know how long they lay there, but no one felt like getting up to move. There was no point just yet, anyway. None of them were tired, and it wasn't like they needed to be anywhere. They simply watched the stars slowly slide past on the same set course they'd held for thousands of years. Suddenly, a shooting star zipped past.
"Quick, make a wish!" Natalie called.
Lance snorted, "No, that's dumb." He secretly did as she suggested, though.
Natalie elbowed him with her eyes closed as she made her wish.
Anna chuckled at Lance's disgruntled grumble, and made her own wish.
Matt smiled at the antics of his friends, glad they were all there and enjoying this night with him. He closed his own eyes and wished upon the star.
None of them ever told the others what they'd wished for, but it was the same between them: A long life of adventure and fun with their friends and team.
A/N: I have a head-canon going for several of my stories that the team has a base they use to rest at between world saving quests, so that's where the house came from.
It might take a little while getting the next chapters up for most of my other stories as I have a writer's block on them that I'm slowly chipping my way through, one line at a time.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this little one shot! Please leave a review, and I'll be back soon!
