Chapter 8: Now Close Your Eyes

Tony frowned as he lined up his next shot with an exaggerated amount of care, leaning his head low against the table and closing one eye. The effect was rather comical. When he flicked the foil triangle it flew wildly off to the side.

"Ugh," he groaned as he sat back up. "I don't think I'm winning this round."

Nebula leaned from her chair to retrieve the 'ball' and line it up again on her side. It had become somewhat of a ritual to play this game once a cycle, usually after the second meal and before Tony's second time on the table. This cycle his shots were flying wide more often than usual.

"You have only made one point so far," she informed him. "I only need one more to win. It is not likely you will succeed."

She flicked the triangle, perhaps a little too quickly, and it fell short before his hands. "You could try though."

The corners of his lips twitched upwards as he gathered the piece of trash.

"Thanks."

"For what?"

He just gave her the briefest of knowing smiles then returned his attention to the game. The next shot made it, and several rounds later they ended the game two to five.

-x-

"Do you know how to cook?" Tony was swirling a bag of rations around in his hand, taking his time choosing the best piece. "Like lasagna or spaghetti or whatever the space equivalent of a nice holiday meal is?"

"No," Nebula answered from where she sat across the table, leaning her head in one hand while she watched the Terran go about playing with his food.

"Really?" He didn't look up from the bag, but his eyebrows rose. "You strike me as the kind of person who doesn't cook often, but can actually make something amazing if you want to."

"I have never had the need to. My meals are provided, or stolen, or occasionally I have roasted something over flame."

Finally a suitable piece was chosen and Tony popped it into his mouth, mumbling out his next words around a bite of food. "Ah. I never learned to cook growing up either. Takeout and fast food built this body."

She had nothing to say to that and let the ship lapse back into silence while she closed her eyes. Another fuse had gone out the night before, and it had taken her most of the night and morning cycle to rewire a bypass so it didn't blow the entire system. The Terran had helped for a while, but it was getting increasingly difficult for him to stay awake for long periods, and he had overexerted himself.

"Your turn."

The Terran's voice startled her awake again, followed by the crinkling bag being shoved into her arms. She resisted the urge to fling it back at him in annoyance, settling for shoving it away so she could close her eyes again.

She fell asleep at the table not long after that, and awoke some time later with her head pillowed on her arms. The Terran was on the floor, tinkering away at some open panel of lifeless engine that she was pretty sure he'd been through before.

She must have made some noise when she woke because a moment later he began speaking over his shoulder without looking up. "Pepper can cook like a goddess. She almost never cooks, too busy keeping the world spinning, but sometimes she makes us special meals."

Had he been holding onto this conversation the whole time? Nebula blinked the sleep from her eyes and leaned back from the table to stretch her limbs. It had been a fairly long time, according to the internal clock tick-tick-ticking away endlessly inside of her, but he continued on like they hadn't missed a beat.

"Don't tell her, but I've actually been sneaking around behind her back and taking cooking classes. I've been paying in cash and told her I was doing community service on Thursdays. That was actually a terrible idea, it turns out. She wanted to join me. I missed three lessons and spent them reading to kids at a library so she wouldn't find out. The kids were pretty cool, though. They didn't rat me out at least. I'm learning to cook her favorite meal, including dessert. It's going to be a surprise for her birthday."

It was a wonder he could talk for so long with such sparse oxygen.

"How do you guys celebrate birthdays in space?"

"What's a birthday?" She mumbled thoughtlessly as she debated the options of finding something to do or relocating to a more vertical surface to continue her rest. The less they did, the longer they could stretch their rapidly dwindling supplies.

A bang dragged her a little further into wakefulness when the Terran dropped the metal tubing in his hand and spun around on the floor to stare at her. "I sincerely hope your translator is on the fritz, because you can't tell me they don't celebrate birthdays in space?"

She just blinked back at him, certain that her translator was fine.

There was a stricken look on his face now, as he tugged the blanket a little tighter around his shoulders. "A birthday, as in the day you were born? On Earth, we celebrate the anniversary of that day with stuff like cake, and presents, and a general sorta, merrymaking."

