Written as an attempt to shake off my writer's block...a bit more bittersweet than I usually write. Hope you enjoy! Takes place during #6.

Look up at the stars at night

"It's still there." Len squinted up into the night sky, the faint sliver of moon visible not obscuring the fantastic view of the stars, stars that he had been among not too long ago. He tilted his chin back down and looked at Jim, who was lounging on the granite shelf next to him, his right wing draping off the edge. If the man wanted to practically dangle in midair, it was his business, but he would stay further away from the certain-death drop.

"What's still there?" Len arranged himself carefully next to Jim's left side as he spoke, avoiding the fine bones of the wing as he made himself comfortable, allowing the feathers of Jim's left wing to cradle his head. The younger man's eyes slid towards him for a moment before returning to their perusal of the stellar landscape, and Len sighed. "Well?" Jim's lips tightened, and he wondered if he was ever going to get an answer as the silence stretched between them. He tracked a fly lazily with his eyes as Jim shifted almost imperceptibly next to him; he looked back over at the other man when Jim stretched his right arm into the air, pointing at some random spot of light.

"That." Len attempted to follow the line Jim's finger was indicating, but after a few seconds of turning his head back and forth, he gave up.

"Jim, I'm a doctor, not a stellar cartographer. What the hell am I looking at?" Jim had fallen silent again, the look in his eyes one that Len wasn't quite sure how to read, but he didn't think he liked it.

"In about five years, we won't see it anymore." It took another few beats, but awareness dawned on Len. He looked back towards the cluster of stars that Jim was pointing at, and although he knew it was his brain playing tricks, one of the lights suddenly looked dimmer. He knew what he was looking at now.

"There was nothing you could have done, Jim. If we had arrived with everyone else, we would have been probably blown to bits." Jim sighed, his eyes darting over to meet Len's before returning skyward.

"I know that, but sometimes..."

"Yeah, me too." The two men laid there in silence until a buzzard flew overhead, obscuring their view of the particular points of light they had been observing, and the spell was broken. Jim's wing twitched under his head, and Len sat up and moved off, allowing the younger man to follow suit.

"Beautiful desolation." Len raised an eyebrow, and Jim continued. "It's totally a cliche phrase, but that's what one of the first human visitors to Vulcan described it as. I think...it's more true now than it ever was." Len frowned, but couldn't think of anything to say in response.

"Why don't we go in for the night, Jim; there's bugs and other things out here just waiting to give us a rash or worse." Jim's neck was still craning towards the sky, and Len reached out and touched a finger to his jaw, Jim's eyes widening slightly with the contact before his chin lowered and he smiled.

"Yeah, you're right. Old man like you isn't used to the wilderness like I am." Len snorted, grabbing and gently tweaking a few feathers on the wing he had been laying on just a minute prior, earning a full-body squirm from the younger man. Much better. Before he could say anything, however, Jim's arms wrapped around him from behind; and he let out a rather undignified squeak as Jim jumped from the ledge, wings unfurling immediately as they set into a lazy spiral downwards towards the desert floor. Len listened to the wind as they descended, before the whistling was replaced with a more melodic tune being hummed directly into his right ear; he listened to it in a vain attempt to put a name to the tune for several spirals before he gave up.

"Jim, what's that you're singing?" The humming continued for several beats after he spoke, the last note trailing off as the desert sand came further into focus.

"Just an old song I've always liked." Len felt when Jim's wings changed their angle, their bodies pulling up into a more upright position as they prepared for landing.

"Sounds familiar, but I'm not sure-" He trailed off as the ground came up on them, and instinct had him bending his knees slightly as they touched down; they wobbled together for a second before they stabilized, and the arms wrapped around his waist tightened before he was released. Without a word, Jim turned on his heel and headed off towards the house, Len following a moment later. He watched as Jim's head tilted back towards the sky, the jaw working as he began to sing for real.

"Miagete goran...yoru no...hoshi wo-" Len had no idea what the man was saying, but Jim stopped walking after the first verse, letting him catch up. As soon as he came up alongside, Jim wrapped both his arm and wing around Len and started walking again, never pausing in his song.

"...chiisaana hoshi no..." Len stopped trying to understand the lyrics, simply enjoying Jim's pleasant voice as he opened the front door to the house, his eyes glancing up at the stars one last time before the door closed behind he and Jim.

"...chiisaana hikari ga..."

The song is Kyu Sakamoto's Miagete goran yoru no hoshi wo (Look Up at the Stars at Night,) and there are various nice videos on YT that you can pursue of it. :)