Nebula gave a snort and leaned forward again to pillow her head on her arms. "That's an idiotic thing to celebrate." Terra was such a strange place. Did they really have nothing better to do there?

"No, it's great. It's like all your friends and family get together and just enjoy the day, throw a big party, to celebrate... Here, look, when were you born? Like, I was born May 29th, and you were...?"

A part of her wanted to just close her eyes and fall back to sleep. To let him keep his stories to himself for once. She was tired of hearing them, tired of empty promises, and tired of playing pretend that either of them would ever see anything again but the inside of this shabby, broken shuttle.

She was tired.

But the last fuse was bound to break any moment, and there was almost no food left. They were nearly out of time, the Terran more so than her. In his own way he'd been struggling to keep her spirits up since the beginning. A largely futile, and strange sort of gesture she wasn't accustomed to, but she found she couldn't bring herself to so casually crush his spirit in return. So she took a slow breath and braced herself for a different sort of emptiness than the one in her stomach and gave him his answer. "I don't know."

His immediate response was a predictable wave of confusion and his smile fell. The wrinkles on his forehead deepened as his brows lowered before they suddenly shot back up, his earlier smile returning as quickly as it had vanished, if a little wobbly now. "Oh, right. Spaceships probably don't run on Earth months." Tony drummed his fingers against the floor and bit his lip. "I don't know how the calendar system out here works, but we can calculate an approximation in Earth years. We have plenty of time to spare."

"No," she murmured, and his brows lowered again, like he already knew what she was going to say. "I mean I don't remember." Perhaps she shouldn't have bothered. It seemed she had crushed his spirit after all.

Tony opened his mouth then seemed to think better of whatever he was going to say and closed it again. He repeated this a couple more times before finally settling on something to say. "That's fine. Not everyone remembers or celebrates their real birthday on Earth either. We can make one up for you. Like, we can celebrate the anniversary of when we get to Earth? Surviving a long hopeless trek through space seems celebration worthy."

Nebula wrinkled her nose. If they somehow made it through it would be a feat of luck, not their own efforts or ingenuity that saved them at this point. That did seem fitting enough for a ritual meant to celebrate something as inane and out of one's individual control as being born.

"If you don't like that, you could share mine." He spread his arms wide and added, "Welcome to team Gemini!"

"No thanks."

"We'll figure something out," he promised merrily, ignoring her clear lack of enthusiasm as he heaved himself to his feet. His socked feet muffled his steps as he stumbled over to grab something off a nearby shelf, tucking it under his blanket and returning to stand across the table.

"Here." He produced the folded up leather jacket that he had been using as a pillow during his treatments and placed it on the table in front of her. "Get some more shuteye. I'll hold down the fort. Quietly, I promise."

While he returned to his project on the floor she gave him a loud snort and ignored the jacket to tuck her face deeper into her crossed arms. He didn't so much as glance back as he settled back down and eventually she reached out and dragged the offered pillow over buffer her skin against the hard table surface. The worn leather reeked of sweat and beer and very, very faintly, of her sister.

End

Chapter 9 Preview: "...His eyes were getting misty again and his words were growing slower. She hoped he might nod off while recounting these tales and forget he had asked her a question.

"So? Your turn."

No such luck it seemed..."

Sorry! Life's been wild. I got offered a job I've been wanting, but it was kinda last minute, so now I'm scrambling to get everything ready at my current place for me to leave and getting all my paperwork and testing done for the new place. Super excited! But also super busy. Also, I found out I'll be getting to go to Fanime after all, which I wasn't sure I'd be going to this year. So lots of packing for that. I could really use the vacation, but it falls right in the middle of chaos, lol. I might get one more update between now and when I leave, since the next chapter is pretty much half-written already, but we'll see.

I still have plenty of things I want to do with this story, and don't plan to stop, but I'm afraid updates may be a little slower for a couple weeks. :)

-OMaM